Question

In Exercises 1–6, refer to the data below, which are total home game playing times (hours) for all Major League Baseball teams in a recent year (based on data from Baseball Prospectus).

236 237 238 239 241 241 242 245 245 245 246 247 247 248 248 249 250 250 250 251 252 252 253 253 258 258 258 260 262 264

Stemplot Use the total game playing times to create a stemplot. What does the stemplot reveal about the distribution of the data?

Short answer

The following stemplot is constructed:

The stemplot suggests that the data of playing times (in hours) is approximately normally distributed.

Step-by-step solution

Given information

Data are given on the number of hours played in Major League Baseball by a set of teams.

Define stemplot

A stem plot is a plot that shows the data values using stems and leaves.

It consists of rows that correspond to the different stems.

It describes the distribution of the data.

Construct the stem plot

The following steps are adopted to plot the stem plot for the given data:

• Arrange the playing hours in ascending order.
• Consider the hundreds and the tens part of the observations as the stems, and write all the unique values in successive rows.
• Consider the ones part of the observations as leaves.
• Arrange the stems on the left side of a vertical line and the leaves on the right side by writing the ones part of each observation on the right of each stem.
• Write the key of the plot.

The following stemplot is constructed:

Key: 24|1 represents 241 hours.

Interpret the stem plot

Observing the stemplot makes it clear that it is a bell shape as the frequencies are low initially, increase to attain a peak, and then decrease gradually.

Thus, the stemplot suggests that the distribution of the playing hours is approximately normal.