Batting average (baseball)

In baseball, batting average (BA) is determined by dividing a player's hits by their total at-bats.

Henry Chadwick, an English statistician raised on cricket, was an influential figure in the early history of baseball.

[3] In 1869, another early baseball proponent, Alfred Wright, published an end-of-season summary that included the average number of times a batter had "clean" hits on a per game basis.

The last Major League Baseball (MLB) player to do so, with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting championship, was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, who hit .406 in 1941.

[9] There have been numerous attempts to explain the disappearance of the .400 hitter, with one of the more rigorous discussions of this question appearing in Stephen Jay Gould's 1996 book Full House.

[14] The modern-era (post-1900) record for highest batting average for a season is held by Nap Lajoie, who hit .426 in 1901,[14] the first year of play for the American League.

[15] While finishing six plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting title, Adam Dunn of the Chicago White Sox hit .159 for the 2011 season, nine points lower than the record.

This latter level is sometimes referred to as "The Mendoza Line", named for Mario Mendoza—a lifetime .215 hitter but a good defensive shortstop.

Historical statistics for the season were later revised, such that "Bases on balls shall always be treated as neither a time at bat nor a hit for the batter.

Ty Cobb holds the MLB and American League (AL) record for most batting titles, officially winning 11 in his career.

[33] The National League (NL) record of eight batting titles is shared by Honus Wagner and Tony Gwynn.

To determine which players are eligible to win the batting title, the following conditions have been used over the sport's history:[34] From 1967 to the present, if the player with the highest average in a league fails to meet the minimum plate-appearance requirement, the remaining at-bats until qualification (e.g., five at-bats, if the player finished the season with 497 plate appearances) are hypothetically considered hitless at-bats; if his recalculated batting average still tops the league, he is awarded the title.

None of the players listed below are still living; each is an inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame, except for Lefty O'Doul, Pete Browning, and Shoeless Joe Jackson (who is ineligible due to his alleged role in the Black Sox Scandal of 1919).