Retrosheet's May 2021 Negro League Baseball Release

On May 28, 2021, Retrosheet released its second set of Negro League games.

What's New

But first, with this release, Retrosheet has also significantly increased the number of volunteers that deserve thanks for their contributions to this project. Volunteers who have helped with this project include, but are not necessarily limited to, Javier Anderson, Mark Aubrey, Mike Cantor, Mike Grahek, Dave Lamoureaux, Mark Pankin, David Roher, Dave Smith, Stuart Shiffman, Tom Stillman, Tom Thress, Wayne Townsend, Neal Williams, and Mark Williamson. Thank you all. And my apologies if I have inadvertently omitted anyone.

As for the updates to the games themselves with this release.

• Negro League All-Star Games
Retrosheet has added box scores for seven additional All-Star games including play-by-play for four of these games (all of which have been deduced from newspaper game stories and box scores). One of these games was a North-South All-Star game played in Memphis in 1938. The other six games were played in 1937 and 1938 between All-Star teams from the Negro National League and the newly-formed Negro American League.

The 1937 Negro National League team was comprised primarily of members of the NNL champion Homestead Grays (and was generally referred to as the Homestead Grays in newspaper accounts of the time) while the NAL team was composed primarily of members of the Chicago American Giants and Kansas City Monarchs.

We also found a newspaper play-by-play account for one East-West All-Star game which had previously been deduced.

Overall, we have box scores for 35 All-Star games. We have play-by-play accounts for 28 of these games with 14 of these play-by-play accounts having been deduced from newspaper game stories and box scores.

• Negro League Championship Series
Retrosheet has significantly expanded its section on Negro League Championship Series to include all known playoff series involving recognized "major league" Negro Leagues. Retrosheet has also added a 1930 series between the top two independent Eastern clubs that season, the Homestead Grays and the New York Lincoln Giants, as well as series between the 1930 Grays and the winners of the two halves of the 1930 Negro National League season, the Detroit Stars and St. Louis Stars. Retrosheet has also added box scores for a handful of exhibition games played by the participants in the Negro League World Series during their World Series in 1943, 1944, and 1945.

Overall, we have box scores for 210 Negro League playoff games. We have play-by-play accounts for 91 of these games with 37 of these play-by-play accounts having been deduced from newspaper game stories and box scores.

• Interracial Games
Retrosheet has extended our collection of games played between teams of major-league white and major-league black players back to 1925. The choice of 1925 as our starting date here (for now) was not accidental. Following the 1924 offseason, Commissioner Landis banned American and National League teams from barnstorming, so starting in 1925, the white teams involved in these games were all "All-Star" teams.

In addition to adding games for nine additional seasons (1925 - 1933), a handful of interracial games in seasons since 1933 have been added and play-by-play accounts have been deduced for all of the interracial games presented here for 1945, 1947, and 1948, most games in 1946 and a handful of games in other seasons.

Overall, we have box scores for 249 interracial games played between 1925 and 1948. We have play-by-play accounts for 79 of these games with 52 of these play-by-play accounts having been deduced from newspaper game stories and box scores.

Overall, including this release, Retrosheet has released box scores for 505 Negro League games (including eleven games which are available for download but do not really fit into one of the three sets of games released so far). Of these 505 games, Retrosheet has play-by-play data available for 209 games. Of the 209 games with play-by-play data, 103 of them have been deduced from box scores and newspaper game stories.

What's Next

Retrosheet will continue to work through interracial games one season at a time using the data provided by Todd Peterson as our primary guide. Retrosheet will also update Negro League All-Star and playoff games as new and better sources are found for games. Retrosheet will likely also continue to deduce play-by-play accounts for games for which newspaper game stories are sufficiently detailed.

But the focus of our work will now shift to the regular season and our subsequent releases of Negro League data will mirror our previous releases of American and National League data with the highlight of each new release being the release of one or more new seasons of data.

Historically, Retrosheet has tried to work through seasons beginning with the most recent season and working systematically back in time. For the Negro Leagues, the consensus of Negro League experts is that the 1948 season was the last season in which the Negro Leagues were major leagues.

Retrosheet's next Negro Leagues release, then, will be the 1948 regular seasons of the Negro American and Negro National Leagues.

The number of volunteers who have helped out so far has been extremely gratifying. But there is always room for more. Some of the specific details of our needs are outlined here.

If you are interested in helping on this project, please contact Tom Thress (tthress--ATsign--retrosheet.org).

Thank you very much! We hope you enjoy the data here and we look forward to adding more data over time.

Tom Thress
Retrosheet Treasurer

Back to Main Page for Negro League Baseball