Baseball Reference and Baseball Prospectus, ugh.

[SABR Matt]

essentially this is what uberstats do, Tom...except they don't do it at a game by game level, which is how I'd like to do it once the daily summary project is finished (my partner in evil has 20 data entry teams hacking away at the 90 years worth of data as we speak...funded by David Smith and retrosheet.org, so you can thank them for their support). These daily summary files will be an absolute BONANZA for day by day sabermetric analysis, the improvement of context analysis and sabermetric fun in general.

[weskelton]

Matt,

You've peaked my curiousity. Can you provide more detail on the daily summary project? I'm guessing this is data at a game-by-game level as opposed to play-by-play for the pre-retrosheet years. Would that be accurate?

[SABR Matt]

From 1882 to 1956, there exists a set of files that were recorded on square-paper by league officials meticulously recording the goings-on of each game. These records aren't as detailed as I might like, but for hitters they include AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, K, SB, CS, PO, A, E, fielding DP and for pitchers IP, H, R, ER, K, BB, HR, Decisions, Saves, PO, A, E, fielding DP for every game in major league history from 1882 onward.

It's not PBP, but it tells you exactly when each guy played and what he did that day. That level of information opens up the door to MASSIVELY more detailed park analyses, strength of schedule analysis and other similar works. We're hoping it's done before the start of the regular season, 2008 at which point the data would become available at retrosheet.

[weskelton]

From 1882 to 1956, there exists a set of files that were recorded on square-paper by league officials meticulously recording the goings-on of each game.

What is your source for the "square-sheets"? Are these the binders which were created by ICI as part of the compilation of the first MacMillan in the 60's, which I believe are stored in the library in Cooperstown.

BTW, this sounds very cool!

[SABR Matt]

retrosheet.org acquired them on microfilm from the Hall of Fame...the Hall acquired them for its' hall of records some time back...I'm not sure from whom.

[four tool]

I like them both, but much prefer BR, it's much more user friendly for one thing.
And it is much easier to find out what the numbers mean. In BP for example, they have EQA and normalized stats--I don't understand why they need both.