If you’re a baseball stat freak like me, your world just became a little more complete this weekend: baseball-reference.com, the online encyclopedia of baseball statistics, has added stats for 2002 to its database. Wo-hoo! Player stats, team stats, league stats, postseasons, award winners, league leaders, career leaders, similarity scores, birthday finders and a million other things, all crosslinked every which way but Luis in what may be the most perfectly conceived reference website mankind has ever seen.
The disclaimer I’m obliged to insert here is that I designed the site’s banner, but you knew that already. My praise for B-R is heartfelt. Because if it wasn’t for its accessibility and ease of its use, I could have spent the last two years of my life doing something productive like watching more television or calculating my portfolio losses in Quicken. Instead I’ve clicked through page after page of stats, finding interesting things to write about and argue over. And if, hypothetically speaking, I’ve needed to tabulate how many pitchers on the 1978 Dodgers staff won more than 150 games in the big leagues during a quick coffee break, at least I’ve had the means to do so efficiently. Or would have, if the occasion had arisen, I mean. Cough, cough…
B-Ref is a user-supported website, and as such, it raises money to cover its by selling sponsorship to individual pages, which run from $5/year for the least visited to $395/month for the busiest. I sponsor several pages myself; it’s a fun way for me to publicize this site and to “collect” the pages of some of my favorite players and personalities.
Since the new pages (2002 teams and rookies who debuted during the season) don’t have an established traffic rate to set their price, the site’s founder, Sean Forman, is auctioning them off via eBay, starting at $10. What better Hanukkah or Christmas gift is there for a loved one than sponsoring Esix Snead‘s or Coco Crisp‘s page?
Of course, plenty of older players and teams are still without sponsors. For only pennies a day, you can feed the starving page of Marvin Lane. And if anybody can get me out of this blog entry without making a Sally Struthers joke, I just might sponsor a page for you.