Question…
A perfect game has no walks or errors and of course no hits in it.
So…if a batter hits one into foul territory…and the ball is dropped by the fielder…the fielder gets charged with an error.
Does the pitcher lose his perfect game even though no batter reaches?
I don’t have a rule book in front of me, but I would say no. A perfect game is one in which no batter reaches base safely.
And now that I think of it, in a regular old normal game, if a batter with no one on base hits a foul pop-up and the fielder drops it, I don’t believe the fielder is charged with an error. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall ever seeing an error charged in such a case.
i could be wrong, but doesn’t the batter/baserunner get a chance to run to first if the fielder drops the ball? (if i’m understanding the OP, the batter is assumed not to reach first)
I don’t think the Lords of Baseball have formally ruled on whether an error on a foul ball would mar a perfect game, but I don’t think it would.
A perfect game means that every batter was retired and no one reached first base. It doesn’t mean that all the fielders were perfect.
No.
A perfect game is a game in which no batter reaches base, so it doesn’t matter if any errors are charged as long as they don’t allow a batter to reach base.
You missed the part about the incident in question being a foul ball, no dice on getting to first. A foul ball is a foul ball regardless of any errors commited on the play, batter has no chance to get to first.
Alantus
so if a no-hitter is where, well, there are no hits, and a perfect game is where no batter reaches a base…
what would you call it if a pitcher were to throw 81 pitches, all strikes? a more-perfect-than-perfect game? How is the game perfect when non-strikes are thrown?
Because an 81 pitch, 27 strikeout performance will never happen in baseball history. No…“The Scout” couldn’t happen. SOME batter would be able to at least get a little wood on the ball to hit it foul. You can’t fool a team 81 times without throwing outside the strike zone from time to time, which is why games with balls are considered perfect. A lot of the time, a pitcher isn’t a strikeout pitcher…they are so good because they force the batter to hit ground balls to the infield or lazy pop flies. Working outside the strike zone is part of the game, not a mark of imperfection. Anyway…theoretically, it COULD happen, but I’d bet $1,000,000,000 that it never does on a major league level.
Jman
I don’t beieve errors are charged on foul balls because in order for an error to occur the offensive (batting) team must advance a runner. I don’t think even a blatant fielding error (dropped pop-up or bobbled grounder)where a baserunner was asleep (and thus does not advance)is scored an official “error”.
Right?
This would of course be, a perfect game. But as has already been pointed out, not at all likely. Besides what would be more perfect: throwing an 81 pitch all strike-out game, or throwing a 27 pitch game where all the batters fly out, pop out, ground out or foul out on the first pitch? Not that either of these situations would happen, though.
As for the OP:
I’ll have to check the rules, but I’m not sure the fielder would be charged with an error in that situation. With the ball hit in foul territory, the runner will not be able to advance to first, so the fielder shouldn’t be charged with an error. That pitch would simply count as a strike against the batter (unless there’s two strikes already, in which case it wouldn’t count at all against the batter).
But as many have already said, the definition of a perfect game is that the starting pitcher retires all 27 batters with none of them reaching base. If the batter never reaches base, the perfect game is still in tact.
I’m afraid not jcarbon.
Rule 10.13 states:
As such, a dropped foul ball does prolong the time at bat of a batter, since he would have been out had the ball been caught.
Zev Steinhardt
Granted it will (probably) never happen. I don’t question that. I guess the difference lies in whose perspective it’s perfect from. If you’re the fielding TEAM, then the 27 pitch pop-out or ground-out game would be more perfect. But since the pitcher is the one credited with the perfect game, that means to ME that the pitcher should be the one who does all the work, i.e. getting the batters out on his own. So IMO, for the pitcher to be credited with a perfect game, he should throw 81 strikes.
But then I’m also not a baseball stat freak and I don’t care all that much as long as the yankees lose.
Baseball’s “Official” Historian Jerome Holtzman weighs in on the meaning on the perfect game.
http://www.mlb.com/u/baseball/mlbcom/features/oct00/holtzman_101600.htm
Perfect games recognized by Major League Baseball can be found here, along with three special circumstance near perfect games.
Oops, left out the URL
http://www.mlb.com/u/baseball/mlbcom/news/jul99/perfect71899.htm
Not to keep banging this drum, but there’s a somewhat tricky baseball question on my trivia thread that y’all might want to take a look at.
Things that will never happen in baseball history:
Someone will get more career basehits than Ty Cobb.
Someone will hit more homeruns in a season than Roger Maris.
Someone will play in more consecutive games than the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig.
It might not happen in our lifetime, but an 81 pitch, 27 K strikeout game will happen.
That’s a really good website!! 
I wonder if Harvey Haddix is still around, so he could know about another pitcher carrying a perfect game beyond nine innings…(Besides, nobody really recoginzed Lew Burdette for winning a 13-inning shutout!!)
Right On! Christy Mathewson was one of the best pitchers in MLB history; but as one writer commented, “He gave the batter something to hit, never forgetting there were eight other players on his team.” (The story about Rube Waddell sending the infielders and outfielders to the dugout, and then striking out the side, is probably a fabrication. The umpires and league officials would never allow that in a regular-season game; if he ever did it it would probably have been in an exhibition. Granted this is a slight hijack. [appropriate :o here])
Unfortunately, Harvey Haddix passed away in 1994.
Zev Steinhardt
[hijack] This was normal pitching practice prior to the adoption of the home run as the primary offensive strategy in major league baseball. Big scoring innings required many hits to be strung together, so pitchers would allow opposing batters to hit pitches, hopefully placed in such a manner as to generate grounders and popups. Many pre-1920 pitchers spoke of the importance of “Saving” your best pitches and efforts for key situations.
There are still pitchers who like to induce popups and grounders and let their teammates make the outs; Greg Maddux is the ultimate example.
Lots of home runs, however, means that a pitcher is in danger of surrendering runs at any moment if a pitch is hit, so it’s worth it to bear down on every pitch. If you throw a fat pitch to Ty Cobb, it’s a double; throw a fat pitch to Mike Schmidt and someone in the outfield seats gets a souvenir. This is often cited as the reason pitchers don’t pitch as many innings now as they used to; they’re heaving it in with all they’ve got every time out there, even Maddux.[/hijack]
(The story about Rube Waddell sending the infielders and outfielders to the dugout, and then striking out the side, is probably a fabrication. The umpires and league officials would never allow that in a regular-season game; if he ever did it it would probably have been in an exhibition. Granted this is a slight hijack. [appropriate :o here]) **
[/QUOTE]
Quote: “How is the game perfect when non-strikes are thrown?”
Because a.) A perfect pitch may be called a ball, or b.) a “ball” may indeed be “perfect” for the given situation, to set up a batter for the next pitch. Eye-high may be EXACTLY where the pitcher wanted the ball, so it would be perfect.
As for the Cobb, Maris, and Gehrig analogy, no way. Nobody will ever pitch an 81-pitch, all strike game. It is “possible” only in the way that golfing an “18” for 18 holes is possible: in hypothetical situations only. Granted, people said the same about the Cobb, Maris, and Gehrig records, but I wasn’t among those people.