New Years 2011 Update

Been a little while since my last post, with the holidays and all.

Here is some of the data I have been able to update and where I got it from:

12/06/10	Louisville	1898	Times	scans of some pbp
12/06/10	Philadelphia	1908	Evening Telegraph	scans of Sept missing games
12/06/10	St. Louis	1907	Globe Democrat	1st scans from S Hastead - thru Apr 24
12/09/10	New York	1910	Evening Telegram	FultonHistory - up through mid-July - referred by Ed Morton
12/10/10	St. Louis	1901	Globe Democrat	more scans from D Ispring - July/Aug
12/11/10	Baltimore	1901-02	American	Found in Google Archives - referred by Ed Morton
12/11/10	Milwaukee	1901	Journal	Found in Google Archives
12/13/10	Baltimore	1901-2	Morning Herald	Found in Google Archives - referred by Ed Morton
12/14/10	Baltimore	1897-99	American	Found in Google Archives
12/14/10	St. Louis	1907	Globe Democrat	more scans from S Halstead - thru May 30
12/17/10	St. Louis	1901	Globe Democrat	rest of 1901 scans from D Ispring
12/20/10	Philadelphia	1910	Evening Telegraph	scans of July arrived
12/21/10	St. Louis	1907	Globe Democrat	rest of 1907 scans - working on July/Aug review
12/22/10	St. Louis	1907	Globe Democrat	Sept/Oct

I have gleaned information from a number of sources during the course of this work - this is a good example of that.

About mid-2010, I was doing a search for Honus Wagner in Google and discovered that Google had a Newspaper Archives of many older papers (http://news.google.com/newspapers).  That search pointed me to the Pittsburg Press, a paper which I had used in the past for its batter strikeouts in the box scores.  In the past, I had had the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh run copies of the box scores for me - now I could get them myself (Ironically, I had already, in essence, finished my need for the Press as I had already completed 1897-1909 Pittsburgh, its entire missing run).   Anyway, early in December, my Philly assistance, Ed Morton, mentioned to me that he had seen the Baltimore American in the Google News Archives as well.  Further looking by me (and Ed) found the Balt. Morning Herald, the Milwaukee Journal, and the Philadelphia Record.

The American, Morning Herald, and the Journal were all critical finds for me as the 1901 AL was one of the seasons where I needed the most help - primarily in Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Washington.   While none of these papers had batter strikeouts in the boxscores, I found a number batter strikeout mentions in the game accounts (Morning Herald better than American and Journal only sparsely).  Incrementally, I was able to raise my overall complete percentage for the 1901 AL from 78.2% to 82.2% - pretty significant when dealing with game account gleaning.  1902 also improved (due to Balt) up to 81.8%.

Online resources such as this and LOC Chronicling America, GeneologyBank.com (pay), Brooklyn Eagle.com, LA84 (Sporting Life), Proquest Historical Newspapers (pay) have made my job much easier in the past couple of years.  This is especially true in light of my local library discontinuing the ability to do InterLibrary loans of microfilm.  

I have been working on entering 1910 data
That's about all I have for now.

I am going to be on tonight's Seamheads.com webcast for those who might be listening.