The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-17
SPORTS HERE AND ELSEWHERE
SCORERS TOO LIBERAL. HIGHBATTING AVERAGE Standing of the State League Players a Deception to
 the Public.

Now that the State league umpire
 question has been thoroughly discuss
 ed, and that officials weakness and his
 lack of knowledge of that game termed
 by thousands as the game of base
 ball' has been exhibited to the public
 by the critics and scribes, 8 more i'm
 portant feature in that game ought to
 be looked into. The public has been
 deceived in the team averages of the
 players, both fielding and batting, the
 latter especially, as that is of intense
 interest to the fans.
 Every one wants to know how his team is batting, who leads the list, how many are batting over 300 and where the others stand. In this, if they be- lieve the weekly announcement, they are unjustly wronged, The official standing, which comes from Bridge port, gives the standing of the men over .300-that is, the men who have a batting average of 300 according to the reports which come to the official SCOT CT in that city He is, of course, not the cause of the mistakes which are made, in many cases, if not all, in mak- ing the batters have a standing of over 300 when they should be far below that esteemed pedestal The mistake, how ever, comes from the source of the scoring done in the various cities, New Haven doing more than her share of the work of blunders. As every one knows, the results of each game are sent by one man to the different cities The mistakes thus originate in this source. As the scorers of the various papers take their batting averages from the Bridgeport authority, they are, of course wrong.
 The error in the standing comes in the lack of scoring the games correct ly. The scorer may think he is doing the right thing when he gets liberal with his hits, but he is in reality doing an injustice to the public. In every game there are close decisions, and in these there should be only one decision But there are also times, sad to say, more numerous than the former, when errors by the fielders have not been counted as errors, but the batters given hits. Instances of such cases are when the batter hits to an infielder who lets the ball pass through him, or, in his eagerness to get the runner out lets the ball slip through his fingers. There are times when the infielder Is treated rather unceremoniously with hot drive and he cannot, and therefore does not, handle 1t clearly and the run ner Is safe. The batter in this case should be given hit. A bad throw to any of the bases or the dropping of the ball by the basemen, if he has the run ner dead to rights, is an error for the catcher In the first case and the base man in the other. There are numerous instances where plays of this nature have been scored as stolen bases. In one game a New Haven player was caught between second and third his own careless base running. A bad throw by the second baseman gave the runner fighting chance for life, and he slid for third, making 1t by inches only. This was scored stolen base by the liberal scribe.
 This method of favoring the players, as this name must be applied to SCOT ing of this kind, is not scoring a game, but just keeping tabs on the plays and as the scorer thinks will most benefit the averages of the players. The players know it is wrong, but, as would be expected treasure such methods. The people, outside of those who are not the continuous followers of the game, know not and are thus deceived.