A vastly overrated
baseball stat still in use because it's easy to
calculate and still carries the
mystique of being one third of the
Triple Crown for hitters. To determine a player's
batting average, divide the number of hits by the number of official at-bats. As noted above,
sacrifice flies do not count as at-bats. Neither do
sacrifice bunts,
walks, or
hit batsmen.
I say overrated because it doesn't accurately assess a hitter's ability to get on base, nor his ability to hit for power. The lesser known OPS, which stands for stands for on base percentage plus slugging percentage, measures a hitter's ability much more accurately.