Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 11, 2004
Scoring Scoggins

Red Sox Nation has a delightful interview with Chaz Scoggins, long time official scorer for the Boston Red Sox. It's an excellent mix of information, history and anecdotes. There are so many great stories I wouldn't know where to begin to quote. Your perceptions of Clemens and Rice will definitely be more positive after reading the article.

Due to personal experience I found this interesting.

RSN: Do official scorers keep a scorecard like fans in the stands, or is it different? And how have computers affected how you do your job?

CS: I use the same scorebook most baseball writers use to monitor the progress of a game. There is an official scoring form that must be filled out by hand after the game and submitted to the MLB office. It usually takes 30-45 minutes to fill out. The minor leagues are using laptops with special software now, but the majors still use old-fashioned paper. We've been told we could be using laptops in 2005, which could be a mixed blessing. While the official report would be available instantly at the end of a game, I know there are still bugs in the software that can't handle unusual scoring decisions and drive minor-league scorers crazy. I would rather MLB do it the old way until the software has been perfected.

As someone who has written scoring software, I've seen this kind of thing first hand. I was in the press box at Fenway in the early 1990s scoring a game for STATS, Inc. Scoggins was the OS. Chuck Finley was pitching for Anaheim, and let loose what appeared to be a wild pitch. He threw the ball so hard, however, that it hit the wall behind home plate and bounded back to the catcher. He tossed the ball to Finley covering the plate, and the runner trying to score from third was out.

I wasn't quite sure how to score the play on my laptop. Some of the reporters around me thought it was a caught stealing, but I disagreed. My main concern was should a WP be charged. After a short time, Scoggins announced that the runner was out on a fielder's choice. To clarify, he announced that there was no wild pitch and no caught stealing. The call made sense to me, and I entered the play as "Out Advancing."

STATS supplied box scores to the AP at the time (and may still do) so we were supposed to transmit the game within five minutes of it ending. But one thing we had to do was make sure our box agreed with the MLB box. MLB used a system supplied by IBM at the time. Someone in the pressbox scored the game on that system, immediately printed out the box and distributed it to the press. When I got the box for that game, there was a caught stealing on the potential wild pitch! I went over to Chaz and pointed out the CS. Clearly annoyed, Chaz turned around to the IBM scorer and told him there was no CS in the game. I don't remember if the IBM was able to handle the play or not. My guess is that it couldn't be fixed until a database person received the account. I think Scoggins will be sticking to paper for a while.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:54 AM | Interviews | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I was the official scorer for a minor league team one season. What a great job that is.

Posted by: Larry Mahnken at December 11, 2004 10:06 AM

On that play, why no wild pitch? The runner wouldn't have tried to advance without some act on the part of the team in the field (else it would be a caught stealing). Someone looking at the boxscore years from now would wonder why a runner was out advancing to home, with there being no batted ball.

Posted by: Robert at December 11, 2004 01:08 PM

Personally I wish Larry would spend less time here and more time writing on his own blog....

Happy Chanookah kids.....

Posted by: Ed Zipper at December 11, 2004 02:14 PM

Robert, you have to have an advance on a wild pitch. No advance, no wild pitch.

Posted by: David Pinto at December 11, 2004 03:29 PM

I think I'd go the CS route. Makes a bit more sense than a wild pitch when you think about it.

Posted by: Roger Johnstone at April 25, 2005 02:20 PM

I am currently trieng to find out all i acn about those who have the same last name as myself. I found this column a little unusual for the simple fact that i to go by CHAZ. im just wondering how far back this last name goes... Thankful for all the help i may get.......

Posted by: SCOGGINS, CHARLES at July 12, 2005 08:09 PM
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