I was watching today’s highlights of the Orioles beating up on the Red Sox (again! – why do the Birds save their best game for Boston every time?), and i saw that Baltimore second base David Newhan got four hits to take his season average to .430.
Newhan has played 30 games since being called up from the minors. The O’s have 70 games left. What i want to know is, if he continues to stay above .400, and if he plays the rest of the season (with maybe a game or two rest), will he be considered the first person since Ted Williams to have a .400 season?
Sorry if this is a rather remedial question, but while my three years in the US have taught me a fair bit about baseball, there’s plenty of arcane stuff that i still need to pick up.
Nitpick: It’s 3.2 plate appearances per game played. It could be a number different than 502 if they play an extra game due to a tie at the end of the season or miss a game or two because of weather cancelled games that were not made up.
The rule specifies “scheduled game,” so a rescheduled game does not affect anything.
In addition, a player can qualify for the batting championship even if he does not enough plate appearances. If the player doesn’t have enough PAs, you add the number of ABs required to qualify and use the resulting number.
For instance, Joe Hardy gets only 200 at bats, but has 200 hits. His official batting average would be 200 (hits)/ 502 (# of ABs to qualify): .398
Since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, the most plate appearances any batter has had in a season he hit over .400 was Bob Hazle’s 155 plate appearances in 1957. He batted .403