My recollection could definitely be wrong, but I seem to recall a time in which it seemed as though almost anytime a player was able to somehow position himself close enough to merely graze the baseball with the leather he was wearing on his glove hand and not be able to squeeze it or complete the play for an out, he was charged with an E. Maybe that’s one of the reasons for all of those ultra skinny ERA’s that pitchers once routinely placed into the books.