Accurate Vintage Stats: where to go?

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Posted By: runscott 

I have been trying to pin down accurate stats for Old Judge players, and it's a mess. The HOF, the Baseball Encyclopedia, Baseballreference.com and the Sports Illustrated site, ALL have different numbers!

Amos Rusie example: Sports Illustrated has him at 24-22 in 1895, Baseballreference.com has him at 23-23, the Baseball Encyclopedia has him at 29-8. And it's similar for other years in his career. The Baseball HOF site agrees almost exactly with the SI site, but has him at 12-14 in 1889, as opposed to 12-10 on SI. What a mess - anyone have an answer?

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Posted By: leon

I think he was 5-5.....or was that 5'5" ?

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Posted By: runscott

pardon me - Baseball Encyclopedia has him at 22-21 in 1895

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Posted By: jay behrens

Prior to Total Baseball ceasing publiction, they were considered by MLB as the offical record of the game. The McMillian encyclopedia used to be, but some time in the mid-90s MLB changed which book contained the 'official' stats.

Can't say what is considered to ahve 'official' stats now, and even SABRs updated numbers takes a few years for MLB to recognize

Jay

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Posted By: runscott

I could say that Rusie was 24-22 in 1895...or 23-23...or 22-21...and no one would object? And in 1892 he struck out either 304 or 288?

Okay, thanks.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Not really, since the last edition of Total Baseball would prolly be the 'official' word for 19th century stats.

I'll ask the 19th century committee what source they consider to have 'official' stats

Jay

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Posted By: runscott

Gathering stats for the OJ HOF'ers seemed simple at first - I simply took the stats from the HOF site. But then when I started looking for stats on more obscure players it became a nightmare. I hated to even check the other sites for fear of the random numbers I would find, but did for Rusie only - and my suspicions were correct.

The next step will be even more difficult: trying to find something interesting to say about A.P. Tuckerman's career when I can't even find evidence of his existence (baseball or otherwise) other than an OJ baseball card indicating he was a pitcher with St. Paul.

But it could be worse - if not for the full name listings in Lemke's catalog I would be totally hosed. There are so many mispellings, left out first names, etc. on the actual cards.

.........Groan