2+2=5

tim · **Posted:** Fri May 24, 2002 4:21 pm

From a story by Mark Bowden of the Philadelphia Inquirer about Stephen Jay Gould.<p>"He was interested in the seeming extinction of the .400 hitter in major-league baseball. The average pro ballplayer hits about .260 - that is, he gets a hit about every fourth at-bat. Batting .400 means averaging a hit every 2 at-bats."

Powderhorn · **Posted:** Fri Jun 07, 2002 1:32 am

From what I can tell, sports is full of all sorts of new math. I don't really bat an eye (because I don't understand sports nor care to learn about it) until some egregious budget figure or something comes in where, after sifting though an exhaustive list of figures, the total isn't in the same area code.

Sanvean · **Posted:** Mon Jun 10, 2002 11:31 am

Good God! Even I (a female features copy editor with zero interest in sports) can spot the enormous mistake there. Wouldn't it have been easier to say that meant that a player averaged a hit 26 percent of the time, or 40 percent of the time?

Powderhorn · **Posted:** Mon Jun 10, 2002 11:22 pm

I suspect what actually happened here was that somone fell prey to wanting a parallel construction -- damn the costs -- and so "getting a hit two out of every five at-bats" was nixed. The other possibility is that the person in question actually bats .500 and the figure was wrong.

DougOfCal · **Joined:** Wed Apr 10, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 2

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica ,sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Sanvean:
Wouldn't it have been easier to say that meant that a player averaged a hit 26 percent of the time, or 40 percent of the time?<hr></blockquote>
Easier? Yes. The hard part would be finding a journalist who could figure out, without being coached, that a .260 batting average means the same thing as getting a hit 26 percent of the time.

Testy Copy Editors

2+2=5

Who is online

What They're Saying

Useful Links