Rule 10- Official Scorer and putout

[Rich Ives]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Huh?

The last I'd heard, the Big Train was a pitcher, not a catcher. Walter Johnson covered first base on balls to the right side, and caught line drives and popups too. Hence the putouts. His strikeouts were also considered putouts, although not credited as such.

By rule, the catcher was not credited with a separate putout. All of Johnson's strikeouts counted as putouts, in addition to the 292 that came from other plays. Strikeouts were credited to the pitcher only in rule 10.17. Now the rule is 10.15, after the rules change.

The rule now known as 10.09 (b) used to not exist. Rule 10.10 used to be the section that addressed putouts. 10.10 (a) (1 through 7) were the only putouts automatically assigned to the catcher, and the batter being called out on strikes was not one of them. Now, under the newer rule changes, the catcher is credited with a putout.

So when did the rule change?

I mentioned Johnson because the K's greatly exceeded putouts. How could that be if K's counted as putouts?

As for catchers:

Bill Dickey had 7,965 putouts in his career.
Gabby Harntet 7,007 as a catcher.
Yogi - 8,738 as a catcher.
Ernie Lombardi - 5,694.
Al Lopez - 6,644

How would a catcher get that many without having the K's count?