Hitting a baseball not hardest feat in sports
by Bryce Martin

"Hitting a baseball is the single hardest thing to do in sports."


You have heard that axiom. We all have. Taken literally - and I do not know how else to take it -- the statement has never made sense to me. If you have an official at bat in baseball, which excludes walks, sacrifices and the like, that means you hit the ball into fair territory and it is live. When you hit a baseball, these things happen: a base hit, flyout, groundout, or an error in the field (which counts as a time at bat but not as a base hit). You can also strike out. But even those who strike out more than others also hit the ball and put it in play more often than they strike out. If you were to bat 600 times in one baseball year and strike out 100 of those times, that means the other 500 times you either connected bat to ball for a flyout, groundout, base hit, or reached base on error, but you hit it. That is difficult?

Hitting a baseball, and hitting a baseball for a base hit are two different things. I've heard it expressed, and so have you, that you only have to hit the baseball three out of ten times to be considered successful. That's because that would be a .300 batting average and .300 is considered the benchmark for a good hitter. Nevermind that the other seven times fielders had to make Brooks Robinson-like circus plays to get you out.

The old bromide would be more accurate stated something like this: "Hitting a baseball for a base hit is the single hardest thing to do in sports."

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