The Retro Sheet

Official Publication of Retrosheet, Inc.

Volume 3, No. 1 March 1996

Table of Contents

Better Late Than Never

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The Retrosheet Directory

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Call for Agenda Items

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View from the Vault

David W. Smith, President

I also wish to call to everyone's attention the excellent new publication of home run information based on the SABR home run log entitled SABR presents the Home Run Encyclopedia. This book is published by Macmillan and essentially all the analytical and preparatory work was done by none other than David Vincent, the Retrosheet Secretary as well as a member of the SABR Board. In the introduction to the book, David gives Retrosheet some very nice praise for the information we have contributed to this book. I recommend the book to all Retrosheetians, whether you are a SABR member or not. And if you are not a SABR member, then this would be a good time to join.

Final note: Alas, I have not been able to complete all the details necessary for the public release of our first data files. The job has proven to be larger than I had envisioned, and the rest of daily life managed to get in the way a bit. A related topic is the prospect that Retrosheet will hopefully have its own home page on the World Wide Web before too long. The plan is to have our data files there for anyone to download at their leisure. There are many details to be worked out on this topic as well, but stay tuned as Retrosheet hits the Net!

"The adulated heroes of today are the faceless nonentities of tomorrow."
from the Expos scoresheet of 7/25/69

Game Account Acquisitions

Arrangements have also been finalized with the Chicago White Sox for Stuart Shea to go to their offices and copy the seven seasons we need to finish off what they have in their files.

Recently Paul White, editor of the USA Today's Baseball Weekly, sent us copies of his own personal scorecards dating back to 1971. There are several dozen games in this collection, all very clearly scored, six of which we did not have in the Vault. As Paul said in the note that accompanied copies: "I knew I could get this done before there's a labor agreement."

It isn't really a scoresheet acquisition, but it is a story worth reporting here. At the SABR convention in Pittsburgh, there was a vendor selling many baseball videotapes, most of them highlight reels from the World Series and the like. However, he also had what he billed as the oldest videotape of a complete regular season game, specifically the contest between the Phillies and the Cubs on July 12, 1969. This was an NBC Game of The Week broadcast and it was taped for later showing overseas as part of the Armed Forces Radio and Television System. Clem Comly purchased a copy of the tape and in mid-February drove to Delaware, where he and Dave Smith watched the game and entered the account into the computer, capturing full pitch by pitch and hit location information.

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Team Abbreviations and Franchise Definitions

1. For city/locale names which are one word, use the first three letters of that name: BAL, CAL, MIN, FLO, etc.
2. For city names which are two words, use the first letter of each word, followed by the one letter of that team's league: NYA, LAN, SLN, KCA.
3. When conflicts arise, first try to resolve them by using the first two letters of the city, followed by the league letter: CHN, CHA.

• When the first three letters of a city name create a conflict, then drop the first vowel and insert the league letter at the end. Therefore, the Boston Braves are given the designation BSN and the current BOS abbreviation is retained by the Fenway crew. Similarly, the Philadelphia Athletics are represented by PHA, while the Phillies are PHI, and the Milwaukee Braves became MLN, with the Brewers keeping MIL.
  
  
• When there are still conflicts, then a number is used to clear things up. The two incarnations of the Washington Senators are treated by us as separate entities and abbreviated as WS1 and WS2. The Kansas City Athletics create a problem because KCA is in use by the Royals; the exiles from Philadelphia therefore are KC1. Similarly the New York Giants can't be identified as NYN, since that is the designation of the Mets; the Giants become NY1. However, one nice resolution is the Browns are SLA since the Cardinals are SLN. You may recall that the Yankee franchise began operation in Baltimore in 1901. The abbreviation for that team could reasonably be argued as either BA1 or BLA; we have chosen BLA, preferring not to use numbers in abbreviations unless absolutely necessary. Also, the St. Louis American League franchise began in Milwaukee in 1901 and is therefore MLA, since MIL is in use by the current Brewers.

As a final point, note that we have not yet attempted to assign abbreviations to 19th century teams. There are several reasons for this decision, including the obvious fact that we have only a few hundred game accounts from last century, most generously donated to Retrosheet by Bob Tiemann. It is also true that the turn of the century is a convenient dividing line for our activities, at least for the foreseeable future. Therefore, we have not yet fixed a policy for dealing with the Union Association or the American Association or the Player's League. The Federal League presents a different question, and we do have a few dozen game accounts from their games. No abbreviations have been assigned to those teams, but it will probably be necessary to do so before too long.

A related but distinct topic is the matter of major league franchise definitions, especially as the definition will affect records. It is not clear if Major League baseball has a formal policy on this matter or not, but one example will illustrate the question. The Washington Senators were charter members of the American League and moved to Minnesota at the end of the 1960 season, with an expansion franchise appearing in Washington in 1961. Therefore, although the city had a continuous presence in the American League, there were clearly two different franchises. Of course, the second Senators left town for Texas after the 1971 season. It would seem that the easiest interpretation is that the Twins are a continuation of the original Senators franchise and the Rangers are a continuation of the second Senators franchise. However, the Twins do not see it this way. When Dave Smith was working on the Dave Winfield project for the Twins in 1993, it came up that their PR department counts their history as beginning in 1961. Therefore, although they agree that the franchise home run record belongs to Harmon Killebrew, they do not include in his total those that he hit for the original Senators.

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Spying On Moe Berg

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Projects

1959 - Additional progress has been made on the White Sox and Tigers for this season. The Dodgers will be started by Dave Smith shortly.

Willie Mays - Alan Boodman has essentially completed what we have for the career of Willie Mays. In the last few months he not only went through all the Willie Mays era Giants games in San Francisco, but also processed some scoresheets we received for the New York Giants. These accounts came from two sportswriters, the late Barney Kremenko (courtesy of his widow) and Leonard Koppett.

1971 - Alan Boodman has moved on from Mays to concentrate on the 1971 season in its entirety. His procedure is to do all games for a given day for all teams and then move on. He is nearing the end of April, having covered about 200 games already.

1962 Mets - Using several sources, Scott Fischthal finished the 1962 Mets, except for four games that we don't have at the end of the season.

1965 Mets - Since the 1963 and 1964 Mets are already input, Scott Fischthal has moved on to the 1965 crowd as he marches through the history of the Queens denizens.

1966 Mets - Another Mets fan in our midst is Mark Dobrow (that is not as sinister as it sounds!), who is currently working on the first Mets team not to finish in last place. They won a club record 66 games, finishing 9th, 28 and a half games behind the Dodgers and 7 and a half games in front of the last place Cubs.

1965 Cardinals - Steve Hamilton is proceeding with the Redbirds, with the current set he has taking him into the middle of July.

1957 Cardinals - Jim Wohlenhaus is working his way through this crop of St. Louis games, and he is currently working on games from June of that season.

Nolan Ryan - Several people have made contributions to this large project: Jim Wohlenhaus, Gary Robbins, Ron Fisher, and Bill Disney among others. Hopefully the Ryan games will be done in the next few months, in time to be part of the exhibition of the Nolan Ryan Center (see Publicity, above).

1981 - This strike-shortened season is more than 80% complete. Many different people have worked on this year, but in the last few months the bulk of the inputting has been done by Mark Dobrow, Jim Herdman, Bob Kapla, Doug Burks, Christopher Chestnut, and Marc Stephenson.

1965 Twins - As he finishes his work on the 1981 AL, Bob Kapla, a lifelong Twins fan, will begin to translate and input the games of the 1965 team, certainly a highlight for any Minnesota follower.

1944-1946 Dick Young - Tom Eckel has translated several dozen scoresheets from Dick Young for these years. The first two years he covered mainly the Giants, but switched to the Dodgers for 1946.

1945 Senators - Ron Fisher continues to expand his baseball horizons by translating and inputting games from the end of World War II. The scoresheets we have for those games were the first that we obtained from Burt Hawkins, the long time PR Director for the Senators (both versions) and the Rangers.

1979 NL - Major progress has been made by Clem Comly and Christopher Chestnut, with about 1000 games either completed or in progress.

Jackie Robinson - It is now clear that we will have the career of Jackie Robinson finished before the 50th anniversary of his Major League debut in April of 1997. Eight of his 10 seasons are completed, with the remaining 1954 games (about 130) in the hands of Gord Gladman and the last from 1956 (just under 120) games with Clem Comly. Others who have input hundreds of Dodgers games from 1947-1956 are Ron Fisher, Alan Boodman, and David Smith.

1964 - Luke Kraemer has finished the American League and currently needs 56 more games for the National, primarily involving the Pirates, Reds, and Braves.

1975 AL - Greg Beston has reached a place to pause in this season. He is waiting for the games from Detroit and Chicago before finishing the last 50 or so. In the meantime he has turned his attention to:

1980 AL - This season is the object of our next group focus, since the 1981-1983 games are nearly done. Greg likes to proceed one team at a time and is presently crunching the Cleveland games. Similarly, Rick Elliott is working on the 1980 Tigers.

1980 NL - Clem Comly translated all the games for this season and input about two thirds of them. The remaining games are being entered by other volunteers.

1962 AL - Dave Lamoureaux has finished all the games we have for the 1963 AL and is into mid-September for the 1962 AL. We are missing about 65 games for each season, involving the Tigers, Red Sox, and Athletics.

Big Red Machine - Bill Disney has finished the 1976 Reds and has begun work on the 1975 team. There is always an attraction to a focused effort on pennant winners, but these two teams are especially interesting.

George Brett - David Vincent is midway through the 1979 Kansas City Royals at this time, having input hundreds of George Brett games in the last four months. The games from 1981 on are done (or nearly so), so only about another 100 from 1980 will remain to complete this very large project. Stay tuned for details on what we will do with this information.

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Completed Seasons, League-seasons and Team-seasons

• 1983 Retrosheet reached an incredibly important milestone in November when the last game was entered for the 1983 season. Our first RetroSeason is now history (well, it already was history, but you know what I mean).
  
  
• 1982 The 1982 season is also finished except for three games not in our possession between the Mets and Padres in April (the 27th - 29th).

• AL 1960
• AL 1964

• NYN 1962 (minus four games)
• SFN 1969, 1970, 1971
• KCA 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978
• CIN 1976
• TEX 1975
• CAL 1975

Post-season games

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All-Star Games

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Publicity

Herm Krabbenhoft continues to publicize us in his Baseball Quarterly Reviews and John Benson gave us a full page in the book he published last fall on the greatest 100 individual player-seasons. In December The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an article about SABR and Retrosheet was prominently featured in it.

A recent development is a contact made by the Nolan Ryan Center in Houston, Texas. This group is preparing an extensive display of Nolan Ryan material and contacted us for statistical information to present. One of their plans is to have interactive computer access for visitors to call up the play by play of specific games or other information. This collaboration is still in the early stages, but could get us a lot of attention.

In the 2/27/96 issue of USA Today Baseball Weekly, Paul White mentions Retrosheet in conjunction with Spike Lee's planned movie about Jackie Robinson. It's always nice to see the group name in such a prominent location. However, the striking aspect of this item is that Paul didn't go into great detail about Retrosheet, just mentioned us. That shows Retrosheet is growing in prominence because of the efforts on every one of our volunteers. Congratulations to us all!

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Strange and Unusual Plays Commentary from our Volunteers

From Alan Boodman:

• The Koppett batch from 1954 is about 80% complete (i.e. you'll likely be receiving it tomorrow), and then it's back to 1969 for the final three batches of that season. (Darn this incessant time travel).
  
  
• Trivia Question: What team hit into the most DP's in a 9-inning game? The Giants on 5/4/69 hit into 6 (all GDP's, I think) at the Astrodome vs. Denny LeMaster, Dooley Womack & Fred Gladding.
  
  
• ...possibly these two teams just didn't like each other:
  Do you know what the record is for most HBP, both teams, in a game? On 4/13/71, the Royals and Twins exchanged the aforementioned pleasantries seven times, all from the 6th inning onward. Two players left with injuries, although neither of those were caused via plunking. (When they next met 6 days later, there was only 1 HBP.)

• How about a double which doesn't score a runner from third base? On 7-31-72, CAL at KCA (a Nolan Ryan game), Jim entered a play as: D9/P.3-3 with the comment: "No advance by Piniella on double, which was pop that was apparently nearly caught by either the 3 or the 9"

• I apologize for not sending any event files since Monday. I do have a valid excuse, though; I was hospitalized for two days due to a kidney stone. Talk about pain! :( Anyway, I'm back and what better way to recuperate than scoring a Retrosheet! :) Call it sick, if you like, but scoring a game with John Urrea pitching right after having a kidney stone removed struck me as appropriate. :)
  
  
• Doug always finds interesting plays, such as the "phone number pickoff" (his term) in the game of NYN at CHN on 8-11-81. With Leon Durham on 1st base, 1 out and Bobby Bonds at bat, Bull was removed by Pete Falcone POCS2(1363423).
  
  
• Doug is also very thorough at noting discrepancies between the two different scoresheets he has had for most games. A lot of these problems are directional, as in S7 on one sheet and S9 on the other. He recently noted a disagreement in which one scorer had written 9 and the other had 7/FL for the same play and then the next game had two differences on left vs right on singles. As Doug concludes: "Somebody label somebody's hands! :)" Doug's best comment along these lines concerned a play which one scorer entered as 13 and the other as 8. Quoth Doug: "at least they agreed on the direction".
  
  
• And the close of one of Doug's messages could work for all of us: "Still trying to find the best music (besides that of bat and ball ;) ) to retrosheet to, I remain ...
  [Editor's note: perhaps we should listen to an Oldies radio station or a classical station.]

• On 4-30-77 (TOR at KCA) David found a phone number play as well. George Brett was picked off POCS2(136346), causing David to comment: "Way to make 'em throw it around, George".
  
  
• 5/4/77 (CHA at KCA): Ralph Garr was on first with one out when Jorge Orta hit into a 96 force out. You don't see too many of those!
  
  
• 5/5/77 (CHA at KCA): There were three runners picked off first in an inning and a half; they all were charged with a CS2. Amos Otis in the bottom of the third (136), Chet Lemon in the top of the fourth (1343), and Joe Zdeb in the bottom of the fourth (136). The Royals sure like pick offs.
  
  
• 1977 KCA: During the season, the Royals were involved in 40 different lined double plays. These plays involved every fielding position; here are some of the best: 5(B)434(1)/LDP, 4(B)5(2)/LDP, 9(B)45(2)/LDP, 6(B)5(3)/LDP, 14(B)4(2)/LDP. The last one was tipped by the pitcher to the second sacker, who otherwise would have had an unassisted LDP. In 1978, the Royals were involved in 28 more LDPs.
  
  
• 8/28/79 (MIL at KCA): Bottom of the fifth; Hal McRae on first with no outs: 53/DP.1X3(35)
  
  
• Same Game: Top of the eighth with one out and runners on first and second. Ben Oglivie doubles into a DP: D8/DP.2XH(842);1XH(2). Nice baserunning by Gorman Thomas from first. This is a play that Carlton Fisk performed once for CHA; the catcher here is Darrell Porter.
  
  
• 8/29/79 (MIL at KCA): Final score 18-8 KCA. Among the pitchers for the Brewers were:
  
  Sal Bando 3 IP 3 H 2 ER
  Jim Gantner 1 IP 2 H 0 R
  Buck Martinez 1 IP 1 H 1 ER 1 W
  
  The "real" pitchers surrendered 15 ER and 13 H in 3+ IP. KCA sent 12 batters to the plate in the fourth inning and 9 in the first. George Brett was 3 for 4 with a homer in 5 innings before he was sent home.

• Along the phone number line is a play from the game of LAN at HOU on 5-7-62: S8/L.1XH(863432).
  
  
• Frank Howard was not a graceful baserunner, but he was enthusiastic. On 5-27-62 (Game 1), PHI at LAN, Howard missed third while trying to score on a John Roseboro home run that was hit out of the park. Later in the same game, Frank tripled and held third on a 63. In the same game Phillies pitcher Dallas Green was used as PR at 2nd and went from 2nd to 3rd on "deep" fly to left!
  
  
• John Roseboro had his share of baserunning adventures as well. On 8-26-62 (LAN at NYN), John ended a 7 run Dodger inning as he singled into a double play, getting an RBI in the process. The play was entered as: S8/G/DP.3-H;1X3(85);BX2(54), with the comment from Dodger scorer Allan Roth that Roseboro had stepped off second, thinking the out at 3rd had ended the inning. Not to be outdone, the amazing Mets, in the same game, dropped the ball twice on the same rundown play on a fielder's choice that Maury Wills hit. It went: FC6.3XH(625E2);2-3;B-1 with Roth noting "2 dropped after rundown (5 also had dropped)"
  
  
• As an old catcher, I had to laugh at Allan Roth's note that Don Drysdale got hit on the elbow by catcher Doug Camilli's throw on a stolen base by Julian Javier on 6-19-62; even big league pitchers sometimes have concentration lapses.
  
  
• We all know that pitcher usage has change dramatically over the years. However, the game of 8-20-55 (BRO at PHI) is really something special. Tailing 3-2 with two out in the 9th, Dodger manager Walter Alston called on Don Newcombe, a pitcher and his best pinch-hitter that year. The Phillies countered by bringing in Robin Roberts, who had pitched a complete game the night before. Although Newk batted .381 that year as a pinch-hitter, he grounded out to Roberts unassisted to end the game.

• On 4-22-59, the White Sox received 10 walks in one inning from the hapless Athletics (the record for one inning is 11). Of these 10, 8 came with the bases loaded, and there was also a hit batter with the bases loaded. Alas, the record for consecutive walks is 7, and this inning only had four straight walks, followed by a force at the plate, then three more walks and the hit batter and another walk. The final score was 20-6.

• While translating the Dick Young wartime scoresheets, Tom noted the multiple attendance figures that Young recorded. Many modern scoresheets will have two numbers, the paid attendance and the total attendance; however, Young frequently had several different numbers. For example:
  
  
• 9-13-45 NY1 at CIN:
  
  281 paid
  404 ladies
  140 service
  825 total
  
  
• 7-4-44 SLN at NY1:
  
  8878 paid
  869 service
  700 blood donors
  10447 total
  
  
• 8-16-44 CLE at NYA:
  
  4651 paid
  917 service
  321 comp
  4023 paper (recycling newsprint)
  9922 total

AKA

Player                                          Record Listed Under
Bevens, E.P. (1871-72)                          E.P. Beavens
Costello (1912)                                 Ken Nash
Dudley, Ernest (1920-21)                        Dud Lee
Foley, Patrick (1902)                           Paddy Greene
Gonzalez (Uribe), Jose Altagracia (1984)        Jose Uribe
Holly, Samuel John (1872-73, 1875)              Holly Hollingshead
Hostetter, Arthur H. (1905-08)                  Art Hoelskoetter
Jablonowski                                     Pete Appleton
Johnson (1918)                                  Doc Bass
Joyce, Michael (1901)                           Mike O'Neill
Kiley, Frank (1915)                             Frank Kane
King, Frederick (1901)                          John Butler
Kwietniewski, Casimir Eugene (1943)             Cass Michaels
Morris, William G. (1915)                       John Fluhrer
Ryan, Lew (1915)                                Lew Malone
Schreck, Ossee (1897-99, 1901-08)               Ossee Schreckengost
Sheehan Daniel (1884)                           John Ryan
Sullivan, Edward T. (1906)                      Eddie Collins
Taggert, Robert John (1918)                     Jim Kelly
Thomas, W. (1871-73)                            Tommy Beals
West, Al (1883)                                 Al Hubbard
Whitehorn, Arthur Lee (1915)                    Harry Damrau
Williams,Frank C. (1871-75)                     Frank Selman
Zieber, Harry (1882-84, 1886)                   Ed Whiting

The Scoreboard

Dave Smith has finally completed the cataloguing of our scoresheets back to 1946 and presents a detailed report of the last half century. By the next edition of The Retro Sheet he hopes to have incorporated all the details for the earlier games. There are relatively few of those (3000 perhaps), of which about 1600 have been input. These pre-1946 seasons are summarized in the following short table which simply lists the seasons for which we have entered games and how many have been entered for each.

Year      Played    Input
1911       1238       97
1917       1249      117
1920       1233       67
1924       1231        1
1925       1228       24
1926       1234        1
1927       1236       88
1928       1231      391
1929       1229      417
1930       1226      360
1945       1229       35

1. play - Total games played in the Major Leagues that season.
   
   Columns 2 through 5 summarize our holdings.
   
   
2. acct - Total independent accounts we have for that season. For most seasons this number is larger than games played because we have multiple versions for so many.
3. have - Games for which we have at least one account.
4. need - Games for which we have no accounts.
5. %have - Percentage of games for which we have at least one account (column 3 divided by column 1).
   
   Columns 6 through 11 indicate the status of each of the games we possess. The numbers in columns 6 through 11 add up to the total in column 3.
   
   
6. no act - Games for which nothing has been done other than cataloguing that we have them.
7. with tran - Games in the hands of a translator.
8. with tran inp - These games are with a volunteer who is doing both the translation and inputting.
9. tran wait - Translated games that are awaiting a volunteer to input them.
10. tran with inp - Games that have been translated by one volunteer, but are with another volunteer for inputting.
11. input - Completed games in the computer.
12. %input - Percentage of games played that season which have been entered into the computer (column 11 divided by column 1).

year  play   acct  have  need  %have  no act  with tran  with tran inp  tran wait  tran with inp  input  %input
       (1)   (2)   (3)    (4)   (5)     (6)     (7)           (8)          (9)          (10)       (11)    (12)
1946  1242   201   201   1041   16.2    130      0             0            0             0         71     5.7
1947  1243   410   393    850   31.6    238      0             0            0             0        155    12.5
1948  1237   648   448    789   36.2    251      0             0            0             0        197    15.9
1949  1241   758   451    790   36.3    137      0             0            0             0        314    25.3
1950  1239   743   522    717   42.1    325      0             0            0             0        197    15.9
1951  1239   876   658    581   53.1    415      0             0            0             0        243    19.6
1952  1240   929   623    617   50.2    451      0             0            0             0        172    13.9
1953  1239  1022   688    551   55.6    508     10            15            0             0        156    12.6
1954  1236  1074   757    479   61.2    506      0           129            0             0        122     9.9
1955  1234  1167   737    497   59.7    545      0             0            0             0        192    15.6
1956  1238  1258   868    370   70.1    662      0           117            0             0         89     7.2
1957  1234  1401   970    264   78.6    730      0           115            0             0        125    10.1
1958  1235  1620  1066    169   86.3    837      0             0            0             0        229    18.5
1959  1238  1611  1094    144   88.4    514      0             0            0             0        580    46.8
1960  1236  1715  1054    182   85.3    351      0             0            0             0        703    56.9
1961  1430  2258  1430      0  100.0      0      0             0            0             0       1430   100.0
1962  1621  2641  1502    120   92.7    391      0            28            0             0       1083    66.8
1963  1619  2530  1496    123   92.4     85      0            21            0             0       1390    85.9
1964  1626  2937  1570     56   96.6     22      0             0            0             0       1548    95.2
1965  1623  2369  1509    114   93.0   1176      0            50            0             0        283    17.4
1966  1615  2695  1546     69   95.7   1173      0            12            0             0        361    22.4
1967  1620  2632  1540     80   95.1    478      0             0            0             0       1062    65.6
1968  1625  2811  1565     60   96.3   1157      0             0            0            21        387    23.8
1969  1946  3278  1860     86   95.6   1187      0           105            0             0        568    29.2
1970  1943  3208  1871     72   96.3   1626      0             0            0             0        245    12.6
1971  1938  3255  1840     98   94.9   1386      0            88            0             0        366    18.9
1972  1860  3348  1826     34   98.2   1610      0             0            0             0        216    11.6
1973  1943  3143  1844     99   94.9   1398      0             0            0             0        446    23.0
1974  1945  3337  1895     50   97.4   1567      0            63            0             0        265    13.6
1975  1934  3048  1869     65   96.6    963      0            50            0             0        856    44.3
1976  1939  3394  1927     12   99.4   1332      0           171            0             0        424    21.9
1977  2103  3486  2058     45   97.9   1569      0            41            0             0        448    21.3
1978  2102  3554  2039     63   97.0   1667      2            25           29             0        316    15.0
1979  2099  3612  2042     65   97.3    808      0           184          143             1        906    43.2
1980  2105  4093  2095     10   99.5    599     10           153            0           391        942    44.8
1981  1394  2761  1394      0  100.0     36     10           113           49            31       1155    82.9
1982  2107  3935  2104      3   99.9      0      0             0            0             0       2104    99.9
1983  2109  4259  2109      0  100.0      0      0             0            0             0       2109   100.0

year  play   acct  have  need  %have  no act  with tran  with tran inp  tran wait  tran with inp  input  %input
       (1)   (2)   (3)    (4)   (5)     (6)     (7)           (8)          (9)          (10)       (11)    (12)
46-49  4963  2017  1493  3470  30.1     756      0             0            0             0        737    14.8
50-59 12372 11702  7984  4388  64.5    5493     10           376            0             0       2105    17.0
60-69 15961 25866 15072   889  94.4    6020      0           216            0            21       8815    55.2
70-79 19806 33385 19211   595  97.0   13926      2           622          172             1       4488    22.7
80-83  7715 15048  7702    13  99.8     635     20           266           49           422       6310    81.8



46-83 60817 88018 51462  9355  84.6   26830     32          1480          221           444      22455    36.9



46-95 85640  --   76285  9355  89.1    --       --           --            --           --       47278    55.2

Games entered into computer:             Retrosheet (all years)   24053
                                        Baseball Workshop       24823
                                        Grand Total             48876

You may have seen estimates Dave Smith made that we have 100,000 accounts covering 60,000 games, both of which now appear to be too high. The pre-1946 games will add some to the totals shown in columns 2 and 3 of the summary table above, but Smith has clearly been 10-15% too optimistic. Efforts continue to fill in the gaps in our collection that are apparent in this information. For example, the games that have been promised by the Tigers and White Sox will cover 373 of the missing 595 from the 1970s and 184 of the missing 889 from the 1960s. In addition, there are still thousands of pre-1950 games out there on microfilm archives of old newspapers and the time has come to consider seriously how we will organize our efforts to obtain copies of them. Volunteers are enthusiastically encouraged to help in collecting these accounts.

Some people prefer to see results such as these in graphical format rather than as long tables. The figure to the right presents two items for each season, 1946-1983, namely percentage of games played that we have in hand, and percentage that have been entered into the computer. There are lots of interesting features to this graph, but one of the most striking is that the games in hand follow a relatively smooth progression from greater than 90% back to 1960, then a fairly steady decline as we go backwards. On the other hand, the games entered is all over the place, indicating the highly varied preferences of our volunteers. The last three years are high because many people have been steered there when they had no other specific preference. The other peaks represent the intense activity of a small number of people. In particular the 1959-1964 bulge is driven by Ron Rakowski's tireless efforts, with many hundreds of games in this interval also input by Dave Lamoureaux, Ron Fisher, Luke Kraemer and Dave Smith.

No summary of our activity would be complete without a report on the number of games that have been completed since the last newsletter. The reporting period is from October 18, 1995 through February 17, 1996, a total of 123 days. Almost every week saw at least 100 games returned to the vault (low of 95, high of 562). As noted above, the total number of games that have now been entered is 24053. The count on October 17 was 20077, so we have completed 3976 in the last 17 plus weeks, for an average of 228 per week (the Fisher index) or 32.6 per day. These rates are a shade below those for the previous reporting period, but still reflect a huge amount of work by our volunteers. Just for entertainment, if we project this rate of activity forward, then the 26830 games from 1946-1983 that have currently received no attention will be completed in about 2.25 years! Time to start looking for more game accounts!

When Dave Smith told Baseball Workshop President Gary Gillette about the computerized totals, Gary's reaction was as follows:

"Your army of volunteer flat-tailed, furry rodents is gnawing down the vast forest of birch trees far faster than anyone could have imagined. As beaver-in-chief, you deserve a resounding, 21-tail, salute. I shall whack my posterior sharply upon the water forthwith in tribute."

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Page Updated: 8/6/96