Baseball

One afternoon in May, 1982 I was watching on television as the New York Yankees hosted the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium. In the second inning Hal MacRae of the Royals came up to bat, and the announcer told us that he was batting .299. He got a hit, and when MacRae came up again in the 5th inning, I think, the announcer said he was now hitting .306.

At this point, my mathematical ears perked up. This was obviously enough information for me to compute how many hits MacRae had in how many at bats. If MacRae had H hits in B at bats before he came up in the second inning, then H/B = .299, and because he got a hit, (H + 1)/(B + 1) = .306.

All I had to do was clear of fractions and solve the two, now linear, simultaneous equations for B and H. Nothing to it.