Official Scorer s Report

Transcription

1 79th NBC World Series Official Scorer s Report Aug , 2013 A major change The 79th Annual National Baseball Congress World Series (NBCWS) was played in a format different from past tournaments when it was announced that the tournament would be played in two 16-team segments. Two teams from the first week (one undefeated and one survivor from the elimination bracket) joined 14 other teams in the championship week. There were a number of questions this writer had about determining standings and computing leaders: how would the final standings be figured and compiling the final leaders. Those questions will be answered in the essay. Pitching: A little less dominant The pitchers iron grip was loosened in the NBCWS compared to last year, but not by very much. The tournament ERA rose by.44 run to 3.22 against the 2012 record of 2.78, but was still lower than the 3.54 grade in Fourteen teams had an ERA under 3.00, a slight decrease from the 18 recorded in Only one team had an ERA under 1.00 (Austin TX Gold Sox with 0.69), but missed being among the qualifiers. Tournament champion Hays KS finished with a 1.03 mark. Santa Barbara CA won its first three games by shutout, but finished with a 1.26 ERA. No team finished with an ERA over 10 for the second consecutive year. Valley Center KS (8.49) and San Antonio TX (8.47) had the highest ERA, which was a full run lower than last year. Winning teams had a 1.84 ERA, while defeated teams rose to Strikeouts dipped slightly to while walks increased a little to Complete games dropped to 11, two less than the previous low of 13 in Shutouts increased to 12, the most since the 15 recorded in Modern wood-era pitching totals: Year ERA W L G CG SHO CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO B/Avg WP HBP BK SFA SHA

2 Year CG SHO CBO SV IP H R ER BB SO AB WP HBP BK SFA SHA Tournament offense: runs up, home runs down Offense was still hard to come by in the 79th NBCWS. Although runs/game increased slightly (7.69 against 7.43 in 2012), hits of all types were tough to find. Hits per game slipped to 15.54, with home runs hitting another wood-era low with eight. (Only 1945 with seven and 1944 with three had lower totals). Homers per game fell to.136 per game. No team batted over.300, although El Dorado came the closest at.297. During the 30 games played during Championship Week, Clarinda IA batted.277 while the Broncos hit.276 (they batted.313 in the first week). Seven teams batted below.200, with Albuquerque the worst at.096. The Diablos and Jasper IN each scored one run, while Casa Grande suffered the double shutout. The Hutchinson KS Monarchs reached the quarterfinal round despite a team average of.151. Only sacrifice bunts showed improvement at a wood-era high of 1.87; walks and hit by pitches showed very slight increases. El Dorado scored the most runs with 55, but that was in 10 games. Five of the eight home runs came between July 29 and 30, with the San Diego Force hitting two against Cape Girardeau MO (#21). Twenty-one games passed before Jacob Felts hit one against Wellington KS in #42. Five homers were solo shots (the other three had one man on), and there were two inside-the-park HRs. Year AVG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB SLG BB HBP SO GDP OB% SF SH SB ATT

3 Year G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB HBP SO GDP SF SH SB ATT Fielding again showed marked improvement Fielding in the 2013 NBCWS took another big step forward, climbing five points to a new high of.969. A decrease in errors per game (a wood-era low 2.49 from 2.95 last year) was the key. Double plays, however, shrank to 1.47/game. Only 2000 was worse at Cape Girardeau MO had the best fielding overall at.992, with Santa Barbara CA grading out the best at.989. The Colorado Cardinals had the fewest errors with 1, but only played two games. El Dorado and Austin TX had the most with 10, but the Broncos played the most games with 10, while the Gold Sox played three. The Broncos also had the most double plays with 10. Hays KS had the second-most DPs with nine (in just 4 games) Austin (game 2) and Newton KS (#5) had the most errors in a game with six, while Newton- Denver Cougars (#5) had eight combined, Errorless games : Liberal KS-SD Force (#8), KS Cannons-Cape Girardeau (#16), Santa Barbara-Clarinda (#51), Hays-El Dorado (#53), Clarinda-Seattle (#56), five total Wood-era fielding totals and averages Year G C PO A E FLD% DPs SBA CSB SBA% PB CI PKO E/gm DP/gm

4 Game times a bit quicker Even without having the 20/90 clock for the first week of the tournament, tournament game times averaged almost a minute faster than last year, 2:15:39 to 2:16:38. There were three games that lasted over three hours (down from five last year, and there were 11 games that were sub-2:00. El Dorado-Jasper (#4) was the quickest at 1:28, while Cape Girardeau-Kansas Alumni (#9) was the longest at 3:24. That was preceded by the San Diego Force-Liberal game (#8), which took 3:15. Both of those games went 13 innings; the longest game by innings, Cape Girardeau-Kansas Cannons (#16), went 14 innings but lasted just 2:46. First week games averaged 2:17:33, while Championship Week games averaged 2:13:48. Year GP Total 205:38 177:43 180:39 191:07 201:15 190:08 191:39 Average 2:11:15 2:11:39 2:13:49 2:13:20 2:14:10 2:19:07 2:20:14 Quickest 1:14 1:21 1:19 1:16 1:19 1:18 1:19 Longest 4:09 3:59 3:00 3:47 3:55 3:25 3:11 Year GP Total 184:33 184:33 164:10 143:44 138:22 143:28 133:23 Average 2:15:02 2:15:02 2:18:44 2:16:53 2:13:54 2:16:38 2:15:39 Quickest 1:22 1:15 1:25 1:20 1:15 1:30 1:28 Longest 3:23 3:25 3:34 3:23 3:01 3:54 3:24 Margins of victory: pulling away a bit more The average margin of victory in the 2013 tournament increased to 3.53 from last year s 2.92, but still remained under four runs per game in the first 12 years. While one-run games shrank to 28.8% of games played compared to 44.4% in the previous year, the 3- and 4- run games showed an increase. There were four games that went into double digits (up from three), and six run-rule games, also up from three. Extra-inning games were few with four (down from 10), but all of them lasted at least 12 innings. Year GP Winning Defeated Margin Total Avg/gp Avg/tm Busting down the door Seattle WA finally broke through the barriers in winning its first title (the first team to do so with less than seven wins). The Studs rallied from a 6-3 deficit in their opener against San Antonio TX with a four-run ninth, broke a 2-2 tie against El Dorado with four in the seventh, overcame Hutchinson KS with a two-run seventh. They toppled longtime nemesis Santa Barbara with a run in the seventh, and went 12 innings to edge Clarinda IA after tying the game in the ninth. Seattle broke out on top against Wellington KS, coming within one out of a shutout. The win over the Foresters in the fourth round was just the second in six meetings.

5 Miscellany Putting the Ark in Arkansas: Rain had a significant impact on the tournament schedule. The first weekend saw the late game on July 27 pushed to 12:50 pm the following day, with the Liberal-Albuquerque game paused for another 3:07 the start of Wellington-Colorado Sox game was delayed 2:48. Another delay in the Aug. 3 set the start of the late game between Colorado Sox- Northwest Washington to 2:20 pm, and added a game to the Aug. 5 schedule. One more storm pushed the start of the Wellington-San Luis Obispo game to Aug. 6, making that day a four-game schedule. There are tournament runs, and there is what El Dorado accomplished on its way to a thirdplace finish: The Broncos went 4-0 to win the first week and advance to Championship Week. In that week, El Dorado won its first game, lost the second and won three more before being eliminated by Wellington in the semifinal. El Dorado thus went 8-2, tying the record for most games played (Chinese Taipei, 2003 and Prairie Gravel, 2005) and compiling the second-highest win total. Had the Broncos won the title, they would have gone The San Diego Force also advanced from the first week with a 4-1 record, but lost twice in Championship Week to finish with an overall mark of 4-3. That makes the Force the first team to lose three games since the last time a third-place consolation game was played, some 30 years ago. Valley Center KS also lost three games, but the first defeat was reversed when the Diamond Dawgs were awarded a forfeit win over the San Diego Stars (a 10-2 loss was canceled when the Stars were penalized for using ineligible players) Some rare occurrences: July 29: the very rare 4u ground out in game #23, done by San Diego Wave second baseman Brice Savage on a ball hit by El Dorado s Clayton Taylor Masks are not for fielding: July 29, game 24: Sam Pack (Liberal) committed a violation of Rule 7.04 (e) when he touched a pitch with his mask on ball four to the Kansas Alumni s Colby Tessendorf, allowing the runner on third to score Masks are not for fielding, part two: In a quarterfinal game Aug. 7 (#54) between Seattle and Santa Barbara, The Studs Kyle Sutherland touched a bunt attempt with his mask, which was in his the right hand. The initial ruling was that Sutherland touched a fair ball, allowing the runner from first to score and awarding the batter third base (according to Rule 7:05 (b)). After Seattle filed a protest, the ball was ruled to have been touched over foul territory, making it a (harmless?) foul ball. July 31: General thievery: Ozark MO stole six bases in the second inning vs. the SD Waves. Eric Ferguson stole three bases (2nd, 3rd, and home as part of a double steal). The Generals stole 8 bases in the game (Wood-era tournament record is 10, done twice) In the Colorado Sox-Northwest Washington game (#40, Aug. 4), Braden Ham threw 7 no-hit innings before yielding a ground single to lf by ph Jake Hines.. After a one-out walk, Ham was removed for a reliever (Lalk). Ham would have had a shutout except for the rare 64-A4E3 GDP that allowed a run to score, followed by a double steal when a pickoff was botched. Aug. 5, game #46: Hays turned four DPs. One of them was started when SS Jake Placzek fielded a ground ball near 2nd base, tagged SD Stars runner Brian Sos trying to return to the base and fired to first to retire Chris Allen to end the fourth. Aug. 6, game #49: The 9-3 strikes again: against Tory Bell, Valley Center (#49), as SLO RF Will Maddox s throw from shallow right nailed him to end the 5th. Kryptonite: Santa Barbara won its first three games by shutout, but allowed runs and lost its next two Getting shut out was almost Wellington s Kryptonite (did score a ninth-inning run against Seattle after being shut out by Santa Barbara). But the Heat allowed a home run in each of their losses.

6 Forceful fourth: El Dorado outscored its opponents 21-1 in the fourth inning, including seven runs against Tulsa OK (game #14) and eight against the Colorado Sox (#47). Both outbursts obliterated early 2-0 deficits. Doppelganger names: Ron Johnson (NW Washington and Nevada). Derek Miller (El Dorado and San Luis Obispo) Multi-State League Report With the new format, the tournament field shrank to 30 teams, believed to be the fewest since the mid-1980s. OWN GALAXY TRI-STAR TRIAD KANSAS (9) W L PCT Fin MISSOURI (3) W L PCT Fin El Dorado Broncos Plaza Tire Capahas Wellington Heat Ozark Generals Hutchinson Monarchs Nevada Griffons Hays Larks Mo Valley Totals Liberal BeeJays Kansas Cannons COLORADO (3) W L PCT Fin Kansas Alumni Colorado Sox Valley Ctr Dia Dawgs Denver Cougars Newton Rebels Colorado Cardinals Kansas Corp. Totals Colo Company totals LARGE PLANETS DIV. TEXAS (3) W L PCT Fin CALIFORNIA (5) W L PCT Fin Austin Gold Sox Santa Barbara Foresters Houston Tuzos San Luis Obispo Blues San Antonio Titans San Diego Force Texas Tea Totals San Diego Waves San Diego Stars BINARY PAIR Cal State Totals WASHINGTON (2) W L PCT Fin SD Interurban Seattle Studs Northwest Honkers Wash. Biol. Serv. totals SOLITARY STARS (5) W L Pct Fin Clarinda IA A s Tulsa OK Braves Casa Grande AZ Cttn Kgs Albuquerque NM Diablos Jasper IN Reds Federation totals Teams that won trophies (top eight in Championship Week) were classified ahead of corresponding teams in the First Week. Where records are equal, teams in Championship Week ranked ahead of teams in the First Week. (Official standings may differ). And thank you again to: Aaron McMullin, Jerry Taylor, Cheryl Kastner, Zack Taylor and Cole Allen managing the Pointstreak software; Gary Goad and Kevin Weber in doing the associate scoring. And, the writer also thanks Josh Robertson, Casey Walkup and Kevin Jenks for helping this writer complete his 30th tournament. Mike Dean