The radio broadcasts themselves were often so patiently informative, despite the baseball jargon, that girls and women could begin to store up in their minds the same sort of random and meaningless statistics that small boys had long learned better than they ever did their lessons in school.

Since the flow of a baseball game has natural breaks to it, and normally players act individually rather than performing in clusters, the sport lends itself to easy record-keeping and statistics.

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.

Comprehensive, historical baseball statistics were difficult for the average fan to access until 1951, when researcher Hy Turkin published The Complete Encyclopedia of Baseball.

Throughout modern baseball, a few core statistics have been traditionally referenced — batting average, RBI, and home runs.

General managers and baseball scouts have long used the major statistics, among other factors and opinions, to understand player value.

Some sabermetric statistics have entered the mainstream baseball world that measure a batter's overall performance including On-base plus slugging, commonly referred to as OPS.

In baseball, an at bat ( AB ) or time at bat is used to calculate certain statistics, including batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage.

A base on balls ( BB ) is credited to a batter and against a pitcher in baseball statistics when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire calls balls.

In baseball statistics, on-base percentage ( OBP ; sometimes referred to as on-base average / OBA, as the statistic is rarely presented as a true percentage ) is a measure of how often a batter reaches base for any reason other than a fielding error, fielder's choice, dropped / uncaught third strike, fielder's obstruction, or catcher's interference ( the latter two are ignored as either times-on-base ( TOB ) or plate appearances in calculating OBP ).

In baseball statistics, stolen bases are denoted by “ SB ”.

In baseball statistics, a player is credited with a plate appearance ( denoted by PA ) each time he completes a turn batting.

In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players ' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.

Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of USA Today's early success, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball Weekly, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.

A keen amateur statistician and professional writer, he helped sculpt the public perception of the game, as well as providing the basis for the records of team's and player's achievements in the form of baseball statistics.

Sabermetrics is the specialized analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity.

His 1964 book Percentage Baseball was the first book of baseball statistics studies to gain national media attention.

He began publishing his Baseball Abstracts in 1977 to study some questions about baseball he found interesting, and their eclectic mix of essays based on new kinds of statistics soon became popular with a generation of thinking baseball fans.

* Sean Lahman: Created a database of baseball statistics from existing sources and in the mid-1990s made it available for free download on the Internet, providing access to statistical data in electronic form for the first time.

* David Smith: Founded Retrosheet in 1989, with the objective of computerizing the box score of every major league baseball game ever played, in order to more accurately collect and compare the statistics of the game.

* FanGraphs is a website that publishes advanced baseball statistics as well as graphics that evaluate and track the performance of players and teams.

For example, sports that have simple 1-point scoring systems ( e. g., baseball, hockey, and soccer ) may be analysed using Poisson and Skellam statistics.

Mays and Mantle, both 10-year men at 30, have so much ability that, baseball men agree, they've never hit the heights.

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 ''.

* 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.

In baseball, hit by pitch ( HBP ), or hit batsman ( HB ), is a batter or his equipment ( other than his bat ) being hit in some part of his body by a pitch from the pitcher.

Since inside pitching is a legitimate tactic in baseball, courts have recognized that being hit by a pitch is an inherent risk of the game, so that players cannot sue for any resulting injuries.

On April 6, 2006, in a case arising from a game involving community college baseball teams, the Supreme Court of California ruled that baseball players in California assume the risk of being hit by baseballs even if the balls were intentionally thrown so as to cause injury.

The sacrifice fly is one of two instances in baseball where a batter is not charged with a time at bat after putting a ball in play ; the other is the sacrifice hit ( also known as a sacrifice bunt ).

Batters have not been charged with a time at-bat for a sacrifice hit since 1893, but baseball has changed the sacrifice fly rule multiple times.

Unlike many power hitters, Ruth also hit for a high batting average: his. 342 lifetime average is the tenth highest in baseball history, and in one season ( 1923 ) he batted. 393, a Yankee record.

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.

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.

Belying his future career, baseball was Robinson's " worst sport " at UCLA ; he hit. 097 in his only season, although in his first game he went 4-for-4 and twice stole home.

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.

* 1961 – Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles becomes the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.

* 1927 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season.

* 1985 – Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb's baseball record for most career hits with his 4, 192nd hit

Nate Colbert is one of two major-league baseball players ( Stan Musial is the other ) to have hit five home runs in a doubleheader, a feat he accomplished as a Padre.

* Triple ( baseball ), a three-base hit

In the winter, the Red Sox traded right fielder Ben Chapman to the Cleveland Indians to make room for Williams on the roster, with Williams inheriting Chapman's number 9 on his uniform opposed to Williams ' number 5 in the previous spring training, even though Chapman had hit. 340 in the previous season, which led Boston Globe sports journalist Gerry Moore to quip, " Not since Joe DiMaggio broke in with the Yankees by " five for five " in St. Petersberg in 1936 has any baseball rookie received the nationwide publicity that has been accorded this spring to Theodore Francis Williams ".