Library Home Page: A LibGuide to Baseball Literature and Resources: Web Resources

Web Resources devoted to Baseball History, Research, and Statistics

There are numerous Web resources on baseball history, research, and statistics. The resources linked below were chosen specifically for their excellent content, in-depth analyses, and reliable statistics.

Baseball-Reference.com - MLB Stats, Standings, Scores, History
Baseball-Reference.com's primary aim is to answer Website users' questions with the easiest-to-use, fastest, and most complete [baseball] statistics anywhere. The site was was launched in April 2000 by Sean Forman.
Baseball America - The Best News in Baseball
Baseball America has been around since February 1981. What began as a magazine--originally called the All-America Baseball News--has since evolved into a full-service media company, with a biweekly magazine, four annual books, a host of special publications, and of course the Website
Baseball Statistics and Analysis | FanGraphs Baseball
FanGraphs.com provides baseball statistics from Major & Minor League Baseball, with an emphasis on statistical analysis, graphs, and projections.
Criticism and Scholarship on Baseball Fiction
A highly selective bibliography of scholarly work and commentary on baseball fiction and film. Only specialized studies are listed, and the checklist has an academic bias; book reviews and general work on sport literature are excluded.
Guide to Baseball Fiction
This Guide to Baseball Fiction is a combination of bibliographic checklist and evaluative critical guide to over 1,234 works of baseball fiction. According to guide creator Tim Morris of The University of Texas, Arlington, "This Guide is very far from comprehensive, but does contain the most-discussed works; I add new titles gradually . . . Bibliographical information for each item is for the first publication. For short stories, I have tried to find original publications but have often noted reprintings in collections or anthologies, where the stories might be easier to find." The guide is divided into the following genres: adult novels, short stories, juvenile fiction, plays, film, and criticism.
The Hardball Times
The Hardball Times (usually just refer to it as THT) is a robust baseball website, featuring outstanding commentary, analysis and research. It was not conceived as a blog but an edited online magazine, with in-depth articles each day. Since its conception THT has published over 15,000 articles since. A couple of years ago, THT decided to combine resources with FanGraphs, a great baseball stats and content site. Now, THT features one really good article a day while FanGraphs, covers the newsworthy items, fantasy baseball and other baseball topics.
Society for American Baseball Research | SABR
The original purpose of SABR was to band together baseball historians, statisticians and researchers. Still one does not necessarily have to engage in research to become a member. Ernie Harwell, the late Detroit Tigers broadcaster, said: “SABR is the Phi Beta Kappa of baseball, providing scholarship which the sport has long needed."

Evaluating Web Resources

Find an interesting website using Google or another browser? Not sure if you can use it for academic research? It is not always easy to determine if information on the World Wide Web is credible. However, the guidelines below will help you understand clues about the reliability of web resources.

Authority

Who is the author of this page?
What are their credentials?
Are they affiliated with an institution?
Does the site display this information?

Objectivity

What is the purpose of this page?
Does the author state the goals for this site?
Does the content inform, educate, persuade, or rant?
If the author is affiliated with an institution (government, university, business, etc.), does this affiliation bias the information presented?

Accuracy

Does the site have page sloppy layout, include misspellings or typos?
It's always a good idea to cross-reference information no matter where you find it.
Do graphics add or detract from the content? Is there inflammatory content?
Is the information complete or fragmented?

Currency

When was this page created? Is there a revision/creation date?
Do the links work?
Is the page maintained and up-to-date?

For more in-depth information on evaluating Websites, see: Evaluating Web pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask from UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshop

About using Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a great tool for locating general information about a topic. Content is constantly revised and entries vary in quality. Some of the content is excellent, some is questionable.

Many educators frown on the use of Wikipedia. Why?

Wikipedia content is not necessarily written by subject experts, and may be inadequate or incorrect.
Articles in Wikipedia may be changed or deleted between viewings.
For research papers, you need authoritative resources, so it is absolutely necessary to consult other sources.
Anyone can search Google or find a Wikipedia article. To demonstrate academic skill, it is important to go beyond these basic tools.

How can you use Wikipedia in a way that benefits your research process?

Scan the article to get general information and terms you can use as keywords for further searching.
Scan the article for references. Sometimes these can lead you to excellent books or articles that you can find at the LCC Library or in the Summit catalog.
Don't reference Wikipedia articles in your paper, unless you are pointing out something specific to Wikipedia.
As you read Wikipedia articles, you may read notations that call for more evidence, or call attention to bias. These are very constructive principles that apply to your own work. What if Wikipedia editors read your work? Would they mark areas for revision?