[Le Grande Orange]

It's nice to see some interested parties in here! Now for a few specific comments...

Originally posted by fearofmimes
I wrote a script yesterday that can take some of Paul's original text schedules and convert them to a format that can be imported into OOTP.

I remember you, fearofmimes. I think we had some discussions some time last year about a schedule importer for OOTP5 or something to that effect. Good to see you again!

If you don't mind, may I suggest you keep fine-tuning a script which can convert the format I used in my schedules files? There are a couple of reasons I ask that.

First, I currently have 108 minor league schedule files available (19 American Association, 33 International League, 45 Pacific Coast League, 1 Southern Assocation, 6 Texas League, 2 of the 1894-99 Western League, 1 of the 1900-37 Western League, and the 1900 American League). They're all in the same simple text format I used for the MLB schedule files, so it would be great to be able to use these files as they are. Dave Smith of Retrosheet wrote a utility which converts my files into the Retrosheet format. I have asked if he could send me the utility so I could convert my minor league files, but I haven't heard back from him on that yet. So, being able to convert my files directly into OOTP's format would be very helpful.

Second, for those wanting to do custom created schedules, the OOTP format is very unfriendly. It makes much more sense to use another format to create one's custom schedule, and then type it out into the simple format that I use. It's very quick to work in and is the most compact way of presenting a season's worth of games. Again, being able to convert from this directly into an OOTP-compatible format would be very useful.

Originally posted by fearofmimes
It would be nice if the schedule importer could work with an alternate key; ideally, this would be the team abbreviation. Then schedule files could be posted in a more reusable format with the only requirement being that the leagues use the same abbreviations.

I was thinking the same thing. I was surprised to hear that it only used the team ID numbers. Given that when importing players from the Lahman Database it places the players onto the proper teams by matching the team abbreviations in Lahman to those used in the league file, I would've expected a similar method for schedule importing.

Originally posted by fearofmimes
I have worked around this with my script by supporting a translation file for my script with the added benefit that it allows for customization of game times..

That's excellent, and was one of the reasons I broke down the starting times in my files into four basic categories, rather than the simpler day/night choice.

I don't have much information on starting times, but I can say these have changed over the years, much like many other things in baseball.

In the 1910's to 1930's, day games usually started between 3:00-3:30 p.m. Doubleheaders usually began between 1:30-1:45 p.m. except for morning-afternoon twin bills. Those had the first game starting between 10:15-10:30 a.m. and the second game beginning at 3:00 p.m., and were separate admission affairs. Night games, when they began occurring in the mid-1930's, usually started at 8:30 p.m.

In the 1940's and 1950's, day games usually started around 2:30 p.m. while day doubleheaders had the first game starting between 1:30-2:00 p.m. Twilight games normally started at 5:30 p.m. as did the first game of a twilight-night twin bill. Night games still began for the most part at 8:30 p.m.

In the 1960's and into the 1970's, day games typically started at 2:00 p.m., while the first game of a twin bill started at 1:00 p.m. Night games generally started at 8:00 p.m. while twilight games and the first game of a twi-night doubleheader started at 5:00 p.m. Morning games started at 11:00 a.m.

By the time the 1980's arrive, the start times of games look pretty much like they do today.

It would be great if the start time field in the OOTP format could be changed to a 24-hour clock time instead of a simple single digit. This would allow much more preciseness in setting start times, along with allowing games to start before 12 noon (I presume this isn't possible in the current single digit time field). Another benefit is that it would allow day doubleheaders to actually be played during the day, even after allowing several hours between games. The first game could be set to, say, 10:30 a.m. and the second game for 3:30 p.m., which leaves OOTP some 5 hours between the games. That would hopefully be enough to avoid any conflicts.

Originally posted by fearofmimes
In the script that I wrote, I can identify doubleheaders and I'm working on various ways to try to incorporate them into the import file so that they can be handled in the best manner possible by OOTP.

This is excellent as well. I have only one caveat to offer: watch out for split-team and split-location doubleheaders. They're rare, but they do happen on occasion.

A split-team twin bill is where the home team hosts two different teams on the same day, i.e. Chicago hosts Detroit in the first game and Cleveland in the second. I believe there are only a very few of these scheduled, and only in the 19th century.

A split-location doubleheader is where the same two teams play but switch parks after the first game. For example, in the 1915 FL schedule Brooklyn plays at Newark in the first game while in the second Newark is visiting Brooklyn. This type of twin bill is not common, but it did happen pre-1900 as well as a few times post-1900 in the NL.

Originally posted by gmo
I started working on the same thing, turning the Retrosheet schedules directly into OOTP-acceptable CSV format.

This is excellent too. It is definitely good to have the Retrosheet format covered, since that is the "official" format now. All the MLB regular season original schedules will eventually be on the site once they've all be proofed and verified.

Originally posted by gmo
I'd so far done what Retrosheet has for 1962 forward, though that is only 7 seasons.

I have sent a few more seasons that are ready for posting to Dave Smith, but he hasn't yet converted them to the Retrosheet format and posted them to the site yet.

There are however still a few seasons waiting to be proofed. Specifically, these are: 1880-82, 1884 (UA only), 1886-97, 1900-01, 1969-72, 1975-75, and 1980-82. So, if you have access to such things as the TSN Guides, Reach Guides, or similar publications which printed the original schedules, you too can help out. It's a matter of checking the file against the published schedule and looking for any discrepancies, and making note of any. This proofing is important, as it checks the schedule data against a source different from the one I got the info from (there have been a few seasons where there were some differences in dates between the sources). This information then gets sent to me and I go through it to determine the nature of the discrepancies and how they should be corrected.

If you'd like to help finish off the proofing of the remaining seasons, drop Dave Smith an e-mail and he'll coordinate things.

Of course, I still have a bunch of proofing notes to go over, but it can be a slow process sometimes sorting out why there are discrepancies...

Originally posted by Malleus Dei
OOTP and Retrosheet really need to coordinate their work better.

Perhaps. Or perhaps it's more of a case where OOTP just needs to coordinate its work with the resident schedule guru.