Baseball Reference Adds Four More Seasons Of Box Scores, Back To 1904

Baseball Reference:

Thanks to the efforts of our friends at Retrosheet, we have added box scores back to the 1904 season to Baseball Reference. Previously, our game log coverage was back to 1908. Additionally, we have added partial play-by-play coverage for games games as far back as 1918. ... In addition to the boxes and PBPs themselves, this update allows for a variety of new information searchable in the play index, as well as new rows of information in team/player/league statistics tables. ...

*    With box scores back to 1904, we now have game logs for the full careers of Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson. ...

*   Additionally, incomplete splits have been generated for player seasons from 1918 to 1924. In Babe Ruth's 1923 MVP season, from the play-by-play we have available he recorded a 1.554 OPS with runners in scoring position, a mark only Barry Bonds has reached since (min. 100 PA in this situation). Splits determined by play-by-play are searchable back to 1918 and more basic split data (home/away, month, etc) are searchable back to 1904 now.

*    League-wide batting splits and pitching splits have been fleshed out with the new play-by-play data back for the years 1918-24.

*   Batting Game Finder and Pitching Game Finder searches are now opened up back to 1904. ...

That last one is really exciting. The Game Finder searches now take in the last 116 seasons!