The statistician

People assume that statistics are always right. They are to be trusted because they represent records, sacred records. In baseball it's pretty easy to measure runs, hits, home runs and rbi's. There isn't much to argue about those stats.

Things can get fuzzy when it comes to things like assists, or other, more judgement related stats like errors, shots, saves etc.

People want certain things to be counted as such so players get some credit for doing stuff.

Arguements can actually take place over what is and isn't a certain statistic. There is really a lot of opinion in stat keeping. More than you might think. I've helped solve these arguements too.

Stats are probably least accurate (although still very accurate) when they are kept on sports that aren't on TV/broadcast, are for non-revenue sports, are for a road team and most importantly when the game is out of hand. In order to get stats people need to be paying attention to the game.

You lose interest in a game that is 89-0 and so does the person taking stats. In blow outs there is so much to pay attention too. You are constantly updating and writing and researching for records. You often pay a little less attention to the road team. You know who scores a goal but you might not pay complete attention to who assisted on the play. If you miss the assist sometimes you make it unassisted. Other times you guess. (the same can be said when jersey numbers are hard to see or when the weather is bad.)

Some scorers also have certain characteristics. Some scorers will count anything close to a shot, a shot. Others will only count a shot on goal or really close to goal a shot. That's why you might see a team go from 30 shots one game to 8 the next. It's not always about the other teams defense, it can also be because the official scorer has a different interpretation of a shot than the previous scorer.

Now once again, stat keeping is very accurate. It's very good, but there is human error too. I'd also say that you probably won't notice these things in big time sports as things are more standardized. For example in the NFL I'm sure things are done more accurately and efficiently than college polo.

This is not to say that stats are inaccurate, but like everything else they are subject to human error. I thought it would be an interesting thing to write about.