off season brain teaser

[DG]

Originally Posted by SAump

During the latest WS, a Tiger pitcher was charged with an error after he failed to cleanly field a bunted ball. I am certain the batter-runner would have preferred to have been credited with a base hit. Was this a correctly scored an "error" or the mistake of a certain well-known TV announcer?

The same situation happens frequently when a third baseman charges a good drag bunt and muffs the barehand pickup. It is most frequently scored a base hit because of the difficulty. Even if he makes the pick-up, he still has to throw the BR out.

E1 on F1 not fielding a bunt cleanly, if there was a good chance that fielding it cleanly would have resulted in an out (almost always the case for F1). Bunts fielded by F1 are often sacrifice bunts.

F5 muffing a bare handed attempt on a good drag bunt is often ruled a base hit because there was no chance at getting an out on a well placed bunt. There is no chance fielding it with glove so bare handed is the best chance and not often a good one. If there was a good chance, or he had time to glove it, but tried bare handed instead, then E5.

JMHO as a long ago scorer at a number of tournaments.