Retrosheet

Retrosheet is a non-profit organization whose website features major league baseball box scores and play-by-play narratives for almost every contest from 1871–1872, 1874, 1911 National League, and since 1918. It also includes scores from every Major League Baseball game played since the 1871 season, as well as all All-Star, League Championship Series and World Series games.

Retrosheet was founded in 1989 by Dr. David Smith, a biology professor at the University of Delaware. Building on momentum begun by writer Bill James' Project Scoresheet in 1984, Smith brought together a host of like-minded individuals to compile an accessible database of statistical information previously unavailable to the general public.

Smith originally contacted teams and sportswriters in order to gain access to their scorebooks, while other contributors researched old newspapers for play-by-play accounts. Marshalling the computer expertise of a number of these people, Smith used these accounts to build a wealth of new data. The result has allowed fans and historians to explore new aspects of baseball history by using pertinent information.