Exhumed

I've spent the past year working as a Visiting Professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Illinois. I was only hired on a temporary basis--for a year--but the department wanted someone to do what I do (phonetics) permanently, beginning this Fall. So they held a job search in November and December of 2006, to which I dutifully (and hopefully) submitted myself. Even though most everybody here in Champaign/Urbana seemed to like me and what I do when I'm not playing with baseball statistics, I did not get the job. I was informed of this around the 30th of December.

In the midst of the dark and lonely New Year's that followed, I decided to re-visit retrosheet.org, in a half-hearted attempt to amuse myself. There I discovered that the Retrosheet squad had, after many years, finally posted the play-by-play data for the 1993-1998 seasons. Since I first got the idea for Bases Produced--back in October of 1998--I've been collecting play-by-play recaps of all major league games from various websites like espn.com, cbssportsline.com, etc., so that addition to the retrosheet database meant that my bridge into the Bases Produced statistical past was effectively complete.

With surprisingly little to hope for in terms of a future career in linguistics, I dedicated myself at the beginning of January to finally working through the data that retrosheet has provided the world (for free!) and calculating BP stats for as far back into the past as I was able. Back when the I was still teaching classes in the Spring, that meant setting aside one day a week for nothing but baseball stats. At that pace, I was on schedule to finish my historical quest some time in February of next year.

At the end of May, though, the linguistics department here did me another favor by kicking me out of my office for the summer. That unexpected move did in my good intentions of balancing out my summer days between setting up phonetics experiments in the mornings and working on BP stats at night. So I decided to do the next best thing and split my summer in two by finishing up my historical BP project in the first half and working on phonetics research in the second.

I am now happy to say that the first half of that deal with my personal devils is now done. I finished hacking through the last available year of the Retrosheet play-by-play database last Wednesday evening, and have now posted seasonal BP stats for every major league season from 1957 until the present day. Oh--except for the 1999 season, for which I do have the raw data but not yet a means of parsing it into something meaningful. I hope to have something more to say about all that after this weekend.

In the meantime, I would like to share with you one of the primary fruits of my labor. Behold the major league leaders in Bases Produced from 1957 to 2007:

Year	Name	Team	BP	BBP	RBP	TBP	BP1	BP2	BP3	BP4
1957	Mickey Mantle	nyy	743	461	19	263	319	200	130	94
1958	Willie Mays	sfo	712	426	34	252	284	196	135	97
1959	Hank Aaron	mib	711	433	10	268	266	199	130	116
1960	Eddie Mathews	mib	677	396	7	274	252	177	134	114
1961	Norm Cash	det	841	488	11	342	327	202	178	134
1962	Frank Robinson	cin	796	467	23	306	295	222	141	138
1963	Hank Aaron	mib	738	436	31	271	274	201	137	126
1964	Ron Santo	chc	681	419	7	255	271	166	131	113
1965	Billy Williams	chc	712	423	13	276	270	190	143	109
1966	Frank Robinson	bal	713	464	9	240	279	180	132	122
1967	Carl Yastrzemski	bos	744	455	11	278	284	187	153	120
1968	Billy Williams	chc	656	371	5	280	235	169	152	100
1969	Harmon Killebrew	min	777	474	8	295	303	187	148	139
1970	Billy Williams	chc	767	447	10	310	279	200	159	129
1971	Joe Torre	stl	780	419	8	353	297	188	158	137
1972	Billy Williams	chc	717	416	4	297	259	181	156	121
1973	Joe Morgan	cin	714	395	70	249	279	236	120	79
1974	Johnny Bench	cin	708	398	7	303	257	181	142	128
1975	Joe Morgan	cin	747	388	71	288	298	226	130	93
1976	Joe Morgan	cin	740	387	63	290	266	223	140	111
1977	George Foster	cin	775	454	8	313	263	198	166	148
1978	Jim Rice	bos	767	469	7	291	276	187	163	141
1979	Don Baylor	cal	744	415	24	305	268	188	148	140
1980	Ken Singleton	bal	686	376	1	309	270	168	145	103
1981	Mike Schmidt	phi	517	305	12	200	189	134	103	91
1982	Robin Yount	mil	714	422	18	274	265	186	146	117
1983	Dale Murphy	atl	705	410	34	261	270	168	147	120
1984	Dwight Evans	bos	721	435	3	283	286	200	129	106
1985	Don Mattingly	nyy	761	428	5	328	269	191	157	144
1986	Don Mattingly	nyy	740	442	2	296	292	189	145	114
1987	Dwight Evans	bos	733	417	6	310	274	195	141	123
1988	Mike Greenwell	bos	757	409	18	330	288	202	148	119
1989	Kevin Mitchell	sfo	702	435	4	263	248	185	144	125
1990	Cecil Fielder	det	703	434	2	267	254	174	144	131
1991	Frank Thomas	chw	725	448	4	273	317	176	123	109
1992	Frank Thomas	chw	753	434	9	310	312	200	125	116
1993	Barry Bonds	sfo	814	493	34	287	309	221	161	123
1994	Frank Thomas	chw	629	402	2	225	252	164	112	101
1995	Edgar Martinez	sea	744	445	7	292	306	187	137	114
1996	Mo Vaughn	bos	833	479	3	351	316	202	171	144
1997	Larry Walker	col	849	501	36	312	300	250	168	131
1998	Barry Bonds	sfo	836	474	31	331	305	242	165	124
2000	Todd Helton	col	913	512	8	393	323	245	197	148
2001	Barry Bonds	sfo	890	597	14	279	342	239	172	137
2002	Barry Bonds	sfo	799	529	11	259	356	201	131	111
2003	Todd Helton	col	793	480	4	309	322	212	142	117
	Carlos Delgado	tor	793	465	3	325	300	184	162	147
2004	Barry Bonds	sfo	829	544	8	277	376	213	140	100
2005	David Ortiz	bos	827	465	4	358	282	210	185	150
2006	Ryan Howard	phi	814	500	1	313	299	196	170	149
2007	Alex Rodriguez	nyy	426	246	11	169	144	117	88	77

In lieu of a genuine analysis of all this data, I'd like to point out just a couple of things. One--the best BP total in the past 50 years was Todd Helton's 913, in 2000 (which, strangely enough, was the first year I ever put BP stats online). Two--ARod's current total of 426 in 75 games puts him on pace for 920 Bases Produced this year. Will he make it past 913 by the end of September? Stay tuned.

-Steve