For those who have blogs or other stuff like that, please don't let
this info/discussion go any further than this forum.

I got some interesting insights into the White Sox Tuesday night
when I was the scorer for their game with the Twins.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, after Kubel had hit a two-run
homer, Delmon Young reached base on an infield hit and eventually
scored. As the top of the fifth started, the Sox media relations
rep, Pat O'Connell, got a call. After he got off the phone, he
asked me to explain why I had given Young a hit instead of an error
to their shortstop, Orlando Cabrera, for an off-target throw. I
explained why, and he said that was fine. He then told me the call
had been from the Sox pitching coach (Don Cooper), who thought
Cabrera should have been charged with an error on the play. Pat
said it was about, in his estimation, the 14th call he had gotten
already this season from the dugout, either from Cooper or the
hitting coach (Greg Walker), asking him to ask the official scorer
about a call. Pat characterized it as embarrassing.

I told him the pitching coach would have more credibility if he
called about the scoring decision right after it happened whether
than waiting to see if the runner who reached base ended up
scoring. Pat then said something that I wasn't sure if I had heard
right, so I asked him about it after the game. He said on at least
two occasions this season, Cooper had called up after the inning to
lobby for an error for one of their fielders even when the
batter/runner who reached base hadn't ended up scoring. I thought
that was really strange. I could understand a pitching coach
wanting an error to be charged in situations in which the runner
ultimately scored (and especially in innings in which additional
runs scored after two were out) since that would affect the
pitcher's ERA. But to call and lobby for one of his team's own
fielders to be dinged with an error when it wouldn't affect the
number of earned runs, just a pitcher's hit total, seemed bizarre.
I guess Cooper is trying to have his staff lead the league in WHIP.

It makes me wonder about a little turmoil between the team's non-
pitchers and pitchers and/or the pitching coach. I think if I were
a manager, I'd want to put a stop to that kind of stuff, but I guess
we all know that Ozzie Guillen operates in ways that we sometimes
don't understand.

The other interesting/strange this about this is what happened
afterward. There were no out when Young got on. He then stole
second and continued to third when A. J. Pierzynski's throw went
into center for an error. The Sox pulled the infield in, and Mike
Lamb hit a sacrifice fly to center that Nick Swisher caught a couple
steps in front of the warning track. Young tagged and scored on the
play. On an alternate scoresheet I keep when there has been an
error (especially an advancement error rather than a missed-out
error) so that I can track what would have happened if not for the
error, I marked Young going to third since, in my judgment, he would
have been able to advance from second to third had he still been on
second. With no runners on base, the Sox played their infield back
at the normal positions, and Nick Punto grounded out to short. On
my alternate scoresheet, I marked Young as coming home on the play,
meaning that the run would definitely be earned, that the effect of
the error had been erased by the long fly and grounder that
followed. Carlos Garcia then flied out to end the inning.

I announced that all runs that inning were earned and expected a
response to that from the Sox p.r. guy. However, Pat O'Connell
didn't say anything right away. Larry Fitzgerald, a local media
person sitting in the back row, then called over to me to ask why
Young's run was earned when he had advanced on an error. I said
that Young would have gone to third on the fly and scored on the
grounder. I got a blank stare from Fitzgerald, and it occurred to
me that perhaps he didn't understand the concept of how subsequent
events could change the status of an unearned run to earned after an
advancement error.

At this point, Pat O'Connell asked me if I really thought Young
would have scored on Punto's grounder. I said yeah because a runner
from third, especially a fairly fast runner, would normally come
home on a grounder to a middle infielder with the infield playing
back. I acknowledged that, had Young really been on third, the Sox
would have had the infield in but that I couldn't make the judgment
on that basis. Pat agreed with me on that and was fine with the
decision. I also told him I would give the benefit of the doubt to
the pitcher, as prescribed by the rules, but in this situation it
was still an earned run. (This is one of those decisions in which a
scorer could give the pitcher a break without dinging anyone else -
the error had already occurred and would still be on the books
regardless of whether the run was ruled earned or unearned, but it
would have been nothing more than a gift to the pitcher to have
called it unearned.)

After the game I asked Pat, when Cooper had called up, if Cooper had
first asked about the status of Young's run. I figured he'd first
want to know that and, if I had called it unearned, he would have
dropped the lobbying for Cabrera to get an error. Pat said Cooper
hadn't asked that. It could be that Cooper didn't even think about
that, that he was as uninformed as Fitzgerald about the concept of
subsequent events, but it could be that it didn't matter to him--
that even if I had called the run unearned, he still would have
wanted an error on Cabrera just to reduce Gavin Floyd's hit total.

I understand hitting coaches lobbying for hits for their batters,
especially since it doesn't affect anyone else on their team in a
negative way, and I can even understand pitching coaches wanting
errors called on their own team as a way to protect their pitchers
from earned runs, but this was the first time I became aware of a
pitching coach being so hung up on his pitchers' hit totals that he
would lobby for one of his team's fielders to get an error
regardless of whether or not it resulted in an earned run for one of
the pitchers.

Interesting stuff.

Stew