Ted Thorndike is trying to close a sale with the Alvindale Chipmunks, a minor-league professional baseball team. Although his grandfather isn’t very thrilled about any kind of deal with somebody with a name like “Chipmunks,” Ted feels this could mark the beginning of some really high-level business with professional baseball teams, all the way up to the majors.
The Chipmunks, who are relatively high tech for a minor-league team, have been using a Thorndike competitor’s automatic pitching machine for batting practice and are looking for a replacement. The problem is that the machine is very erratic. Although it has not “beaned” any players yet, they are concerned about the amount of vertical variability it exhibits in its pitches. Tom Johnson, principal owner of the Chipmunks, did a study in which he set up a target at home plate, then measured the heights at which the balls hit the target.
1. Given Mr. Johnson’s decision rule, is this a two-tail or a one-tail hypothesis test? What are the null and alternative hypotheses?
2. When Mr. Johnson has completed his analysis of the data represented by the pitches in the test session, will he sign Thorndike’s Rapid Robot as a mechanical member of the Chipmunks?