Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I noticed an error in the header to Chapter 12; that would be 6 games back and not 5.5. |
The half comes from not having played an equal number of games. GB is number of games back to get to a tie and is also the number of games the team behind needs to win and the team ahead needs to lose.. Given the data in chapter 12, the yanks would be ahead and not tied if they won 6 while the Sox lost 6 and the Sox would still be ahead if they lost 5 and the yanks won 5, hence, the 5 and a half.
example
Team a 63 25
Team B 62 25
Team B is 1/2 GB, Team B only needs to win one to tie while team A doesn't need to lose.
If it were
Team A 63 25
Team B 62 26
Team B is one GB, meaning team a loses one while team b wins one.
Call it a statistician quirk. I guess think of one game back as being one pair of games, one lost (the team in front) and one won (the team behind).