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Branch Rickey, a baseball executive just eight years removed from signing Jackie Robinson, called it "the most constructive thing to come into baseball in my memory."

Fifty years ago this week, a 10-page spread in Life magazine, then the nation's most widely read periodical, introduced America to the science of baseball statistics. Readers opened their Aug. 2, 1954, issue to a sprawling feature titled "Goodby to Some Old Baseball Ideas," with Rickey standing professorially at a faux blackboard, pointing at his heretofore secret equation, which, he wrote, "reveals some new and startling truths about the nature of the game."

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That vertiginous equation was as alarming as it was befuddling to an audience quite content with batting average, thank you. But as preposterous as it still appears on its face, the formula, and the long article Rickey wrote to explain it, actually used concepts that some modern major league clubs are still learning to appreciate.

Getting his first look at the equation last month, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said: "Wow! The guy was generations ahead of his time."

The formula is easier to parse than it looks at first glance. It assesses a team's overall strength by noting the difference between its offense (the first half of the equation) and its pitching and defense (the second half). The first group of terms, upon closer inspection, are shockingly similar to methods used today.

The first term is what we now call on-base percentage. The second, which Rickey called isolated power, is a modification of slugging percentage. The third measures how often runners score per time they reach base. Batting average is nowhere to be found. So, as baseball traditionalists cringe at today's most popular "new" metric among the stat-inclined - on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) - its roots stretch back to Branch Rickey.

The second half of the equation evaluated pitching by opponents' batting average, walk percentage and more esoteric devices. But Rickey spent most of his (undoubtedly ghost-written) article trying to wean readers off rating hitters by tried-and-true batting averages and runs batted in.

"If the baseball world is to accept this new system of analyzing the game - and eventually it will - it must first give up preconceived ideas," wrote Rickey, at the time the top executive of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He continued, "Two measurable factors - on-base average and power - gauge the overall offensive worth of an individual."

Chances are that the formula did not originate with Rickey but with his right-hand statistics man, Allan Roth. (Yes, although traditionalists shudder at how modern major league teams are hiring stat gurus, Rickey did so as early as the 1930's while running the St. Louis Browns.) Roth, hired in 1947 by Rickey while he ran the Brooklyn Dodgers, sat in the stands and kept his own specialized statistics: performance against left-handed and right-handed pitchers, with runners on base, by ball-strike count and more - all to discover any edge Brooklyn could exploit.

"Baseball is a game of percentages," said Roth, a Montreal native who went on to a long career figuring numbers for NBC's "Game of the Week." "I try to find the right percentage."

As for the formula that later appeared in Life, it did little within the baseball industry but underscore Rickey's considerable ego. (He was known for his many maxims - including "Luck is the residue of design" - but another might as well have been, "Don't let anyone guess how smart you are when you can simply inform them.")

The longtime journalist Leonard Koppett, then a young writer for The New York Herald Tribune, told me not long before his death last summer: "Ah, the famous equation. There was no response. No one followed it."

But for some other readers of Life, the 10-page spread introduced them to a new way of looking at baseball. Most of them were young, mathematically inclined boys who had played in the sandbox of baseball statistics and welcomed the idea of something more sophisticated.

One of those was an incoming Duke University senior named Tal Smith. He had suspected that batting average was overrated and that other contributions, like walks and extra-base hits, were more valuable. Reading Rickey was a revelation.

"I'd never seen anyone refer to the game in this way; it had always been romanticized, not analyzed," Smith recalled. "I devoured it. It was an advanced course in a subject I was already interested in."

Smith later began his career in baseball front offices and soon became a pioneer in the use of statistics, particularly in salary arbitration cases. He is now president of the Houston Astros. As with so many revolutions, the open-minded youth of one generation became the decision makers of the next.

Rickey suspected as much as he preached from his pulpit in Life. He didn't expect his stodgy industry to follow his lead, but he foresaw the day when what we now call OPS would move from cult to currency.

"They will accept this new interpretation of baseball statistics eventually," Rickey concluded. "They are bound to."

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MEDIOCRITY is nothing to get excited about, but if mediocrity in baseball is a .500 won-lost record, several teams should gladly label themselves mediocre.

Given their level of achievement last season and in preceding seasons, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and the Mets should be ecstatic to reach .500.

Some of those teams will be delighted to finish the season with as many victories as losses. Others will be disappointed if they finish at .500 because they have reached that mark and gone beyond it, some slipping back under the mediocre level.

"We've hovered there so much this year," said Mark Shapiro, general manager of the surprising Cleveland Indians. "To be a contender, we have to stay above .500."

The Indians entered Saturday's game in Kansas City with a 53-50 record and visions of joining the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox in the race for the American League Central championship.

Maybe Shapiro was distracted the other day - his wife was due to deliver their second child at any minute - but he expressed confidence that not only could the Indians finish above .500, but that they could also finish in first place.

"I do believe it," Shapiro said of the team that has scored the most runs in the major leagues. "We've maintained a consistent level of play. I recognize that five and a half games is a significant distance at this time of year, but we play the Twins a lot. I don't think it's unattainable. The thing that gives me the greatest confidence is the players' confidence and belief in themselves."

The players who give the Indians the most confidence are catcher Victor Martinez and designated hitter Travis Hafner, who between them have only three years of major league service.

Martinez and Hafner had each hit a team-leading 17 home runs. Martinez leads with 79 runs batted in to 77 for Hafner, while Hafner led with a .325 batting average to .305 for Martinez.

"Martinez did not catch us by surprise," Shapiro said. "He struggled initially at every level he went to and eventually made the adjustment. He also has established himself as a very good defensive catcher and a leader on our team."

Hafner, Shapiro said, has been a consistent run producer. "He's improved against left-hand pitching," the general manager said. "He has an even-keel approach to the game."

Cincinnati and Milwaukee have squandered their chances to contend in the National League Central, and the Mets are turning into pumpkins before our very eyes. The Pirates, the Devil Rays and the Tigers never had a chance for division glory.

But the Devil Rays, who have never won more than 69 games in a season and won 63 last year, won 30 of 40 games in the best stretch of their seven-year history and had a 40-38 record July 3. They proceeded to lose 15 of their next 20 games.

The Pirates, with 11 consecutive losing seasons, reeled off 21 victories in 28 games, winning 10 in a row along the way, and stood only two games from .500 last week.

"If someone had told me at this point in the season we'd be 48-50 and have a chance to get to .500 or over, I'd have kissed them," Manager Lloyd McClendon said.

But then the Pirates lost two games to hot Atlanta, 1-0 and 3-2. Nevertheless, the Pirates have been a surprising team recently. One of the key ingredients in their improvement has been Sean Burnett, a 21-year-old left-handed rookie pitcher.

"We seemed to start to turn the corner when we put this young man in the rotation," McClendon said, referring to a move he made six weeks ago. "He had an outstanding game against Roger Clemens, and from that point our pitching took off."

The Tigers, who won only 43 games last season, also played their way to two games from .500 (37-39) on the last day of June. When they surpassed their 2003 victory total, they were only three games from .500. They have been backsliding ever since.

"For us it would be a sense of accomplishment," Dave Dombrowski, the Tigers' chief executive, said of .500. "It's the next plateau for you when you're in our situation and you're trying to build toward a championship."

The Reds had been over .500 virtually the entire season (34-22 was their best record), but then they lost eight in a row going into the weekend and slipped under .500.

The Brewers, like the Pirates, have played the past 11 seasons with losing records. They were over .500 this season until last week and now have to try to fight their way back to that.

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"We were seven games above at one point," General Manager Doug Melvin said. "I'd be disappointed if we didn't get back to that. If someone told me our pitching was going to be fourth in the league, I would have said we'd be 10 games over .500. But we can't get hits. It's been unbelievable."

The Mets stunningly joined three other teams in the N.L. East race after winning only 66 games last season. They were at or over .500 for 17 days in July but have since stumbled and dropped under the line of mediocrity.

General Manager Jim Duquette praised the improvement, but then said: "But you're still mediocre. You don't want to be mediocre in sports. I don't know if in this market .500 is ever acceptable. But the bottom line is, if you're in first place and you're .500, you'll take it."

No team is likely to win a division title with a .500 record, though the 1973 pennant-winning Mets came close (82-79).

Public Tribute for a Private Man

Maybe it's his lifestyle of shying away from public attention, but 28 years after he retired, Sandy Koufax remains one of the most popular former players.

Looking nowhere near 68 years old, Koufax was easily the most heartily received of the record 50 Hall of Famers who attended last Sunday's induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Told that fans wanted him to be more public, the former pitcher said, "I'm public in a private way."

Reflecting on a Double Anniversary

Larry Lucchino, president of the Boston Red Sox, would rather not share the anniversary with another baseball figure, but he had no control over his entry into baseball or Thurman Munson's death. Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of each.

"Aug. 2 was the day Ed Williams acquired the Orioles," said Lucchino, who worked for Williams's Washington law firm. "I was up there for the contract execution. We drove back to Washington and we heard on the radio that Thurman Munson died. That event is tied into the event for me."

In his 25-year baseball career, Lucchino has operated the Orioles, the San Diego Padres and the Red Sox. "I owe my presence in baseball to Edward Bennett Williams," Lucchino said.

Lucchino initially handled Washington Redskins matters for Williams, then began working with the Orioles. "I did both football and baseball for seven years," he said, "until he sold his interest in the Redskins in 1985. Then I worked exclusively with the Orioles."

Barely two months after Williams bought the team, the Orioles played the Pirates in the World Series.

"I had been a Pirate fan all my life," Lucchino, a Pittsburgh native, said. "That World Series was my first crisis of conscience in professional sports. I went back to Pittsburgh and made a series of small wagers with family and friends. My parents couldn't believe that it took me 30 days to change my lifelong allegiance to the Pirates to the Orioles. But I'm still paying off on lunches for losing that Series."

In May 1988 Williams named Lucchino president of the team. "I like to remind people that was after the 0-21 start," Lucchino quickly noted.

When he appointed Lucchino, Williams told him to spend two weeks studying the team and report back. "I came back," he recalled, "and said we need a fresh new start. We have to talk about a new look for the team. We have to make a decision immediately." Lucchino was talking about new uniforms.

"Rome is burning," Lucchino said Williams responded, "and you want to change the caps."

Expos' Home Still in Doubt

Contrary to widespread expectations, Washington-area fans and officials are presumably in for a major disappointment by not getting the Montreal Expos for next season or any season.

As noted here last week, Commissioner Bud Selig told Peter Angelos, the Baltimore owner, who opposes the Expos' relocation in what he considers Orioles territory, that he would not do anything with the Expos that made Angelos unhappy.

Selig made that statement directly to Angelos in Houston on the day of the All-Star Game, and he repeated it later that day in a meeting with baseball's bankers.

Some baseball people speculated that Selig would put the team in Washington or northern Virginia anyway and make Angelos happy by giving him a large sum of money from the Expos sale. But Angelos shot down that idea.

"The answer is no," he said when asked if money would do the trick. "You don't destroy a franchise in return for some kind of cash payment."

Remaining candidates for the Expos are the Norfolk area of southeastern Virginia, which Angelos doesn't oppose; Portland, Ore.; San Antonio; Las Vegas; and Monterrey, Mexico