Hit, or Error?

[Spence]

Originally posted by mbyron

Well, a hit is done with a bat, and misjudging a fly usually is not.

But seriously, scorers look at whether the fly ball could have been caught with "ordinary effort" (this term appears several times in the discussion of scoring base hits in 10.05). If a "misjudged" fly could have been caught with ordinary effort, then score the error; otherwise, score the base hit.

There might be other possibilities as well: sacrifice, etc.

The "ordinary effort" and "mental mistakes" seem to be at conflict. On one hand, the "ordinary effort" clause can cause it to be an error yet the clause that says to not penalize the defense for "judgment" would tilt the result towards a hit.

If F8 can catch a line drive with "ordinary effort" yet "misjudges" it and the ball goes over his head, what do you have?