San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-04-14
AT BAT.

New York. April 14.-At bat means
that the player has used his bat aud
every time that he goes to bat you
charge him for it in the at bat column.
If he is given a base on balls or is
hit by the pitcher he has not used
his bat and you mustn't put that in
the "A. B." column.
Baseball has has its oddities. The
foregoing is one of them. The reason
why you don't put it in the A. b
column is that pitchers in the old
days gave bases ON balls deliberately
to prevent runs being earned against
them. They were too sure of thcir
own skill and sometimes they lost
games because of an overdose Of self.
confidence.
| II a player makes a sacrifice hit,
whether it is a sacrifice fly or a
grounder, he doesn't get time at bat
That looks like more subterfuge. II
is the reward Of merit to the batter
for sacrificing. Every batter brides
himself on the base hits that he
makes. When batter begins to feel
that he can't bat he is through as q
ball player. He will sit in the corner
and not even the lure of a soda can
tempt him from his place of conceal.
ment. To recompense the player for
deliberately refraining from trying to
get base hit, the batter is exempted
from a time at bat il he advances
runner by sacrificing.
There is no sacrifice fly unless a
runner scores after the fly is
caught. 1t has actually happened that
runner has got in all the way from
second. If a runner goes to second
from first on caught fly the batter
does not get a sacrifice. 1t isn't con.
sidered to be worth while to call it Il
sacrifice, although there are many
times when the batter is as much en-
titled TO a sacrifice for that play as
for a bunt deliberately poked along
the ground.
In battery errors, the catcher is
penalized much more than the pitcher
Since the catcher has been provided
with that big mitt of his he is sup
posed to be equipped against anything
except the impossible. IL the ball is
pitched on the side of the catcher
which is not supplied with the glove
and pitched wide and out Of reach
then make the pitcher take the brunt
of it. On the glove side, however
there are more likely to be passed
balls than wild pitches. The catcher
may have to reach far for the bal
and find it impossible to put his FIRE,
hand over il to clamp it down, aut
in that case give the pitcher a will,
pitch unless you believe that TIL
catcher went after the ball carelessl,
with no effort to hold ii, merely in
tending to knock it down in fror
of him.
The pitcher really has benefited e
some extent by the big mitt because
it has stopped many wild pitch. Til,
catcher of today will go after will
ones and hot ones which he HANDLED
far more gingerly in old days.
il runner is hit by batted bal
and is out. give the play as II would
probably have been made and do mo-
"stnr" the score. Too many star
n fter the box score carry it out toe
long. II is bad enough to have twenty
players in ball game without adding
other troubles to il.
II a fielder handles the ball three
times while one player is being rur
down on the base-line, don't give the
fielder three assists. That was corn
mon some years ago, even on the part
Of scorers who were handling major
league games. and goodness only
knows what it did to the records
Imagine fielder getting three as
sists three times in one afternoon when
in each instance only one player was
put out. One is enough on each play.