Baseball at bat |
This one's an odd one: according to the website, Steel published this way back in 2000, although the Wayback Machine's oldest version (2004) is completely different. Adding to the confusion is that the current version and the newest eHow version, also credited to Steel, has an introduction referencing Bull Durham. The meat of the post remains the same, however... and that's where we found instructions that are pretty much skin-deep:
"Just divide the number of base hits the player gets by the number of times he's been at bat. For example, if a player has been at bat 520 times and has gotten 179 hits, his batting average is 179/520, or .344. Walks do not count as an at-bat, and neither do sacrifice flies or bunts or getting hit by a pitch."That's correct... as far as it goes, which isn't quite as far as it actually should. You see, Steel didn't refer to the official rules, just to some stats pages at ESPN and similar fansites. Had he actually consulted the rules, Joe might have been a bit more accurate... or perhaps we should say, "More nearly complete." Steel missed the last section of the definition of an at bat, which says that a batter is not charged with an at bat if he or she reaches first base as a result of catcher interference.
More to the point, Steel missed out on a chance to mention those times a runner reaches base but is still charged with an at bat: a fielding error, a fielder's choice, and a dropped third strike.
We strive for completeness, our Dumbass of the Day apparently did not.
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DD - BASEBALL
1 comment:
Hey, those particular stories were limited to 90 words and we got all of $3 for writing them.
Joe Steel aka Z
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