The Retro Sheet
Official Publication of Retrosheet, Inc.
Note from Publisher and Editor
As many of our Retro-readers have noted, the publication of The Retro Sheet has fallen well behind the planned schedule. As you will see from the size of this issue, we certainly have plenty of material, but the realities of daily lives and responsibilities have unfortunately interfered with Retro-publication. For several years the newsletter has appeared quarterly, but it seems more realistic to modify that to be three issues per year. The first will come out in the spring and will include the details related to our annual meeting which we hold at the national SABR convention. The second will be a late summer edition featuring the report of our annual meeting and the third will come out at the end of the year. We urge our readers to make contributions as well so that we can maintain our new schedule.
Dave Smith & David Vincent
DS - On July 15, 2001, during the SABR convention in Milwaukee, the eighth annual meeting of Retrosheet was held in accordance with the bylaws. Four of the five directors were in attendance along with nearly 40 Retrofriends. Clem Comly was reelected to another three year term as a Director. During the reports, Dave Smith announced that stability had been reached with respect to our server and that many new details would soon be there, courtesy of Tom Ruane
DS - Retrosheet is in good financial health, with nearly $6000 on hand at the time of the annual meeting, as reported by Vice President-Treasurer Sherri Nichols. After the big fund-raising in 2000 to purchase the server, our most significant expense remains the monthly $99 to pay for the DSL connection so we can be on line. The five Board members are joined each year by Mark Pankin, our webmaster, in donating $120 apiece. That amount covers just over 60% of our annual cost so we need only a bit under $470 from other donors to meet the DSL obligation. All donations, no matter what the amount, are gratefully accepted. Remember that Retrosheet is a fully approved charitable organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service regulations, so that donations to the organization are tax deductible.
Retrosheet Web Site Explodes with New Features
The year 2001 saw two major advances for our web presence. The first was the solid establishment of our server under our control and operation. As was detailed here last time, this bold step was not without its trials and tribulations, but things have shaken out nicely over the last few months. Not only do we now have the stability and security we needed, but this independence has also allowed our second and most amazing accomplishment, namely the new features referred to in the title to this column.
If you haven't looked around www.retrosheet.org lately, then you are in for a real treat. Mark Pankin and Sean Lahman worked to redesign the site so that it has a more modern appearance with a more flexible style that makes future expansion much easier. This redesign was necessitated by the incredible contributions of Tom Ruane. Tom graciously donated for public posting the result of a huge number of hours of work, much of which is based directly on our event files. For the 1978-1990 seasons (plus the 1967 AL), you can obtain box scores, full play-by-play and all manner of situational splits for every player. For newer seasons, the situational data and play-by-play are absent, but the box scores are still there. In addition the full career totals of all players, regardless of year, can also be found.
Most visitors to our site will be overjoyed at the above information, especially those who are looking for one particular game, perhaps a fond childhood memory. However, Tom went even further and prepared a tremendous compilation of data on a game-by-game basis. These files contain up to 105 items of information, as detailed in the "Game Logs" section of the site. Of course, there is more available for some seasons than for others, but all games from 1900 to 2000 are listed along with the final score of each and for 1920-2000, we also present the starting and winning pitchers for each game.
Final server note: On Sunday, January 5, 2002, I installed a tracker/counter on the web site, since we never really knew how many people were visiting us. There were over 500 hits in the first 48 hours! It is a wonderful feeling to know that the RetroWord is getting out there.
DS - This vital activity continues on two main fronts: newspaper accounts and scored programs. Newspapers: At the present time, two of the most active volunteers in this area are Mike Grahek in Alaska and Bob Kistler in Boston. The following two passages are from e-mails these dedicated gentlemen sent to Dave Smith.
Mike Grahek: (also posted on the RetroList in March): “I'm finishing up a reel of 1908 New York Evening Telegram microfilm and, nearing mid-July, have managed to gather about 150 game accounts. Of course, this is an important season (I guess they all are, aren't they?) with epic pennant races and legendary misadventures--I can't wait to get to September!
"Just sitting in the library on my lunch hour today, I copied Cy Young's last no-hitter and a 10-inning no-no by Hooks Wiltse in the first game of a 4th of July double dip (take that, Dave Righetti!), which was only one game out of six complete I got for that day. It was a payday Friday and I still can't think of any place in town I'd rather have been.
"Besides game accounts, I read a small Blurb about manager McGraw stopping in Columbus, Ohio, to check out the Giants' recent $11,000 acquisition, Rube Marquard, about whom NYET said, 'There is nothing attractive about [him] except his size. He is a big chap, with a kink in his neck and a curl in one eye.' Nice! And on the same page, a note on seldom used utility man, Fred Merkle, who pulled up lame with a swollen foot which, within a few days, would be so bad that amputation was being considered. At the time, that probably didn't sound too appealing, but it might have saved him some grief down the road!"
Bob Kistler: "Hello,Dave: It has been a while since I updated you on my progress here in Boston so I thought I would e-mail you. I am hoping to send you a large package of games by the end of December if all goes well. I have found the following for 1908:
RED SOX-I have found complete accounts for every home game plus four road games including Cy Young's no-hitter in New York on 6-30-08
BRAVES-Complete accounts for every home game except one (one other game is missing a few fielding details)
"It was great to find so many complete accounts, but it also proved to be a tremendous undertaking. The game accounts are actually in chart form similar to a scorecard and contain no details. All details had to come from the newspaper stories and as you know there are many conflicts between the stories from one newspaper to another (sometimes I wonder if these sportswriters were at the same game). Anyway, I will explain what I have done with these accounts in more detail when I send you the package.
"These accounts continue into 1909 and I have started doing some work on that season, I also found some games for 1907, but every game is not there for that year so I will do 1909 (hopefully these go on for the entire season) and later go back and see what I can find for 1907.
"Obviously we are going to be in tremendous shape for 1908, and what a season to have such good coverage for! Note that we will end up with two separate accounts of Cy Young's last no-hitter. Experience with duplicate newspaper accounts such as these is that very often they are slightly different from each other, so on at least some occasions there was more than one version leaving the press box via Western Union ticker during the game."
Bob compiles his accounts from multiple sources and then compares them to box scores from The Sporting News to check details.
Both Mike and Bob have collected games from other seasons as well and many, many Retrothanks go to these two stalwarts. Retrosheet continues to benefit from the incredibly generous donation of time from selfless volunteers. Add to that list the name of Jim Herdman, who has done so much for the organization and recently sent in a spectacular collection of game accounts from 1919. His primary source was the New York Evening Telegram, but for each game he also copied the New York Times box score and game story, so we have excellent information. He also compiled a daily calendar for each New York team that indicates rainouts and other postponements. One of our long-term goals is to create complete records of games as they were scheduled to be played. What we have on the web site reflects what actually happened, but the differences between the two will be very important to a lot of people. Jim has given us a great start on this project.
Others have been active in getting game accounts this way, including Jim Weigand (Cleveland), Brad Sullivan (many years from both Cleveland and Pittsburgh), Bob Yahr (Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis), Dave Smith (New York, Chicago, St. Louis), and Bill McMahon (Chicago). There are still several thousand of these newspaper play by plays out there, waiting for a patient person or persons to gather them up. Anyone who is interested in helping in this vital way, please contact Dave Smith.
Programs: We have had a very good year in getting data from fans of days gone by. Several hundred scored programs were obtained from Jack Looney, who had collected them for his pet project of cataloguing uniform numbers for as many players as possible. We were able to help Jack with several dozen players because some of the scoresheets we got from teams have the number of each player in the margin. In return Jack sent copies of many of his along to us, a nice trade of special data. These games are still being catalogued by Board member Luke Kraemer, but we have definitely been helped with some games that will otherwise be very tough to get.
Jim Wohlenhaus and Luke Kraemer have teamed up in another way to get data from programs. Jim faithfully patrols eBay, looking for these to go up for auction. When he finds one that we need, he contacts the seller and tries to get a scan of the center page or else a photocopy to be mailed to us. Occasionally the image on the auction page is good enough to be downloaded as it is. In fact Jim downloaded 43 scans during the 2001 Super Bowl game! These games are then catalogued by Luke, although sometimes Luke is involved earlier in identifying the game before Jim goes after it. The response from sellers has been excellent. Not only have we gotten several dozen games but some of the sellers have generously made available to us images of other programs that had not been on the auction block. Thanks to Jim and Luke for their painstaking patience.
In addition to his great work on newspaper accounts over the past several years, Bob Yahr also attends memorabilia shows and has collected several programs that way. He recently snagged 22 games for the Astros, 10 from 1967 and 12 from 1969, all against either the Braves or Pirates. These have been really tough combinations for us for those years and these are very welcome additions.
During the Milwaukee SABR convention, Luke Kraemer, Clem Comly and Dave Smith drove to a Chicago suburb to visit AuSports, a memorabilia shop run by Eddie Gold and his family. They specialize in Chicago-related material and graciously allowed the Retro-invaders to set up shop in their back room and go through several file cabinets of programs (while the SABR crowd was attending a game in Wrigley Field!). Some of the programs went back to the late 1940s, but most were more recent. About 50 games were turned up this way and Eddie's son allowed the scorecards to be removed across the street to a Kinko's where copies were made. Once again Retrosheet is the beneficiary of generosity from a perhaps surprising source.
At the beginning of Retrosheet's work, the biggest source for game accounts was scorebooks from the teams. We eventually received copies of books and scoresheets from all 26 of the teams that existed in 1983 and that avenue for getting games appeared to be closed. However, in the last few months we have been fortunate to obtain additional game accounts from the Reds. ESPN columnist Rob Neyer is a good Retro-friend and he got Dave Smith in touch with Brad Kullman in the Reds' public relations office. When Retrosheet volunteer Tom Eckel copied their books on our behalf several years ago, the public relations people told him that 1968 was the earliest season they had (although 1971 was missing completely). Ron Richards had talked to them earlier and had been told of a "deep storage" room in the stadium that was rarely visited and that might contain older scorebooks. After many conversations in 1993 and 1994, it appeared that there were no older books, although the PR director, Jon Braude, left the team before Tom was able to get a definitive answer. Back to the 21st century: Brad Kullman confirmed that older scorebooks for the Reds do exist! They cover games earlier than 1968, possibly back into the 1950s. The Reds have periodically shipped books to Dave Smith for copying since the summer, some are alternate versions to what they sent before (backups are always good) and some are "brand new" (in a Retro-sense). For example, the 1967 book they found allowed us to complete that season for the team, which was a very nice thing. Alas, they did not find anything for 1971 and we still need 20 games for the Big Red Machine of that season. At this writing, the shipping of books continues and an updated report will appear in a future issue. Thanks to Rob and Brad for their help. There is one other, fairly amusing story in all of this. Brad Kullman is a keen student of Reds history and is very anxious to help us get their data computerized. During a rain delay in August, Brad was on the team's radio broadcast as they killed some time waiting for the game to resume. He used part of his time to plug Retrosheet and ask fans to contact him and/or Retrosheet if they had old, scored programs, especially from 1971. It is great to get this kind of assistance from a team, but alas, no new games were found as a result.
The final item to mention under acquisitions is scorebooks kept by fans (occasionally by writers or announcers), usually the spiral-bound kind that MacGregor or other Sporting Good companies used to sell widely. These are also available sporadically on eBay and several have been obtained for the Retro-cause by Luke Kraemer and Ray Kerby. Ray specializes in Astros material and has helped us plug some very difficult holes with copies of his acquisitions.
Total Baseball says Birmingham started his ML playing career with Cleveland in 1906, became player-manager towards the end of 1912 (21-7 record). In 1913 Cleveland finished 3rd (86-66) but 8th (51-102) in 1914 and was 12-16 when Birmingham, at age 30, was fired (presumably as player-manager although he hadn't appeared in a 1915 game and played in only 29 games (with .128 average) in 1914). He never played or managed in Major Leagues again (was he blackballed for this lawsuit?).
There was an unusual situation in the White Sox game in Seattle against the Pilots on 4-13-1969 when the White Sox batted out of order. The Chicago Sun Times describes the event thus:
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The contest [which was a 12-7 Sox victory] could have produced an interesting rhubarb if the game had been close because Wood and Duane Josephson batted out of turn after entering the game together in the fourth. It actually was the fault of umpire John Flaherty.
"When I sent them in I told Flaherty I wanted them to bat in their regular positions -- Josey fifth where Pavletich had been and Wood ninth," [Sox manager Al] Lopez said.
"But because the ninth-place hitter was up first in the next inning, Flaherty assumed I wanted Josey to bat there and marked his card accordingly," Lopez added.
Wood then batted wrong in the fifth and Josey in the sixth, but Seattle manager Joe Schultz didn't protest because neither did any damage. By the seventh inning Lopez had them batting Flaherty's way. The umpire's card is the official one, regardless.
----
Joe Schultz missed an opportunity to help his team in this scenario. Here's the situation:
Woody Held, batting eighth, led off and reached second on Ray Oyler's error.
Wilbur Wood, batting FIFTH, sacrificed him to third.
Buddy Bradford, hitting lead-off, walked.
The important thing to realize here is that the batting out of order is an appeal play. Despite the fact that Wood hit out of order, the moment a pitch was thrown to Bradford the opportunity for appeal was lost and Wood became a legitimate hitter. Here's what the rulebook says (Rule 6.07 note):
"When a player bats out of turn, the proper batter is the player called out. If an improper batter bats and reaches base or is out and no appeal is made before a pitch to the next batter, or before any play or attempted play, that improper batter is considered to have batted in proper turn and establishes the order that is to follow."
In other words, Bradford was now hitting out of order! Appealing Bradford's walk should have accomplished two things: (a) it would have turned a walk into an out; and (b) it would have charged that out to Gail Hopkins, the "correct" (number six) hitter. The batter who would have followed the appeal would not have been the number two hitter (Aparicio), but the number seven hitter (Hansen).
So not only would Seattle have turned a walk into an out, but they would have bypassed the heart of the White Sox order.
This game ended the first weekend series at Seattle, where they reported being very disappointed in only drawing 33,364 for the three-game set. Pilots GM Marvin Milkes, in a sidebar, noted they were having trouble selling ads at "major-league" prices, but expressed hope that things would turn around, especially after moving into a "new domed stadium" in 1973.
Baltimore was in Seattle on Wednesday evening, May 28, 1969, to play the expansion Pilots. Righthander Jim Palmer was scheduled to pitch for the Orioles when Pilots manager Joe Schultz first filled out his lineup card, but when Earl Weaver switched to lefty Dave McNally shortly before the start of the game, Schultz made out a different lineup. Unfortunately, he posted the new one in the dugout while handing the old one to the umpires. Here were the two lineups:
Umpires' Copy Dugout Copy Harper, 2b Harper, 2b Hegan, rf Simpson, cf Davis, lf Comer, rf Mincher, 1b Davis, lf Comer, cf Gil, 3b Gil, 3b Hegan, 1b McNertney, c McNertney, c Oyler, ss Oyler, ss Marshall, p Marshall, pAlthough only one player was substituted (righty Simpson for lefty Mincher), the batting order had been juggled from the second to the sixth spot.
Earl Weaver noticed the problem in the first inning, but kept quiet about it until Tommy Davis hit an apparent two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the fifth. It would have cut the Orioles' lead to 9-4. Weaver immediately protested that Davis, hitting after Comer, had batted out of order. The umpires agreed, taking the two-runs off the scoreboard and changing the double into an inning-ending out (scored 2-unassisted).
So how do we unravel this mess? The first thing to realize is that the umpire's lineup is the only one that counts. So the starting lineup has Mincher hitting clean-up. This means that there is an implicit substitution (Simpson for Mincher) when Seattle took the field in the top of the first. It would have been even more interesting had there been two such substitutions, since there would have been an ambiguity about where the two new players would have hit. In that case, according to rule 3.03, the umpire-in-chief "shall have the authority to designate the substitutes' places in the batting order." In all likelihood, however, he would NOT have told the home team where he had placed them. Doing so would have alerted Seattle of their error, and this is prohibited by rule 6.07, which states:
"The umpire shall not direct the attention of any person to the presence in the batter's box of an improper batter. This rule is designed to require constant vigilance by the players and managers of both teams."
What is important to realize here is that this is an appeal play. And in the absence of an appeal, the incorrect batter's time at bat is legitimized. In the bottom of the first, for example, Simpson walked with one out. Had Comer followed with a two-run homer, Earl Weaver would not have had grounds for appeal. This seems strange, since Comer should have been hitting in the fifth slot and he was only the third batter of the game, but as soon as the first pitch was thrown to Comer, Simpson's walk counted. Since Simpson hit fourth, the correct batter to follow him would have been Comer. As a matter of fact, had Seattle noticed the error during Comer's at-bat and send up Davis to hit in his (apparently) proper place, they would have been INTRODUCING an error and the result of Davis' at-bat could have been successfully appealed.
Or could it? Did the umpires at the game that night understand the rules? First of all, here's what the rule book says:
"When a player bats out of turn, the proper batter is the player called out. If an improper batter bats and reaches base or is out and no appeal is made before a pitch to the next batter, or before any play or attempted play, that improper batter is considered to have batted in proper turn and establishes the order that is to follow."
So who got charged with the out when Davis doubled out of turn in the fifth? According to the article in The Sporting News on the game: "Simpson, who was supposed to have been the hitter when Davis doubled, was charged with a time at bat and the third out, because the proper hitter draws the penalty." But was Simpson the proper hitter? Since Comer had preceded Davis to the plate, and since the result of his turn at bat was not appealed, the "correct" batter should have been Gil. He, not Simpson, should have been charged with the at-bat.
The fact that Joe Schultz did not agree with this reasoning became apparent in the bottom of the next inning, when he led off with Wayne Comer instead of Gerry McNertney. Comer struck out, but it would have been interesting to see whether Weaver would have appealed a hit in this circumstance. He certainly could have.
None of this answers the question about how the umpires viewed the rule. They correctly upheld the appeal. During the discussion that followed, they could have erroneously instructed Schultz to send up Comer to start the sixth. Or they could have let Joe figure this out on his own. Had they known that McNertney and not Comer should have led off the next inning, they would been forced to keep quiet about yet another batting order mistake on the part of the Pilots. And since Joe Schultz and company correctly followed the batting order after Comer's strikeout, there would have been no basis for further appeals.
So who was officially charged with the out? Not Simpson. Not Gil. Tommy Davis. Go figure.
DS - Retrosheet volunteers have now recorded over a dozen instances of this most embarrassing and often confusing occurrence. In recent months, four more cases have come to light, one of which is probably the most confusing one yet. Here are the details of the four newly discovered cases.
On May 19, 1904 the Dodgers were playing in Chicago and Cubs pitcher Bob Wicker grounded to short to end the 2nd inning. This was so much fun for him that he also led off the 3rd and grounded to third base! Thanks to Cliff Blau for this one.
Wayne Townsend, whose work on the 1923 season is mentioned elsewhere in this issue, found the following in the game of August 9, 1923, Giants at Cardinals.
The 9th hitter in the lineup batted out of turn (Frank Snyder had pinch-hit for the pitcher earlier in the game and stayed in to play catcher, and the pitcher SHOULD have been in the 8th spot. But starting in the 11th, I'm guessing everyone forgot about it because Snyder led off when the 8th spot was due, and he was followed by Jack Scott, the pitcher. Things got more complicated because Snyder was then removed for a pinch-runner.
A quarter of a century later the Giants were visiting the Windy City for a doubleheader. In the first game the Giants had some lineup problems that would have done the Dodgers proud. From The New York Times:
"Dave Williams, who ran for Westrum in the seventh and replaced Stanky in the field, approached the plate swinging a couple of bats, only to be waved back to the bench. Yvars, who had replaced Westrum, was summoned and, wearing his shin guards, waited around the plate while Managers Durocher and Cavaretta went into a huddle with Umpire Lee Ballanfant. The fans were roaring a warning of the inaccuracy, apparently aware of the rule which says 'a substitute player shall bat in the replaced player's position in the team's batting order.' Yvars relieved the situation by striking out and ending the inning. Amazement gave way to curiosity as fans wondered what would happen in the ninth when Williams was scheduled to lead off at the top of the batting order. Durocher solved this problem by having Earl Rapp as lead-off man. Rapp struck out."
This means that, although Williams ran for the 8th place batter, the umpire allowed the Giants to proceed as though he had been magically transformed into the leadoff spot and Yvars was recognized as being in the 8th spot. So, this case is unusual because it has a clear umpire mistake in addition to the conventional confusion on the part of a player or manager (or both) that causes these things to happen.
See other instances of lineup problems in articles by Tom Ruane, Ted Turocy and David Vincent.
On 5-25-1923, The Cardinals were in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's Charlie "Lefty" Grimm singled to open the bottom of the 2nd. Johnny Rawlings, recently acquired in a trade from the Phillies, followed with a single to right. At this point, the Cardinals pointed out to Umpire Klem that both Grimm and Rawlings had batted out of turn. (The lineup handed to the umpires before the game showed Grimm following Rawlings.)
After listening to the Cards' plea, Klem ruled that Grimm be declared out, and that Rawlings was allowed to stay on first! The Pittsburgh Gazette-Times' reporter, Charles "Chilly" Doyle, was all over this:
"The rule covering the case stated that the transgression must be called to the attention of the umpire before the ball is delivered to the succeeding batsman. In the case at Forbes Field, Rawlings had batted before Grimm was called out. Skipper McKechnie notified Umpire Klem of his intention to protest the game, but fortunately, the Bucs precluded this move by winning in the interesting way." [The Pirates scored two in the bottom of the 9th to win, 2-1.]
In his daily column, Doyle continued, "To make the protest regular, the Cardinals should have entered it as soon as Grimm reached first. They waited, however, until Rawlings had batted before asking for a ruling. Nevertheless, if the matter had reached President Heydler, it is doubtful whether he would have allowed the protest, inasmuch as the rule might still have applied to Rawlings.
"If Grimm batted out of turn, then Rawlings did also. Two wrongs do not make a right, and by this reasoning the Cards could have made a stand on Rawlings and claimed at least one putout. That's what they got, but Grimm was the victim.
"Rule 51, covering the play, is as follows: Section 1. If he fails to take his position at the bat in the order in which his name appears on the batting list, unless the error be discovered and the proper batsman replace him before he becomes a baserunner, in which case, the balls and strikes must be counted in the 'time at bat' of the proper batsman. Provided, this rule shall not be enforced unless the out be declared before the ball be delivered to the succeeding batsman."
The ruling cost Grimm a hit. Doyle sympathized: "Lefty is having some swell breaks in his hitting. The official scorer stopped his streak in Boston [referring to a call made in the 9th inning of the game that ended Grimm's 25-game streak], and now they're using the rules as a wet blanket. Despite it all, Lefty is swatting around .400. And some of the boys used to pull that famous line, 'He'd be a sweet ballplayer if he could hit.'"
DS - On August 18, 1914, The New York Times had the following description of an event in the game between the Senators and Yankees in New York the day before:
In the first part of the ninth inning, catcher Nunamaker was hit on the head and rendered unconscious for a brief time by a ball thrown from the upper tier of the grandstand. The ball had gone into the stand on a foul and was being thrown back on the field. One of the spectators threw back swiftly. The crowd had been nagging umpire Connolly and it was reported that the ball was aimed for him. Nunamaker pluckily resumed playing after a brief rest.
Contributing: Greg Beston, Cliff Blau, Doug Burks, Clem Comly, Scott Fischthal, Dave Lamoureaux, Mark Pankin, Dave Smith and David Vincent
8-3-1909 BRO @ PIT - Forbes Field was only 4 weeks old when Ed Abbaticchio hit an inside the park home run to RF when the ball rolled to the "corner tank where horses dive."
5-4-1915 SLN @ PIT - After Cardinal 3Bman Beck singled, he started to steal second and the catcher's throw was wide of SS Wagner covering and Beck went to 3B. Beck was out on appeal for missing 2B!
5-9-1915 PIT @ CIN - There was a rare 31E3.B-1 when Schang's grounder to 1B clanged off Mollwitz's glove to pitcher Lear who was running to take the throw. Lear's toss, Schang, and Mollwitz all arrived at the bag and Mollwitz dropped throw.
5-13-1915 PIT @ CHN - The Pirates, down 5-1 after 3.5 innings, started stalling with 2 out and Cub pitcher Pearce up. Buc hurler Cooper started delivering the ball so high the catcher could barely catch it. After a couple of pitches, manager Bresnahan signaled Pearce to swing at anything which he did for a couple. Buc manager Clarke then came out to argue and HP ump Byron eventually ejected him. Cooper solved the problem of Pearce swinging at the pitches by throwing the next one at Pearce. Cooper again threw at Pearce who tried to swing at the pitch even as he dodged it and then threw his bat at Cooper. Byron called ball 4 and ejected Pearce. Cubs pinch runner Hippo Vaughn stole 2B and 3B (67% of his 1915 SB production). Vaughn was caught stealing home (slowing appreciably as he neared home) to end the inning. Pirate Costello was ejected for dilatory tactics despite the fact he wasn't in the game. Play was finally halted with 1 out in the home fifth when the umpires waited the customary 30 minutes then called game.
5-19-1915 PIT @ BS1 - With Carey on 1B, Baird flied to short right. Brave RF Moran caught the ball then dropped it on impact with 1Bman Schmidt; Carey beat Schmidt's throw to 3B and Baird went to 2B. But the umpire ruled Moran had held the ball long enough for a double play as Carey, standing on 3B, was called out for not tagging up. 9/FDP.1X3(935)
5-29-1915 SLN @ PIT - The umpires halted game 1 in 6th inning for rain, waited half an hour then called it as a 0-0 tie. Later the teams played game 2.
6-1-1915 CHN @ PIT - Cubbie Good was caught stealing second (851). The Pirate catcher threw the ball into CF when Good broke for second and Good beat CF Baird's throw to 3B but 3B Gerber threw the ball to P Adams at 2B who touched the bag and Good was declared out for not tagging 2B.
6-10-1915 BSN @ PIT - During the 2nd inning (which included a called strike 3), HP ump Orth ejected Evers (who wasn't in the game) from the bench for his remarks. The paper said the "crippled captain" took plenty of time to walk to the exit. In the home 6th after Carey was ruled out trying to steal 3B, base ump Byron ejected player Costello (who wasn't in the game) who was coaching 3B.
7-2-1915 PIT @ CHN - In the fifth, Cub pitcher George Pearce gave up back-to-back 2-out singles to Max Carey and Zip Collins. With Pearce holding the ball, Carey stole 3B. With Pearce still holding the ball, Collins broke for 2B. Pearce bluffed a throw, spun, and ran towards Carey who finally broke for home. Pearce's throw to the catcher hit Carey in the shoulder. HP umpire Bill Klem called Carey out for interference. In the bottom of the ninth with the score 1-1 and 2 out, the Cubs had runners on 1B and 2B, Bucs pitcher Bob Harmon was instructed to speed up play by Klem. Manager Clarke called from bench to take his time. Klem ejected Clarke for contradicting him. Harmon then gave up game ending single.
7-3-1915 PIT @ CHN (Gm 2) - In the fourth inning Honus Wagner ran to the Cubs bench to tag a runner he claimed had missed 3B on his way home. Klem refused to accept the appeal. Manager Clarke ran out for a heated exchange and was ejected.
9-3-1917 CIN @ PIT (G2) - In the bottom of the sixth, Bob Steele grounded to 2B for the third out, but didn't run it out. Hal Chase took the throw from Dave Shean, then apparently got cute and instead of touching the bag, tossed the ball to Tommy Griffith coming in from RF, who stepped on first for the putout (439).
5-14-1918 NY1 @ PIT - In the 5th, the Giants had runner on third with one out. Rodriguez grounded to the pitcher. Holke tried to score from 3B but was put out in a rundown, 1254.
5-24-1918 BSN @ PIT - The Pirates had 27 assists in the 9 inning game, 1 shy of record they had set 7 years earlier. Catcher Jimmy Archer had 7 assist, only 1 on a dropped third strike.
5-27-1918 BSN @ PIT - In the bottom of the first, the Pirates had Carey on third and Hinchman on first. They tried a double steal, but pitcher Nehf cut off catcher Wilson's throw, ran to the third base line and tagged out Carey, who apparently was frozen in his tracks. CSH(21)
6-23-1918 PIT @ CIN (G2) - In the bottom of the second with the game scoreless, Lena Blackburne, batting with two outs and a runner on second, popped a short fly into center. The Bucs' second baseman George Cutshaw went back on the ball and got his mitt on it, but it popped out of his glove. However, centerfielder Max Carey had raced in and was able to grab the ball before it fell, bringing the Cincinnati fans to their feet. The putout was scored 48/F.
6-24-1918 PIT @ CIN - The Pirates had the bases loaded with one out. Pete Schneider, pitching for the Reds, threw a wild pitch, allowing one run to score. But a bat boy touched the ball and it was ruled dead. When the ball was returned to the mound, Howdy Caton, who had started on 2B, tried to score from 3B, and was safe after he crashed into the catcher, Nick Allen, knocking the ball loose (and himself out for a few minutes.)
7-6-1918 BSN @ PIT - In the sixth, Braves pitcher Don Rudolph was ejected for sitting on the mound to protest an umpire's call. His relief, Hugh Canavan, pitched 2.2 innings and allowed 13 runs.
5-20-1919 PIT @ BSN - In the bottom of the sixth, there were Boston runners on 1B and 3B with one out. Walter Holke smacked a hot grounder to the box and Earl Hamilton tossed to his catcher, Jeff Sweeney. Sweeney chased Ray Powell back toward 3B and tagged him. Meanwhile, Joe Riggert tried to reach 3B but Sweeney leaped to the bag and also tagged Riggert for a double play. FC1/DP.3XH(12);1X3(2)
5-31-1919 CIN @ PIT - With Larry Kopf on 1B in the top of the sixth, Jake Daubert hit a grounder to 1Bman Fritz Mollwitz. Molly tagged Kopf and tossed to pitcher Earl Hamilton covering 1B for an unusual GDP. 3(1)1/GDP
6-11-1919 BRO @ PIT - In the bottom of the 8th, the Bucs had runners on 1B and 2B, with pitcher Babe Adams at 2B. Zeb Terry grounded to short and the throw to 2B was late trying to get Carson Bigbee. However, Adams was caught in between 2B and 3B for an unusual force. 64(2)/FO.1-2
5-1-1922 CHA @ DET - The Tigers scored a run in the second inning when Shovel Hodge, the Chicago pitcher, tossed the ball into the Detroit dugout without permission from umpire Evans. Harry Heilman was allowed to score from 3B.
7-1-1927 CIN @ PIT: With one out in the top of the eighth inning, Cincinnati had Dolf Luque on third and Chuck Dressen on second. Billy Zitzmann tapped to Pie Traynor, and Luque was run down between third and home. Dressen was also run down between third and home after Pittsburgh tried to retire Zitzmann between bases: FC5/DP.3XH(525);2XH(53436425)
7-18-1927 PIT @ PHI (Gm 2): Philadelphia used three pinch-hitters and a pinch-runner in the game, and all four were pitchers, In the seventh inning, Jack Scott batted for shortstop Jimmy Cooney and singled top drive in a run. Tony Kaufmann then ran for Scott. Clarence Mitchell then batted for pitcher Alex Ferguson and grounded into a force play. In the ninth, Les Sweetland batted for pitcher Claude Willoughby and drove in a run with a single to left. The lack of depth on the bench may have contributed to their 103 losses in 1927.
7-23-1927 PIT @ BSN (Gm 1): As the Braves were coming to bat in the bottom of the 8th inning, the game was stopped as the transatlantic fliers came on to the field behind a brass band. Aviators Hagenberger and Maitland gathered near home plate with the players from both clubs. Both aviators were given huge ovations by the crowd. Both fliers were presented with gold passes allowing them to see any game in the National League. Boston manager Dave Bancroft was introduced to the two fliers by Braves President Emil Fuchs. Then all rose for the playing of the National Anthem. The game was then resumed.
9-4-1927 PIT @ CIN: In the top of the 5th inning, Lloyd Waner's drive down the left field line bounced into the seats for a home run. Two batters later, brother Paul hit the ball to almost the exact same spot down the left field line for another bounce home run.
9-27-1927 PIT @ CHN: In the bottom of the 6th inning, as Carmen Hill of Pittsburgh delivered strike two to Charlie Grimm, one of his lenses fell to the ground. Hill picked up the broken glasses, and left the game.
7-17-1951 CHN @ NY1 - In the eighth inning with the Cubs ahead 5-0, Hal Jeffcoat of the Cubs stole 3rd and home on successive pitches to make the score 6-0 (the Cubs hung on to win 7-4). In the game story the next day, the New York Times noted the tension between Cubs manager Frankie Frisch and Giants skipper Leo Durocher since the June 15 trade of Andy Pafko from Chicago to Brooklyn. The story, by Louis Effrat, states clearly that Jeffcoat's two steals were ordered by Frisch, who presumably found the situation funnier than Durocher did.
5-25-1953 CHA @ SLA - The Browns used 23 players in the game, with 10 of them in the 9-hole in the order. They used 6 pitchers, 6 pinch hitters, 3 third basemen and 3 pinch runners and lost 7-5.
9-22-1974 CLE @ NYA - In the bottom of the sixth, Lou Piniella was on 1B with 2 out. Thurman Munson grounded to SS Frank Duffy who tossed to Angel Hermoso for the apparent force out. Umpire Jerry Neudecker gave a grandiose out sign. However, Neudecker noticed after that Hermoso had never caught the ball, a fact that was masked because the fielder's back was to the arbiter. Neudecker then signaled safe. After the game, Neudecker said: "But I can't coach Piniella. I can't tell him to get back on the bag. He didn't. Hermoso picked up the ball and walked over to Piniella and tagged him. I had to call Piniella out." The scoresheets and the box score in the next day's paper show Munson 0 for 2; however, the play was later changed to a hit.
7-31-1983 PIT @ NYN (Gm 2) and 8-3-1983 MON @ NYN - These two games ended with exactly the same set of plays in the last half inning. The first game went 12 innings. Here are the plays. Mookie Wilson singled and was sacrificed to 2B by Hubie Brooks. Keith Hernandez was walked intentionally. George Foster forced Hernandez (46 the first time and 64 the second time) as Wilson scored from 2B with the winning runs. There was one game in between, so these were not consecutive games.
We have three more to add to our collection, which can be found on the web site.
On 9-23-1901 Brooklyn played in Cincinnati. Sam Crawford tripled off of Jay Hughes in the eighth inning, but "pulled up lame" at third. According to the account in the Cincinnati Enquirer the next day, "the Brooklyns let Heinie Peitz score a run for him and then permitted the Nebraskan [Crawford, for anyone who doesn't know the whereabouts of Wahoo] to return and finish the game."
Then on 5-30-1904, the Giants were in Philadelphia. In the top of the sixth of the first game, Moose McCormick was injured running out a double so John McGraw ran for him but McCormick returned to CF in the bottom of the inning.
The Braves employed a courtesy runner on 6-2-1945 at Wrigley Field. In the second, Carden Gillenwater was hit on the face by a pitch from Paul Derringer. Butch Nieman ran for him, scoring a run. Bill Ramsey went to CF in the next half inning and Nieman pinch hit in the tenth inning and this time remained in the game.
Pittsburgh Post - Indianapolis, Ind., May 3, 1917. - Dan Shay of Kansas City, manager of the Milwaukee American Association baseball team, shot and fatally wounded Clarence Ewell, a Negro waiter, in a hotel here tonight, in an argument over a sugar bowl. The colored man was taken to a hospital, where he died a short time later. Shay was arrested and the police are seeking a woman who is said to have been with Shay at the time of the shooting.
[Does anyone know how this eventually turned out?]
DS - In the last 18 months, our inputting has slowed down dramatically. There are two prominent reasons. First, the games that interested a great many of our inputters over the first 10 years of Retrosheet were the recent ones, mostly based on scoresheets from the teams. Those have essentially all been computerized with a resultant decline in enthusiasm for computer entry work, especially among potential new volunteers. The second reason for the slowdown is that the games we do have left, mostly programs and newspaper accounts, are not so easy to work with. It takes some seasoning to become comfortable with these sources.
However, work does continue on this front. Dave Lamoureaux works steadily and cheerfully through all manner of diverse groups of games that he receives. For most of the last year, he has graciously jumped from season to season to fill some holes and to work through logical sets of accounts that we have received. For example, Bob Yahr copied dozens of games for both Chicago teams for 1926. These games make a tidy collection and Dave is currently in the midst of inputting them. He has also done a number of the games that Bob Kistler collected from Boston papers from the 1940s and 1950s.
Cliff Blau has shown a strong interest in games from the deadball era after entering over 300 games from the 1934 season from New York newspaper accounts. Cliff has done several hundred more from 1917, 1918, 1902, and 1904 (his current focus), for a total of nearly 900 games. In addition, he just came across some game accounts from the 1888 Brooklyn Citizen, which he recently mailed to the Dave Smith and they are now safely in the vault.
Greg Beston has worked in recent months on the 1927 Pirates and Indians. He has finished all the games we have for Cleveland (we are missing four!) and has done a large number for the Pirates (about 25 are left for the NL pennant winners of that year, a good team that has become pretty anonymous in the face of the Yankee juggernaut). Greg also handles a number of the Boston accounts from Bob Kistler.
Board member Clem Comly continues to show the way for total number of games entered, with his total now well over 10,000. During the last year he turned his attention to the Pittsburgh newspaper accounts for 1914 and 1915 that Brad Sullivan copied a few years ago. The happy news is that the coverage included ALL games for the Pirates for both seasons! That means that our earliest completed team-season has been pushed back even further (Ron Fisher had previously completed the 1921 Pirates). It would be logical at this point to ask about the 1916-1920 seasons for the Pirates. Indeed, we have excellent coverage for them as well and we can all look forward to an incredible run of Pirates games. By the way, Cliff Blau entered Honus Wagner's last game in the 1917 accounts he worked on. Alas, it is going to be hard to match this accomplishment for any other city since so few of them had data for Sunday games or holidays. Also, the Pittsburgh coverage gets less complete as we go back from 1914, ending (or beginning, depending on your point of view) with a few for their famed 1909 team.
The last large inputting effort to mention is that of Wayne Townsend. Wayne has worked steadily for several years on the 1923 season, entering games that we have obtained from a wide variety of sources. At this writing, he has completed 615 of 1223 games that were played that year, just under 50%, which is a tremendous achievement for a season that far in the past. Even more impressive is that Wayne has reworked games as additional information became available. So, for example, a game between the White Sox and Yankees that he entered in 1995 from a New York newspaper account may have had confusing or uncertain plays in some places. When we obtained an account for the same game from a Chicago newspaper, many of the previous questions were resolved, but the only way we can capture them is to go back into the file and carefully edit what is there line by line. Wayne has done this for dozens of games, which is incredibly tedious, but the result is an event file that is vastly improved. Many thanks to Wayne for his exceptional care and attention to detail. By the way, Wayne has also discovered incorrect debut dates in the official records for several players while working on this season, so Retrosheet is being helpful in many historical respects.
In addition we have received input games from Doug Burks, Bob Kapla, Mark Pankin, Dave Smith, Luke Kraemer, Ron Richards and Ted Turocy since the last report.
DS - Although it is not in the RetroEra, in the summer of 2001 rookie Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies was caught stealing to complete a double play as Bobby Abreu struck out. However, the Astros did it in a very exciting way as the fielding string was 2634143426. It would be hard to say with certainty that this is the only time in Major League history that there were 9 throws on a rundown play, since such things are not part of the official record. However, this would seem to be a contender! Note that a fielder can only get one assist on such a play, no matter how many times he handles the ball. So even though catcher Brad Ausmus and first baseman Jeff Bagwell each had two throws and second baseman Craig Biggio had three, they only receive credit for one assist each. Interestingly, "only" five fielders were involved, with the third baseman and all the outfielders being spectators, presumably while giggling.
DS - On Wednesday, January 2, 2002, Bob Stevens, a sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle, died at home. Stevens, a recipient of the Ford Frick award honoring baseball writers, covered the Giants from their arrival in California in 1958 through 1975 on a daily basis and still attended many games after retiring, even some in 2001. Bob began with the Chronicle in 1935 and was the beat writer for the San Francisco Seals from 1940-1957.
Retrosheet's connection to Bob is one of our dearer moments. In January of 1993, when Retrosheet was still in the early stages of gathering data from teams and writers and very few people in the real baseball world knew who we were, I contacted Bob to ask if he had kept the scorebooks from his active days. If so, then I hoped he would allow us to make copies of them. Bob was a bit crusty and something of a curmudgeon, but he listened to my story as to why I wanted to borrow his scorebooks. He asked the appropriate questions, was impressed with our non-profit operation and agreed to loan me the books. A few weeks later, after we had sent the books back and forth across the country and the copying was completed, I called to thank him. His response was one I will never forget: "All these years I never knew why I saved my scorebooks. I have hardly ever looked at them. But they represented thousands of hours of my life and I just couldn't throw them away. I guess I was saving them for you."
Bob, thank you for your trust. Farewell.
DS - This vital activity continues with the help of many different volunteers working in different ways. Clem Comly has just finished the 1974 season in great detail, checking into discrepancies between our totals and the official ones in the standard batting and pitching categories as well as categories such as pinch-hit at bats and hits, games at each defensive position (including DH) as well as errors and double plays for all fielders. His sources include the official daily records for each player, The Sporting News and some newspapers in addition to our scoresheets from the teams. This work is now completed and the 1974 season will be the next one released on our web site.
Tom Ruane did a great deal of work on the 1969 and 1970 seasons, not only tracking down differences with the daily records and The Sporting News, but also "entering" some games in an unusual way. We were missing accounts for several games, but had some basic information from Pete Palmer, who had obtained data from the Mills brothers (no, not the singing group). These two gentlemen published a book called "Player Win Averages" in 1971, based on play by play analysis of the 1969 and 1970 seasons. Although it has never been clear (to me anyway) what their data source was, Pete was able to obtain ancient computer tapes of what they had and I converted them to PC format. These accounts were missing fielding details, but through some creative deductions and help from other volunteers who collected newspaper game stories for him, Tom was able to piece together some good approximations of the missing games. These seasons need some more tweaking, but it is hoped they will also be on the web page in the next few months.
Pete Palmer has compared our data against the official daily microfilm for many years, working on whole seasons as well as specialty requests, such as our continuing effort to get all years for the Orioles (back to 1954 - not the earlier Orioles!) in good shape.
Brian Westgate and David Knipe have done extensive proofing of our games against the box scores of The Sporting News, Brian with the 1973 AL and David with the 1965 NL. Brian also did the same thing earlier with the 1969 Pilots. This form of checking does an excellent job of identifying some serious problems, such as the wrong people entered into the lineup. After the problems they find are corrected, then what remains are the more difficult problems relating to caught stealing, GDP, etc.
DS - Most readers will want to wander around the marvelous new features on our web site by themselves, but it seems appropriate to use the words of the man who created these enhancements to describe them. When the files were posted in October, Tom sent a detailed description to SABR-L and the RetroList. It is a tremendous step forward that we have moved beyond just presenting raw data to the area of analysis. Hopefully this aspect of the site will continue to expand. Tom's announcement is reproduced here.
Retrosheet's game logs as well as the display of the 1900-2000 game data are now released. You can reach both from the retrosheet web-site at: https://www.retrosheet.org/
From there, you can click on "Game Logs" to reach the game log data on every game played from 1900 to 2000. The format and organization of this data has not changed since the prototype version was announced back on September.
If you click on "Boxscore, Narratives, and Other Goodies" from the main page, it brings you to the data display. There have been a number of changes since the prototype site was removed back on October 20th.
The highlights:
* Full play-by-play data is now included after the box scores for all of the games we currently have on our web-site. This includes the 1967 AL (not included previously) as well as both leagues from 1978 to 1990. There will not be play-by-play data included for the years 1991-2000. In addition to this, there will also not be splits (year, league, team or player) or player logs for these years as well. When and if Retrosheet obtains the rights to display this data for those years, these will be added to the web-site.
This means that there are now four different classes of yearly data:
1900-1919: Basic.
- Yearly pages with standings, access to daily pages and league leaders.
- Daily pages with scores and standings.
- Team pages with manager and park information, records by month, opponent and home/away.
- Team roster files and game logs. Player pages with yearly records.
- Park pages with park/non-park record, runs scored and allowed and park factors.
1920-1977 (except for 1967 AL): Enhanced Basic
- Same as 1900-1919, but with starting and winning pitchers added to the team game logs.
1967 AL and 1978-1990: The Full Treatment
- Everything that was included for the earlier years with much more.
- Yearly pages with links to ML and individual league splits.
- Daily pages enhanced with line scores, winning and losing pitchers as well as save and home run information.
- Box scores of all the games with play-by-play.
- Team pages with batting and pitching splits.
- Player pages enhanced with batting and pitching splits as well as a log of their day-by-day record.
1991-2000: The Enhanced Basic Plus Box Scores
- The Full Treatment without the play-by-play in the box scores, enhanced player pages, or team, league and year splits.
* There is now a way to directly access the players. From the main page there are links to a list of all players sharing the same first two letters of each last name. Clicking on a name in those lists will bring you to that player's main page.
* Box Score information has been enhanced. For most offensive and pitching events, additional information has been added. For example, the pitcher, inning, men on and outs are provided for all home runs.
* Batting order spot and positions played have been added to each player's batting daily log.
* A glossary of terms has been added with links to it from almost every page.
* Information has been corrected. Numerous errors in the Cleveland home games from 1935 to 1946 have been corrected. Over a hundred changes have been made to the player biographical data. Details of more suspended games have been added. A few errors were corrected in the game scores and one change was made to the starting pitcher data. There were a few instances (now corrected) where a reliever was not credited with a shutout when he entered with none one out in the first and completed a shutout. And all of the player links for the 1902 season have been fixed.
* Plate appearances have been added to the yearly batting leaders.
* Games finished and batters faced pitcher has been added to the pitching data.
* Improved lay-out and navigation. Among the changes:
- Links to each Year's html have been added to each team page.
- Some long pages with multiple sections (for example, the yearly page) now have links to the same section in the adjoining pages.
- Some information on wide pages have been repeated on the right. For example, player names are on both the right and left in team roster files. And the year and team information is on both the right and left in the player's yearly record.
- The year and team in the player's yearly record are now links to the year and team pages.
- League placement is now consistent. They now always appear in the order they were formed: NL, AL, FL.
A lot of people helped me with these changes. I'd like to particularly thank Bob Boynton for his help correcting the location of the Indians home games. Not only did he notice the errors, but he copied and mailed me a 32-page letter he received from Bob Tiemann in 1986 containing the information I needed to correct the mistakes.
Others making valuable suggestions include Dave Smith, David Vincent, Paul Wendt, Pete Palmer, John Rickert, Andrew Clarke, Lyle Spatz, Cliff Otto, Thom Henninger, Michael Mavrogiannis, Ed Hartig and Ted Turocy. Of course, these fine people are in no way responsible for the many deficiencies that (I'm sure) still remain in this portion of the Retrosheet web-site.
When the prototype site was removed on October 20th, I wanted to hurry and get the new version up as soon as possible. As a result, a series of proposed changes did not get into this release. These include:
* Umpire pages with games at each position with (perhaps) data.
* Manager pages with records.
* Home/Away offensive splits for parks.
* Enhanced fielding data derived from play-by-play data. Some suggestions: balls fielded (the number of times the fielder initiated a defensive sequence) and balls in play (the number of times a ball was put in play (not including walks, strikeouts and outside of the park home runs) while the fielder was in the game.)
* More data added to box scores: RBI, scoring position, less than 2 outs; Inherited runners - scored. And so on.
Planned (or hoped for) enhancements for the next releases include:
* 19th century scores and players.
* Player transactions included in both player and team pages. This data will also be made available in comma-delimited format for downloading.
* Lists of "notable" achievements on yearly page (with links to box scores or player logs) for such things as 3 or more homer games, 20+ game hitting streaks, no-hitters or 1-hitters, 15+ strikeout games, and so on.
* Additional "full treatment" years (as they are released).
Jeff Tripodi wrote: "Something great just got even better. While the old format was incredibly useful, it took me a while to dust off my old DOS chops and dig in. The improvement in design is incredibly helpful. It's one thing to acknowledge the history of the game; it's another entirely to have it your fingertips. As a fan, I thank you for all your work on this invaluable resource."
Jeff was originally contacted by Jim Wolenhaus and he has generously made available images of some scorecards he was selling on eBay.
Gord Gladman wrote: Thanks for the note and keep up the good work on the site. Please let those responsible know that they've done a great job, at least in the eyes of one baseball fanatic.
And from Jay Roberts: I wanted to send a word of thanks and appreciation for what you guys have done with your retrosheet web site. Incredible work. Information that would have taken months is now a click away. It's like a window of time travel has opened up, visiting the past at the speed of the future (we bought broadband!!).
DS - Retrosheet is reaching new levels of visibility, with an impressive number and variety of references in the last few months, in print, on the air, and on the web.
On September 11, 2000, a date not yet an ominous one, The New York Times ran a table listing pitchers with 3000 strikeouts, since Randy Johnson had recently reached that plateau. Their table included the date that each pitcher achieved that mark, beginning with the first to make it, Walter Johnson. There has been something of a dispute as to Johnson's strikeout total and, therefore, which strikeout in the relevant game was actually the 3000th. This 1923 game was in our files and we provided the necessary details, getting us a credit in the footnotes.
The Big Bad Baseball Annual of 2001, the 13th and final edition to be published, was lavish in its praise of Retrosheet. We find: "This book is dedicated to David W. Smith and The Merry Band of Maniacs at RETROSHEET, Baseball's most valuable research project". That is pretty heady stuff, but it continues. The first general essay under the heading of "Numerologies" is written by Doug Drinen and is entitled "Five studies in praise of Retrosheet". Using play by play data from our web site, Doug addressed some of the more difficult issues in analysis including the value of the "productive out" and an assessment of the myth or reality of clutch hitting. It is certainly nice to receive such compliments, but what is best of all is that Doug has used the play by play data in exactly the way it has always been hoped. That is, to investigate subtle questions that are not reflected in conventional analysis, but are definitely amenable to dissection with play by play data. It would be great to see more instances of this type of use of our data.
The hot start of the Seattle Mariners in 2001 (which continued into a hot middle and hot end) was analyzed by the Los Angeles Times on May 18, 2001. They presented a comparison of the five teams since 1950 to begin a season with 30 wins in their first 40 games (the 1984 Tigers top the list with an incredible 35-5). We provided most of the data for their tables, especially the batting records for the regular players. We got a prominent acknowledgement as the source right at the top in big print.
The 7th edition of Total Baseball appeared in the spring of 2001 and Retrosheet is mentioned many times. I was happy to write the piece on how to score a game and obviously gave the organization a big plug. However, I was not alone as several writers used our data and gave us credit.
In a similar vein of multiplicity, I note that once again the research presentations at the national SABR convention in Milwaukee made abundant use of Retrosheet data, with at least five presenters basing at least part of their papers on our data, giving us more nice public attention in the process.
In February, 2001, David Vincent, Lyle Spatz and I published a complete history of the All-Star game, titled The Midsummer Classic. While I am not really trying to promote the book (but it is really great!), I am pleased to report here that a prominent feature is a full play by play account and expanded box score of each All-Star game, all with our name prominently displayed at the top.
On June 3, 2001, the Saint Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press used Retrosheet data in one portion of their Sunday roundup of the previous week. Hideo Nomo had just pitched a one-hitter against the Blue Jays, becoming the fourth pitcher since 1978 to have a one-hitter and no-hitter in the same season (his no-hitter was in April against the Orioles).
As part of his activity in gathering programs via eBay, Luke Kraemer made contact with Jim Rhodes, who writes a column for the Vintage and Classic Baseball Collector. Jim was intrigued by Retrosheet and called me to get details about our organization. The result was a column about us that was very complimentary and should help in making collectors more aware of who we are. Hopefully this will be valuable as we continue to pursue programs through the memorabilia market.
Our friends at Baseball Weekly featured us prominently on two occasions in 2001. In February they ran a story on the 4-man rotation and asked us for data on pitch counts for starters in the past. Since we have pitch by pitch data for almost all Dodger games from 1947 to 1964 (via the Allan Roth scoresheets), I prepared a summary from those approximately 2400 games. There are some interesting features, but two worthy of a note involved Sandy Koufax, my all-time personal favorite. I found 40 pitchers in that time who threw at least 150 pitches in a game and 16 of those were by Koufax, topped by a count of 205 in a 13 inning game in 1961. The other mention in Baseball Weekly came after the SABR convention in July when their summary of that meeting mentioned my paper on the 1951 NL pennant race, with the desired Retrosheet acknowledgement.
Warren Wilbert published a book called Rookies Rated in which he evaluates the 70 or so top rookie performances in Major League history. As he was working on that project, I provided him data on several of them and he nicely gave Retrosheet and me a credit for it.
At least sometime during the 2001 season, the Mets had a link on their web site to ours. This was discovered when I received an inquiry from a fan who had seen it and wanted details on the first game he attended. At this writing, that link appears to be there no longer.
MLB Radio ran a recreation of the third game of the 1951 NL playoff game between Brooklyn and New York. Ernie Harwell, who announced the game live that day, did the taping, but they needed a play by play account to work from. We provided it for them and got some on-air recognition as a result.
Our web site gets attention from other parts of the Internet as well, such as the Baseball Almanac (Sean Holtz) and the Baseball On-Line Library (James Robinson).
DS - When Greg Beston input the Brewers-Angels game of 9-7-77 back in 1997, he entered the following unusual sequence with Don Baylor at bat for the Angels:
SB3 for Bobby Bonds
Gary Nolan pinch-running for Bonds
Nolan scoring on wild throw by catcher Charlie Moore
Greg then added the comment: "The Angels say that Moore's error came on the steal of 3rd, but Bonds got credit for the SB, and Nolan got credit for the run. The only logical explanation is that Moore's throw went out of play, and Bonds was hurt on the play and was not able to go home."
I got both the LA Times and Milwaukee Journal via Interlibrary Loan to try to track this down. The Times was no help, but Journal had the answer and it confirms the insightful deduction of Greg Beston! Here is what they said on 9-8-77:
"Brewer catcher Charlie Moore made two errors in the game, and both scored runs. He dropped a throw to the plate in the fifth, and drilled Bobby Bonds in the head when Bonds stole third in the sixth. The ball ricocheted into the dugout and the Angels received a run on the play, but Bonds didn't score it. He went to the hospital for tests."
DS - Michael Levine wrote last summer:
"Here's one for you. The exact date is unknown, but in 1983 when Seaver returned to the Mets there were two games back to back in Shea vs Montreal where the games ended on the exact same play and the exact same players. I believe two of the players were Hernandez and Wilson. Bottom of the ninth, one out, runners on first and second. Ground ball to short (or third), both times the attempt was made for the double play, both times the throw to first was late, both times the runner on second tried to score, both times the throw home was late, game over.
"I mention Seaver because I attended the 2nd of these games and he was the starter."
I replied:
"The two games were July 31, game 2 vs the Pirates and August 3 against the Expos. These weren't consecutive games; there was one against Montreal on August 2. You clearly have the basic description correct on how the games ended and indeed Seaver did pitch the second of these games. Thanks for sending this note; it should make a nice item for our newsletter."
On 6-24-2000, Appalachian League rivals the Johnson City Cardinals and the Elizabethton Twins were involved in a bizarre play. Here is the account from The Johnson City Press:
The game featured a bizarre play in the sixth inning in which the same Cardinals base runner was tagged out twice. With his team down 9-7 and the based loaded, Johnson City designated hitter William Schmitt grounded to third. Elizabethton third baseman Greg Stokes fielded the ball and stepped on the bag, forcing out Sandy Santana. Stokes then threw to first to try to complete an inning-ending double play. Schmitt beat the throw to first, but Santana, apparently not realizing he had been forced out, kept running home. The throw to the plate was in time to get Santana for what the umpires ruled the final out of the inning. The Twins left the field, but Albert Rodgers, who was on first base when the play began, kept running. The Twins eventually returned to the field amid the confusion and tagged Rodgers out as well. "When they came out, they had two balls." said Melendez, who was involved in a 20-minute animated discussion with the umpires. "Crazy, man. I never saw anything like it."
DS - In the December, 2000, issue of TRS, we described two games played between the Giants and Cubs on May 7 and 8, 1902 that were thrown out by the league president when it was discovered a day later that the distance to the mound was shorter than regulation. As noted in that report, it is very unusual for a game to be removed from the records after it has been played. However, this one has another twist, with the details coming courtesy of Pete Palmer. As reflected in the 7th edition of Total Baseball, the totals for the individual players in those games were kept and appear in the official record, but the team results were expunged. Of course, no pitcher was charged with a win or a loss either. This is quite odd, but it also raises a brand new Retro-Quandry: how do we have an event file for non-games? In order to get the data for the individual players to register in our system, it is necessary to have a game entered in the usual format - but there were no games! Clearly we need yet another modification of our system to deal with this very special case.
Our web site features our most wanted games, those that we have had particular trouble tracking down in any form. That listing will be updated and expanded soon to show all missing games since 1946. This feature will be kept up-to-date to make it easier for Retro-Volunteers to know where our gaps are. The following shows the number of games missing for the most recent incomplete years:
Year Missing 1959 21 1960 14 1961 30 1962 60 1963 29 1964 12 1965 25 1966 23 1967 32 1968 46 1969 65 1970 25 1971 32 1972 4 1973 8
DS - We are missing only 10 games ever played by the Angels. All were in Kansas City, 5 in 1962 and 5 in 1963. Many efforts have been put forth in Kansas City and via Interlibrary Loan (the teams don't have them), all to no effect. Bob Timmerman, a professional librarian employed by the Los Angeles Public Library, generously volunteered his time to track down every Los Angeles area paper he could find in an effort accounts for this group. Here is his summary.
"Dave,
My long journey through Southern California's public libraries is coming up fruitless. So far I have checked: LA Times, LA Herald Examiner, Hollywood Citizen-News, Pasadena Star-News, Pasadena Independent (that was the evening edition of the Star-News), the Santa Ana Register (former name of the present day Orange County Register). My last hope is the Long Beach Press-Telegram, which I will check on August 4, when we have a SABR chapter meeting down there. There is a decent chance there may be something then. In 1962-63 Ross Newhan, dean of L.A. baseball writers, covered the Angels for the Press-Telegram. In 1962 he most likely took road trips since Bo Belinsky was such good copy. By 1963 the Angels weren't nearly as popular."
Alas, the Long Beach lead didn't pan out either, so we are still short those 10 games. Many Retrothanks to Bob for this effort that was well above and beyond the call of duty.
By Rogers Hornsby, Champion Batsman of the National League and Home Run King of Baseball
St Louis Star, 4-17-1923 - When I broke the National League home-run record which had stood for a couple of decades last season, some of my friends began to predict that I would add quite a few in 1923 and make that forty-two total look small indeed. I hope they are right, but they have set a tough task. The Cards have had an extensive exhibition schedule this year and I have hit against what might be called real opposition just six homers.
Two of these were against Detroit, two against Rochester, and one each in games against the Phils and Washington. We played twenty-one games in all and should I be fortunate enough to maintain this average in National League championship contests my homer mark of 1923 would be forty-four, two more than the record established in our circuit last season. Mind, I'm not claiming I will do this, but a man cannot be arrested for hoping.
Home runs, to tell the truth, are little in my baseball life. What I hope to be able to do is to produce hits when hits mean runs and so help the Cardinals. If, with a pitcher who looks easy working against me, I am ordered to sacrifice, you can bet your last dollar that I'll sacrifice if it is humanly possible. In other words, I had much rather be known as a team-play man than as Home-Run King, Monarch of Swat, or any of those high-sounding, but to a winning ball player, meaningless titles.
Funny thing, but the hardest ball I hit all spring went for a single. It was at Sheffield, Alabama, and Pillette of Detroit was pitching. The park was a small one and the ball went against the fence in left-center and bounded back fifty feet, so the outfielder was easily able to hold me on first.
Hope I break all records, those for home runs included, but it would take a mighty smooth talker to persuade me into predicting that I would do any such thing. Still, I maintain that the bat is mightier than the typewriter.
[Due to injury, Hornsby played in just 107 games in '23, mustering just 17 HRs, but led the NL in BA (.384), OBP (.459), and SLG (.627).]
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