Sunday, August 22, 2021

Historic Major League stats now include "Negro Leagues" in baseball-reference.com. A closer look.

That extra banner at the top of each page in baseball-reference.com is a sort of warning. I just noticed that in order to grab MLB data for seasons 1919-2019 I'd have to exclude data from the "Negro Leagues".

It seems innocuous enough:

The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues. We have dramatically expanded our coverage of the Negro Leagues and historical Black major league players. Read our Announcement

The ad hoc query portion of baseball-reference.com is stathead.com/baseball/. It lets you limit your query to American League (AL) and National League (NL) as follows:

League
•••

You can click Clear and then click 

It's a bit tedious but doable. But I do not see a way to do it for total annual stats of all AL and NL teams, i.e., MLB (Major League Baseball).

My intent today was to grab AL and NL totals for each season 1919-2019 and copy/paste into a spreadsheet, add my own columns and create graphs.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml

But when I glanced at the numbers I became suspicious, so I looked at one season: 1927. Sure enough.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/1927.shtml

1927 Major League Team Statistics

 

Other Leagues: AL, ECL, NL, NNL

World Series Champions: Chicago American Giants, New York Yankees

Standings include 31 teams.

But here's the problem. The data I initially found at https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/bat.shtml now includes data from the "Negro Leagues". Here it is for 1927:

Tm#BatBatAgeR/GGPAABRH2B3BHRRBISBCSBBSOBAOBPSLGOPSOPS+TBGDPHBPSHSFIBBLOB
Atlantic City Bacharach Giants2023.56.208934713043552897135445348547313345.295.364.420.78410412791699
Birmingham Black Barons2824.64.889635473230468943128523842471193.292.332.399.7329712893121
Baltimore Black Sox1728.35.336725082173357592103333330682224252.272.347.396.742948602388
Boston Red Sox3727.53.8815458705205597134727178285508146430476.259.320.357.677781858391911097
Brooklyn Royal Giants2028.55.36331309114417731542171815620122156.275.351.389.740934451231
Brooklyn Robins3129.83.511545755519354113141957439499106368494.253.306.342.647731774251661055
Boston Braves3629.54.201555946537065114982166137582100346363.279.326.363.688911947281971068
Chicago American Giants2028.64.658933542951414821141341537097280.278.341.364.7069110753120
Chicago Cubs3428.14.90153601853037501505266637469265481492.284.346.400.746982119272071144
Cleveland Hornets2522.94.41391460131817236148171015425110.274.331.359.69087473329
Chicago White Sox3327.94.3315359135157662143328561366108975493407.278.344.378.722891948262351126
Cincinnati Reds2929.84.20153582951856431439222772957562402332.278.332.367.699891902212191087
Cleveland Indians3728.34.3715358505203668147232051266166572379370.283.337.379.716851972482131095
Cuban Stars East2028.95.00552038178527546857202924037172183.262.332.365.698826521665
Cuban Stars West1423.73.69612285206322550768161321027163.246.302.313.61567646356
Detroit Tigers3027.55.421566121530084515322811015176513973590420.289.363.409.772992168251981124
Detroit Stars2224.75.499134133009500863137446146356282.287.349.422.77110812715117
Harrisburg Giants2626.95.776926772317398697116433736076248200.301.375.436.81011110102587
Hilldale Club2430.24.568732082800397741109531734768263219.265.332.360.69281100720125
Kansas City Monarchs2628.25.238832702874460827122573042054294.288.354.401.75510411530102
Memphis Red Sox3019.82.97893145283626464592331324353199.227.279.297.575568422108
New York Lincoln Giants2930.25.52291079951160260543161442495109.273.343.387.72990368528
New York Giants4328.15.271556046537281715942516210976573461462.297.356.427.7831092296321801114
New York Yankees2527.76.301556227535497616442911031589079064642610.307.384.488.8721272615222041182
Philadelphia Athletics3430.35.43155611052878411606281705676710163553325.304.373.415.7881002195302191152
Philadelphia Phillies3430.74.37155596053176781487216465761768434482.280.337.370.707921966281771134
Pittsburgh Pirates3327.75.24156607953978171648258785475965437355.305.361.412.7731002224292141160
St. Louis Browns3031.64.6715559065217724144226359556579066449417.276.339.381.720841988421921073
St. Louis Stars2726.36.32983801339461910441546611258465303.308.365.491.85613016664100
St. Louis Cardinals3427.84.931535891520775414502647984700110484511.278.343.408.751962124261711084
Washington Senators4129.94.98157612953947821549268872969613352498373.287.351.385.736922078322001168
League Average2628.14.8411543943882554109518254465057216345222.282.344.392.73694152320144576
82128.14.8435521362151203491718433941565416821417156632239511107086889.282.344.392.736944721062044591786

The home run total is 1417. That's what caught my eye initially. I can go back to the top and click AL and find 439 home runs at https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/1927.shtml

Then I can click NL and find 483 home runs at https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1927.shtml

That's 439 + 483 = 922. NOT 1417.

It means that my objective for today cannot be accomplished.

So what's the big deal? Rational thought takes another hit.

__________________

Posted later:

BB and SO: 1903-2021 from the AL and NL and ONLY the AL and NL. Sunday, August 22, 2021

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