Triple Crown winner Carl Yastremzski in 1967, with Avg. of 0.326, 121 RBI's, and 44 HR's (shared lead with Harmon Killebrew)

Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs in his baseball career, most of which were with the New York Yankees.  He was known as the "Sultan of Swat".  In this photo, he is "swinging for the fence", trying to hit a home run, but the ball has gone past him, in the upper left part of the photo.  This means he just chipped the ball for a foul ball, which is not in play.

Considered to be the "Babe Ruth" of Japanese baseball, Tetsuharu Kawakami of Yomiuri Giants (pictured here with Walter O'Malley, then owner of Brooklyn Dodgers).  Kawakami's most productive year was 1950 with a Avg. of 0.313, 29 HR, and 119 RBI's.  Higher stats were a Avg. of 0.347 in 1953, and 129 RBI's in 1949.

AB - at bats.  In a season of 162 games, Jeter had 593 official at bats.  He actually may have more times when he came up to bat, but for record keeping purposes, he was recorded as having come up to bat this many times.

Avg - batting average.  The number is expressed as a decimal 0.339, means actually a percentage, 33.9%, and is mentioned as a whole number, three hundred thirty nine.  This means the percentage of Jeter's at bats when he got a hit, whether the hit was a single (which is the number under the column "H"), a double, a triple, or a home run (which is the number under the column "HR").  Most of the ballplayers have batting averages in the 200's, and a batting average of 300 or more means this is a good, and feared, batter.  The last time a batter had a batting average of over 400 was in 1941, when Ted Williams hit 0.406.  With the modern day pitcher's ability to throw difficult to hit pitches, batters are doing very well if they can bat over 300.

R - runs.  This number means the runs that Jeter himself scored for his team, i.e. he himself crossed home plate to score a run.  The higher this number, the more valuable this player is to his team, because it means this player can get on base, and traverse all the bases to score a run.

H - hits.  The number of singles hit by this player.  A single is where the ball is hit safely and the batter gets to first base without being thrown or tagged out at first base.

HR - home runs.  The number of home runs hit by this player.  A home run is where this batter hits the ball within the safe area, but out of the playing field into the spectator stands so that the outfielders of the defense team have no chance to field the ball.  The batter is accorded free passage to "round the bases" from home to first to second to third and then to home to score a run.  Any runners already on base at the time a home run is hit also return home and score runs.  This is the most spectacular hit by any batter because of the power behind the hit, and its ability to affect the score of the game in a dramatic fashion.  In 1998, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit 70 home runs in a 162 game season, to better the then existing record of 61 home runs hit by Roger Maris of the Yankees in 1961.  Before then, Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a 154 game season had stood unchallenged from 1927.  When considering all seasons played, called a "Lifetime", Hank Aaron had hit 755 home runs, and second is Babe Ruth with 714 home runs.  Sadaharu Oh, a naturalized Japanese of Chinese descent, playing for the Yomiuri Giants in the Japan baseball league, hit a total of 868 home runs in his career.

RBI - runs batted in.  This number means the ability of the batter to get a hit in which runners on base are able to return to home plate for a score.  The higher this number, the more valuable this player is to his team, because it means that this batter is able to achieve scores for the team when he comes up to bat, with runners on base and the chance to get a score.

Of all the statistics measured on all the professional players in major league baseball, the more important ones are Avg., HR, and RBI, and players consider it an honour to have the highest number in any one of these statistics of all the players at the end of the season.  A player who has the highest number in all 3 statistics at the end of any season is said to win "The Triple Crown".  The last player to win the Triple Crown was Carl Yastremzski of the Boston Red Sox in 1967.

 [ Sadaharu Oh ] - Click on this field to see a moving image of Oh's batting stance and fluid form.  The file will take about one minute to load at 56K bps.  Use your browser's "Back" button to return to this page.

Roger Clemens . . .Randy Johnson, two powerful pitchers who can throw pitches with great speed, or can "throw heat".  Clemens is a right handed pitcher, and Johnson is a left handed pitcher, or "lefty", or "southpaw", a term coined some time ago, for what reason, no one now knows or remembers.

On the left are the normal statistics maintained for a small sample of the pitchers on the New York Yankees.  These statistics are for the year 2000 season.  We will use the statistics on Roger Clemens, who is an outstanding pitcher able to deliver pitches with great velocity or speed.

IP - innings pitched.  This number means the number of innings that the pitcher was "on the mound", i.e. pitching to batters of the offense team.  Clemens' 204.1 innings means that he pitched 204 complete innings in which his team got 3 outs on the offense team, and the 0.1 means one third of an inning, or one out in that one inning.  The higher this number, the more the pitcher has performed.

ERA - earned run average.  This number is a measure of how many runs are scored against this pitcher in a 9 inning game, which resulted not from any error committed by the defense team.  It is a measure of how effective a pitcher is preventing batters from hitting his pitches and running to score "earned runs".  The lower the number, the more effective the pitcher is.

W-L-S - Wins - Losses - Saves.  Discussed earlier. The number of wins, losses, and saves, in games, recorded against this pitcher, even though the pitcher may not have pitched an entire game.  Anytime in a season, a pitcher can post 20 or more wins, that is a big achievement for the pitcher, and of course, the bigger the difference betweeen W and L, the more valuable the pitcher is to the team.

K - strikeouts.  This number is the number of strikeouts that the pitcher has recorded against all the batters he has faced in a season.  A strikeout is when the batter has 3 strikes called against him without his being able to get a hit or a walk to first base.  Usually, the more powerful pitchers with great speed on their pitches will record high numbers, and a season high of over 200 strikeouts is considered an excellent achievement.