Retrosheet announces Fall 2023 updates
By Tom Thress
Retrosheet is pleased to announce its semi-annual update for Fall 2023 at Retrosheet.org.
Major thanks go out to Joe Callahan and Tyler Ault for generating the “Games/People/Parks” portion of the website. I would also like to thank Rob Wood, Dave Smith, and David Roher for their significant efforts in helping to prepare the data presented here.
New and Updated Data
- 2023 season. Event files are now available for the 2023 regular and postseason. My thanks to Ted Turocy, Pete Palmer, Rob Wood, and Dave Smith for their help in compiling the new season.
- 1917 and 1918 AL and NL seasons. Event files, including some deduced files, are now available for all of the 1917 and 1918 seasons. Special thanks to Rob Wood for leading this effort and thanks to our team of deducers: Cliff Blau, Dick Cramer, Jim Herdman, Dave Smith, Wayne Townsend, and Rob Wood. Also thank you to Jim Wohlenhaus who helped reconstruct many 1918 Boston Red Sox games.
- 1912 AL and NL seasons. Event files are available for the first time for the 1912 season. Thanks to many years of effort by Mike Grahek, we have event files for all AL and NL games played in 1912. Many thanks to Mike and also to Rob Wood for his help in preparing this season.
- 1971 and 1972. Full play-by-play accounts have been discovered for the 10 games in 1971 and 1972 which were deduced games in our last release. These accounts have been incorporated here. With these upgrades, Retrosheet has event files for all major-league games from 1969 – 2023. Three games remain on our ‘most wanted’ list for 1971 for which we are still lacking fielding credits. We are also missing fielding credits for several games in 1970 and 1969 (as well as many such games in earlier seasons).
- Outside of the seasons described above, improvements have been made to the game accounts of approximately 778 games in previously-released seasons, through the discovery of new scorecards, new newspaper sources, and a growing number of radio and television accounts that are being made available online. These improvements include the addition of 58 new accounts (56 in 1913, 1 each in 1915 and 1916), the promotion of 57 deduced files to full event files between 1923 and 1967, the removal of 62 games from our ‘most wanted’ list between 1920 and 1967, and the addition of pitch data for 52 games (between 1956 and 1987). Special thanks to Wayne Townsend, Jay Wigley, Rob Wood, Bob Yahr, Bill Way, and others for their help in this work. A detailed description of these improvements can be found here (this list does not include the 1912, 1917, 1918, or 2023 seasons and may not be complete). The file detailing updates is included in the full download available on our home page and described below.
Additional Updates
- Using Retrosheet Data: Retrosheet has added one source to its page listing Resources for Using Retrosheet Data and two new sources to its page listing Websites Using Retrosheet Data. If any of you have or know of a website that you think should be added to either of these pages, please contact Tom Thress.
- Ballpark firsts and lasts: We have added a list of MLB firsts at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City and updated our list of MLB firsts at London Stadium based on the MLB games played in these stadiums in 2023. We have also added additional first and lasts for several historical MLB stadiums. Thanks to Jim Herdman for compiling these data. We have also updated our page on Alternate Site games through 2023.
- Noteworthy Events and Achievements: Retrosheet has updated its lists of noteworthy events, achievements, and milestones to include data through 2023. These include lists of no-hitters, cycles, triple plays, suspended games, mid-game umpire changes, pitch-count mistakes, non-pitcher pitching appearances, and replay reviews, among other things.
- Retrosheet has also updated several additional pages to add and update historical data based on ongoing research. These include pages on batting out of turn, lost home runs, and courtesy runners.
- Going Out with a Bang: Retrosheet has added a new “noteworthy event” to its list. Bill Deane has compiled a list of players who homered in their final (regular-season) major-league at bat. Our thanks to Bill for sharing this list with us.
- Charlie Pavitt’s Sabermetric Encyclopedia: Finally, Charlie Pavitt has updated his compilation of sabermetric books and articles. Our thanks to Charlie for sharing this with us.
The Negro Leagues portion of Retrosheet’s website has not been updated as part of this release. Retrosheet continues to work on compiling Negro League games. We are currently in the process of incorporating several improvements which we hope will make this section of our website even better. We hope to do a Negro Leagues-only release some time in early 2024.
Thank you to all of Retrosheet’s volunteers. My apologies to any that I failed to identify by name. Retrosheet is always looking for more volunteers. If you would like to help us with any of this work, please reach out to me at the e-mail address below.
TOM THRESS is the president of Retrosheet. He can be contacted at tthress@retrosheet.org.
Originally published: December 7, 2023. Last Updated: December 7, 2023.