Who was the greatest home run hitter: Babe Ruth or Roger Maris? How does Mark McGwire compare? What professional football team won the most games in one season? Sports fans argue such questions and use data collected about players and teams to try to answer them.

Every sport from baseball to golf, from tennis to rodeo competitions keep statistics about individual and team performances. These statistics are used by coaches to help plan strategies, by team owners to match salaries with performance, and by fans who simply enjoy knowing about their favorite sports and players. Most statistics are either about players or teams. There are many different statistical measures used, but the most common ones are maxima and minima, rankings, averages, ratios, and percentages.

Maximum or Minimum

Perhaps the simplest of all statistics answers the question, "Who won the most competitions?" or "Who made the fewest...