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, US |
| Modern Address | |
| Game | Base BallBase Ball |
| Immediacy of Report | |
| Age of Players | AdultAdult |
| Holiday | |
| Notables | |
| 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 | Edit with form to add a comment |
| Query | Can we add a comment on when "Errors" appeared? Were walks entered as hits then? Edit with form to add a query |
| Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
| External Number | |
| 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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