RBIs for Dummy Baseball Fans

Counting RBIs

Our research staffers cover a lot of ground in their searches, no doubt about that. One thing our readers can take to the bank, however, is that they don't search for DotD candidates in places where they wouldn't normally spend much time themselves. That's why you don't often find nominations for content about beauty, first-person shooter games, or Macintoshes: they don't have the expertise necessary to debunk a freelancer's bogus statements. At least one of them does know baseball pretty well – the rules, not the personalities – which sets them apart from Kathryn Hatter as demonstrated in her SportsRec.com post "How to Calculate RBI."

Oh, Hatter was cognizant enough of the term – or of how to Google it – to know that it's a baseball statistic, "run(s) batted in." She didn't bother to mention that the term also applies in softball, but what the heck: she didn't get paid for thoroughness, just *cough* accuracy *cough* (at eHow.com? suuuuure...). Her understanding of the rules for crediting an RBI, however, proved a bit faulty. Sayeth Kathryn,

"To earn an RBI, a baseball player must get a hit and another player must score a run during the same play. "

To which we reply, "Ummm, not exactly." According to Hatter, the only time a batter's credited with a run batted in is when a batter reaches base safely via a hit. Her only qualifications of her "rule" are, 1) to

"Omit any runs from RBI tallies that occur from double plays."

Besides being clumsy, that's not completely true: RBIs are credited if the runner scores before a different runner is thrown out after having reached base safely, for instance. 2) She also mentions errors, but weasels on that by telling her readers to

"Wait for official rule from an umpire to determine if the run would have occurred whether or not the error happened."

Which is bull, since that call isn't up to the umpire: it's up to the official scorer. What's worst is that Hatter leaves it there. She doesn't mention any of the other situations in which a batter is credited with an RBI after a runner scores for another reason, including

• a sacrifice fly or bunt
• a fielder's choice
• a walk, a HBP, or an obstruction or interference when the bases are loaded

Clearly, Kathryn wrote her post without the aid of first-hand (perhaps even second-hand) knowledge of the rules of baseball. Not only that, she went to a "math forum" for instructions for counting RBIs! You all know what being that dumb about a topic she wrote on means to Ms Hatter, right? Yep: it means she's our Dumbass of the Day!

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