Baseball, among all of the major sports, is the one most closely linked to statistics. There seems to be a stat for just about every circumstance one can imagine. Each year the game becomes more and more saturated with statistics.
The use of statistics in the greatest game of all is not new. The practice of keeping records of player achievements was started in the nineteenth century by Henry Chadwick. Based on his experience with cricket, Chadwick devised the predecessors to modern day statistics, including batting average, runs scored, and runs allowed. There is even a Dodger connection to the evolution of baseball statistics.