Where better to begin our series than with the cornerstone of all baseball statistics: Batting Average, a metric designed to show how likely a player is to get a hit each time they come up to bat.
Batting average has been around almost as long as the game itself. In the mid 1800’s, legendary reporter Henry Chadwick transferred his knowledge of the European game, cricket, to the new American game of baseball, inventing the first box score and later going on to coin the batting average metric. Today, Chadwick is remembered as a pioneer in many aspects of baseball score-keeping.