1871.4
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National Association Urged to Adopt Modern Batting Average
| Salience | Noteworthy |
|---|---|
| Tags | Stats and Box ScoresStats and Box Scores |
| Location | |
| City/State/Country: | New York, NY, United States |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | Base BallBase Ball |
| Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
| Age of Players | AdultAdult |
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| Text | In a letter published in the New York Clipper on March 11, 1871, H. A. Dobson, a correspondent for the periodical, wrote to Nick E. Young, the Secretary of the Olympic Club in Washington D.C., and future president of the National League. Young would be attending the Secretaries’ Meeting of the newly formed National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, and Dobson urged him to consider a “new and accurate method of making out batting averages.” “According to a man’s chances, so should his record be. Every time he goes to the bat he either has an out, a run, or is left on his base. If he does not go out he makes his base, either by his own merit or by an error of some fielder. Now his merit column is found in ‘times first base on clean hits,’ and his average is found by dividing his total ‘times first base on clean hits’ by his total number of times he went to the bat. Then what is true of one player is true of all…In this way, and in no other, can the average of players be compared.” Dobson included a calculation, for theoretical players, of hits per at-bat at the end of the letter; the first published calculation of the modern form of batting average.
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| Sources | Dobson, H.A. “The Professional Club Secretaries’ Meeting.” New York Clipper (New York City, NY), 11 March 1871: p. 888. |
| Warning | |
| Comment | While "hits per at-bat" has become the modern form of batting average, and was the only average calculated by the official statistician beginning in the inaugural season of the National League in 1876, the definition of a "time at bat" has varied over time. To Dobson, a time at bat included any time a batter made an "out, a run, or is left on his base." However, walks were excluded from the calculation of at-bats beginning in 1877, with a temporary reappearance in 1887 when they were counted the same as hits. Times hit by the pitcher were excluded beginning in 1887, sacrifice bunts in 1894, times reached on catcher's interference in 1907, and sacrifice flies in 1908 (though, they went in and out of the rules multiple times over the next few decades and weren't firmly excluded until 1954).
Consequently, based on Dobson's calculation, walks would have counted as an at-bat but not as a hit, so a negative result for the batter. This was the case in the first year of the National League as well, but was "fixed" by the second year. A fielder's choice would have been recorded as an at-bat and not a hit under Dobson's system, as it is today.
For a short history of batting measures, see Colin Dew-Becker, “Foundations of Batting Analysis,” p 1 – 9:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0btLf16riTacFVEUV9CUi1UQ3c/ Edit with form to add a comment |
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| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
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| Submitted by | Colin Dew-Becker |
| Submission Note | Email of 9/15/2014 |
| Has Supplemental Text |
1871.4 National Association Urged to Adopt Modern Batting Average"
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