A seemingly intrinsic part of the game of baseball is the keeping of statistics on the achievements of the players. Started by Henry Chadwick in the 19th century who devised the concept of batting average based on his experience of cricket. Commonly used statistics are explained here:
... in the British Museum. The
Bullingen collection, donated to the city of Cologne in
1838, contained at the time 400 different editions.
De Backer (Essai, ut inf.) ...