2005 Annual Report of the Baseball Records Committee

The Baseball Records Committee was created in 1975 to reconcile differences and pursue a greater degree of accuracy in baseball’s “historical record.” The word “record,” as we use it, has two meanings. We use it in the sense that some player, or some team, has the most or least of something for an inning, or a game, or a season, etc. For example, Bill Gray of the 1943 Chicago White Sox holds the Major League record for Most doubleheaders played in a season (44).

We also use the word record to refer to a player’s game-by-game, season-by-season and lifetime accomplishments. For example, Larry Dierker pitched 99 innings in 1967, or Sam Leever had 241 career complete games. Both aspects of baseball’s historical record are of equal importance to us, and we are as diligent with regard to accuracy for the “unknown” players as we are for the Hall of Famers.

Beginning with our formation, committee members have contributed countless corrections, additions, and deletions to the record books. Our ultimate goal of finding all the errors in the historic record, or at least achieving a full reconciliation of differences among all the record books and encyclopedias, remains unlikely for the near future; nevertheless, we will continue to pursue a narrowing of the gap.

Since our last annual report, committee members in perusing the encyclopedias and record books, have found errors, additions, subtractions, and typos in the listing of the playing records of, or listings of, the record performances for several players. Among these are Roberto Alomar, Barry Bonds, Jack Chesbro, Johnny Cooney, Bill Dickey, Chick Fraser, Burleigh Grimes, Pink Hawley, Roy Hughes, Davy Jones, Joe Judge, Chuck Klein, Freddy Leach, Pedro Martinez, Mike Matheny, Dan Miceli, Steve O’Neill, Babe Ruth, and Herb Washington.

We continue to be aware that recent developments in baseball—strikes, shortened seasons, wild cards, interleague play, expansion, realignment, and relocation have placed a special burden on those of us who not only research the game’s numbers, but also treasure the history that accompanies those numbers. Nevertheless we continue in our efforts to make the baseball record as factual as possible, while serving as an advocate for maintaining its integrity.

Recent disclosures regarding steroid use by some players raised the question of how the Baseball Records Committee would treat the accomplishments of the players mentioned. One committee member remarked, “we again heard the word asterisk, referring to the supposed asterisk that is affixed to Roger Maris’s American League singleseason home run record.” Of course there is no asterisk next to Maris’s name, and there won’t be one next to the accomplishments of any of the accused players.

This is not to say that many people won’t make mental adjustments to these records and determine to their own satisfaction just how valid they are. However, while everyone is entitled to his own set of opinions, everyone is not entitled to his own set of facts. A record is a record is a record. It is not our role to decide the purity of the conditions under which those records were achieved. We are not moralists. Our role as SABR’s Baseball Records Committee is strictly to make the numbers as accurate as we can.

Meanwhile, progress continues on the compilation of a SABR Record Book and the implementation of a Records Committee web site.

Lyle Spatz, Chairman
Joe Dittmar, Vice Chairman