Is baseball the only sport where you can fail much more often than you succeed and still be considered great?

Question

Think about it. Even if you have a batting average of .350 it means you failed in over six of ten plate appearances, yet you 'd be considered a great hitter.

Answer 1

Yeah, imagine if you failed to execute that left turn correctly 7 of ten times in NASCAR......you'd be history.

Answer 2

Do all quarterback called plays go for TD's or first downs?

Do rhree point basketball attempts result in more than 30% baskets?

Do any other attempts to score in basketball result in more than 45% success.

Get real.

Sports is about winning, not percentages.

Answer 3

Hockey and Soccer player shots on goal are less than 30%.

Golfers make about 18 out of 72 shots.

Answer 4

Many greats end up on loosing sides in team games. The more team oriented the sport, the greater chance there is that good performances will not be rewarded with victory.

Answer 5

Baseball is sometimes called the game of numbers and the laws of averages are used to alot to determine the best player matchups for the given situation. Baseball stats have been recorded for over 100 years and and includes millions of at bats I'm not exact on the total number of games played, but I do know that the SF Giants were the first to reach 10,000 games at couple years back. I estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 games. An estimate of 25 million plate appearances. There are two distinct eras that don't fall in line with the laws of averages first theres the pre  -modern era when they first started playing 1886-1905 and some might have extend to 1911 Pitching stats were a bit exaggerated this having to do with with umpires and whats known as a strike zone. Also it was not rare to have the same pitcher pitch both games of a double header. Then there was the "Dead Ball Era" 1962-1968 The baseballs used proved to be wounda bit looser then years past. Baseballs switched  from being made in Havana Cuba to being made in Dominican Republic . Before the baseballs were proven to be inconsistent  MLB looked for a way to generate more offense since the scoring was down almost 20% the result was to shorten the outfield  fences which I think actually took away the offense even more. But what they did do to give the hitter better advantage was to lower the pitchers mound elevation which resulted in lower  velocity  better visibility for hitter.

If you then throw out those twenty seasons you will find the statistics are in very consistent across the board. These are the benchmarks that  separate mediocracy

.300 Bttg ave with minimum 450 at bats for season.

100 RBI

200 hits

100 runs

50 extra base hits

40 steals

100 bb's

less than 100 so's

20hr's.



.350 is a great avg.  but batting average is a stat that relates the hitter to the pitcher and the absence of an out. But there is manny other ways to get on base and just as many to move runners forward or score runners LA Dodgers of the early sixties won many games without even getting a hit. there was a famous quote from then  When someone filled in Sandy Koufax who had stayed back at team hotel Koufax asks him how did we do the guy told him that two of their pitchers combined for a no-hitter. Koufax replied, "Did we win?"

A player could go 4/4 with four singles every game and bat 1.000 for season. It means nothing if he does not  A. score

or B. drive a player home.

A better  stat  to gauge a players success is whats called On Base Percentage the ratio of at bats to safely reaching base no matter how you get there. Error, walk, pass ball.....

Barry Bonds holds season record .609

Answer 6

yes compared to football and basketball where shooting % and passing % is expected to be at least over .500 to be decent