<P> In baseball, the batting average (BA) is defined by the number of hits divided by at bats . It is usually reported to three decimal places and pronounced as if it were multiplied by 1,000: a player with a batting average of . 300 is "batting three - hundred ." A point (or percentage point) is understood to be . 001 . If necessary to break ties, batting averages could be taken to more than three decimal places . </P> <P> Outfielder Ty Cobb, whose career ended in 1928, has the highest batting average in Major League Baseball (MLB) history . He batted . 366 over 24 seasons, mostly with the Detroit Tigers . In addition, he won a record 11 batting titles for leading the American League in BA over the course of an entire season . He batted over . 360 in 11 consecutive seasons from 1909 to 1919 . Rogers Hornsby has the second highest BA of all - time, at . 358 . He won seven batting titles in the National League (NL) and has the highest NL average in a single season since 1900, when he batted . 424 in 1924 . He batted over . 370 in six consecutive seasons . </P> <P> Shoeless Joe Jackson is the only other player to finish his career with a . 350 batting average . He batted . 356 over 13 seasons before he was permanently suspended from organized baseball in 1921 for his role in the Black Sox Scandal . Lefty O'Doul first came to the major leagues as a pitcher, but after developing a sore arm, he converted to an outfielder and won two batting titles . The fifth player on the list, and the last with at least a . 345 BA, is Ed Delahanty . Delahanty's career was cut short when he fell into the Niagara Falls and died during the 1903 season . </P>

Who has the highest batting average of all time in mlb