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- Greetings from New Zealand. I am an avid RadioLab podcast listener and have been catching up on old podcasts, so my comments are about 2 years too late. I just listened this one, and I thought you might be interested in Australian cricketer Don Bradman. I know that Americans generally know nothing about cricket so maybe he won’t be of interest to you guys, but he was quite an amazing athlete. As my husband, the statistician said “He was a freak.” He meant that in a good way. Bradman was an outstanding batsman. In fact, he has the highest career batting average of any cricketer. To understand how amazing his average is, let me tell you first that the second highest ever batting average is 60.97. Bradman’s? 99.94.
Wikipedia’s article about Don Bradman explains well how impressive his batting average and his other batting statistics were in the cricket context as well as in a world sporting context. A statistician has analyzed stats from several outstanding athletes from different sports and has determined that Bradman’s batting average would translate into a baseball batting average of .392 (the record is .366) or points per game scored in basketball of 43.0 (the record is 30.1).
One more thing—Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly has a wonderful song about Don Bradman, simply titled “Bradman”.
Thanks for making such a wonderful radio program. I get totally sucked into every episode and my friends get tired of listening me recounting the most interesting bits.
