EXCLUSIVE interview with Baseball-Reference.com Founder
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by user Manny Stiles
Some of you know I've interviewed ALL kinds of people throughout the year 2006; from Brangelina, former Presidents, Baseball Hall of Famers, even great sports writers but today I am very proud to present to you an e-interview I did with Sean Forman, Founder of Baseball-Reference.com!!! (seriously!)
If you've ever looked up any baseball stat online, you've been to Baseball-Reference. Then you came back over and over again countless times. If you've never been to the site, you aren't a baseball fan or you just obviously don't know how to use a computer.
Anyway, I was digging around Baseball-Reference (or you can call it 'BR' if ya got cred like me) one day and I came upon the feedback page clicked on "Shoot the Breeze" and simply gave a "Hi! I write articles on ArmchairGM.com, can I get an e-interview with anyone willing to participate?" Then gushed on and on about how I am a stat geek, love the site, Thanks!... and went on my merry way hoping but not expecting anything really.
A few days later, Sean Forman, President of Sports Reference, Inc. got back to me and agreed to an e-interview, I sent him my questions, he responded and here's how it went!
Interview with Sean Forman, Baseball-Reference.com
Manny Stiles - Thanks Sean! Greatly appreciate it! Real quick, what is your title and duties?
Sean Forman - President and Janitor of Sports Reference, Inc.
MS - How old are you? How many years have you been at this?
SF - I'm 34, BR is now in its 6th year. I started doing it full-time this summer.
MS - Are you a fan of any particular teams or players?
SF - I'm partial to the Boston Red Sox, and I've grown to like the Philadelphia Phillies since moving to Philly in 2000. I have a 17-game ticket plan, so I see a good number of games.
Player-wise, I grew up loving Wade Boggs and Rickey Henderson.
MS - What's your favorite Era?
SF - Probably the 80's. I know that winning baseball doesn't bunt or steal a lot, but those plays are definitely more interesting.
MS - Can you give me a little history on how Baseball-Reference.com came into being, who were the influences and what drives you in your efforts? Is it the love of baseball, love of statistics, both or something else?
SF - I have always loved sports and analyzing and compiling stats. Growing up I would sort and re-sort my baseball cards and I also kept stats for my dad's football teams while in junior high.
BR came to be because there wasn't an online source for stats for guys like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. I wanted that for myself and that really was the start of the site. The site has grown organically over time and I've added features as I've found the time. This fall will be exciting as I'm planning some really big new features that I think people will really like.
I also get a real kick out of creating informative data displays. Some of my favorite pages don't get a huge amount of traffic, but I think they are informative for the data they hold line by line, but taken as a group they tell more. For instance, http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ARI/2001_lu.shtml
MS - I LOVE the website. I have used it almost daily for years and guided many people to it. Do you have any idea how many bets/arguments were resolved by the site?
SF - I know quite a few. I've blown a few guys pickup lines as women have called me to ask why So-and-so isn't listed on the site. I'm afraid I've also blown the cover of some grandfathers hoping to impress their grandchildren.
MS - How many hits does the site get per day?
SF - That is a tough number to quantify as google hits every page (25,000 ) every day, but I would say I'm between 400k-600k on a typical weekday during the season.
MS - Which pages seem to get the most hits?
SF - The player pages are always busy. Bonds and Ruth and then whoever recently died or is in the news. Google searches drive a lot of traffic.
MS - Before the days of the internet, every 2-3 years, I would ask my parents for a new Baseball Encyclopedia for Christmas. It was a lot to lug around and even more to dig through. Then in the 80's Bill James Abstracts took the statistics into new realms of analysis (and was much easier to carry). "Moneyball" took statistical analysis to the masses. Franchises began to develop their teams around statistical theories. Now with everything at the touch of a mouse, where is statistical analysis headed in the future?
SF - I think we'll see a lot more work done with play-by-play data first. Retrosheet guys are my heroes and we now have 50 years of play-by-play. Once you start working with that it leads you in so many new directions that you didn't imagine possible before.
MS - Do you think statistics are sometimes relied on too heavily to analyze players?
SF - Sure, most people don't really understand the mathematical field of statistics. A guy with a .300 batting average could be anywhere from a .280 to .320 batter in reality. That said, I think baseball stats cover something like 95% of what happens on the field for any given play. Much, much higher coverage than basketball or football.
MS - The varieties of data that the site provides is amazing! The Frivolities might be my favorite part of the site. There's so much there to investigate! What is your favorite section of the site and why?
SF - I like some of the data presentations for the franchises and teams. I'm also proud of how the player leaderboard appearances turned out. Doing that fast and well took a lot of work.
MS - I saw that lineups and batting orders from 1957-2005 were recently added. It seems there's always something new being added. What can we expect from the site in the future?
SF - I'm planning on doing a lot more with the pbp (Manny note: I think that's "play-by-play") data. We also recently added relative data and I hope to add contracts and other data like that. I have a list of ideas about as long as my arm, so I don't expect to ever run out of ideas.
MS - What is Baseball-Reference.com's relationship with the Pro-Football and Basketball reference sites?
SF - Right now, they are partners, but we all have separate owners. We are talking about changing that soon.
MS - What is your favorite 'odd trivia', weird season or quirky statistical anomaly?
SF - I don't have a favorite one. I'm convinced that every game has some weird nugget. My personal favorite is that I was at a game where Kevin Mitchell (last year of his career) hit a triple and Rey Sanchez hit a home run.
(Manny adds:Here's the box score to the game Sean references)
MS - Do you get feedback from the franchises and/or players very often?
SF - I know people at mlb.com use the site and I've heard that some agents use the site during arbitration hearings. I've also heard from lots of broadcasters and writers. It is always gratifying to hear that the pros enjoy and use the site.
MS - What would you like users of the site to know that they probably don't already?
SF - The numbers you see from pre-1960 have a fair amount of inaccuracy. Those numbers were compiled from daily sheets that are big pieces of ledger paper where each players stats were entered into columns and then a running total was kept. The problem is that on occassion the guy entering the numbers got off by a column or a one on the back of the page bled through to the other side or the scorer sent in the wrong numbers to the office or any of a whole host of other issues. Groups like SABR are going to catch some number of these, but if you think about the fact that we didn't even have the correct number of RBI for Hack Wilson's record season, you have to imagine there are thousands of errors in the records each year. I still get e-mails from people berating me for having 4189 career hits for Cobb and not 4191.
Computers make it much more accurate now, but some errors and discrepancies still sneak in, especially in fielding.
MS - Thank you so much for your time and your outstanding efforts! Basically, you're my math/stat hero.
If ArmchairGM.com users have specific, legitimate questions in response to the article, would you mind if I ask you and get answers back to them? (I won't give out your e-mail address!!)
SF - I would be happy to answer more questions if they come up.
Sean
Baseball Stats! http://www.Baseball-Reference.com/ SR Blog! http://www.Baseball-Reference.com/blog/
- If you're looking for MORE Manny Stiles articles to peruse, try looking here!
- There ya go fellas, a serious article from Uncle Manny. Follow in my footsteps and go get some more interviews! Not just for me or all of us in the ArmchairGM.community, but for yourself as well!!!
Date
Wed 09/20/06, 9:25 pm EST
