Site Overview

Boxscores'n'more
We are tempted to call it the Retrosheet Encyclopedia because there is so much here. However, we don't want you to think it is just another encyclopedia because we don't have some of the items in the traditional ones and we have information that you just won't find anywhere else. Explore the seemingly countless number of links to discover the treasures that await you. Included are:

• Boxscores for every major league game from 1957 through 2006 plus the NL in 1911, 1921, 1922, and 1954. Also, National Association in 1872 and 1874.
• Narratives (text play-by-play descriptions) for just about all of the games for which there are boxscores, except for 1999 where there are only boxes, and the 1921 NL. The 1911 and 1922 NL seasons have some games with only boxes. Nineteenth Century seasons only have boxes.
• Team and player seasonal and career statistics including many splits
• Batter/pitcher matchups for players since 1957
• Year-end and in-season standings
• Post-season and All Star Game boxes and play-by-play narratives (also available from Post-season and All Star games links in the menu on the left)
• Lists of transactions
• All major league managers and their teams' records organized by managers' names and by team
• Coaches with records on individual and team pages
• All major league umpires and data about their assignments
• Numbers of ejections by year for each player, manager, and coach
• Histories of every major league franchise
• Top individual and team batting and pitching performances in the years for which we have complete data
• Members of the Hall of Fame and winners of more than 25 other types of awards and honors
• Dates of individual milestones for season and career hits, homers, stolen bases, wins, strikeouts, saves
• Places of births and deaths and cemetary locations
• Information organized in many ways: by year, by date, by player, by team, by ballpark, by franchise

Data downloads

• Play-by-play files (also called event files) -- Data files containing literally every play in the included games. The files are designed to be processed further using your own computer. We provide some software to help and some documentation about the files and the software. If you are looking for instant information on-line, these files are not for you. Instead, look in Boxscores'n'more.
• Game logs -- Basic data for every major league game since 1871, the first year of major league play, including date, score, winning and losing pitchers, and a lot more. What's available varies by years (less for the earlier years, more for the later years). Read the descriptive text file for an explanation of what is there. These are data files designed for input into a database or spreadsheet program, so they probably won't make much sense when seen on your screen.
• Schedules -- The game logs show the results of the games as they were actually played, which includes games that were postponed, most often due to poor weather, and played later or in a few cases were never made up. The files on this page show the schedules as the season began, which are of particular interest to those wanting to replay seasons. We haven't gotten them for all years yet, but quite a few are posted and we are working on the rest.

Features

• Noteworthy events (previously called Special Lists) -- Here you will find lists of some of the more unusual things that have taken place in games. Currently, these include
  • Batting out of turn
  • "Lost" home runs
  • Four homers in a row
  • Game ending non-homers (hits that are homers under current rules, but weren't before 1920)
  • Courtesy runners
  • Passing runners on the bases
  • First and last events for 20th Century and later ballparks
  • Neutral and alternate site games
  • Suspended games
  • Forfeited games
  • Resumed protested games
  • No decision games
  • Triple plays
  • Strange and unusual, usually one of a kind, plays
• Special Features -- Links to some items that do not fit nicely on the other pages on the site. A 2007 addition honors the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's major league debut with quite detailed performance data including a list of his steals of home and how he did against each of the 288 pitchers he faced in the regular season. There is also a description of and the rules used for the first Major League game, which was played in 1871, a brief history of the score keeping system we use with an example scoresheet, and a great picture of Coors Field being built.
• Research papers -- Papers with research done using Retrosheet data. New contributions are welcome, so please let us know how you have used our data.
• Most wanted -- Lists of the games from 1947-73 for which we still are looking for play-by-play accounts. We have game accounts for all games from 1974 on. We start the list at 1947 because that is the first year for which we have accounts for more than half the games played. Obviously, we are very interested in accounts from earlier years also.

Organization

• Who we are -- A brief description of Retrosheet and its history. Also, reports and pictures from each of the annual meetings since the first one in 1994 in Arlington, Texas as well as a listing of the members of Board of Directors and pictures of that group at various times.
• Discussion group -- The RetroList list server is on the Yahoo!Groups site. In addition to providing information about and commenting on this web site, Retrosheet volunteers and other interested fans also exchange comments about a variety of not-so-common baseball topics such as interpretation of scoring rules and raise questions, usually getting quick answers, about the availability and accuracy of historical data. Typically there are fewer than ten messages a day. There is a link to sign up if you are interested.
• Donations -- Retrosheet has been classified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) charitable and educational organization, so donations are fully tax-deductible. We accept donations, which are primarily used to support acquistion of materials vital to our collection and proofing of historical data. PayPal can be used if desired.

Archives

• Newsletters -- This page contains the Retrosheet newsletters that were published until early 2002. The page also contains information about the publicity Retrosheet has received in the media. Although the primary purpose of the newsletters was keeping Retrosheet volunteers up to date, others will most definitely find a great deal of interesting materials. As we have culled through old newspapers looking for game accounts, we have run across many baseball curiosities, some of which are quite funny or startling. The newsletters also have some analysis and data, such as how Stan Musial performed at Ebbets Field. Every baseball fan will enjoy browsing them.
• Site history -- Some of the items in the What's New section of our home page are things that would have been appropriate for the newsletters we used to publish. An example is a report on the Board of Directors meeting held at the 2002 Society for Baseball Research (SABR) national convention. We collect these type of items and a few others in the Archives when they are taken out of the What's New section.