New Ulm Sports Central - Preserving and Sharing New Ulm Area Sports History

By Jim Bastian, Journal Sports Writer
POSTED: March 28, 2010
NEW ULM - A batter must do something with the bat to get an RBI.
"He cannot get an RBI because of a wild pitch or a passed ball," according to Brian Larson, who spoke at the New Ulm Civic Center Meeting Room for an Official Scoring Seminar sponsored by CRT of New Ulm.
That was one of the many misconceptions that he talked about.
Another one was that if a batter gets on base via a wild pitch after a strikeout and later scores [without the aid of an error] it is considered an earned run. But if he reaches base on a strikeout because of a passed ball [again without the benefit of an error] the run is unearned.
Larson has been the official scorer for the Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Tournaments since 1984.
"I have been doing scoring since my high school years back at Dassel High School in 1968," he said. "And it has been a labor of love ever since but my wife said it is a passion of love."
Larson spoke to about 30 people who came from New Ulm, Sleepy Eye and Springfield to hear Larson talk about baseball and the art of scoring and keeping an accurate score book.
"The best kept score book is one that I can look at 10 years after a game and be able to look at the book and be able to read it and know exactly what happened and who did what," he said.
He talked about how official scoring started (and if you are interested it started in 1857 by a New York sportswriter named Henry Chadwick) when he saw his first baseball game and wanted a way to keep track of how the game progressed.
"It [scoring] has changed along the way but Chadwick's numbering of players (pitcher - one, catcher -two, first baseman - three, etc.) has stood.
"He felt that the pitcher and catcher should be one and two because they touch the ball the most of anyone on the field with the first baseman third," added Larson.
HAS SEEN STRANGE PLAYS: Larson said that he has seen many strange plays in baseball as an official scorer.
"In one game, a runner went to third on a base hit," Larson said. "And the throw from the outfielder got by the third baseman. When the throw got by the third baseman, the runner ran home. He was clearly out but the team that had the runner thrown out told the umpire to look at the ball. And that ball happened to be a ball that was lying near the fence where the overthrow happened. It was clearly a batting practice ball and not the game ball. The umpire then called him safe and then we had the other dugout mad."
Larson said that as an official scorer, he has had to make many judgement calls.
"And that is so hard," he said. "You want to be right and not penalize the batter or the pitcher. There is a fine line of balance from where you want to be fair. I don't think that people realize that a lot is judgement. People will question your decision a lot of times."
Larson has also had his share of controversy in selecting players for an award.
"In 1995 in the State Tournament in Wadena, we had the MVP from a team that did not win the state title," Larson said. "The player had set three state tournament records. His team ran out of pitching. He started and relieved in the tournament and won five games. No pitcher had ever done that in tournament history."
One of the things that Larson explained was how to figure the earned run average of a pitcher.
"You take the number earned runs that a pitcher has allowed, multiply that by nine and then divide that by the number of innings that he has pitched."