While we are very excited about our preliminary release of Negro League baseball games, there is an enormous amount of work left to do in order to give Negro League baseball its full and proper due. And we need your help to do it.
Retrosheet's goal is to eventually be able to find and computerize play-by-play accounts of as many Negro League baseball games as possible. Any leads to potential play-by-play accounts of such games - newspaper stories, scorecards, etc. - or potential leads for such accounts are welcome. Please send copies of any such accounts to Retrosheet's treasurer, Tom Thress, who is coordinating this project (tthress--ATsign--retrosheet.org). Retrosheet would be happy to reimburse parties for reasonable expenses which they may incur in acquiring and sharing such accounts.
In the absence of detailed play-by-play accounts, Retrosheet hopes to at least provide box score data for as many games as possible. In its work so far, Retrosheet has identified several games for which it has thus far been unable to find a box score. Any help in acquiring box scores for these games would be greatly appreciated. The list of such games is here and will be updated regularly.
In all cases, Retrosheet is interested in any games played between teams of major-league quality regardless of the formal league affiliations of said teams.
Retrosheet is in the process of collecting newspaper box scores and box score data for as many Negro League games as possible. Eventually, this is expected to total more than 20,000 games. As these games are acquired, it will be necessary to translate these data into Retrosheet files. Retrosheet has put together a spreadsheet designed to capture whatever game information is available which can then be translated into the appropriate Retrosheet file format. An example of the entry spreadsheet can be found here.
The basic game entry process would involve having Retrosheet share newspaper stories for one or more games. You would then fill out a game-file spreadsheet for each game with whatever information may be available and return it to Retrosheet for file conversion.
If you are interested in helping in this effort, please contact Retrosheet Treasurer, Tom Thress (tthress--ATsign--retrosheet.org), who is leading this project.
The primary source of game data for Retrosheet is newspaper stories. While mainstream newspapers occasionally provided limited coverage of some Negro League games, the most significant coverage for most of these games was through the African-American press. Unfortunately, many of these newspapers are not readily available online.
Retrosheet would like to compile a team of volunteers with access to African-American (and other) newspapers of the pre-integration time period to collect as many newspaper accounts of Negro League and interracial baseball games as possible. A partial list of African-American newspapers can be found here. If you have access to any of these newspapers and/or would be willing to help in this collection effort, please let us know.
Finally, Retrosheet is an all-volunteer organization which is funded entirely by donations. While Retrosheet has been doing extremely well financially in recent years, there are some additional expenses associated with this project, including, for example, some newspaper accounts which are not readily available except through subscription services. See here for details on making donations to Retrosheet. Retrosheet is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization so that donations to Retrosheet are fully tax-deductible to the extent permitted by the tax code as it applies to each individual's circumstances.
If you are interested in helping on this project in any way, please contact Tom Thress (tthress--ATsign--retrosheet.org).
Thank you very much! We hope you enjoy the data here and with your help, we look forward to adding more data over time.
Tom Thress
Retrosheet Treasurer
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Page Updated: 10/5/2021
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