Biographical Information

Download biofile.csv

The file, biofile.csv, contains biographical information for every person who has played, managed, coached or umpired in the major leagues, including the Negro Leagues. Data here have been updated through the 2023 season.

Each person has 33 items of information:
1.	Retrosheet ID
2.	Last Name
3.	First Name
4.	Use Name (How he was referred to in the news media)
5.	Birth Date
6.	Birth City
7.	Birth State
8.	Birth Country
9.	Debut Date as Player
10.	Date of Last Game as Player
11.	Debut Date as Manager
12.	Date of Last Game as Manager
13.	Debut Date as Coach
14.	Date of Last Game as Coach
15.	Debut Date as Umpire
16.	Date of Last Game as Umpire
17.	Death Date
18.	Death City
19.	Death State
20.	Death Country
21.	Bat
22.	Throw
23.	Height
24.	Weight
25.	Cemetery
26.	Cemetery City
27.	Cemetery State
28.	Cemetery Country
29.	Cemetery Note (A variety here such as exact grave location)
30.	Birth Name
31.	Name Change (Not used)
32.	Bat Change (Not used)
33.	HOF (Hall-of-Famers are denoted HOF; all others are blank)

The information in this file was compiled by many people over decades including David Vincent, David Smith and major contributions from the SABR Biographical Committee chaired by Bill Carle. This file is very much a work in progress and new items routinely come to our attention and appear on the Retrosheet website on each individual's personal page.

The information for Negro Leaguers, in particular, is quite sparse in many cases (e.g., we do not know the first names of many - perhaps most - Negro League umpires). First and last game dates (information fields 9 - 16) are blank for players and umpires who only participated in the Negro Leagues. These fields will be filled in as we fill out our collection of Negro League games.

In addition to biofile.csv, the zip file at the link below contains three additional files:

• biofile0.csv contains the same information at biofile but is more compatible with Excel. In particular, all dates are specified via the format yyyymmdd
• relatives.csv identifies known family relationships between people contained in Retrosheet's biofile.
• coaches.csv lists coaches by team-season as compiled by Retrosheet volunteers. This file contains coaches but does not include managers.

Download biofiles

If you find any new information or have corrections, please send supporting evidence to "tthress-ATsign-retrosheet.org".