Retrosheet's Second Semi-Annual Release of 2023

Retrosheet is pleased to announce its second semi-annual update of 2023. Major thanks go out to Joe Callahan and Tyler Ault for generating the "Games/People/Parks" portion of the website. I would also like to thank Rob Wood, Dave Smith, and David Roher for their significant efforts in helping to prepare the data presented here.

What's New in This Release

• 2023 season. Event files are now available for the 2023 regular and postseason. My thanks to Ted Turocy, Pete Palmer, Rob Wood, and Dave Smith for their help in compiling the new season.


• 1917 and 1918 AL and NL seasons. Event files, including some deduced files, are now available for all of the 1917 and 1918 seasons. Special thanks to Rob Wood for leading this effort and thanks to our team of deducers: Cliff Blau, Dick Cramer, Jim Herdman, Dave Smith, Wayne Townsend, and Rob Wood. Also thank you to Jim Wohlenhaus who helped reconstruct many 1918 Boston Red Sox games.


• 1912 AL and NL seasons. Event files are available for the first time for the 1912 season. Thanks to many years of effort by Mike Grahek, we have event files for all AL and NL games played in 1912. Many thanks to Mike and also to Rob Wood for his help in preparing this season.


• 1971 and 1972. Full play-by-play accounts have been discovered for the 10 games in 1971 and 1972 which were deduced games in our last release. These accounts have been incorporated here. With these upgrades, Retrosheet has event files for all major-league games from 1969 - 2023. Three games remain on our 'most wanted' list for 1971 for which we are still lacking fielding credits. We are also missing fielding credits for several games in 1970 and 1969 (as well as many such games in earlier seasons).


• Outside of the seasons described above, improvements have been made to the game accounts of approximately 778 games in previously-released seasons, through the discovery of new scorecards, new newspaper sources, and a growing number of radio and television accounts that are being made available online. These improvements include the addition of 58 new accounts (56 in 1913, 1 each in 1915 and 1916), the promotion of 57 deduced files to full event files between 1923 and 1967, the removal of 62 games from our 'most wanted' list between 1920 and 1967, and the addition of pitch data for 52 games (between 1956 and 1987). Special thanks to Wayne Townsend, Jay Wigley, Rob Wood, Bob Yahr, Bill Way, and others for their help in this work. A detailed description of these improvements can be found here (this list does not include the 1912, 1917, 1918, or 2023 seasons and may not be complete). The file detailing updates is included in the full download available on our home page and described below.


• Speaking of our 'most wanted' list, this list has been extended back to 1912. Going forward, our goal is to add new seasons to this list as we release them. If you are aware of a scoring account for any of the games on this list, please contact Tom Thress at tthress-ATsign-retrosheet.org.


• Ejections Database: Our ejections database has been updated to include 2023 ejections. In addition, some earlier ejections have been added and/or edited. Thanks to Rob Wood for maintaining this data for us.


• Data Downloads: Beginning with our June 2023 release, Retrosheet has introduced the option to download all of Retrosheet's data within a single zip file. The link to this zip file is available on our front page, as the last option from the "Downloads" menu, or here. This file is approximately 250 Mb. The data within the zip file take up approximately 1.2Gb of space unzipped. The data download zip file includes three new pieces of data: relatives.csv, coaches.csv, and annual rosters of umpires. The first of these identifies family relationships between people within our biofile (players, managers, coaches, umpires, including Negro Leaguers). The coaches file lists major-league coaches throughout major-league history. This file does not include managers. Finally, rosters of umpires are available by season that identify everyone known to have umpired one or more major-league games in any season (including Negro League games identified by Retrosheet).

• Using Retrosheet Data: Retrosheet has added one source to its page listing Resources for Using Retrosheet Data and two new sources to its page listing Websites Using Retrosheet Data. If any of you have or know of a website that you think should be added to either of these pages, please contact Tom Thress at tthress-ATsign-retrosheet.org.


• Ballpark firsts and lasts: We have added a list of MLB firsts at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City and updated our list of MLB firsts at London Stadium based on the MLB games played in these stadiums in 2023. We have also added additional first and lasts for several historical MLB stadiums. Thanks to Jim Herdman for compiling these data. We have also updated our page on Alternate Site games through 2023.


• Noteworthy Events and Achievements: Retrosheet has updated its lists of noteworthy events, achievements, and milestones to include data through 2023. These include lists of no-hitters, cycles, triple plays, suspended games, mid-game umpire changes, pitch-count mistakes, non-pitcher pitching appearances, and replay reviews, among other things.


• Retrosheet has also updated several additional pages to add and update historical data based on ongoing research. These include pages on batting out of turn, lost home runs, and courtesy runners.


• Going Out with a Bang: Retrosheet has added a new "noteworthy event" to its list. Bill Deane has compiled a list of players who homered in their final (regular-season) major-league at bat. Our thanks to Bill for sharing this list with us.


• Charlie Pavitt's Sabermetric Encyclopedia: Finally, Charlie Pavitt has updated his compilation of sabermetric books and articles. Our thanks to Charlie for sharing this with us.

Thank you to all of Retrosheet's volunteers. My apologies to any that I failed to identify by name. Retrosheet is always looking for more volunteers. If you would like to help us with any of this work, please reach out to me at the e-mail address below.

Tom Thress
Retrosheet President