----- Original Message -----

From: Sean Forman

To: baseball-databank@yahoogroups.com

Sent: 5/2/2008 7:30:16 AM

Subject: Re: [baseball-databank] zeros better than NULLs in pre-classification SF, SH columns?

They are zero because those players had zero AB's and therefore had to have zero SF.  In cases where AB > 0 we don't know how many SF they had.

sean

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 11:42 AM, mmc_cann <mmc_cann@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi,

Working mostly with MySQL type baseball-databank files, I haven't been
able to figure why sometimes SF's are zero and sometimes NULL in the
pre-1954 entries of the Batting table of the database.

Was about that time, 1954, that scoring rules changed? Sacrifice
Flys, and Sacrifice Hits, SF and SH, (since '54,) are excepted from
At-Bats, AB's... Prior they were included... Trans boundary counts
require different handling... I think it might be better to make the
"no entry default" a "0" i.e. a "zero" rather than a "NULL."

Ideas?

cactusmitch:)

--
Sean Forman
President, Sports Reference LLC
http://www.sports-reference.com/