Baseball Statistics
Statistics play an important role in summarizing baseball performance and evaluating players in the sport.
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. Statistics have been kept for professional baseball since the creation of the National League and American League, now part of Major League Baseball.
Many statistics are also available from outside of Major League Baseball, from leagues such as the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players and the Negro Leagues.
Read more about Baseball Statistics: Development of Statistics, Use of Statistics, Commonly Used Statistics, MLB Statistical Standards
Famous quotes containing the words baseball and/or statistics:
“Compared to football, baseball is almost an Oriental game, minimizing individual stardom, requiring a wide range of aggressive and defensive skills, and filled with long periods of inaction and irresolution. It has no time limitations. Football, on the other hand, has immediate goals, resolution on every single play, and a lot of violence—itself a highlight. It has clearly distinguishable hierarchies: heroes and drones.”
—Jerry Mander, U.S. advertising executive, author. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, ch. 15, Morrow (1978)
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination.”
—Andrew Lang (1844–1912)