Curt Schilling Comes up Short But Statistics Lie!

Curt Schilling pitched a beauty under the Oakland sun today, but why has the media become inveterate liars?

I admit it. I am a CPA and numerologist and all that. I even teach my students to use mental imagery to capture important numbers in their mind.

So why am I so down on the Schilling headline?

Because it is a lie.

Those who turned to ESPNEWS on Thursday afternoon, saw it under the BREAKING NEWS banner.

CURT SCHILLING LOSES NO HITTER AFTER 8.2 INNINGS

 

That is a bold faced lie.

Any CPA, mathematician or scientist will attest to that.

An inning is divided into 3 outs. 8.2 innings means 8 innings and 20% of the final inning. Does 20% equal 2 outs in the ninth inning? No! But that's how many outs Schilling retired in the 9^th.

In fact, more accurately, Schilling lost his no hitter after 8.67 innings (rounded).

But since ESPN and all media outlets believe Americans to be too dense to comprehend what the heck 8.67 would equate to, baseballs statisticians have universally considered 8.1 innings to mean 8 and 1/3. And 8.2 innings =8 innings and two outs in the 9^th or 8.2.

So now kids all over America are reading mathematical lies in the newspaper and once lies are printed in the paper, they tend to become accepted as truth.

Turn to the editorial page for proof of that.

I wonder if more than 10% of the nation's sports media would know that a third of an inning does not equal .1 or one tenth.

Would it be so difficult for the media to refer to a no hitter which falls one out short as they once did in baseball lore, as 8 and 2/3 innings?

Is it too much to ask for box stores to break out the fractional font?

Can't we return to the day when 8.2=8.2 and 8.666666=8.666666?

So I thank Curt Schilling for falling one out short of pitching a no hitter.

But you didn't lose the no no after 8.2.

You lost it after 8 2/3 or 8.666666.

Can we please get it right?