Through the Eyes of the Official Scorer

The caller to the post-game radio talk show was upset.

“Who are these official scorers anyhow?” he demanded of the host. “At this rate the Diamondbacks will have a Gold Glove infield.”

It was a few games into Arizona’s franchise-opening homestand when, while driving home from Bank One Ballpark one evening, it hit me for the first time: I was an official scorer for a major league baseball team.

Hearing some irate fan complaining about the lack of errors being assigned was my “welcome to ‘The Show’ message.”

Though scorers aren’t subjected to the second guessing that goes with being a big league manager, umpire or player, you suddenly realize people are paying attention to your decisions. And every fan believes he/she can do a better job than you.

But after all the post-game, spleen-venting verbiage, would any fan really want to sit in my seat on a regular basis?

I work for the National League, but unlike umpires, there’s no assurance I’ll be asked to return for the year 2000 season. Recent seasons of discontent have managers and public relations directors raising the question of replacing current scorers with individuals more attuned to the game. We official scorers have never been under more scrutiny.

A lot of it started when baseball writers were forced to give up the job under orders from their bosses, who said it took away from their primary reason for being in the press box and considered it a conflict of interest. The writers were replaced by retired baseball writers or people like myself.

One movement is to add a fifth umpire to each crew. Instead of moving to third base, the home plate umpire might spend his next game in the press box.

My question to that is, won’t it create more friction between player and umpire if an umpire is now denying a player a base hit in a hit-or-error situation? And it opens up the normally reclusive umpires to inquiries from the media.

Another idea making the rounds is hiring ex-major leaguers to work in tandem with current scorers.

That might test some friendships if the ballplayer-turned-scorer is a recent retiree. Objectivity could become an issue, and we all know ballplayers are not known for that trait.

And would any umpire or ex-ballplayer be willing to complete the pre- and post-game paperwork required of official scorers? Umpires would probably receive an extra night’s pay, but a former ballplayer would undoubtedly want more compensation for his aggravation.

We National League scorers are being paid $100 a game this season, a $30 increase over 1998. The fact that we receive our compensation in one lump sum when the season is completed—American League scorers are paid following the All-Star Game and regular season finale—can make this a labor of love during the dog days of summer.

Our most important task is to make the correct call as quickly as possible. It’s that simple.

None of these thoughts went racing through my head when the first big league player objected to one of my calls.

One night during the first homestand against Colorado, Arizona catcher Jorge Fabregas hit a grounder between Vinny Castilla and the third base bag. Castilla took about one step toward the bag and made a backhanded attempt to field the ball.

The ball clanked off the heel of his glove and bounced toward the base with Vinny in hot pursuit. He finally gloved the ball as it hopped over the bag, wheeled but didn’t throw.

I immediately gave Diamondbacks public relations director Mike Swanson the universal sign for a fielding error, an extended thumb pointing downward. It’s a sign that can be seen easily by the radio and television broadcasters and the scoreboard operator in booths that fan off to my left.

No questions were raised until Fabregas approached Swanson in the Arizona clubhouse after the game. He told Swanson how Castilla had come to the plate an inning or so later and told him that he thought I had robbed Jorge of a hit on that play.

Vinny was planting a seed and also playing the age-old win-win game; base hit for Fabregas and no error for him. Swanson relayed Fabregas’ plea to review the tape and consider a scoring change.

I tape every Diamondback game, home and away, that’s televised in our market. That allows me to review my work as well as other scorers, but, more importantly, if I have erred, justice will be served and the decision will be reversed.

One of my three VCRs has super slow-motion, allowing me to break down a play into individual frames of action. One angle of the play in question that I didn’t remember seeing in the press box that evening came from a camera high above where I sat.

It clearly showed the bounding baseball nearly three-fourths to Castilla, and Fabregas only about one or two steps out of the left-handed batter’s box. The TV director also ran a split-screen shot showing Castilla recovering the ball just in front of the third base coaching box and turning back toward the playing field—at the very moment Fabregas touched first base.

Video replays proved to me that there was no way Fabregas would have beaten a throw to first base had Castilla played the ball cleanly. Fabregas is noted for his lack of foot speed.

And I believe no batter can reach first base safely if he hasn’t reached the 45-foot mark when the infielder gloves the baseball. Fabregas was well short of that chalk stripe when Castilla first touched the baseball.

The only call I reversed all season came in a series with Pittsburgh. Jermaine Allensworth, then a Pirate, hit a tapper just left of the pitching mound that shortstop Jay Bell fielded on the run and threw wild to first base. It appeared to be a bang-bang play, and I ruled it a base hit.

There were no dissenting voices heard in my vicinity of the press box. The official scorer’s seat that I shared last season with Bob Eger and John Olson is three or four chairs to the right of Swanson, who sits directly in front of the visiting PR director and the visiting media. Grumbles from the visiting writers are clearly audible.

While scoring I’ll often make a mental note of a play I want to see again, but not necessarily to make a change. The Bell-Allensworth play was one of those. Upon further slow-motion review late that evening, I saw that Bell had not been forced to throw across his body as I surmised. He’d run a quick circle pattern to his right that allowed him a direct path toward first base.

In addition, Allensworth was a good stride or stride-and-a-half from the base when the errant throw arrived. It wasn’t the bang-bang play I thought I saw. Verdict: I changed the call from a hit to a throwing error on Bell.

Curiously, Allensworth, playing in center field, figured in another of my scoring decisions that same series. It was probably the most controversial call I made all season.

Matt Williams stroked a low line drive into the right-center field gap that skipped under Allensworth’s glove and continued to the fence for a triple. Both Arizona play-by-play announcers, Thom Brennaman on TV and Greg Schulte over radio, described the play and expected a call of hit and error. They, and several writers in the press box, expressed surprise when I ruled it a triple all the way.

We Diamondbacks scorers have the benefit of a small TV monitor at our seat as well as large monitors hanging from the press box ceiling. My first action was pointing to an overhead monitor, alerting Swanson that I wanted to see a replay. After seeing the replay I made my call.

It was the first play I went to later at home. I ran and reran it, in regular and slow-motion. After about 10 reruns at both speeds, I decided my call would stand.

The next day I was carrying my meal tray into the dining room 90 minutes before the first pitch. I heard the unmistakable voice of Schulte. “Hey, Gary,” he yelled. Knowing he had only one thought in mind, I replied, “All right, you want me, you got me.”

I’ve known Greg for many years. His radio partner Rod Allen, Brennaman, and his TV sidekick Bob Brenly are recent acquaintances. I have nothing but respect for their opinions, particularly former big leaguers Allen and Brenly. Schulte and Brennaman were the only ones at the table and I sat down right between them. “OK, you each tell me what you saw,” I said.

After listening to their descriptions, I gave them mine. Williams’ ball was hit on a line and probably never got more than 10 feet off the ground. It carried tremendous topspin, hitting the ground and bouncing only once more before it skidded under a fully extended Allensworth and his outstretched glove.

The camera above the press box picked up the ball at impact. As the camera panned upward, I first saw Allensworth ‘s feet and then the rest of his body. I counted 16 strides before the ball crossed his path. He’d made a long run on a dead sprint and I wasn’t going to penalize him with an error because a ball that touched grass only twice to that point had so much topspin that it shot under his glove.

Williams was involved in my only face-to-face with a player or manager last season. In a game against Houston, he smacked a ball right at Sean Berry. The Astros third baseman moved his glove an inch or two toward his right hip before the ball hit leather and got past him. I ruled it an error and heard some boos from the stands.

The play occurred sometime in the middle innings and Williams was on the phone to the press box within two minutes of the final out. Unable to meet with him that night, I agreed to talk following batting practice the next day.

To be fair, I asked Houston Public Relations director Rob Matwick to get Berry’s side of the play. When Berry said it could have gone either way, that told me he was more than willing to accept the error. Like Castilla earlier in the season, a fielder would rather see a play scored a hit rather than accept an error—so long as it doesn’t show up his pitcher and affect his earned run average.

Williams and I talked for about 20 minutes in a clubhouse office the following day. He told me why he thought the play should have been scored a hit and I told him what I saw and why I scored it an error. I told him about asking for Berry’s version, and relayed what his third base counterpart said.

Matt and I knew each other from his days playing with San Francisco’s Triple-A farm club in Phoenix. I told him that his play in the field had raised the bar for fellow third baseman. However, I believe any major league third baseman should have made that particular play.

My scoring of Diamondbacks games did affect my work in the Arizona Rookie League-for only one game. The short-season league opened play in late June, and I worked a Phoenix A’s-Mesa Cubs contest at Mesa’s HoHoKam Park. A Cubs batter drove a ball deep. The A’s center fielder made a long run, appeared to start gliding and then had the ball bounce out of his upraised and extended glove. I ruled it an error.

Later, Cubs manager Nate Oliver, a former major league infielder I’d watched with the Dodgers, questioned my call. I told him I had made that same call that evening on then-Diamondbacks center fielder Devon White. Oliver smiled as I realized what I was saying.

I was comparing a youngster six weeks removed from high school graduation with one of the best center fielders in the game. What might have been routine for Devon White was certainly not routine for a fuzzy-cheeked 17-year-old.

And that word “routine” is the key word for any scorer. It’s mentioned in the rule book several times and one every scorer must remember when deciding hit-or-error.

I didn’t just arrive at the Diamondbacks’ downtown jewel of a stadium last spring on one of those snail-paced freight trains passing along its southern property line. This native Southern Californian started keeping score of games—I didn’t say scoring games—in the early 1950s.

Raised on Pacific Coast League baseball, I’d buy a scorecard and keep track of the Los Angeles Angels at Wrigley Field and the Hollywood Stars at Gilmore Field. Their televised games were abundant.

My passion for the game continued long after my playing career ended in high school. As a sportswriter, I was always covering games and knowledge of scoring rules was vital when I became a university sports information director.

Like the majority of players on the field, I plied my scoring trade in the minor leagues for several years. It delighted me to see fellow big league rookie Desi Relaford come into town last season wearing a Philadelphia uniform.

Relaford and I were rookies together in 1990; he a recently drafted high school senior shortstop and me a first-time official scorer at the professional level. We were both assigned to the Seattle Mariners affiliate in the Arizona Rookie League.

We’ve both come a long way from games that began on warm summer mornings and often ended in searing afternoon heat. To this day, the back fields at the Tempe Diablo Stadium Complex still offer little escape from the sun’s fierce rays.

That’s one reason I appreciate the air-conditioned splendor of Bank One’s press box. Another is the relative speed of play. Sometimes a 2 1/2-hour game seems long until I remember that 1991 season when the Mariners’ 28 home games averaged—averaged, mind you—3 hours, 5 minutes.

I’m sure Relaford thought he was ready for the big leagues last year. I never doubted my credentials either.

Entering the 1998 campaign, I’d scored 567 professional games over the previous seven seasons: 254 in the Arizona Rookie League, 2 California League, 247 Arizona Fall League and 64 Pacific Coast League. My norm for each of the previous four years was an even 100 games.

Like anyone scoring baseball, I’ve developed my own particular baseball shorthand. What I’ve found most beneficial is the use of colored ink pens. People say I’m the only official scorer they’ve ever seen who works in Technicolor.

Long ago I noticed someone using a red pen to denote significant plays, like errors or runs batted in. I decided—why not use a lot of different colors?

Black remains my base color. Red is for errors, sacrifices, stolen bases, passed balls, interference: green for walks, hit batters, balks; orange for runners left on base, and pink for RBIs and home runs. I use purple for plays made by outfielders and aqua for the remaining six positions.

The whole premise is not to make a scoring work of art, but to expedite my post-game activities. No matter what the level, official scorers are paid a set fee; we’re not hourly employees. Consequently, when the game ends, we’re on our own time.

Using different colors makes it easier for me to fill in all the categories on the statistical forms used at the major and minor league levels. And I use the same color scheme whether I’m sitting in the press box front row of a Diamondback or Fall League game or in a lawn chair behind the backstop of a rookie league contest.

I understand how a fan might question whether I was prepared to work at the major league level. Everyone’s an expert. Just because you keep track of a game’s progress with a scorecard doesn’t make you an official scorer.

That reminds me of the Fall League’s opening season in 1992. One of the general managers hired his brother as the club’s official scorer. Selection was based on the siblings having kept score of two or three games each day via the family’s satellite dish.

Until the Fall League. he”d never made the hit-or-error call. Indecision was quickly compounded by panic as the scoreboard operator clamored for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

Not only was he prone to make the wrong call, he was oblivious to the rules of scoring and their vagaries. And the length of time it took him to fill out the post-game report rivaled the time of game.

Had he come up through the ranks, he would have assuredly survived. It’s a lot like expecting a modern-day player to succeed in the majors without ever spending a day in the minors.

I’m often asked why I continue scoring Rookie and Fall League games. One reason is I’m forever grateful to the league officials for giving me the opportunity originally. Another is I believe in staying sharp and the lower levels of play provide that.

Every scoring decision known to man will pop up in the rookie leagues. Matt Williams will field a slow tapper up the third base line and instantly know whether to try to throw the batter out or concede a hit and stick the ball in his back pocket, so to speak.

Conversely, a rookie leaguer is more likely to attempt a hurried throw on that same exact play. How many times I’ve seen that throw air-mailed over the first baseman’s head. The ball rattles along the fence as the batter heads for second.

The right fielder finally tracks it down after a quirky carom and, seeing the batter rounding second, hurriedly attempts to nail him at third. A Herculean relay sails well over the third baseman and the batter easily scores. A base hit that travels no more than 45 feet results in a run courtesy of two errors.

Like any player, manager, umpire, I have my goals. First, I’d love to be the official scorer for a playoff game and someday an All-Star Game. The ultimate, naturally, would be to be chosen to handle a team’s World Series home games.

My feeling is every one of us can do one thing really well. Unfortunately, we spend most of our lives failing to realize we have that one special gift. Mine just happens to be scoring baseball games at the professional level.

Gary Rausch previously worked as the sports information director at UCLA and USC, and was a sportswriter in Phoenix for many years. He is serving as one of the Diamondbacks official scorers in 1999 for his second straight season.