Close … closer even closer: So you think you know baseball? Then what makes a good batting practice pitcher? Where the heck did the fungo originate? How much meal money are major leaguers given? Baseball's big picture is defined by the snapshots that provide the game's intricate details

Sporting News, The, July 29, 2002

Even if everything goes right, the designs aren't for everyone.

"With some of those crazy patterns" says Bossard, who favors a simple striped look at Comiskey Park, "your eyes are more focused on the field than the ball."--K.K.

The statistician: The runs, the hits but not the errors

Real fans hang on their team's every pitch. So does STATS Inc., the official supplier of statistics to Major League Baseball (and to THE SPORTING NEWS).

STATS has a reporter in the press box for every game, charting every pitch on a laptop computer.

Each reporter enters, pitch-by-pitch, what happens, using software that includes a special code for any official occurrence--a swinging strike or a called strike; where the ball is hit; how the putout is made--from the obvious to the arcane. Stats reporters may include special statistical notes, such as hitting streaks, in their accounts of the game.

The work is double- and triple-checked by two other STATS reporters charting the game from home. All three people are hooked into STATS' computer system, which compares what each person enters and flags discrepancies. The reporters are paid from $10 to $75, depending on experience.

"They don't immediately go to the press box," says Chuck Miller, reporter coordinator for STATS. "We start them at home. I'm starting a new guy in Toronto who's done 1,000 games at home."

Even after reporters have done many, many games at home, they are tested before they work the press box to make sure, for example, they don't score a play 4-3 when a batter is thrown out by the shortstop.

"When I started in 1991, you could sleep through the first seven innings and get caught up by the last two," Miller says. "That's not the environment anymore. Now it's pitch-by-pitch."

After each game, the box score is sent to the Associated Press, which provides it to newspapers and other media outlets worldwide. In fact, the information is sold to anyone interested in buying it: Internet junkies, office workers, maybe you. And Miller knows the information is scrutinized because he gets calls like this: "You just had it ball, ball, strike, ball, but it was ball, strike, ball, ball."--K.K.

BP: The 70-mph fastball

Any coach with a healthy arm who can throw straight probably has been called on to toss batting practice at one time or another. Most players aren't that picky about the deliveries. However, the importance of a good BP pitcher should not be underestimated.

When the A's tried to cut costs last year, they dropped their lefty batting practice pitcher--for a couple of weeks. One losing streak and several complaints later, the BP pitcher was back, and the A's were on their way to the playoffs. In 1998, some Padres hitters became so enamored with a batting practice pitcher for one of the organization's minor league clubs that they finagled him onto the big-league club. He quit his job as a minor league coach for the far more limited duties of BP pitcher at the big-league level, but he was rewarded with a six-figure, full-playoff share after the Padres reached the World Series.