Difference between baseball at bat rather than Official at bat?

Answer 1

There are 'at bats' and 'plate appearances'. A plate appearance is considered an official at bat. At bats are used in determining a player's batting average. Bases on balls, sacrifices, hit by pitch, sacrifice flies, and catcher's interference do not count as an at bat but they do count as a plate appearance. This is because, if an at bat were credited for a base on balls, hit by pitch, etc., the player's batting average would go down each time they drew a walk or got hit by a pitch and this, obviously, would be unfair.