The Polanco error recension reminds me of a game involving Cobb in
1922. Early in the year, Cobb hit a ball that was poorly fielded in
the rain by one of the opposing infielders. The official scorer, who
was a novice, ruled it a reach-on-error. But Fred Lieb (I believe it
was Lieb), an experienced reporter for the AP, had been out of the
press box in the rain and was more sympathetic to the fielder and
ruled it a hit on his scoresheet.

Since the AP version is what showed up in all the papers, that's what
everyone used for Cobb's total. The official scorer's report,
showing Cobb with a ROE instead of a hit, didn't arrive at the AL
office until a week later. They didn't notice the difference between
the AP total and the official total until the end of the year.

So at the end of the season, that one hit was the difference between
Cobb batting .401 or .399. Ban Johnson ruled that Lieb's scoring
should stand, even though he wasn't the official scorer. It bumped
Cobb to 211 hits in 526 at-bats, rather than 210 hits in 526 at-bats,
which was what the official version showed. It caused a little bit
of an uproar at the time since everyone thought Johnson was showing
favoritism towards Cobb and had overruled the official scorer's
judgement.

But just imagine the uproar that would come up today if this same
thing happened....

Trent McCotter

--- In SABR_Records@yahoogroups.com, "mjohnson" <mjohns2@...> wrote:
>
> The error has been rescinded and given to first baseman Marcus
Thames, so both Polanco's streaks (games and chances) are intact.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Trent
> To: SABR_Records@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 10:16 AM
> Subject: [SABR_Records] Polanco Errorless streak ends
>
>
> From the AP, here's the news on Placido Polanco's errorless
streak at
> second base:
>
> "Placido Polanco of the Detroit Tigers committed an error in the
first
> inning Friday night against the New York Yankees, ending an
errorless
> streak for a second baseman.
>
> Polanco played 147 games without an error, dating to July 1,
2006,
> until he fielded a chopper from Melky Cabrera and made a low-and-
wide
> throw to first. The play also ended his other record for a second
> baseman, going 725 straight chances without an error.
>
> The game started following a rain delay of 4 hours, 1 minute.
>
> Luis Castillo held the previous mark for second basemen with 143
> errorless games from May 30, 2006, to June 5, 2007, while playing
for
> the Minnesota Twins."
>
> Trent McCotter
>