Wild pitch or passed ball: how do you tell?

Every youth scorekeeper runs into this one sooner or later. With a runner on second, the pitch gets past the catcher and the runner goes to third. Then the scorekeeper looks up and asks, “WP or PB?”

So who gets charged? Almost all of them come down to whether the catcher could have caught it with ordinary effort. That means what an average catcher at this level would do. If there’s an average 11u catcher back there, that’s your standard (not a big leaguer).

• If he couldn’t have, it’s a wild pitch, and it’s charged to the pitcher. The ball sailed over his head, was a foot outside or bounced in front of the plate.
• If he should have, it’s a passed ball, and it’s charged to the catcher. The pitch was in a spot he could reach, and it went off the glove, under it or through it.

Pitches in the dirt are the easy part. A pitch that hits the ground or the plate before it gets to the catcher, and then gets away, is a wild pitch. There’s no judgment about whether he should have blocked it. Blocking a ball in the dirt is hard. The book doesn’t punish the catcher for a pitch the pitcher bounced.

But if the ball gets away and no one moves up, there’s nothing to score. A wild pitch or a passed ball only goes in the book when a runner advances because of it. The only other time is when strike three gets away and the batter reaches first. Then it’s a strikeout and a wild pitch or passed ball, both.

The same goes for a catcher who gets it back in time. The pitch gets away and the runner breaks for second, but the catcher recovers and throws him out. That’s no wild pitch and no passed ball. No one advanced.

And what if the runner was already stealing when the ball got away? Then it’s a stolen base instead. I explain that one on the stolen base card.

We can keep it simple in the book. If it’s in the dirt, it goes on the pitcher. If it was catchable and he missed it, it goes on the catcher. It’s the line I’d give every scorekeeper.