March 1, 1999 Inside: Volume 6, Number 1 In the News P. 2 Strange Plays P. 4 Hidden Ball Tricks P. 7 The Retro Sheet Mailbox P. 9 Official Publication of Retrosheet, Inc. New Database at www.retrosheet.org Courtesy Runner Sighting Retrosheet is about to launch a new feature on our web Ted Turocy has found another courtesy runner. It page that will be a great service to baseball researchers. In the second issue of The Retro Sheet, back happened on 6-8-1911 in a White Sox game at New in July of 1995, I described the game York. Russ Ford hit Roy Corhan on the head with a logs we had which listed the basic data pitch, and Hal Chase allowed the Sox to send in Ping for all Major League games: date, Bodie to run, even though he was already in the teams, location and score being the ma- lineup. In the bottom of the inning, Bodie returned to jor items. These logs were prepared his station in center field, but Corhan was replaced at from computer files that Arnie Braun- ss by Tannehill, who moved over from 1b. Pitcher stein had created from the data gathered Doc White took over at 1b. [Ed note: this brings our over several years by Bob Tiemann. David W. Smith total of known courtesy runners to eleven. All of The primary use I have made of them is President them are listed on our web site.] as checklists to identify which games we still need to acquire. We now have permission to publish this information and are going to do so on our web site, but in a greatly expanded format. Thanks to a major effort by Courtesy Fielder ! Tom Ruane, we are generating a database that will list 105 pieces of information about each game, covering just about everything one could want to know, including such things as Dave Smith received an e-mail from Vincent Reda the line scores for both teams for each game; starting pitch- of the University at Albany. Mr. Reda said: “This ers; winning, losing and saving pitchers; umpires; even the week's acknowledgment of your scoresheet project identities of the managers. The first season to be released by Total Baseball was well deserved. I've had your in a few weeks is 1998 and we will steadily work backwards, Retrosheet bookmarked on my Netscape for several in proper RetroFashion. Of course we still need a lot of data months, and even pulled out and printed out every for some seasons and this database should definitely be game of 1967. I was surprised to see that courtesy seen as a work in progress to be continually enhanced as we expand and improve our information. If you are inter- runners were so prevalent. In a separate study I did ested in helping to fill in some of the gaps, for example, by on the outfield play of Tris Speaker, I came across a researching attendance figures or umpires, please contact courtesy fielder. You might have this one, but here it Tom Ruane at is: [email protected] since Tom is the coordinator of this effort and will organize “On 9-1-1917, Detroit was in Cleveland, Speaker the data-gathering expeditions. The files we post will be ex- was on 3b in the bottom of the first with Joe Evans at cellent adjuncts to our play by play data and can be valuable bat. Tris tried to steal home but Evans hit away and even for games for which we don't have an account. This is lined a ball into Speaker's face. Detroit manager an exciting opportunity to make Retrosheet even more valu- Hughie Jennings, as a courtesy, allowed Tris to sit able as a historical resource; many thanks to Tom, Arnie out in the second inning while his face was sewn up. and Bob for the many hours of work that were necessary to get us to this position. Elmer Smith played cf in the top of the second and Speaker went back in for the third. “Thank you, and thanks for the work you are doing The annual meeting of Retrosheet, Inc. for baseball diehards like myself.” will be held at the Scottsdale Radisson Resort during the weekend of June 24- That’s a nice response from our web site (kudos again to the webmasters) and what a story concern- 27. Please check the SABR convention ing Speaker. This one will be added to the list of program for details of the room loca- Courtesy Runners with an asterisk! tion. March 1, 1999 The Retro Sheet Retrosheet Game Account Acquisitions in the News By Dave Smith covering games from 1936, 1937, and 1938. These books, kept by a Congratulations to Retrosheet volun- Retrosheet continues to add to its fan, were "Texaco Scorebooks", dis- teer Joe Dittmar. In December, collection, with material coming from tributed by the company and were Jayson Stark of the Philadelphia In- many directions. In addition to mi- complete with scoring instructions, quirer and Baseball America called crofilmed newspaper accounts from player photographs, and even umpire Joe a “SABR genius” and recom- New York (1910 Evening Telegram, photographs! Each book had be- mended Joe’s book Baseball Records 1934 World-Telegram), we have a tween 15 and 20 games and Andy Registry, calling it the “incredible box- set of scorecards from 1952 from a allowed me to borrow them, go down score compendium.” The book is a fan who went to some Cubs, Cardi- the street to a copy shop and make well-written collection of interesting nal, Browns and Giants games. copies. I was able to get accounts games and in it Joe thanks Retro- Credit goes to bulldog Luke Krae- for a total of 183 games, covering sheet for valuable source material. mer, who contacted Tom Sykes with both the Cubs and White Sox. This book would be a valuable addi- some of our wish list for that year. tion to anyone’s baseball library. We also have had success in clean- Speaking of 1952, Bob Kistler con- ing up some loose ends with four Total Baseball Daily, an electronic tinues to give us huge support from teams: Cleveland, San Francisco, digest of news, featured Retrosheet Boston. He recently sent in a pack- Oakland, and San Diego. The most over a three-day period in January. age with 65 game accounts for the notable part of this story is that the This publication, edited by Gary Gil- Braves and Red Sox (three are par- A's allowed Retro-volunteer David lette and Stuart Shea, has a large tials), up through June 25 of that Horwich to borrow their books and readership and their coverage of us year. This set is in addition to the 51 make copies for everything they had was both complete and flattering. games for the 1953 Red Sox that he from 1968-1977. Before this, the The articles included a short descrip- finished at the end of last year (three only Oakland source we had was tion of our purpose with requests for of these are also partials). Just hav- broadcaster Monte Moore, whose assistance and some of our more ing copies of these accounts is great, books were pretty sketchy on things interesting discoveries over the last but Bob goes further and compares like runner advances. Thanks to few years. We received several in- multiple sources and provides us with David for the many hours he put in to quiries as a result of the series. immaculate copies that make input- help us out. Thanks to the folks at Total Sports ting a breeze. for the feature. David Vincent found another Sun- Bob Yahr has copied hundreds of day game in The New York Times. Don Malcolm’s Big Bad Baseball An- game accounts from Chicago, Mil- This was a Yankee contest in St. nual includes detailed Jackie Robin- waukee and St. Louis, working in the Louis on 9-17-1922. Both teams son data. Retrosheet provided Don late 1940s and early 1950s. The were fighting for the AL pennant and with situational stats on Robinson. coverage in this era is pretty sparse, this was dubbed the “little world se- especially for the NL, so Bob's dili- ries” by the writers. The Times car- gence in checking multiple sources in ried all three games of the series. While inputting NL games from 1974 Bill multiple libraries is what it takes to We had two of them already but Disney came across a great note from a ferret out these accounts. some details were added to our ac- Padres scoresheet. On June 26,1974 the counts. However, the Sunday game Giants played in San Diego and the scoresheet notes that Jason Kendall was In January I had a wonderful experi- is new for Retrosheet. Please be born that day. Fred Kendall's wife Patti ence with Georgetown Books in Be- aware that Sundays are our worst gave birth at 7:30 AM; Jason weighed 8 thesda, Maryland. The owner of the day for games in newspapers. If you pounds. The note also mentioned that Ja- store, Andy Moursund, is a SABR ever see an account for a Sunday son has a brother, Mike, who is 2 years old. member with some nice baseball game, please copy it and send it New papa Fred went 1 for 3 with a triple! items. I found out about a set of along. Thanks. scorebooks he had from Chicago, Recently, Tom Ruane has done Cincinnati, 7-19-1946 – There is a most gullible bank teller in this city.