RETROSHEET: STEP-BY-STEP EXAMPLE


The following step-by-step example is in response to several
requests for more detailed instructions on using Retrosheet
data and the programs on this web site. The tasks illustrated
probably will not be exactly what you want to do, but they
should show you how to generate box scores and extract data
that can be imported into spreadsheet and database software
for further processing and analysis. You may want to print
this page for future reference.

Comments, suggestions, and improvements are welcomed. You
can send an e-mail using the address at the bottom of our
home page.

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I don't think I can take the time to write a complete
and fairly foolproof set of instructions that a 5th grader
can follow.  However, here is a list of steps to show you
how to generate the Tigers box scores at Fenway in 1982.

1) If you haven't done so already, download the following
files from our site.  You should put them in the just one
directory on your hard disk, which probably should be
one set up to deal with retrosheet files.  I'll use
C:\retro as the example, but you can put it in any
directory that suits you.

a) the program files (under Tools on the site)
bevent.zip (which expands to bevent.exe)
box.zip
bgame.zip

[Note you click on bevent.exe, box.exe, bgame.exe
to do the downloads.]

The most recent versions of Windows can "unzip" files
using standard file management tools. If your operating
system can't do that, you can download the program file
pkunzip.exe.

b) data files (under Game Data), choose a year. We will use
1982 as an example, so click on that year. Doing so will
put the file 1982eve.zip on your hard disk

2) If you did not download to the C:\retro directory, move
the downloaded files to this directory.  You can do this using
Windows.

3) Now you will need to use DOS. The way to get to it varies
among the Windows versions, and it may be called getting a
"command prompt." Once you have done it,  A "DOS Window" should
open on your screen with a prompt that looks like C:\WINDOWS>
(it may look a little different).  If it is small, you may be able
to enlage it by clicking on the box just to the left of the X
in the upper right corner.

4) Move to the retro directory (following my example directory name)
by typing "cd \retro" and pressing the Enter key.  The prompt should
now look like "C:\retro>".

5) The next step is to unzip the files you downloaded if you have
not already done so. You should be able to do that using File
Explorer in Windows. You can also do so with the following four commands
entered from the DOS prompt. Press enter after each one:

[Note: DOS commands can be fussy; be sure to leave spaces where shown
and no spaces where shown.  If you get a message indicating that
something does not work right, then retype the command and try again.]

a) pkunzip bgame.zip
b) pkunzip bevent.zip
c) pkunzip box.zip
d) pkunzip 1982eve.zip

6) Use bgame to get a list of all games played at Boston:

bgame -y 1982 1982bos.eva >82bos.txt  (press Enter)

The ">82bos.txt" causes the output to be written to the file 82bos.txt
for further reference.  You can use a different name if you prefer.  Also
if you end the command with ">prn" instead, the list of games will be
printed on your printer.  You may want to do it both ways.  If your file
name ends in ".txt" you can view the file by finding it a Windows file list
(keep the DOS window open) by double clicking on its name or icon.  At that
point, another window should open up showing the contents of the file.

7) Find the games the Tigers played.  You can look at the file or printout
or use the search feature in the program (NotePad or WordPad) that opened
the file to look for DET.  I have already done it, and the Tigers played
at Fenway June 21-23 (three games) and Sept 10-12 (three games).  I can tell
the dates by the game IDs at the left of each line: BOS198206210. The zero
at the end indicates that it was a single game.  Double header games end in
a 1 or a 2.

8) We can make the box scores with two commands in the DOS window, one for
each series:

box -y 1982 -s 0621 -e 0623 82bos.eva >box1.txt
box -y 1982 -s 0910 -e 0912 82bos.eva >box2.txt

As before, you can use >prn at the end instead to print the box scores.

To see what the -y 1982, etc. means (if you can't guess), you can enter
the command box -h and it will display a brief list of the program options
and command syntax.  For example, if you wanted to make all the box scores
for Red Sox home games, you could enter the command

box -y 1982 82bos.eva >bos82box.txt

[Note: due to how DOS works, do not use more than 8 characters before the .txt]

9) If you want to try to put together the data for how the Tigers did in Fenway,
the first step would be to extact the play-by-play records for the six games.
This can be done using bevent, and the syntax is similar to that for box:

bevent -y 1982 -s 0621 -e 0623 82bos.eva >detdata1.txt
bevent -y 1982 -s 0910 -e 0912 82bos.eva >detdata2.txt

That will produce two files that probably look almost nonsensical if you view
them as above.  However, they can be read into database or spreadsheet programs
for further processing.  At this point, I am not going to be able to give you
directions.  I will refer you to the documentation on the web site for information
about the output of the bevent program in the two files, but it may not help you
a whole lot.  If I were going to get data on team performance in each park, I
would either write a program in BASIC to pull everything together or do a fair
amount of sorting and aggregating using a spreadsheet or database program.

I hope this gets you at least part of the way to your goal.  I can try to answer
questions, but I am not going to be able to provide any more detailed directions
like those above.  As I said before, our data are not easy to use (except for
making box scores) and require a fair amount of additional processing in most
cases.

Good luck. I hope you have some fun doing this.

Mark