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$13.99The Story
You have favorite baseball memories, games that live forever in your mind, ones you can still see perfectly. But could you recall every play? The exact sequence that made those moments possible? Now you can. Every play. Every game. Every season since 1871. For the first time in baseball history, it all exists in one place, and it's free for anyone to use. All thanks to Retrosheet.
In 1989, Dave Smith had a problem. He'd gathered 7,000 games in his Delaware basement, but over 130,000 more were scattered across the country: moldering in team archives, stacked in sportswriters' attics, at risk of being thrown away forever. No funding. No institutional support. Just one fan with an impossible vision: save baseball's history before it disappeared.What happened next changed how we understand the game. Smith recruited a volunteer army that tracked down scorebooks, decoded Allan Roth's revolutionary scoresheets, and digitized millions of plays. All that while refusing to charge a dime. Their work now powers your favorite websites like Baseball Reference and Fangraphs.
MLB's official historian John Thorn believes "Retrosheet is the greatest human endeavor since someone convinced 40,000 Jews to build a pyramid." Now, for the first time, learn how baseball's greatest preservation challenge became its most democratic achievement, and connected you to every game ever played.
Author: Jay Wigley
Publisher: Wiglesius Press
Published: 04/03/2026
Pages: 228
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.52d
ISBN: 9798348596514
About the Author
Wigley, Jay: - Jay Wigley first discovered Retrosheet in 1996 and wondered how such a thing was even possible. Now he knows. His earliest baseball memory is of the scoreboard animations at the Astrodome in the summer of 1972. Jay lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife and kids and dog and four cats, the only baseball fan among them.
This title is not returnable
Description
You have favorite baseball memories, games that live forever in your mind, ones you can still see perfectly. But could you recall every play? The exact sequence that made those moments possible? Now you can. Every play. Every game. Every season since 1871. For the first time in baseball history, it all exists in one place, and it's free for anyone to use. All thanks to Retrosheet.
In 1989, Dave Smith had a problem. He'd gathered 7,000 games in his Delaware basement, but over 130,000 more were scattered across the country: moldering in team archives, stacked in sportswriters' attics, at risk of being thrown away forever. No funding. No institutional support. Just one fan with an impossible vision: save baseball's history before it disappeared.What happened next changed how we understand the game. Smith recruited a volunteer army that tracked down scorebooks, decoded Allan Roth's revolutionary scoresheets, and digitized millions of plays. All that while refusing to charge a dime. Their work now powers your favorite websites like Baseball Reference and Fangraphs.
MLB's official historian John Thorn believes "Retrosheet is the greatest human endeavor since someone convinced 40,000 Jews to build a pyramid." Now, for the first time, learn how baseball's greatest preservation challenge became its most democratic achievement, and connected you to every game ever played.
Author: Jay Wigley
Publisher: Wiglesius Press
Published: 04/03/2026
Pages: 228
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.52d
ISBN: 9798348596514
About the Author
Wigley, Jay: - Jay Wigley first discovered Retrosheet in 1996 and wondered how such a thing was even possible. Now he knows. His earliest baseball memory is of the scoreboard animations at the Astrodome in the summer of 1972. Jay lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his wife and kids and dog and four cats, the only baseball fan among them.
This title is not returnable
