Traditionally, statistics such as batting average ( the number of hits divided by the number of at bats ) and earned run average ( the average number of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings ) have dominated attention in the statistical world of baseball.

In the early history of major league baseball, the difference between the number of earned runs given up by a pitcher and the total number of runs given up was much more significant than today.

The Colts finished 0 – 8 – 1 in the strike-shortened 1982 season and earned the team the right to select Stanford quarterback John Elway with the first overall pick, but Elway refused to play for Baltimore, and using leverage as a draftee of the New York Yankees baseball club, forced a trade to Denver.

In 1936, Robinson won the junior boys singles championship in the annual Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament and earned a place on the Pomona annual baseball tournament all-star team, which included future Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Bob Lemon.

He played left field for the baseball team, and academically earned 2424. 12 merits out of a possible 2470. 00 or 98. 14, the third highest score ever recorded, graduating first in his 93-man class on 11 June 1903.

He earned a full baseball scholarship to the University of Minnesota in 1969, where he starred in baseball and basketball for the Golden Gophers.

On September 28, 2003, the final day of the regular season, Wells earned the 200th win of his career in a game managed by Clemens, who had won his 300th game earlier in the season and was thought to be retiring from baseball ( Clemens ended up delaying his retirement ).

His unquestionable baseball prowess, outgoing personality and energy, charity work, community involvement, and nice-guy attitude earned him the respect and admiration of fans across the country.

He excelled in baseball but chose college and earned his Ph. D. in education.

He has stated that he earned all As and a B in school, and was an enthusiastic baseball and basketball player.

He has earned positive reviews for his portrayals of various individuals: a troubled teen in Gus Van Sant's To Die For ( 1995 ) co-starring with Nicole Kidman, a small-town troublemaker in Oliver Stone's U Turn, Inventing the Abbotts ( 1997 ), the cruel Roman emperor Commodus in Ridley Scott's Gladiator ( 2000 ) ( for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor ), a conflicted priest in Quills ( 2000 ), a washed-up baseball player in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs ( 2002 ), the irresolute husband of a superstar-skater in the widely panned It's All About Love in 2003, a lovestruck farmer in Shyamalan's The Village ( 2004 ), a disillusioned cameraman in Terry George's Hotel Rwanda ( 2004 ), and heroic firefighter in Ladder 49 ( 2004 ).

The men's basketball team reached the Sweet Sixteen in 1999, women's basketball made the Final Four in 1992 and 2001, baseball made the College World Series in 2003, and volleyball earned their 1000th win Nov. 17, 2006 ( only the second team in NCAA history to do so ).

Modell did not share the loge revenues earned from baseball games with the Indians.

He began gaining more in-depth knowledge about baseball strategy while posting a 6 – 6 win – loss record and a 4. 66 earned run average ( ERA ), to go along with a. 258 batting average.

There he played halfback in football, guard in basketball, and right field in baseball, all with more persistence than talent, but in an effort to uphold the family tradition of athleticism, he earned varsity letters in all three sports.

During a 22-year baseball career, Perry compiled 314 wins, 3, 534 strikeouts, and a 3. 11 earned run average.

Bloom attended Peabody High School, where he earned three letters in football and basketball, two in track and field, and one in baseball.

In 1958, Aparicio earned recognition as one of the top shortstops in major league baseball when he was elected to be the starting shortstop for the American League in the All-Star Game.

He played two intercollegiate football seasons for the Michigan Wolverines where during the 1943-44 year he earned the distinction of being the only athlete at the school to letter in four sports ( football, basketball, track and baseball ) in a single year.

( In the 1995 version of the Primerica Financial Independence Council it states that he was paid $ 150, 000 as a professional baseball player compared to his $ 2, 000, 000 that he earned through working with Primerica ).

Riverfront Stadium quickly earned a place in Cincinnati's century-long baseball tradition as the home of one of the best teams in baseball history.

The business of baseball began to prosper along with other entertainments, and performers -- thanks partly to George Herman Ruth's spectacular efforts each season to run his salary higher and higher -- prospered too.

* 2007 – Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run.

* 1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

But the tactic fell into relative disuse after Babe Ruth introduced the era of the home run – in 1955, for example, no one in baseball stole more than 25 bases, and Dom DiMaggio won the AL stolen base title in 1950 with just 15.

In his defense, some baseball historians have suggested that it was not customary for game-ending hits to be fully " run out ", it was only Evers's insistence on following the rules strictly that resulted in this unusual play.

This period included eighteen consecutive winning seasons ( 1968 – 1985 ) -- an unprecedented run of success that saw the Orioles become the envy of the league, and the winningest team in baseball.

Bud Selig also did not attend the San Francisco Giants ' baseball game on August 7 when Barry Bonds hit his record-breaking 756th home run ; after the event, Selig released a statement congratulating Bonds.

The ' 38 club saw Dizzy Dean lead the team's pitching staff and provided a historic moment when they won a crucial late-season game at Wrigley Field over the Pittsburgh Pirates with a walk-off home run by Gabby Hartnett, which became known in baseball lore as " The Homer in the Gloamin '".

On a positive note, the home run chase between Sosa, McGwire and Ken Griffey, Jr. helped professional baseball to bring in a new crop of fans as well as bringing back some fans who had been disillusioned by the 1994 strike.

* A home run in the sport of baseball

In baseball, a home run ( abbreviated HR ) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to reach home safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team in the process.

In modern baseball, the feat is typically achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles ( or making contact with either foul pole ) without first touching the ground, resulting in an automatic home run.

There is also the " inside-the-park " home run, increasingly rare in modern baseball, where the batter reaches home safely while the baseball is in play on the field.

Home runs are among the most popular aspects of baseball and, as a result, prolific home run hitters are usually the most popular among fans and consequently the highest paid by teams — hence the old saying, variously attributed to slugger Ralph Kiner, or to a teammate talking about Kiner, " Home run hitters drive Cadillacs, and singles hitters drive Fords.

Although Aaron himself downplayed the " chase " to surpass Babe Ruth, baseball enthusiasts and the national media grew increasingly excited as he closed in on the home run record.

In what has come to be known as " the Pine Tar Incident ," umpires discovered illegal placement of pine tar ( more than 18 inches up the handle ) on third baseman George Brett's bat after he had hit a two-run home run off Gossage that put the Royals up 5 – 4 in the top of the 9th. The baseball bat used by Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett ( baseball ) | George Brett in the Pine Tar Incident on July 24, 1983.

For his career, McGwire averaged a home run once every 10. 61 at bats, the lowest at bats per home run ratio in baseball history ( Babe Ruth is second at 11. 76 ).< ref >

Now Richards, of course, is known as a deep thinker as baseball managers go.

The only area in which American boys hold their own is the baseball throw.

Nor is it an accident that baseball, growing into the national game in the last 75 years, has become a microcosm of American life, that learned societies such as the American Folklore Society and the American Historical Association were founded in the 1880s, or that courses in American literature, American civilization, American anything have swept our school and college curricula.

Liston is Bill Liston, baseball writer for the Boston Traveler, who quoted Jensen as saying:

Both, of course, were remarkable feats and further embossed the fact that baseball rightfully is the national pastime.

It is an irritable rule that does baseball more harm than good, especially at the minor league level.

A crowd of 1,400 is expected for the ceremonies, which will be followed by the show in which the writers will lampoon baseball personalities in skit, dance and song.

Bill Veeck's health is back to the dynamo stage, but his medics insist he rest for several more months before getting back into the baseball swim.

Although both concede they would like to hit 60, they stick primarily to the baseball player's standard quote: `` The important thing is to win the pennant ''.

Neither Mantle nor Maris is totally devoted to baseball above all else.

`` What the hell do you think baseball is??

What the hell do you think baseball is??

Doubleday is often mistakenly credited with inventing baseball, although he never made such a claim, and there is no evidence to support it.

One of the persistent myths of baseball history is that Doubleday invented the game in 1839, although he was in West Point at the time.

Although Doubleday achieved minor fame as a competent combat general with experience in many important Civil War battles, he is more widely remembered as the supposed inventor of the game of baseball, in Elihu Phinney's cow pasture in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839.

Furthermore, the primary testimony to the commission that connected baseball to Doubleday was that of Abner Graves, whose credibility is questionable ; a few years later, he shot his wife to death and was committed to an institution for the criminally insane for the rest of his life.

Doubleday Field is a minor league baseball stadium named for Abner Doubleday, located in Cooperstown, New York, near the Baseball Hall of Fame.

thumbAmerica's National Game is a book by Albert Spalding, published in 1911 detailing the early history of the sport of baseball.

* 1876 – The first ever National League baseball game is played in Philadelphia.

First indoor baseball game is played.

* 1981 – The longest professional baseball game is begun in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Spalding's. 796 career winning percentage ( from an era when teams played about once or twice a week ) is the highest ever achieved by a baseball pitcher.

Spalding's store grew rapidly over the next 25 years, with 14 stores by 1901, expanded from retail into manufacturing baseball equipment and is still a going concern.

*" Take Me Out to the Ball Game " is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer which has become the unofficial anthem of baseball, although neither of its authors had attended a game prior to writing the song.