Trivia

A friend and baseball fiend* keeps trying to stump me. And not with trivia like "how many innings are in a normal game?" Nope, he asks questions that involve ERAs, RBIs, and other acronyms, statistics, and scenarios I just don't understand yet.

The other day he grilled me on the number of ways a player could reach first base without getting a hit. Talk about a collegiate question for someone who would go home empty-handed from the baseball edition of "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"

Maybe he is just confident in my internet research abilities, but even with google and wikipedia this one is a doozy.

I am starting to realize that there are two realities in baseball - what you actually see and the way it is scored - so I warmed up my search engine with "hit". To a pinkhat simply observing a game, a hit occurs anytime a player makes contact with the ball. To a pinkhat that knows her stuff, a hit occurs when a player makes contact with the ball and gets on base. But to a bluehat, there are the obvious caveats. For example, if a player tries for a double or triple and is tagged out, it's a hit.

So, Jon, here are your eight ways a player can reach first base without getting a hit. Pinkhats, note that some of the ways include a ball physically being hit by a bat, but scored as something else.

1. Walk- The pitcher throws four balls, and the batter automatically goes to first base.

2. Hit by a pitch- The pitcher hits the batter with a pitch, and the batter automatically goes to first.

3. Error- A fielder mishandles the ball, resulting in the batter reaching first base. The at-bat is credited as an out for the player's batting average, but it is not actually an out for the game. See what I mean about dual realities?

4. Strike out/ crappy catcher (or pitcher)- If there are less than two outs and no one on first or if there are two outs regardless of first base status, and if the ball hits the ground before being touched by the catcher, the batter automatically goes to first.

5. Fielder's choice- I have heard Dave use the words fielder's choice in many a heated baseball debate, and I was hoping not to go there this early in the season. Turns out it's not as scary a concept as he makes it seem. If a fielder chooses to throw out another runner, allowing the batter to reach first, it is not scored as a hit.

6. Interference- If a catcher interferes with the batter, usually the catcher's glove touching the bat, a player may automatically progress to first base. If a play follows the interference, such as the batter hitting a double, the offensive team's manager can choose to decline the interference. (Did I spoil your next trivia question, Jon?)

7. Fielder's Obstruction- If a fielder gets in the way of the batter on his way to first base, the batter is automatically safe at first.

8. Sacrifice- When a batter hits a sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly but then makes it to first base due to a fielding error it is not a hit. This is different than Number 3 because it is scored as a sacrifice not an error. It's that parallel universe thing again.

Did I miss any? What about when a runner or umpire is hit by a ball? The batter would get on first base (unless there were alredy two outs and the runner was hit), and I don't think it would be considered a hit, but is it scored differently then the list of eight mentioned above? This isn't mentioned on any of the sites I read, so if I'm right, I might officially be a bluehat before the season even starts.

Is there other trivia you need me to feed into wikianswers, look up in Jerry Remy's "Watching Baseball," or pester Dave about?** Do your best to stump this pinkhat in the comment section.

And for the record, there are typically nine innings in a baseball game, and I didn't need the internet to answer that one.

*This friend happens to be a Yankee fan. Do I need to drop him before I can become a Red Sox bluehat?

**Dave is playing sports on the XBox, so his answers, although peppered with "are you kidding me?"s, are refreshingly concise.