About Me

I am a long time baseball fan who became interesting in documenting the "missing" batter strikeouts a few years back as an outgrowth of my interest in the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. Grew up w/ the Big Red Machine. I now follow them and my new hometown, Detroit Tigers. Member of SABR off and on since 1979.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Posts from my previous blog

Going through some old bookmarks and I found the blog I started in 2008 as a first attempt at chronicling my research adventure.  Here is the copy/paste of the entries (in reverse date order):


Received copies of boxscores from the Boston Herald from Lee Panas (thanks Lee).

As a result, here are my completion percentages for 1907 AL and NL:

1907 NL: 82.8%
1907 AL: 71.3%

St. Louis and, to a lesser extent, Chicago, are my NL trouble spots.

Detroit and St. Louis are my AL trouble spots.

Leaders (based on data so far):

1907 AL:

Most projected K's:

1.  Bill Hinchman -     108   (83 k's in 117 of 152 games - 77.0%)
2.  Danny Hoffman -  104  (91 k's in 120 of 137 games - 87.6%)

BK+:  

1.  Kid Elberfeld -  591 (7 k's in 105 of 120 games, 87.5%)
2.  Willie Keeler -  458 (8 k's in 93 of 107 games, 86.9%)



1907 NL:

Most projected K's:

1.  Bill Maloney -  100   (96 k's in 138 of 144 games - 95.8%)
2.  MIke Mitchell -  81  (71 k's in 130 of 148 games - 87.8%)

BK+:  

1.  Larry McLean -  306 (11 k's in 96 of 113 games, 85.0%)
2.  Johnny Evers -  250 (15 k's in 107 of 149 games, 71.8%)


June 09 update
06/08/2009
Well, it has been quite awhile since I have submitted an update.

Work and life have taken me away from my research for some time.

I have started creating 1904 and 1905 lineup databases.  Once these are done, I will fill-in what I have so far.

Ed Morton, Philly, has been able to start sending me philly k's again.  He is pulling some 2ndary source info for 1905 Phil and A games.

More to come...
Quick 2/4 update
02/04/2009
2/6:  Updated leader pages on Website w/ revised 1902 info and 1903 info,

1907 Pittsburg boxscores came in! 

1907 NL is now up to 67.5% complete

1903 Boston NL and AL boxscores came in (Thanks to Lee Panas!)

1903 AL is up to 81%.  Still inputting the Bos NL info - will be well north of 80% though.

1903 Roadblocks:  St. Louis and Washington!!

January 09 update
01/28/2009
Latest update:
St. Louis - got more play by play copies from the St. Louis Chronicle.  Unfortunately, most of the games are fairly incomplete (better than nothing).  I also requested sample dates for 1903 and 1907 from the Globe Democrat, World, Star (and Star-Chronicle), and Post Dispatch.  Alas, no luck.  Hopefully, I am missing a St. Louis newspaper somewhere or there is some St. Louis pbp hiding somewhere.  :(
Cincinnati - got all of 1907 home game scans from the Cincinnati Public Library - so these games are complete.

Pittsburg(h) - awaiting copied of 1907 home games from the Carnegie Library from the Pittsburg Press.

Boston - A good friend and fellow SABR'ite has graciously photocopied 1903 Boston Herald boxscores for me.  He is through June so far.  I have the 1907 Herald on ILL request.

NYA/NYN/Brooklyn - got play-by-play accounts from the NY Evening Telegram for 1904, 1905, 1906 from Dave Smith of RetroSheet.  I am using these, along w/ the LofC's Chronicling America scans of the NY Evening World to start to document the NY teams' k's for these seasons.  Coverage is really good - home AND away.

Chicago - working my way through the Tribune 1904-06 getting the home games.  Sent an ILL request for the Inter-Ocean to hope fill in missing 1907 home games.  Also got some RetroSheet pbp from the Daily News to fill in blanks for 1903 and 1907.

Cleveland - got Leader for 1907 and documented k's.  Made ILL request for 1904 Leader

Detroit - Checked 1907 Free Press and found that after the 1st game of the year, batter k's were not documented in the boxscore.  Checked Times, News, and Today(?) without any success there either.  Put ILL request in for 1904-06 Free Press.



12/17 Update
12/17/2008

1903 - Started receiving St. Louis Chronicle print-outs from the St. Louis Public Library.  So far games through May 4.
So far (guardedly written) the play-by-play is more complete than 01 or 02.  Hoping this continues.

Finished doing scannings for Retrosheet of various NY and StL sources.

1907 - got AL database up and going.  Entered in Wash, Chicago (what I had), and NYA.  Hope to get to Lib of Mich next week to pull the Det stuff.  Have ILL request in for Cleveland Leader.   Ed Morton is compiling the Philly stuff.  Boston - who knows. 

Recording Brook and NYN batter k's from NYET retrosheet info and NYEW online.  Once done, I will setup the database and send my requests out to Cincy and Pitt for copies/scans.

1903 NY update
12/05/2008
Received the NY Evening Telegram copies from Cliff Blau.  Thanks to Cliff again for his tremendous help.
I was able to fill in a big chunk of the AL and NL NY games.

I got the 1903 Boston Post finally.  Unfortunately, the Post only had batter k's in April.
I am hoping that I can have someone in Boston check in the Herald to see if it has the data (it had it in 1901) .

Also compiling my missing St. L games (AL & NL) list and send it off to a fellow SABRite or to the St. Louis PL.


1903 percent complete #'s.
NL - 73.9%
AL - 68.6% 


While waiting on some NY 1903 stuff, I decided to jump ahead to 1907.  Why 1907?  Because, this is the year that the Washington Post decided to start listing batter strikeouts again.  Unfortunately, the Chicago Tribune had a weird setup that year (at least that year, that is).  The boxscores associated with the games that the reporter known as "Sy" covered had batter strikeouts, no matter whether "he" was home or away.  Conversely, boxscores associated with "Charles Dryden" do not.  Between the two of them, they covered the Cubs and White Sox interspersedly (I know, not a word). 
On a good note, I am currently going through the NY Evening World and the online scans are of the "Final Results Edition"  - which has most (through May so far) of the complete play by play.  Not sure if this was a new Edition version by 1907 or the earlier years just didn't have that edition scanned.

Still looking for help in Boston...


Quick Update
11/11/2008
Mark O'Hara in Washington generously took the time to check the 1901 Washington Times for me and found a few more games for me - about 12 new bk games.  The Times, unfortunately, stopped doing batter k's after July 1 (they were scattered/inconsistent prior to that date).  Regardless, a nice find and greatly appreciated.  This moved the 1901 AL total documented games up to 71%.  If I could find a decent Milwaukee source, I would be in much better shape.
In the meantime, Clif Blau is copying 1903 NY Evening Telegram PBP for NYG, Broo, and NYH.  Hope to have that in a few weeks (a good deal of copies).
9/29/08 Update
09/29/2008

I received and reviewed the following microfilm last week:

1903 Cleveland Leader
1903 NY Herald
1901 Chicago Daily News

I was able to get  almost all of the 1903 Cleveland home games documented - 2 missing, 1 was played in Canton and the other in Columbus.  May  need to check local papers there for additional data.

I requested the NY Herald on a tip that they might have BK's, but in 1903 they did not.  I have re-requested the NY Evening Telegram as well as the NY Evening World from the NY State Library (the online World is not the "Late Extra" edition).  Hopefully I will see them in the next month or two. :O
The Daily News (a heads up from Walt Wilson) has partial play-by-play, allowing me to fill in a few more blanks in my missing games (particularly Washington, Milwaukee, and St. Louis).

Also, got more scans from the Cincy PL of 1902 and 1903 box scores.  Coming along nicely in groups of 5-6.

Got photocopies of selected games from 1897, 1901, and 1902 from the St. Louis Chronicle - I discovered that the Chronicle was an Afternoon/Evening paper and had play-by-play, mostly partial games.  Considering the lack of data in the other 4 St. Louis newspapers I had search (1901-2), this is a great revelation.  I still will have some big gaps there, but slowly I will be able to get some of those numbers up.  I have sent a photocopy request to the St. Louis PL for the 1901 St. Louis box scores from the Chronicle. 

 Current percentage completions (main home games missing):

1897 - 88.8  (St. Louis, Louisville)
1898 - 86.4 (Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis)
1899 - 88.3 (Louisville, Cincinnati)
1900 - 98.9
1901 NL - 86.4 (St. Louis)
1901 AL - 69.1 (Milwaukee, Washington, Baltimore)
1902 NL - 86.4 (St. Louis)
1902 AL - 62.2 (St. Louis, Baltimore, Washington)
1903 NL -42.9 (Boston, NY, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Cincinnati)
1903 AL - 56.2 (Boston, NY, St. Louis, Washington)

I have sent out requests for the Louisville Dispatch and the Evening Wisconsin to see if I can fill in some more gaps in Louisville and Milwaukee.  Both are evening papers and hopefully have play-by-play  (partial) - the Dispatch does for sure, though it is "touch and go" in the pbp coverage details.
I have contacted the Cincinnati Public Library and they have generously agreed to run scans of all the (needed) 1902 and 1903 home boxscores from the Cincinnati Commercial-Tribune.  They are emailing them to me every day or two in batches of 5 games.  And for FREE!  Have about 2/3 of 1902 so far.   1902 NL at 84.5% currently.
My library just received the 1903 Cleveland Leader and NY Herald.  I will begin to glean the Cleveland stuff Friday and see if the Herald has any BK info.

1901 Update
08/20/2008
Finished updating 1901 information w/ Pitt, NY, Brook, and Chicago info.

Got Chicago info from Walt Wilson this morning.

Pct complete jumped from 68 to 85%.  St. Louis is still the problem child.

Updated the BK+, Misc, and Most tabs w/ the new info.

Will go back and update 1897, 1900, 1901 AL, and 1902 NL in the next couple of days.
Update 8/19/08
08/19/2008
It's been awhile since I have posted anything.  Been on vacation in DC w/ the family (which was a blast, but a TON of walking - but that is another story) as well as waiting on microfilm and photocopies.

Upon my arrival home, I had mail from the Carnegie Library with box scores for missing Pitt games from 1897, 1901, and 1902 (mostly).  The 1897 (and 2 1900) games were from the Post for the ones that the Press did not have BK's for.  1901 & 1902 were from the Press.

I also received a mailing from the St. Louis Public Library with my "survey" of the St. Louis papers for 1897, 1901, and 1902.  I had them copy various games from those years from the Republic, Star, Globe-Democrat, and Post Dispatch.
Upon quick review, none of the papers have explicit batter strikeout information, unfortunately.  The best from a game summary looks like it was the Republic, but I need to go back through again.   Still wonder if there is another paper (or source) that might have the info.

In the meantime, I have contracted Walt Wilson, in Chicago, to pull the missing Chicago games for 1901 and 1902 from whatever paper he can.  He has sent me some of the stuff.  Apparently, the Chicago Daily News has play-by-play (or at least partial PBP).  He was able to pull BK info from that paper as well as the Chronicle and Herald.

Cliff Blau mailed me copies of the NY Evening Telegram from the 1st part of 1901 as well as a few scattered games in the 2nd half.  This should help fill in more of the Brook and NY gaps in this year.

Once I have completed reviewing and updating the various databases, I will uupdate the various pages here with updated information.

 Also, I have sent out ILL requests for 1899 Louisville Dispatch, which has partial play-by-play and 3 1901 Milwaukee papers - with the intent of trying to fill in as many blanks as possible, even if only partially.

I have started 1903 NL - entering in Chicago info.  I think I will hold off on any further entry until I can make more headway on the other seasons I am working on.
On a sidenote, I have decided to consolidate my blog entries to the "General" blog instead of maintaining one for each year.
I have updated my 1897 database with the Pittsburg and New York strikeout info.
Now up to 87.5%.

Need to get missing Pitt games from Pittsburg Post and hope to get the missing NY games from a microfilm version that has "Night Extra" of either the NY Evening Telegram or Evening World.

Tommy Corcoran dropped out of the lead, so Willie Keeler looks like he is the leader for 1897 as well.




I went to the library yesterday and went through the 1897 Pittsburg Press and New York Evening World that came in from Kent State (via Commerce Library).

The results:
Got most of the Pitt games from the Press except about a dozen early season games.  I got only a couple of games prior to 5/27/1897.  I will have someone in Pitt check the Post for the missing games.
Also, it should be noted, that each Monday, the Press published the Pirate stats, including batter walks and Strikeouts!
Made a copy of the final one, on the Monday after the final Pirate game. Press has 341 total k's for the Pirates (Davis leads w/ 43 - real close to the projection).  In essence, I have 100% of the Pirate k's, just have to figure out how to override my DB table to take the totals. :)

Got most of the NY games (home and partial away) after 5/22/1897.  This is when the microfilm started using the "Night Extra".  The "Eveninig" edition was not late enough in the day to publish any pbp.  Slowly reviewing the pbp, gleaning the k's and entering them into the db.

Update:  Got through copying the play-by-play in  the NY Evening World (including the Temple Cup).  Now the "fun" has begun, going through each pbp and trying to decipher what is a strikeouts.  Descriptions tended to be quite flowerful and obtuse at times.


7/21 Update
07/21/2008
Pittsburg Press copies have been made by the Carnegie Library and will be mailed to me today.  Hopefully, the Press continued their coverage.

Just got copies from St. Louis Globe-Democrat for the 1st 3 months of home games - no luck, no batter strikeouts.  I have already requested copies for the same home dates from the Post Dispatch.  Keep our fingers crossed.
1901 NL Update
07/20/2008
Presently I stand at 67.8% of the team-games completed.

Here are the Home games (mostly) by team completed by source:
Cincinnati - Commercial-Tribune
Boston - Globe, Morning Journal, Post, and Herald (thanks, Bill Nowlin)
Philadelphia - Inquirer, Press, and Ledger (thanks, Ed Morton)
Chicago - Tribune (missing 16 home games)
Brooklyn & New York - New York Evening World and Evening Telegram (still need apr-june games)

Missing:
Pittsburg - just requested photocopies of Pitt home game boxscores from the Pitt Press from the Carnegie Library.  Expecting fairly quick turnaround time.

St. Louis - St. Louis Public Library continues running copies of Globe-Democrat (continuing from the copies they did for me of 1900).  Based on the 1st couple of dates for 1901, I asked for copies of the Post Dispatch as well.

Chicago - Need a secondary source - maybe the Inter-Ocean.  Need to find someone or somewhere that will check on this for me.

Brooklyn/New York - thought I was getting Apr-June on microfilm from NY State Library, but ILL problems (a constant theme lately) have caused the microfilm not be sent yet.  May have to resort to someone running copies remotely.




New Headings
07/19/2008
Today, I added 2 new headings:  BK+ leaders and most BKs by Year.

These will be updated as I get more data in.

I also will be adding some misc. categories, including pct of k's by pitcher by team.
So far, I have been able to document the following teams (w/ their source):

Home games:

Baltimore - Baltimore Sun
Brooklyn - Brooklyn Eagle
Boston - Boston Globe
Chicago - Chicago Tribune (home and away!)
Cincinnati - Cincinnati Commercial Tribune
Cleveland - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Philadelphia - Sporting Life and Philadelphia Inquirer
Washington - Washington Post

Still to search:

Pittsburg - ILL of Pittburg Press is on its way from Kent State U.
New York - ILL of New York Evening World is on its way from Kent State U.

Louisville - Louisville Times will probably be my best bet for anything, but based on my 1899 experience (see 1899 eventually), I need to find the "Extra" edition which had rough play by play of the same day's game.

St. Louis - not sure what I am going to do here. The Globe Democrat in 1898 didn't start covering bk's until August. Not sure what to expect in 1897. Republic (from checking via Geneology.com) is not a source. Don't expect the Post Dispatch or Star to be, but will get copies made by the St. Louis Public Library to check.

Interesting notes on Brooklyn and Cincinnati -
The Eagle does not have bk's in 1898 forward, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found them in 1897 via their website.
Same with the Commercial-Tribune. I had Jim Farmer copy and scan each Cincy game for me, hoping to at least glean a few k's, but imagine my surprise when I found out that they had bk's! Amazingly, the C-T stopped bk's for 1898 and 1899 and then restarted the stat in 1900.

Just a quick note on who I have as the "leaders in the clubhouse" at 75% complete:

Fewest projected K's (pct complete):
Tommy Corcoran 2 (83%)
Willie Keeler 5 (85%)
Mike Griffin 9 (87%)
Hughie Jennings 10 (84%)
Ed McKean 10 (82%)

Most K's:
Tommy McCreery 64 (34%)
Tom Brown 63 (84%)
Billy Clingman 53 (49%)
Barry McCormick 50 (100%)

Corcoran is an interesting entry - every other year I have done (or worked on) had Keeler as the leader (97, 98, 99, 00, 01 NL). His previous year was not necessarily low.
McCreery's entry may be troublesome depending on my ability to get Lou. bk's from the Time and/or Courier Journal (and maybe the Dispatch and Evening Post). He doesn't play a full complement of games in any subsequent season, but in 1897, he played 140 between Lou and NY.

BK+ leaders (BK/game above/below BK/game league avg - kind of like OPS+)
Corcoran 1042
Keeler 630
Griffin 332
McKean 292
Jennings 280

Worst BK+:
McCormick 42
T Brown 42
Clingman 49
McCreery 50
Everitt 57


Well, kind of starting in the middle here, but....

So far, I have been able to pull bk's from:

Chicago - Tribune (partial home)
Detroit - Detroit Free Press
Philadelphia - Press and Record
Baltimore - Sun had them for first part of year and then basically stopped doing it (not in 1902 either it appears).
Boston - Journal (primarily)
Cleveland - Plain Dealer, Chicago Tribune (a few games), and  Leader.  

Ones that do not look very promising:

Washington - no bk's in Post, Herald, or News.
Milwaukee - no bk's in Sentinel or Journal

On Baltimore, I just got photocopies of the American and News from 1901 with no addtional success.
I discovered that the Cleveland Leader was/is a great source for bk's.  I plan on going back and using it to fill in a few games in 1897 as well.
1901 AL is not looking very promising. :(
As I mention in the General section, I have been able to get 98% of the team-games documented.
Eliminating Louisville and the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune beginning bk coverage again helped make it possible.
Still waiting on a few copies from the St Louis Public Library of the Post Dispatch to see if I can fill in 3 early season games that the Globe Democrat did not have bk's of.

Here is the city-by-city coverage:

Brooklyn - NY Evening Telegram and NY Evening World (home and away)
New York - same as Brooklyn
Cincinnati - Commercial Tribune (original hardcopies at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus!)
St. Louis - Globe Democrat (copies courtesy of the St. Louis Public Library)

Chicago - Tribune
Philadelphia - Inquirer, Sporting Life, and Ledger (I believe)
Pittsburg - Pittsburg Press (from Kent State U)
Boston - Globe
In the next post, I will list the leaders


My new Web Page!
07/13/2008
Well, I have finally decided to join the 21st century - I am creating my own web page.
This will definitely be a WIP (work in progress), but my ongoing work on Batter Strikeouts has spurred me to "publish" some of my ongoing work.
I did have my 1899 strikeout research published in the recent SABR Baseball Research Journal, which was really cool. Since that has happened, I have really started to get more into the research - in fact, I now am calling it a "project" (sounds more important, official).

Anyways, just finished getting all of the current information on 1897 into an Access Db and currently have 75% of the team-games (2 team games per game played).

The big recent news, which I will document in its own blog entry, is that I currently have 98%(!!) of the 1900 NL team-games documented. Kind of a perfect storm - no Louisville and the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune decided to include batter strikeouts(bk) in their home boxscores after a 2 year hiatus. In fact, I didn't realize the the Comm-Trib had bk's in 1897 until Jim Farmer provided scans of all of the boxscores for the year. A very pleasant surprise!

Anyway, I plan on having multiple posts on each year I am working on to start off with.

Besides 1897 (75%), I currently have and working on 1898 (86.5%), 1899 (88.9%), 1900 (98%), 1901 NL (67.8%), 1901 AL (65.6%), 1902 NL (70.8%), and 1902 AL (62.2%). I am going to try to fil-in as much on these years as I can before proceeding onto 1903 on up.

Hope you enjoy and feel free to comment.

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