Slugging average is an older stat than batting average

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
Baseball's official historian, John Thorn, just posted a link on SABR-L to an article he wrote about the history of the batting average statistic. He explains that Henry Chadwick used a primitive version of slugging percentage back in the 1860s that was total bases divided by number of games and how it eventually came to be realized that times at bat was a more accurate way of assessing this data and why it eventually (d)evolved into batting average.
https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/chadwicks-choice-the-origin-of-the-batting-average-e8e9e9402d53

And for those readers who do not know anything about John Thorn, he collaborated with Pete Palmer on The Hidden Game of Baseball and compiled the statistical encyclopedia, Total Baseball, with him (before the internet took over).
 

jungleboy

New Member
Mar 1, 2016
153
And for those readers who do not know anything about John Thorn, he collaborated with Pete Palmer on The Hidden Game of Baseball and compiled the statistical encyclopedia, Total Baseball, with him (before the internet took over).
He was also in the original Ken Burns baseball movie and the 10th inning sequel (in which he said that Clemens was the greatest pitcher of all time, FWIW).
 

charlieoscar

Member
Sep 28, 2014
1,339
He was also in the original Ken Burns baseball movie and the 10th inning sequel (in which he said that Clemens was the greatest pitcher of all time, FWIW).
I'd forgotten about Burns's work but the 10th Inning sequel was released in September 2010, so it was probably made in 2009-10. The bar was lower back then, FWIW.