Editing On-base plus slugging (section)

==History==
On-base plus slugging was first popularized in 1984 by [[John Thorn]] and [[Pete Palmer]]'s book, ''[[The Hidden Game of Baseball]]''.<ref>John Thorn and Pete Palmer, ''The Hidden Game of Baseball,'' pp. 69-70.</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'' then began carrying the leaders in this statistic in its weekly "By the Numbers" box, a feature that continued for four years. Baseball journalist [[Peter Gammons]] used and evangelized the statistic, and other writers and broadcasters picked it up. The popularity of OPS gradually spread, and by 2004 it began appearing on [[Topps]] baseball cards.<ref>[[Alan Schwarz]], ''The Numbers Game,'' pp. 165, 233.</ref>

OPS was formerly sometimes known as ''production''. For instance, ''production'' was included in early versions of Thorn's ''[[Total Baseball]]'' encyclopedia, and in the ''[[Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball]]'' game. This term has fallen out of use.

OPS gained popularity because of the availability of its components, OBP and SLG, and that team OPS correlates well with team runs scored.