Afternoon off to Ump Doubleheader

Due to the cold and wet spring Alberta has had, many CCBC league games have been rained out and need to be played prior to the playoffs. By the way, I will be at the Canadian College Baseball Championships from May 8 to 11th so expect some posts with game highlights. Anyways, the Prairie Baseball Academy out of Lethbridge is coming to town to play a pair of midweek games tomorrow afternoon against the University of Calgary.

Of course, it's always a challenge to get umpires during the workday. But It's going to be a nice sunny day. No rain and no snow. This is a rarity during the ball season in Alberta (forecast snow on the weekend, I fully expect all the games I'm doing to be cancelled). So I volunteered to take the afternoon off work and spend it at the ball diamond instead. I'm looking forward to it.  Let's play 2!

Defensive Indifference... and why defenses should not be indifferent about them

Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor

editor's note: this is a repost of an item originally appearing in my Baseball Scoring Rules site.

Towards the end of my scoring rule article covering stolen bases, I make a mention of the situation that is scored as defensive indifference.   And if you read it, you can tell that I'm not extremely fond of this rule the way that it is written.  The rule says not to score a stolen base when "a runner advances solely because of the defensive team’s indifference to the runner’s advance".  It then adds some helpful comments to determine how to tell whether the team was in fact indifferent such as this nugget of wisdom telling you to consider "the totality of the circumstances, including the inning and score of the game, whether the defensive team had held the runner on base, whether the pitcher had made any pickoff attempts on that runner before the runner’s advance, whether the fielder ordinarily expected to cover the base to which the runner advanced made a move to cover such base, whether the defensive team had a legitimate strategic motive to not contest the runner’s advance or whether the defensive team might be trying impermissibly to deny the runner credit for a stolen base".  Ok, got that?  Yeah, neither do I.

Did you know? Catcher's Interference

(AP Photo/Brian Blanco)

editor's note: this is a repost of an item originally appearing in my Baseball Scoring Rules site.

How to calculate some common percentage records:

Batting Average = Hits ÷ At Bats

Slugging Percentage = Total Bases ÷ At Bats

Okay, fairly basic stuff.  But how do you account for a batter getting on base via Catcher's Interference (CI) ? Logically, it should add to their on base percentage (OBP).  It should be treated similarly to a walk or hit by pitch.  It doesn't affect your batting average, but should bump up your OBP.  Well, it doesn't.  Offically, if you get on base via CI, nothing happened.  It's not considered an at bat, nor a plate appearance.   Now you know. Sorry, Jacoby.

"Andre Ethier out at first". On a foul ball... uh?

editor's note: this is a repost of an item originally appearing in my Baseball Scoring Rules site.

I was watching the Dodgers-Marlins game the other night and a strange play happened.   Andre Ethier was at first base and Adrian Gonzalez at second with only 1 out.  It was an infield fly situation.   The situation that occurred, led to someone who was following Gameday on line to ask "Anyone know what just happened in the Dodgers game? Gameday just says "on field delay" then Andre Ethier Out. "  I'm sure anybody else who read a text based play-by-play would likely have the same question.   Here's what happened:

Finally...New Blog Ready

The season is almost a month old and I've posted exactly once. I've been busy... went to Fenway for Opening Day, started umpiring some local baseball games, watched 8 Canadian Baseball College Conference games in BC, and spent the rest of my free time getting this site ready. I've amalgamated all my baseball writings here. If you followed me elsewhere, please update your bookmarks. I will not be posting more updates on the Red Sox Nation Alberta or the Baseball in Alberta blogs.  I am still maintaing the Scoring Rules site, but will cross-post any items of interest here.

I hope to keep this updated more frequently going forward. I'm no longer going to be confined to just talk about local happenings or Red Sox news, but will include any baseball related items that are of interest to me.

Thanks for reading! Remember to follow me on twitter for shorter updates.

Opening Day... and more

Very quick update. Was at Fenway for Opening Day. It was predictably awesome. Other than the rings, banner etc, a few unexpected surprises: Was interviewed for WBZ radio in Boston, and got my picture taken with Boston iconic Police Officer Steven Horgan:

Took hundreds of pictures, you can see some of the best ones on Flickr here.

Today is the first Red Sox Nation watch party of the year. Come join us at Schank's South on MacLeod Trail. All baseball fans welcome, we should be easy to spot.  Starts at 11 AM, details here.