Baltimore Orioles

[Arlie Latham]

Anyone have a good source for the players on the Independent Baltimore Orioles, particularly the years they were owned by Jack Dunn?

[andjbock]

Is this the Orioles from 1901-1902ish? In the electronic baseball encyclopedia by Tiger I had growing up the O's became the Yanks, so that may be a way to find info.

[AngelinOF]

The only thing I have seen about them is a short mention (5 pages) in Baseball Dynasties: The greatest Teams of All Time by Rob Nyer & Eddie Epstein. They are mentioned when discussing the 1929 A's since a number of the A's players on that team where purchased from the Orioles.

[Eugene Church]

Minor League rosters are hard to locate.

I wanted to recreate the Texas League and Southern Association, but couldn't locate anything but info of some of the stars from some of the years and league leaders in hitting and pitching.

I got a Texas League media guide, two books by Bill O'Neal, one about the TL and one about the Southern Association/Southern League...spent about 75 dollars...not worth the money.

O'Neal has written books about the PCL, International League and American Association. Sorry to say, I wouldn't recommend them. He will cover the leagues by decades and spend about a page for each season...and doesn't review each season.

One source is The Sporting News...they have an online subscription service for about $15 a month. You could go back to the dates Dunn owned the Orioles (he was the finest owner in history) and see pretty good coverage of the International League. You can see league batting and pitching stat leaders periodically and box scores (many are hard to read and names were abbreviated to fit in the box score)...no first names, either. You will have to get them from the articles.

But the best site has the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time and each one is covered very thoroughly...listing rosters, pitching and hitting stats...and comments about the players. Baltimore is listed several times, so you might be able to get rosters there.

Jack Dunn and his Baltimore Orioles had 6 of the top 19 teams of all time...1919 to 1924.

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/history/top100/

[Arlie Latham]

Much Obliged, Eugene.

I pour through all different books and web sites looking for the names of players for independent leagues. I recently happened upon the name of Perry Werden, an independent star of the 19th century for example.

In The Minor Leagues, a book I picked up in my local library book store I found a whole chapter on Dunn's Orioles and was hoping someone had written a comprehensive book on the Orioles in their independent years.

I have a M.A. in History and I often think about using my research background to put together more source books for the minor leagues, but I wonder if only you and I would be interested in such a thing, Mr. Church.

[Eugene Church]

Originally posted by Arlie Latham

I have a M.A. in History and I often think about using my research background to put together more source books for the minor leagues, but I wonder if only you and I would be interested in such a thing, Mr. Church.

You are right...it is not very likely to be profitable at all...or worth your time.

What we need is access to The Sporting News Media Guides. At one time (maybe they still do) it published a yearly baseball guide that covered all of the leagues in professional baseball. I used one in 1954 for my APBA League. It gave batting and pitching stats for the Majors and Minors. Only thing lacking was fielding averages.

I called them two years ago when I first got OOTP3 to see if I could purchase back issues. They were not available. However if I went to St. Louis I might be able to go to their archives. That was not feasible.

I contacted Minor League Baseball, thinking they would have old minor league guides and stats....They didn't.

The Texas League only had a media guide...it had no coverage of each season...rosters, stats and such...only league records and final standings for each season.

The Southern League had nothing...not even a guide.

So it is not likely we can get enough info about a particular league so we can recreate it with authentic players.

I spent 3 weeks about 10 hours a day researching the Southern Association 1947-1958...blessedly I'm retired... and came up with pretty good rosters and stats. I used the Memphis Commercial Appeal and New Orleans Times-Picuyune microfilm at the local university library. I would read those papers coverage of each game for those seasons. Players first names were hard to get...box scores and weekly statistics don't give first names. But in the game writeups usually 2 columns long, I would pick up first names and player talent evaluations. Even with this, in most cases, couldn't find out defensive skills of the players. But I did find enough info to recreate those seasons.

I wanted to research the Texas League so I could have the Dixie Series each season between the League Champions. But didn't want to go to Texas for 3 weeks.

Why do we spend so much time on a computer baseball game?

It really doesn't seem rational...But it sure is fun.

[swampdragon]

Some of the DMB and Strat fans have done old minor league seasons which are available for download on the web. Jamie Marshall's A Page For All Seaons (google APFAS) has the DMB seasons. They are a terrific source of information for the seasons that have been done, and feature the post World War II PCL in great detail, along with many others. Check around.

[Eugene Church]

swampdragon, thanks for the information about the minors. I'll check it out.