| No. 222 Vol. VII | January 16th, 1907 | Price TWOPENCE |
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EDITORIAL
A FORTNIGHT ago I joined issue with "Hazard," whose excellent weekly article on billiards is such an attractive feature of The Sporting Life, on the subject of Stevenson's average at the final session of his last game with Lovejoy at the Brompton Road Saloon. I am a great believer in hearing both sides of the case, and I therefore quote "Hazard's" reply to me, which appeared in The Sporting Life of January 7, at full length:—
A QUESTION OF AVERAGES
In last week's "World of Billiards," the Editor, in his leading article, has done me the honour of making a few comments on a passage of my usual weekly article in the "Sporting Life" of December 24 last. Writing on the wonderful performances of Stevenson when opposed to Lovejoy at Messrs. Cox and Yeman's, and with special reference to the wonderful average of 375 at the final session, I wrote: "No doubt many will question the correctness of the average of 375 on Saturday evening, and will probably argue that as Stevenson got his points in two innings, his average should be returned as 750." I went on to say that "had the same Performance been accomplished at any other stage of the match, it would have ranked as a 750 average, but the moment Stevenson arrived at 9,000, the game was at an end, and, therefore, his second innings was, to all intents and purposes, completed. Were this not so, we might have the spectacle of seeing Stevenson getting his 750 points at one visit, and returning an average of what? - 750?—no, but nothing!"
The Editor of the "World of Billiards" says of this: "In my opinion—and I have thought the matter over very carefully— 'Hazard' bases his argument on false premises." He then recites my remarks re completion of the game, etc., and says: "In this I think he is wrong; the game was completed, but Stevenson's innings was not," and he proceeds by taking the case of cricket, which he asserts to be parallel, and quotes the "not out" manner of reckoning cricket averages. He goes on to say that he "thinks 'Hazard' in error when he writes that were Stevenson to make his entire 750 points at one visit to the table, his average would be, not 750, but nothing." "I maintain that it would be 750, and again fall back on cricket for a like instance, he goes on to say. Then he winds up with the following: "According to 'Hazard,' were a man to play six innings for six times not out and make an aggregate of 50, his average be nothing." "This is not the case, however, and it would returned as fifty," is this authority's final sentence.
BILLIARD v. CRICKET AVERAGES.
I have quoted my friend at length; so that my comments on the strictures of the President of the Billiard Association, who is also the Editor of the "World of Billiards," may be the more clearly understood. I have yet to learn that you can strike an average without a divisible number. How, then, can six be divided by nothing—the cricket instance referred to—and if the average for six not-out innings be 50, would not seven innings (six not-outs) for the same aggregate still show an average of 50?
Again, billiards and cricket are hardly analogous. In billiards the game has a limit—5,000, 8,000, 9,000, or 18,000 up, as the case may be—but in cricket there is no such limit. There are no set number of runs to score—a batsman may score just as many or as few as the opposing side may allow him to make.
SELF-CONDEMNED!
But for my chief argument in reply to the Editorial remarks in question, I will rely on the"World of Billiards" itself. In their report of the Stevenson-Lovejoy match in the issue of December 27 appears the following:—"At the final session Stevenson gave a magnificent display, running to game in two completed innings, with the truly wonderful average of 749." The word "completed" is wrong or the figures are incorrect, Stevenson having only 750 points a session to score! Take another instance from the same issue, relating to the conclusion of the Diggle- Harverson tournament game:—
SATURDAY EVENING.
| Inns | Misses | Points | Avge | |
| Diggle | 7 | 1 | 665 | 95.00 |
| Harverson | 6 | 0 | 180 | 30.00 |
| Inns | Misses | Points | Avge |
| 6 | 1 | 665 | 110.83 |
The report correctly describes Diggle as having had seven innings, but the Editor goes out of his way to assert that I am in error when I adopt the same course in Stevenson's case. I hope I have sufficiently indicated where the error lies, and I may add that if I err—and I don't think I do—I err in good company, for all billiard experts attached to the sporting press are in the same "cock-boat" in reference to this particular question. I do not wish to make any unkind reference, but I must confess to a feeling of surprise that the head of the Billiard Association should display such a lack of knowledge regarding one of the most important matters in connection with our most fascinating indoor game.
LET me take the foregoing point by point. In the first place I might write that, supposing "Hazard" to be correct in his contention, Stevenson's average was not 375 as he states, but 374.5, as he had only 749 points to make during the final session, but I have no wish to be hypercritical, and we will let that pass.
"Hazard" then writes, "I have yet to learn that you can strike an average without a divisible number."
Let him ask anyone acquainted with the method of arriving at cricket averages, and he will learn that, in the supposititious case I quoted—that of a man who had played six not-out innings for an aggregate of fifty —the aggregate becomes the average, and the player in question is credited with an average of fifty. This average would not have been altered had he been out once in the six innings. This is something of an anomaly, I admit, but surely it would be far more ridiculous to maintain that the batsman had no average at all because he was never out during the season!!
Nor is "Hazard" very happy in his statement that billiards has a limit and cricket has none. It is quite certain that the player at the former game cannot continue to score when the requisite number of points is reached, but neither can the cricketer when the tenth wicket on his side falls.
"HAZARD'S" quotation from the report of the Stevenson-Lovejoy match, which appeared in THE WORLD OF BILLIARDS of December 26 last, is not quite ingenuous. He gives an extract from the report of the day's play, which ihe can scarcely suppose that I wrote, but entirely ignores the introduction, which I might presumably have written, and, as a matter of fact, did write. A sentence from this runs as follows:—"His (Stevenson's) most extraordinary performance was on Saturday evening, when he only went to the table twice, and, as he had only one completed innings, his average was one of 749." I fully admit to its being a piece of careless editing to allow two different statements to appear in the same account, but then I often have to contend against unusual difficulties. The whole of my Sunday is invariably devoted to work connected with this paper, but on Mondays, when proofs have to be corrected, and the paper goes to press, it constantly happens that my duties on The Sportsman compel me to be at a race meeting a hundred miles from London, and my work has to be delegated to a sub-editor.
THE matter of the averages appearing in THE WORLD OF BILLIARDS has always been left in the hands of a valued member of the staff in the person of Mr. Harry Young, and on talking it over with him, I find that he has always adopted the method advocated by "Hazard." In this instance, therefore, the latter has palpably scored off me, and I admit it freely. It is always a foolish proceeding to "swap horses in crossing a stream," and Mr. Young has shown me excellent reasons for continuing the present system until the end of this season. I may be in a minority of one in the matter, but I always have the courage of my opinions, and I still feel perfectly certain that the reckoning of an unfinished innings as an innings is altogether wrong, and very unfair to the player. In all probability, therefore, the averages will be calculated differently in this paper in the season of 1907-8.
THE following appears in "Hazard's" article of Monday last:—"The resignation of the Amateur Championship by Mr. E. C. Breed has caused little surprise among those acquainted with the inner workings of the Billiard Association. It is no secret that he was peremptorily requested by the president of the Association to resign." If "Hazard" had been one of those "acquainted with the inner workings of the Billiard Association," he would never have penned the foregoing sentence, and, for the sake of his own reputation as a reliable writer on billiards, it is a pity that he did not take the trouble to make sure of his facts before committing himself to a statement like the foregoing. He could easily have done so by writing either to me or to Mr. Breed. I need write no more on the matter beyond stating that it is absolutely untrue that I "peremptorily requested" Mr. Breed to resign the Amateur Championship.