Can Baseball Help Teach Kids Math?

Photo: Dr. Tart, at 8-years-old, practicing his “icy stare” for the upcoming baseball season.

Math matters

From about age ten, through high school, I was obsessed with baseball. I played little league and in junior high and high school. My friends and I collected baseball cards and played games in which we kept stats on players. I was a budding math geek and really enjoyed calculating batting averages, slugging percentages and such. A friend of mine didn’t think he was any good at math until I pointed out that he knew how to calculate an earned run average.

Batter up!

Baseball is great fun and good exercise. It also teaches kids how to be part of a team. It is also a good way to teach math. Today’s baseball statistics experts have taken things to a whole new level made famous in the book Money Ball. So if your kids play baseball or like to watch baseball, have them learn about the statistics involved. You can turn them into little mathematicians and they will be none the wiser.