The Retro Sheet
Official Publication of Retrosheet, Inc.
Although we have many Retrosheet volunteers deserving
of the title, this piece is actually about the inputting of the
careers of various members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Currently,
there are three Hall of Famers whose complete careers are computerized.
They have all been done by Dave Smith and should come
as no surprise to anyone who has listened to him talk about his
favorite team, the Dodgers. The first HOF to be completed was
Sandy Koufax, followed by Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella.
Dave is within 20 games of finishing Duke Snider's career as
well. As a group, we have approached completion on Mike Schmidt's
playing days and that might be done by the next newsletter.
The RetroVault contains complete paper copies of
the careers of approximately 30 players who are in the Hall of
Fame or will be soon. One of the latter, George Brett has already
been input and we are close to complete on Nolan Ryan. Anyone
willing to work on a project of this nature should contact Dave
Smith.
The American and National Leagues played 115,666
games from 1901 through 1983. As The Scoreboard summarizes later
in this newsletter, we now have 51.1% of the 20th century games
in hand. I realize that it is possible to make too much of these
intermediate milestones, but I always feel a special pleasure
when we cross a special threshold, such as the 50% mark. We can't
know for sure where we will end up, but there is no question that
many thousand more accounts are available from microfilmed newspapers,
so let us give thanks for Interlibrary Loan and it's off to the
library I go!
We now have a new utility program called MISSING
that will read event files and report on missing information.
It checks for start time, time of game, umpires, attendance,
winning/losing pitchers, and a day/night indicator. We will take
the results of MISSING and find the necessary information, usually
in newspaper box scores. Once we have this fill-in data we turn
to the second of our new programs, UPDATE. Update accepts information
for the above named fields and writes them to a data file. This
program should be relatively easy to use, since it looks almost
exactly like the opening screens of DWENTRY. The resultant data
file from UPDATE will be sent to Dave Smith, who will merge the
information into the event files.
These programs will be placed into use soon so that
we can start the process of completing game information in our
event files. If you are interested in reading old newspapers
to help with this (The New York Times will usually supply
this info), please contact Dave Smith.
John Maroon and Bill Stetka in the Orioles Public Relations office asked if in the next year we could provide them a daily summary for all players in Baltimore history. We answered yes (of course!) Since the Orioles were the first team to let us copy their scoresheets, we got started on their games over five years ago. After all the various projects that have been done, the seasons that still need attention are 1954, which Jim Herdman is doing, 1955 (no one working there yet), 1956 (Luke Kraemer is attacking as part of his larger 1956 effort), 1957 (no one there either), and 1958, which Tim Cashion has begun. Ron Rakowski has completed their games from 1958-1961, Dave Lamoureaux from 1962-1965 (minus the few games at the end of September he is still doing), 1966 and 1967 are complete, and 1975-present are also finished. From 1969-1974 there are about 250 games to do, many of which are currently in the hands of Arnie Braunstein. Arnie has input a large number of games this summer and fall which had been previously translated by several different volunteers. Wayne Townsend tackled some from this group as well and has now turned his attention to some of the "stragglers" that weren't completed earlier, perhaps 20 for each of these seasons. The Orioles were told we could have this project completed by the end of the 1997 season, which still looks reasonable. If anyone out there has an interest in doing the 1955 or 1957 teams, let Dave Smith know and the games will be on their way to you.
Rick Elliott has finished 1953 DET and has begun working on 1955 DET. He is also planning to do some proofing and checking on the 1953 team once Dave Smith gets him a list of the discrepancies between the data from our files and the official numbers. Rick contributes lots of entertaining comments along the way, with this one about 1953 of special note:
In the middle [of June], of course there was Boston's
legendary 17run seventh inning on June 18th, and the BigLeague
debut on June 25th of one of the most popular and talented Tigers
ever to don the uniform. I'm referring, of course, to Robert
Gerald Miller. (Some newbie by the name of Kaline also got his
start in that same game.)
Clem Comly finished the
1978 NL with the exception of the 26 games we don't have in the
vault. He is now working on the 1977 season.
Chris Long has finished
the 1974 Phillies and is now doing their 1975 season. When Clem
and Chris finish their current projects, we will be within a half
season (last part of 1976) from having Mike Schmidt's career complete.
Greg Beston, Jon Dunkle, Doug Burks,
and Mark Dobrow have nearly completed the 1980 AL season.
Doug has the last four games to do and then we will have another
league season in the can. In addition, Greg and Jon finished
the 1979 AL off in November. The Four Horsemen of the AL have
turned their attention now to the 1978 season.
Steve Hamilton completed
work on the 1965 Cardinals and has moved on to the 1966 team.
In addition, Steve is planning to do proofing on the 1965 Cardinals'
totals.
Wayne Townsend finished
off the 1968 Orioles season. See elsewhere in this issue for
further discussion of the Orioles.
Bob Kapla, a longtime
Twins fan, completed the entry of the historic 1965 team.
Ron Fisher has finished
the 1945 Senators except for the two games that were missing from
the team files.
Scott Fischthal has finished
the 1967 Mets and has almost completed the 1968 season.
Jim Herdman has entered
280 of the 621 AL games played in 1954, finishing the Senators
(minus a game we don't have). He currently has the last of the
Orioles games from their inaugural year in Baltimore and intends
to keep pounding through the rest of the league.
Dave Lamoureaux continues
his steady progress through the 1965 AL (all teams). He has now
reached September 18 and should have the last three weeks of the
season done in January.
Stuart Shea is making
progress through the 1969 Padres, which is quite a challenge,
not only because the team was pretty bad, but their scoresheets
are incomplete and not the finest game accounts in the vault.
Marc Stephenson is also
entering games from the 1969 NL, working his way through from
the start, paying attention to all teams at once, except for the
Mets and Cubs which are finished and the Padres which Stu Shea
is doing.
Tim Cashion rounds out
our 1969 NL assault by tackling the Expos. This is not so easy,
since their scoresheets are very difficult to read, mostly because
of the quality of the photocopies.
Brad Sullivan has translated
all the 1940 Indians games from the Plain Dealer, so we have another
team-season awaiting input.
David Vincent continues
work on the 1925 season from various newspaper accounts; as of
this writing we have more than 1/3 of the season computerized
with an expected goal of 90% of all games played. In addition,
David has found accounts of games in April 1901 in the Chicago
Daily News. The most exciting part of this is that we now
have input the first American League game ever played (Cleveland
at Chicago, 4/24) along with a few others from that time.
All-Star Games: This is the last group of "special"
games not finished. Tim Cashion spent the time to prepare
the rosters for each year's game and has entered several of the
early games already. David Vincent has also done a few
of these games. It looks like we will have the set complete sometime
during the winter or early spring.
The 1920s: The graph later on shows the very interesting
way in which our holdings are distributed. Of special note is
the large bulge we have in the "Roaring 20s". Jim
Weigand copied Cleveland Plain Dealer accounts from 1917 through
1928 and Dave Smith has copied accounts from several New
York papers as well as Chicago and St. Louis. The result is that
for the years 1920-1930, we have in our hands accounts for 5785
of the 13532 games that were played in those 11 season. We have
entered 2079 in the computer as of December 17. Ron Fisher
completed the New York games from 1928-1930, Dave Smith and Tim
Cashion have done a lot on 1927 and continue to do so. Tom
Eckel is working on the 1926 New York games. David Vincent
has already entered over one third of the 1925 season and has
another 200 or so game accounts on the way from Dave Smith. Rob
Neyer is nearly done the New York games for April of 1924
while Wayne Townsend is processing April of 1923. Ron
Fisher has finished April and May of 1921 and Clem Comly
has done the same (plus some of June) for 1920. Kevin Hennessy
has done many Chicago White Sox games from 1920. Going back a
bit earlier we find Joe Costa starting on the 1919 Indians
while Bruce Borey and Chuck Voas have completed
around 120 games for the 1917 Indians.
The only year not being worked on in the 1920s is
1922. Any takers?
The point to this summary is how amazing (and wonderful!)
it is that we can have such success with newspaper accounts.
There are many more out there and we will certainly continue to
gather them up.
We are trying to standardize some of the most common
comments placed in event files so that it is easier to search
for particular types of extra information in the files.
Home runs:
1) Before 1931 (1930 in the AL), balls in play that
bounded out of the field were homers. These are the plays that
are currently "ground rule doubles." Note that there
are examples of this event where the ball does not bounce over
the fence but rather through a gap in the fence. Since we now
have many people working in the 1920s, bounce homers will appear
in game accounts. Please follow these guidelines: (a) since
the ball leaves the playing field, it is HR/7 (substitute the
correct field position); (b) add a comment after the homer with
the wording "Bounce HR".
2) For inside the park home runs, we want to add
a comment similar to the bounce situation. The syntax for these
is HR7 (substitute the correct field position). Add a comment
after the homer with the text "IPHR".
For both comments, you may add extra information
as long as you start with the requested text. Examples of additional
commentary would be anything that further explains the game situation
("IPHR to the scoreboard" or "Bounce HR; ball went
through hole in scoreboard").
Ejections:
If you discover commentary about someone being ejected,
please note the details in a comment. Specifically, list the
names of the umpire and player/coach/manager tossed and the reason
if available. Always use the form "Player ejected by Umpire
for spitting in his face" in the comment.
Rain delays:
The key words here are "rain delay."
If the timing is listed either as a length of time or a start
and end time, note it, but the word we want to see is "delay"
(it could be for other reasons as well.)
Original SABR member Joe Simenic of Cleveland
has donated copies of his scoresheets from the 1946 season. Joe
attended most Indians home games that summer after returning from
his time in the military and saved those sheets (he must have
known we would show up on his doorstep some day!) Joe's sheets
cover 62 of the 77 home games that year including the last game
played at League Park. While checking some facts for that game
in The Sporting News, Joe and David Vincent discovered
a game account for the first game of a doubleheader on 9/22/46
between the Tigers and the Indians. The feature of this game
was the starting pitchers: Hal Newhouser against Bob Feller.
In his typical understated style, Bill Veeck promoted that game
as the "pitching matchup of the century." The account
in TSN of this game has pitches listed (B1 S1 swinging S2 foul
B2 B3 S3 called). The game ended as a 3-0 win for Newhouser and
the two pitchers threw a combined total of 241 pitches (97 for
Newhouser). With this account added to Joe's, we have 63 of 77
home games for the 1946 Indians! A big RetroThanks to Joe for
his contribution. By the way, David input both the Newhouser
game and the last game at League Park with Joe's help.
We continue to photocopy accounts from various newspapers.
Many afternoon papers listed complete play-by-play of that day's
game. Since this was such a common occurrence in the early 1920s,
we will have better coverage of that era than many later years
(such as the late 1940s and early 1950s).
Also see the discussion under Publicity for more
on Game Account Acquisitions.
Paul White mentioned us in his column in Baseball
Weekly in late November, including the dates of some key games
we needed : one between DET and MIL from 9/27/75, the only missing
game from that AL season for us and the now-infamous NYN at SDN
series from April, 1982. Within a week Dave Smith had received
personal scorecards of two of the games from fans who attended.
The MIL game came from John Salvo of Racine, WI and Tom Larwin
of San Diego sent his card for the first 11 innings of the 15
inning game of April 28, 1982. Thanks to Paul, John and Tom.
The December issue of Inside Sports had an
article by Noah Lieberman on record-keeping in baseball. He interviewed
Pete Palmer of Total Baseball, Gary Gillette of the Baseball Workshop
and Dave Smith on their activities, giving Retrosheet another
nice public notice.
See Volume 3 number 2 for comprehensive list, with
additions in last edition. The following details completions
since the last newsletter.
League-Season
1978 NL (minus the 26 games we don't have)
1979 AL
Team-Seasons
1945 WS1 (minus the two games we don't have)
1965 SLN, MIN
1967 NYN
1968 BAL
1974 PHI
From Jon Dunkle:
8/4/79 (White Sox at Blue Jays) - Ralph Garr leads
off the game with the following play S5.BX2(46); Jon reports that
both scoresheets agree and that newspapers should be checked to
figure out just what happened.
From Scott Fischthal:
5/26/68 (Mets at Braves) - The game was called by
rain after six innings. According to the scoresheet, the umpires
wore turtlenecks that day and NY GM John Murphy asks: "When
are they going to wear beads?"
From Joe Costa:
5/2/19 (Tigers at Cleveland) - With Ralph Young at
the plate and a runner on 1b, the play is 13/SH/DP.1X2(38). It
seems that Tris Speaker, known for playing shallow, snuck in behind
the Ira Flagstead for an unusual double play.
From Dave Smith:
9/22/80 (Angels at Brewers) - With Sal Bando on 3b,
Jim Gantner on 2b, and Buck Martinez at bat, we have the everyday
double play CSH(25)/DP.2X3(46).
While copying the 1923 games from the New York
Evening Telegram, Dave came across an amazing exhibition game.
On 10/3, the Giants and Yankees had wrapped up their pennants
and they formed a combined squad to play against the Baltimore
Orioles, champions of the International League. The Major League
team was mostly Giants, but Babe Ruth, Aaron Ward, and Elmer Smith
of the Yankees played as Giants. There were four home runs, including
one by Ruth, who retired after his clout in the fifth inning.
The New York team won 9-3 and the entire play by play was in
the Evening Telegram (which Dave copied, of course). The final
amazing point is that the regular season did not end until October
7. Given the realities of the modern game, it is hard to imagine
such a game occurring today.
From Bill Disney (game translated by Clem Comly):
9/20/83 (Cardinals at Expos) - "Herzog (and
SLN scorer) thought Carter was out on last play. Whitey got ejected.
Scorer apparently allowed to stay."
From Doug Burks:
9/17/80 (A's at Rangers) - Rick Langford pitched
8.2 innings, ending his string of 22 consecutive complete games.
The 1981 Sporting News Baseball Guide noted this was the
most in over 30 years. For the 1980 season, the Oakland staff
had 94 complete games (most since DET in 1946). Mike Norris,
Matt Keough, Langford, and Steve McCatty each pitched 14 inning
complete games, with McCatty the only loser in the bunch, 2-1
to Seattle on August 10. By now everyone must be wondering who
the manager of that team was - it was Billy Martin! That team
was also known for its base-running adventures, stealing home
seven times, as well as pulling off 14 double steals and one triple
steal.
From David Vincent:
6/12/25 (Giants at Pirates) - With runners on second
and third and no outs Kiki Cuyler hits a grounder to Travis Jackson
at ss. Jackson throws home to get Max Carey and Johnny Rawlings
then tries to reach 3b and is nailed. Finally, Cuyler is out
in a rundown between first and second - a very unusual triple
play with all three runners caught in rundowns and the right fielder
getting an assist. The play is:
FC6/TP.3XH(625);2X3(54);BX2(4393)
6/30/1925 (Dodgers at Phillies) - In the top of the eleventh inning with a runner on 2b and no one out, Zach Wheat hits the ball back to the pitcher, Dutch Ulrich. Ulrich traps Milt Stock between 2b and 3b in a rundown. Eventually the play turns back to Wheat, who attempts to reach 2b but is put out. Then the play returns to Stock who is out at 3b. The play:
FC1/DP.BX2(154);2X3(42)
Detroit at Cleveland 7/1/1925: With runners on first and second and one out, Frank O'Rourke singles to cf. Tris Speaker throws behind Fred Haney when he rounds 2b but Haney gets back. However, O'Rourke runs all the way to 2b thinking Haney was headed for 3b. With two runners standing on 2b, Joe Klugman tags O'Rourke. Haney walks off the bag confused and is also tagged out. An outfield single that turns into a double play. The play:
S8/DP.2-H;1X2(4);BX2(84)
Unknown game: Here is one that will appear once in a while: runners on first and second and no outs. The batter hits a grounder to the third baseman who steps on the bag and throws to second for another out. This is a GDP even though the batter is safe.
5(2)4(1)/GDP
The following graph shows two things: (1) the paper game accounts we have in the vault (the back, darker section); and (2) the computerized game accounts we have (the front, lighter section). Both are shown as a percentage of the total games played for that season. Please note that this does not include World Series, League Championship Series, Division Series, or All-Star game accounts. Except for the latter, all of those games are computerized.
We follow the practice of publishing a short version
of the scoreboard in this issue. We publish a complete version
once a year. The current summary for regular-season games is
as follows:
Total Games in Computer (All Years before 1984) 33,343 Games Entered since last Report 4,247 Days since last Report (8/11/96 to 12/17/96) 139 Games Entered per Week (18 weeks and 3 days) 230.5 Games Entered per Day 30.6
The smallest number of games input in a single week during this period was 96 and the highest was 730. In our files we now have accounts for 59,194 games and we need 56,472 more from this century. That means that we have 24,117 games which have been collected, but not yet processed. Let's get to work!!!
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Page Updated: 12/26/96
Copyrighted: Retrosheet, 1996