THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Why official scorers in baseball have to make the rulings they do

There are some absurd statistics floating around.

The start of baseball season gives me a yearly headache, like swords stuck through my skull by an army of stats.

I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, but I was an MLB official scorer for a few years.

You probably know that the scorer decides things like hit or error, earned runs by pitchers, and a whole lot more “iffy” calls that occur during a game.

There are quite a few decisions that wind up in the historical ledger of MLB that fans likely don’t understand.

For instance, let’s say a batter hits an apparently routine ground ball to short, but the ball takes a funny little hop.

It’s not a vicious bounce, and to Joe Fan in the second deck, it appears the shortstop should have recovered to grab the ball and make an ordinary throw to first.

Joe and thousands more customers are startled when the sign for a base hit turns up on the scoreboard.

“A hit? What kid of BS is that?” hollers Joe Fan.

Simple.

The official scorer was forced to “go by the book.”

LET ME tell you how often scorers have to defend calls like that one.

There might be an angry shortstop waiting for you after the game, or a pitcher whose earned run average took a jolt when that “hit” led to two funky runs.

But here’s the crazy part: The scorer literally was forced to “go by the book.”

There is an actual scorer’s bible, and among the zillion issues covered, we have the strict instruction that with any questionable call, the batter (or runner) is to be given benefit of the doubt.

Some calls actually require research.

Like, checking with players, coaches, managers or umpires after the game.

Why?

Sometimes, you need to know what was supposed to happen on a play in order to reconstruct it — and then sort out any calls that have to go into the official book.

For instance, a runner takes off on an attempted steal of second base.

The catcher comes up throwing, but nobody is covering the bag and the ball sails into center field.

At that moment, you give an error to the catcher, but after the game, you talk to players.

Who was supposed to cover second base?

Most likely, the error gets changed from catcher to infielder.

ON THE subject of errors (and a few other plays), there are an amazing number of situations that you can’t find in the book.

Scorers have to use common sense.

It’s been that way since Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown pitched for the Cubs in 1912.

Unfortunately, a lot of idiotic scoring decisions became commonplace, and they were passed on from year to year.

To the present day, in fact.

One of the rulings that truly irritates me came up again on Thursday, during the season opener between the Mets and Pittsburgh.

Pirates ace Paul Skenes didn’t make it out of the first inning, getting charged with six runs.

The problem is that Pittsburgh center fielder O’Neil Cruz misplayed two routine fly balls (one with the bases loaded) and the plays were deemed to be hits.

Nonsense.

That’s one of the crazy scoring calls that won’t ever go away.

A ball hit in the air that obviously should be caught falls untouched.

Since a fielder botched the play (Cruz, for instance) without getting a glove on the ball, it’s called a hit.

Never mind that Cruz turned the wrong way, that should be an error.

Same thing with a pop-up to the infield.

Four guys start toward the ball, but then no one reaches out for it.

Base hit, right?

Yep.

Grrrrrr …

It would be wrong to tag any of those infielders with an error, so why not have a category called “team error”?

That could be used when no single defender was actually at fault, like that pop fly or a fielder losing a ball in the lights.

Despite what the “book” says about siding with the hitter, I don’t think it was meant to be that ridiculous.

As I said to start this rant, there are some absurd stats in our national pastime.

Maybe I’ll whine to the commissioner.

Again.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On."