OCR Text |
Show WITH ONE TOSS CAN PITCHER WIN GAME? Markle Throws One Ball and Is Given Credit. Peculiar Situation Brought About In Ninth Inning of Recent Cincinnati-Brooklyn Cincinnati-Brooklyn Contest Couch Loses Out. Is It possible for a pitcher to throw only one ball to a batsman and officially offi-cially get credit for winning a ball game? It seems so under the present rules that determine games won and lost by pitchers. President Johnson of the American league discarded the games won and lost by pitchers several years ago, be- 1 Pitcher Couch. cause he didn't believe such records told a true story of a pitcher's worth. The American league substituted a system that showed the earned runs ma.de off each pitcher in an effort to determine the effectiveness of th American league twirlers. The great desire, to know who won or lost the game, however, has caused the two major -leagues again to use such records relative to the pitchers. It doesn't seem as if It is possible to establish any set rules to cover this feature of baseball - For example: - Recently In the ' National league, Brooklyn played at Cincinnati. Couch pitched eight and two-thirds Innings for Cincinnati. He retired in the ninth with two down, when Brooklyn broka the 5 to 5 tie, forging ahead by one run. Markle replaced Couch and on the first ball pitched the Brooklyn batter was retired, ending the inning. Cincinnati in the last half of the ninth made two runs, winning the Same 7 to 6. The records give Markle, who pitched only one ball, credit for winning win-ning the game. While probably correct from a baseball base-ball standpoint, it hardly looks like a sane conclusion. Seems as though the oicial score should be permitted to reach a verdict based on fairness. |