Retrosheet
From BR Bullpen
Retrosheet was founded by David W. Smith in 1989 for the purpose of computerizing play-by-play accounts of as many pre-1984 major league games as possible. The project succeeded beyond the founder's wildest dreams, comprisingh over 120,000 game accounts by the end of the 2010s. The database has been boon to statistical and historical researchers, and is the foundation for the game accounts found of Baseball-Reference.com.
One of the major drivers of Retrosheet's success was that its data was available for free, encouraging its use but also prompting volunteers to add to the database for the purpose of further disseminating information and prompting new research.
As of 2012, Retrosheet offers play-by-play data from almost all major league games since 1918, with earlier years being regularly added. It is the premier open-source provider of major league play-by-play data on the Internet.
