How to Note Errors on a Baseball Scorecard

Video Transcript

"One statistic you wish they didn't keep in baseball was errors. And an error is determined any time a fielder should make a play on the ball but doesn't. This can be as famous as Bill Buckner for the Red Socks losing the World Series by letting a ball roll through his legs at first base, or it can be an errant throw from the shortstop to the first baseman. It can be a dropped pop up, it can be a passed ball by the catcher. Let's look at how we denote them on the scorecard. We'll look here first at an E6. Now, this means that the ball was hit to the shortstop, and he either missed the ball or made a wild throw. So you denote that with E for error, 6 for the position -- the person who made the error. That's a 6. Now, we look right next door here for a passed ball. This is an error on the catcher. So you denote that two ways -- a PB for passed ball, and you write E2 for the catcher at the bottom, is an error on the catcher. Now, the catcher can make errors in a couple of ways. He can make an error by missing the ball that he should have caught for a passed ball, or he can make an errant throw trying to throw out a runner whose stealing second, and that would still be denoted with an E2. The shortstop again can make an error by missing the ball, by bobbling a ball, by throwing the ball wildly to the first baseman, or dropping a pop up -- all of these things are errors. They're a negative statistic, but we all do use them in baseball. This helps to calculate fielding percentage, and lets you know how good of a fielder you actually are."