Baseball Statistics 2012 Edition ($2.99 for Latest Stats)

Consider Baseball Statistics 2012 Edition a dream app for a passionate baseball fan. One of the things that makes baseball such a great game is the statistics that have defined the sport since, well, the 19th century. (We won’t add a steroids comment — oops, just did.) Baseball Statistics from Bulbous Ventures puts all those stats at your fingertips, so you can settle barroom bets or just relive memories of favorite ballplayers from when you were a kid.

The app has easily accessible yearly stats for every Major League player and team since 1871 — nope, we weren’t around — from batting, fielding, and pitching statistics to team wins, losses, and attendance. As of this writing, the stats go through the 2011 season — heck, none of the 2012 pennant winners have been declared yet.

If a player has a Wikipedia entry, you can tap a button to see it. A baseball card feature displays a player’s career stats, as if it were the back of a baseball card, when you rotate the iPhone to its side. We only wish we also could get a front baseball-card view with a picture of a uniform-clad player, but we’re quibbling.

Poking around is fun. We found stats for outfielder Cherokee Fisher of the 1872 Baltimore Canaries. (Check out Figure 18-9 for evidence that the Canaries existed.) And to help decide one of those classic “who-was-better” debates, we compared Mickey Mantle’s career stats to Willie Mays’s.

Ed, a passionate New York Mets junkie, would gladly spring for the $2.99 tab, required for the latest (2011 at press time) season’s statistics. Heck, that sum would have bought an awfully good seat at the ballpark when Tom Seaver was pitching brilliantly for the 1969 Miracle Mets. His stats from that season are shown in Figure 18-10.