Interview conducted by David Saltzer, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer
Baseball is different from other sports in many ways. It doesn't have an official clock. Every team is guaranteed equal opportunity to play. And, it has more stats than any other, making it the ultimate sports-enthusiast's favorite pastime for debate.
Never have stats been more important to the game than now. Not only do they allow fans to compare players from different teams or different eras, but they allow managers and general managers to construct lineups and emphasize different aspects of the game in order to win.
None of these stats, though, could exist without an official scorer. It's up to the official scorer to determine whether a play is a hit or an error. While MLB's rules spell out how some of the plays are to be determined, there's plenty of room for subjectivity in making calls.
AngelsWin.com recently sat down with Ed Munson, the Angels' Official Scorer, to find out more about how he goes about his job. We ask some of the questions that fans have always wondered: is there home cooking in the stats, do players/managers argue or appeal decisions, etc. We get his take on whether or not there should be a team error call or not (ironically, which could have been called shortly after conducting the interview). In short, we learn that there's a lot more to making a call than fans realize, and that Ed Munson takes his job very seriously.
Click below to watch our interview with Ed Munson. It is an interview that no baseball enthusiast or stathead should miss.