Retrosheet announces Summer 2019 updates
By David W. Smith
I am very happy to announce the semiannual update to the Retrosheet.org website. We have many additions to our site and I am proud of our accomplishments since last November.
1. Box scores for the 1905 season have been completed and proofed. Tom Ruane led this effort as usual along with help from Dave Lamoureaux, Jonathan Frankel, Javier Anderson, Gary Pearce, Mike Grahek, Tom Stillman, Rob Wood, J.G. Preston, Pete Palmer, Herm Krabbenhoft, Don Zminda, Charlie O’Reilly, Bob Boehme, Chuck Hildebrandt, Mark Armour, Ron Weaver, Bob LeMoine, Tom Thress, and Ian Orr. Thanks to the efforts of this crew, we now have full box scores for the last 111 seasons.
2. The “deduction project” in which we construct play-by-play accounts of missing games by careful use of newspapers, especially the detailed game stories that were once so common. This time we release 1934, 1935, and 1936, adding to the front of our contiguous block of play-by-play as usual so that we now have full play-by-play of every game for the last 85 seasons. Many people have contributed to this work with Tom Thress, Dick Cramer, and Rob Wood completing the most games although we also have major contributions from Jim Herdman, Mark Pankin, Jim Wohlenhaus, John Gabcik, Stew Thornley, and Javier Anderson. Of course, this work depends entirely on having the newspaper accounts in hand in a usable, digital format. Tom Thress, Rob Wood, Cliff Blau, Jim Herdman and Wayne Townsend have donated a lot of time and downloaded game stories from newspapers.com.
3. We have also completed the proofing of play-by-play files from 1919 and 1920. Although these seasons are still missing some games which will eventually be deduced, I think it is valuable to get the information we have available as soon as possible. These new releases cover over 80% of the games back through 1919. We now provide play-by-play data for the last 100 seasons, giving us a wonderful Retro-Century!
Thanks to the many visitors to our site who have submitted suggestions for changes and corrections. The Retrocommunity is a dedicated group which makes all of our work possible.
DAVID W. SMITH is the founder and president of Retrosheet. He can be reached at dwsmith@retrosheet.org.
Originally published: June 24, 2019. Last Updated: June 24, 2019.