I think that the Sacrifice Fly is the stupidest scoring rule of any applied frequently. It should be eliminated and past data normalized to reflect consistency.
This article was written by John Schwartz
This article was published in 1981 Baseball Research Journal
The sacrifice fly was a part of major league baseball, off and on, for 36 of the 65 seasons before 1954, when it became, for the first time, a separate item in the official statistics. It has had a very checkered history and the reader may have trouble understanding or even following the various changes...
In 1939 the scoring sacrifice fly, exempting a batter from a time at bat when a runner scored after the putout on a fly ball, was restored to the game. This lasted for a single season.
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Joe DiMaggio .400 batting average lost in 1939 due to: eye infection, manager, himself? Tuesday, October 18, 2016
September 9, 1939 against the Washington Senators Joe DiMaggio had two singles and a double in four at bats (AB) bringing his batting average (BA) to .409. DiMaggio had 159 hits in 389 AB...
Sept. 9 was Yankee team game 133, including a seven inning tie ... The 1939 Yankees played 152 games, including the tie; the full schedule was 154 games.
DiMaggio had a really good chance to hit .400 for the 1939 season. But DiMaggio finished the season at .381, something that would haunt him for the rest of his life, especially when the younger Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, taking over the spotlight from DiMaggio and his 56 game hitting streak that ended in mid July 1941.____________________
Joe DiMaggio benefited in 1939 when he had 2 sacrifice bunts & 4 sacrifice flies. Back then they were lumped together in Sacrifice Hits (SH). One of the sacrifice bunts is questionable as the Yankees were ahead 12-0 in the 5th inning.
9.08 Sacrifices
Rule 9.08(a) Comment:
In determining whether the batter had been sacrificing his own chance of reaching first base for the purpose of advancing a runner, the Official Scorer shall give the batter the benefit of the doubt. The Official Scorer shall consider the totality of the circumstances of the at-bat, including the inning, the number of outs and the score.
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After 1939 Yankee game 133, had the extra 4 or 5 AB been added:
159/(389+4)=.40458015267
159/(389+5)=.40355329949
The Strange Story of the Sacrifice Fly
What did Ted Williams really hit in 1941?
by John Thorn Dec 12, 2019
I knew, from years of editing Total Baseball, that sacrifice flies were counted in 1908–1930 and in 1939 but inseparably from sacrifice hits; thus a batter who advanced a runner to any base while being retired himself would be spared an at bat. For purposes of his batting average his sacrifice would be chalked up as a non-event, like a walk...
For 1940–1953, however (as in the years 1931–1938) sacrifice flies were counted as outs, even though they registered as RBIs. Ever since 1954 sac flies were once again accounted in batting average as non-appearances (like walks) and as RBIs...
So that leaves us wondering about 1941 in particular, when Ted Williams hit .406 with no sacrifice bunts but an unknown number of sac flies...
It turns out that Williams had eight sacrifice flies in 1941 over seven games (in one game he had two). [See Addendum below.] Had these been counted as non-appearances, instead of outs, his season’s at bats would have been diminished from 456 to 448 — and his batting average would have been not .406 (0.40570175438) but instead .413 (0.41294642857).
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From event finder in baseball-reference.com:
Joe DiMaggio 4 sacrifice flies in 1939
Those 6 SH together in full detail this link. Here is a summary:
What the heck was DiMaggio doing bunting in the 5th inning with the Yankees ahead 12-0. He later hit two home runs off that pitcher:
Joe DiMaggio 2 (16, 2 off Nels Potter, 6th inn, 2 on, 2 outs; 8th inn, 0 on, 0 outs to LF).
It was the second game of a doubleheader:
The game went only 8 innings with no explanation in baseball-reference.com.
However: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1939/B08132PHA1939.htm
7 PM curfew ends game after 8th____________________
Maybe the Yankees wanted to get through the 5th inning quickly to make the game official. Bill Dickey batted after DiMaggio and singled to the pitcher advancing the runner to third. Maybe Dickey also bunted.
Oh, DiMaggio's final 1939 BA without and with SF added to AB:
176/462=.38095238095 Rounds up to .381.
176/(462+4)=.37768240343 Rounds up to .378.
.38095238095-.37768240343=.00326997752 BA 3.26 points lower.
More than I would have thought from only 4 SF, even with the low number of AB.
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