0 Unknown event 

1 No event 

2 Generic out 

3 Strikeout

4 Stolen base

5 Defensive indifference

6 Caught stealing

7 Pickoff error 8 Pickoff 9 Wild pitch 10 Passed ball 11 Balk 12 Other advance 13 Foul error 14 Walk 15 Intentional walk 16 Hit by pitch 17 Interference 18 Error 19 Fielder's choice 20 Single 21 Double 22 Triple 23 Home run 24

Each game begins with a twelve character ID record which identifies the date, location, and number of the game.

For example, BAL198304040 should be read as follows. The first three characters identify the home team (the Orioles). The next two are the last two digits of the year (1983). The next two are the month (April), the next two are the day (04). The last digit is the number of the game: here it is a 0 for a single game; it would be 1 for the first game of a double header, 2 for the second game. version

The version statement is next and tracks when the file was created.

The current version is '1'.

There are up to 30 info records, each of which contains a single piece of information, such as the temperature, the attendance, the identity of each umpire, etc. start

There are 18 (for the NL or pre-DH AL) or 20 (for the AL with the DH) start records, which identify the starting lineups for the game.

Each start record has five fields.

1. The first field is the Retrosheet ID code, which is unique for each player. This 8 digit code is constructed from the first four letters of the player's last name, the first initial of his common name, and a three digit number. 2. The second field is the player's name. 3. The next field is either 0 (for visiting team), or 1 (for home team).

4. The next field is the position in the batting order.

5. The last field is the starting fielding position.

The numbers are the standard notation, with designated hitters being identified as position 10. play

The play records contain the events of the game.

Each play record has 7 fields.

1. The first field is the inning. 2. The second field is either 0 (for visiting team) or 1 (for home team). 3. The third field is the Retrosheet ID code. 4. The fourth field is the count on the batter when this particular event (play) occurred. Most Retrosheet games do not have this information, and in such cases, "??" appears in this field.

5. The fifth field is of variable length and contains all pitches to this batter in this plate appearance. The most common entries are: Code Meaning C called strike S swinging strike B ball F foul ball X ball put into play Some of the less common pitch codes are: T foul tip (not the same as foul ball - see "Definition of Terms" in official rules)

 

H hit by pitch L foul bunt M missed bunt P pitchout N no pitch, used for plays such as balks V automatic ball called with no pitch actually thrown K strike of unknown type U unknown or missing pitch. Q swinging strike on a pitchout R foul ball on a pitchout In addition, pickoff throws are indicated by the number of the base the throw went to: 1 throw to first 2 throw to second 3 throw to third If the base number is preceded by a "+" sign, the pickoff throw was made by the catcher. The ">" symbol indicates a runner was going on the pitch that follows The * symbol is before a pitch that would have been wild but was blocked by the catcher There is occasionally more than one event for each plate appearance, such as stolen bases, wild pitches, and balks in which the same batter remains at the plate. On these occasions the pitch sequence is interrupted by a period, and there is another play record for the resumption of the batter's plate appearance. Many Retrosheet games. including most prior to 1988, do not have pitch data and consequently this field is blank for such games.

6. The sixth field describes the play which occurred. This field is variable in length and has three main portions which follow the Retrosheet scoring system. The scoring procedure description also contains a diagram that explains clearly how each area of the playing field is designated.

a. The first portion is a description of the basic play, following standard baseball scoring notation. For example, a fly ball to center field is "8", a ground ball to second is "43", etc.

Base hits are abbreviated with a letter (S for singles, D for doubles, T for triples, H for home runs) and (usually) a number identifying the fielder who played the ball.

Therefore "S7" is a single fielded by the left fielder.

Occasionally this portion ends with a "+" or "-" indicating a ball that was exceptionally hard hit or softly hit, respectively. b.The second portion is a modifier of the first part and is separated from it with a forward slash, "/".

In fact, there may be more than one second portion.

Typical examples are hit locations.

For example,"D8/78" indicates a double fielded by the center fielder on a ball hit to left center.

Other possible second portion modifiers are "SH" for sacrifice hits, GDP for grounding into double plays, etc.

A modifier beginning with "R" identifies the fielder(s) who handled relay throws. A"U'is for plays on which a ball was not handled cleanly but was backed up by the indicated fielder, thus preventing further advance.

c. The third portion describes the advancement of any runners, separated from the earlier parts by a period. For example, "S9/L9S.2-H;1-3" should be read as: single fielded by the right fielder, line drive to short right field.

The runner on 2nd scored (advanced to home), and the runner on first advanced to third.

Note that any advances after the first are separated by semicolons.

This record is used for those plays which require a special comment to describe the event.

Whenever any change in the lineup occurs, there is a substitute record. There are five fields in this type of record. a. The first field is the Retrosheet ID code. b. The second field is the player's name. c. The third field is either 0 (visiting team) or 1 (home team). d. The fourth field is batting order position of the substitute. e. The fifth field is the position the substitute is going to play. Code "11" is for pinch hitters and "12" is for pinch runners. Note that whenever a substitution occurs, it is preceded by a play record with the play event described as "NP", meaning No Play. The purpose of this record is to "mark the place" of the substitution for other programs. data The several data records appear after all plays from the game and contain the number of earned runs allowed by each pitcher. Each record contains the pitcher's Project Scoresheet code and the number of earned runs he allowed. There are three programs available for downloading under Tools that facilitate your analysis of the raw play by play information. These programs are called BOX, BEVENT and BGAME. Their functions are described below. It is important to note that in order to use these programs, you must have the TEAM file and the ROSTER files in the directory with the program and the event files. The name of the TEAM file includes the year, TEAM1967 for example. 

BOX

The purpose of BOX is to generate newspaper (or Sporting News) style box scores from the event file. It is designed so that you can print box scores of specific games or all games in an event file. There are three specific ways in which BOX may be run, each of which involves invoking a different "switch". All of these programs must have the year specified after the -y switch on the command line.

1. The simplest use of BOX is to print all the games in the file. For example, the file 1967NYA.EVA contains all the Yanks home games. To print a box score of all games in this file, be sure your printer is on and ready and type: BOX -y 1967 1967NYA.EVA>PRN If you leave out the ">PRN" at the end of the command, then all the box scores will be displayed on your monitor in a continuous unreadable stream. As an alternative you may direct the output to a new file on your disk for later examination. In this example such a file might have the name "Yanksbox". In that case the command would be: BOX -y 1967 67NYA.EVA>YANKSBOX

2. The second choice is to print a box score for a specific game for which you know the GameID, for example, NYA6704140, the game we considered above. In this case, prepare your printer and type: BOX -y 1967 -i NYA6704140 67NYA.EVA>PRN Note that you must specify both the GameID as well as the name of the file which contains the game. When this -i switch is used, the BOX program searches the entire event file from the start for the GameID you specify. Depending on your equipment, this search may take many seconds or even a few minutes. After your requested game has been printed, the BOX program will continue to search to the end of the file, another potentially time-consuming process.

3. The third choice for using BOX is important if you don't remember a desired GameId. In this option, the BOX program searches through the file you specify, displays each GameID on the screen for you, and asks if you want that game printed. You must respond yes or no for each game. The format of this command is: BOX -y 1967 -q 67NYA.EVA>PRN It is important to note that in order to use BOX, you must have the TEAM file and the ROSTER files in the directory with the BOX program and the event files. These files are included in the .zip archive.

There are two utility programs which will greatly facilitate your analysis of the play-by-play data. These programs are called BEVENT and BGAME. Instructions for using both of these programs are contained in this file. BEVENT, and BGAME have small help screens which can be displayed by typing the program name followed by a space and the characters"-h" at the DOS prompt. These help screens are useful when you cannot remember the correct syntax for each program or when you want to quickly display the switch options available for each program. Both of these utility programs must have the year specified after the -y switch on the command line. Sample syntax for use: BEVENT -y 1967 67BOS.EVA > 67BOS.BEV In addition, these programs work with the standard DOS wildcards "*" and "?" in the names of the input files. BEVENT The purpose of BEVENT is to prepare a report of a game in a format that is suitable for importing into a data base or spreadsheet. It would be reasonable to think of BEVENT functioning as a parser to extract information from the event file and report the game state after each play. BEVENT functions by converting each play of a game into a record that contains several items of situational information such as number of outs, score of game, identity of pitcher, handedness of batter and pitcher, identity of any runners, etc., along with the play results. In order to run the BEVENT program, you must have the "team" and the appropriate roster files in the same directory with the BEVENT program and the event files. There are more than 95 different fields which may be created for each BEVENT record. You have the ability to control which of these fields is created. The list of all possible fields may be obtained by typing the command"BEVENT -d". If you do not specify which fields you want BEVENT to create, it will default to the fields noted by the help screen (type "BEVENT -h"). These default fields are also noted with an asterisk in the list generated by "BEVENT -d". There are several other switches which may be used with BEVENT, To obtain a list of these options, enter the command "BEVENT -h". The output of any BEVENT command may be directed to a printer or to a new file. Some BEVENT fields are numbers and some are strings (that is, non-numeric characters). In all cases, the strings are enclosed by double quotes so that the records can be correctly interpreted as numbers or strings when imported into spreadsheet and data base programs. Following are descriptions of each field. game id. Game ID following the format described in the "data.doc" file. event num.

All events are numbered consecutively throughout each game for easy reference. inning. Inning in which this play took place. batting team. A one-character identification of the team at bat ("0" for the visiting team and "1" for the home team). outs. Number of outs before this play. balls, strikes, pitch sequence. These three consecutive fields present the pitch information for this play. vis score. Number of runs for the visiting team before this play. home score. Number of runs for the home team before this play. batter. Player ID code for the batter. batter hand. One character which describes how the batter batted for this event (L or R). res batter and res batter hand. These fields are almost always the same as batter and batter hand. They only differ if the batter is replaced during the time at bat and the final event is charged to the previous batter. For example, if a pinch-hitter is inserted with two strikes and then takes strike three, the strikeout is charged to the first batter (the responsible batter) pitcher.

Player ID code for the pitcher. pitcher hand. The hand with which the pitcher throws (L or R). res pitcher and res pitcher hand. Counterparts to res batter and res batter hand for those occasions when a pitcher is changed during an at-bat and the first pitcher is charged with the result. For example, if a relief pitcher enters with a three-ball, no-strike count and throws ball four, then the walk is charged to the first pitcher. positions. The next eight fields contain the Player ID codes for the players at each of the eight fielding positions, in numerical sequence by position number. first runner, second runner, third runner. These three consecutive fields contain the Player ID codes for the runner at each base. If a base is not occupied, then the field has no width and there will be a pair of double quotes with no space between them. For example, Bill Ripken on first as the only runner would look like this: "ripkb001","","", With Joe Orsulak on first and Cal Ripken on third, these fields would look like:: "orsuj001","","ripkc001" event text.

The complete description of the play using the format described for the event files. leadoff flag. A one character descriptor which is T for the first batter of each inning and F for all others. pinchhit flag. Another one character flag which is T for pinch-hitters and F for all others. defensive position.

The defensive position currently being played by this batter. It is pinch-hitter (position 11) for pinch-hitters. lineup position. Position in the batting order for this batter. event type.

Missing play batter event flag. A one character indication of whether or not the event terminated the batter's appearance. T = yes, which is most common; F = no, meaning the same batter stayed at the plate, such as after a stolen base. ab flag. A one character indication of whether batter was charged with at-bat (T = yes, F = no). hit value. One number indicating value of hit (0 = no hit; 1 = single; 2 = double; 3 = triple; 4 = home run). SH flag. One character indicating sacrifice hit (T = yes; F = no). SF flag. One character indicating sacrifice fly (T = yes; F = no). outs on play. Number of outs recorded on this play. double play flag. One character field of DP or not. triple play flag. Once character field of TP or not. RBI on play. Number of RBI credited to batter on this play. wild pitch flag, passed ball flag. Two records with indication of whether there was a WP or PB on this play. fielded by. Identity of the fielder who played the ball. This is especially important for base hits when no formal fielding credit is given. batted ball type. Descriptor which is either F (fly ball), L (line drive), P (pop-up), or G (ground ball). bunt flag. Descriptor for whether or not play was a bunt. foul flag. Descriptor for whether or not ball was played in foul ground. hit location. The zone on the field where the ball was hit. Refer to the Scoring System attachments for a diagram of all locations. num errors. Number of errors on this play (a maximum of three is allowed). error players and types. These are 6 consecutive fields which identify the player committing the 1st, 2nd or 3rd errors on the play and the type of error each was (throw or drop). batter dest. The base which the batter reached at the conclusion of the play. If he was out, the base is 0. runner dest. The next three fields contain the base reached by each of the three runners at the conclusion of the play. If there was no advance, then the base shown will be the one where the runner started. Note that these runner fields are not updated on plays which end an inning, even if the inning-ending play would have resulted in an advance of one or more runners had it occurred earlier in the inning. plays. The next four fields indicate the play (if any) made on the batter and each of the runners (if any). SB, CS, PO flags. The next nine fields contain single character descriptors for each of the runners indicating whether he had a stolen base, was caught stealing or was picked off. responsible pitcher for runner. The next three fields indicate which pitcher was responsible for the runners on each base, if any. This assignment reflects responsbility should the runner score. new game and end game flags. The next two fields set a flag if this is the first record of a new game or the last record of the game. pinchrunners. The next three fields indicate if a pinchrunner has entered the game and at which base. removed runners. The next three fields contain the player ID of the runner who was just run for, one field for each base. If there is no pinchrunner at that base, the field contains the NULL string "". removed batter. If there is a pinchhitter, this field contains the player ID of the batter removed. If there is no pinchhitter, this field contains the NULL string "". removed batter position. If there is a pinchhitter, this field contains the fielding position of the removed batter. If there is no pinchhitter, this value is 0. fielder putouts. The next three fields indicate the first, second, and third fielders credited with putouts on the play. fielder assists. The next five fields indicate which fielders got credited with assists on the play (maximum of five fielders). If you run BEVENT and generate all the possible fields, the output will be more than three times the size of the event file you specified to the program. It is strongly suggested that you generate only a subset of all possible fields at any single time, since most studies will not need all of the information at one time. BEVENT may then be run again, specifying different fields for the output for a subsequent study. The following list presents all of the above options with the numbers to use with the -f option to specify them.

Those marked with an asterisk are produced by the default option when the user specifies no fields. number field ------ ----- 0 game id* 1 visiting team* 2 inning* 3 batting team* 4 outs* 5 balls* 6 strikes* 7 pitch sequence 8 vis score* 9 home score* 10 batter 11 batter hand 12 res batter* 13 res batter hand* 14 pitcher 15 pitcher hand 16 res pitcher* 17 res pitcher hand* 18 catcher 19 first base 20 second base 21 third base 22 shortstop 23 left field 24 center field 25 right field 26 first runner* 27 second runner* 28 third runner* 29 event text* 30 leadoff flag* 31 pinchhit flag* 32 defensive position* 33 lineup position* 34 event type* 35 batter event flag* 36 ab flag* 37 hit value* 38 SH flag* 39 SF flag* 40 outs on play* 41 double play flag 42 triple play flag 43 RBI on play* 44 wild pitch flag* 45 passed ball flag* 46 fielded by 47 batted ball type 48 bunt flag 49 foul flag 50 hit location 51 num errors* 52 1st error player 53 1st error type 54 2nd error player 55 2nd error type 56 3rd error player 57 3rd error type 58 batter dest* (5 if scores and unearned, 6 if team unearned) 59 runner on 1st dest* (5 if scores and unearned, 6 if team unearned) 60 runner on 2nd dest* (5 if scores and unearned, 6 if team unearned) 61 runner on 3rd dest* (5 if socres and uneanred, 6 if team unearned) 62 play on batter 63 play on runner on 1st 64 play on runner on 2nd 65 play on runner on 3rd 66 SB for runner on 1st flag 67 SB for runner on 2nd flag 68 SB for runner on 3rd flag 69 CS for runner on 1st flag 70 CS for runner on 2nd flag 71 CS for runner on 3rd flag 72 PO for runner on 1st flag 73 PO for runner on 2nd flag 74 PO for runner on 3rd flag 75 Responsible pitcher for runner on 1st 76 Responsible pitcher for runner on 2nd 77 Responsible pitcher for runner on 3rd 78 New Game Flag 79 End Game Flag 80 Pinch-runner on 1st 81 Pinch-runner on 2nd 82 Pinch-runner on 3rd 83 Runner removed for pinch-runner on 1st 84 Runner removed for pinch-runner on 2nd 85 Runner removed for pinch-runner on 3rd 86 Batter removed for pinch-hitter 87 Position of batter removed for pinch-hitter 88 Fielder with First Putout (0 if none) 89 Fielder with Second Putout (0 if none) 90 Fielder with Third Putout (0 if none) 91 Fielder with First Assist (0 if none) 92 Fielder with Second Assist (0 if none) 93 Fielder with Third Assist (0 if none) 94 Fielder with Fourth Assist (0 if none) 95 Fielder with Fifth Assist (0 if none) 96 event num

***IMPORTANT: If you run BEVENT and generate all the possible fields, the output will be more than three times the size of the event file you specified to the program. It is suggested that you generate only a subset of all possible fields at any single time, since most studies will not need all of the information at one time. BEVENT may then be run again, specifying different fields for the output, for a subsequent study.

BGAME The purpose of this program is to generate a summary of those items which are constant for each game, such as date, indication of day or night, identity of umpires, etc. There is also summary data of the game, such as the final score. The output of BGAME may be coordinated with that from BEVENT since they use the same Game ID code. The use of this program is similar to BEVENT in that there are several switches to create the precise output desired. To see the options enter the command "BGAME -h"; for more general instructions on how to use BGAME to analyze play-by-play data, see the instructions for BEVENT. The following list presents all of the options for BGAME with their numerical identification. Note that the default for BGAME is that all fields are produced. The -f option similar to that in BEVENT can be used to output selected fields.