FYI: A glimpse into the past — the structure of baseball in 1950

[Le Grande Orange]

I thought the following real-world data might be of interest to some folks who are into OOTP historical leagues or who like to set up fictional leagues based on earlier baseball times. The information is the result of a little (well, not so little) research project I've been working on. Enjoy!


In 1950, a total of 61 leagues started the season. There were, of course, the 2 major leagues, along with 59 minor leagues (of which all but one finished the season). Those 59 minor leagues were all structured as single-division entities. 9 of the leagues (15%) consisted of six teams, while the other 50 leagues (85%) started the season with eight teams.

In terms of league playoffs, while each of the major leagues had none and crowned the first-place club at the end of the regular season the league champion, in the minors it was very different. Of the 58 minor leagues which finished the season, 54 of them (93%) used the Shaughnessy playoff system in which the top four clubs in the league competed in the post-season. Another 2 leagues used a split-season format to create a post-season series. Just 2 minor leagues had no playoffs (the Pacific Coast League and the Western International League).

Of the 54 leagues using the Shaughnessy playoff format, 29 of them (54%) in the first round had the 1st place team play the 4th place team, while the 2nd place team played the 3rd place team. The other 25 leagues (46%) had a first round which matched the 1st place team against the 3rd place club, while the 2nd place finisher played the 4th place team.

Three of the leagues did not have a second round in their playoffs due to inclement weather forcing a cancellation of the championship series. Of the 51 leagues which successfully concluded their post-seasons, the breakdown of the lengths of series used was as follows (in the order of first round, second round, number of instances, percentage of total):

Best-of-3, best-of-3: 1 (2%)
Best-of-3, best-of-5: 2 (4%)
Best-of-5, best-of-5: 5 (10%)
Best-of-5, best-of-7: 14 (27%)
Best-of-7, best-of-7: 29 (57%)

Of the two leagues which used a split-season format, one used a best-of-5 series and the other used a best-of-7 series to determine the league champion.


Trivia: the International League was among the first minor leagues to adopt the Shaughnessy playoff format. It used that playoff format for 30 consecutive years (1933-62). After a one-year trial with two divisions in 1963, the league went back to a single-division structure the following year and reinstated the Shaughnessy playoffs. It used that playoff system for 22 of the next 24 years (the exceptions being 1973-74 when the league again was split into two divisions). The International League permanently adopted a divisional structure in 1988.

[Cryomaniac]

Cool info.

[GMLoophole]

I've always assumed the "win 154/162 games to be the champion" method was universal, but at least in this snapshot it seems like an idiosyncrasy of the majors.

[Le Grande Orange]

The reason I started looking at this sort of data was because I was thinking about how OOTP should try and reflect the reality of how baseball leagues were structured in earlier when a universe is created. But that raised the question of what things looked like in a given year, and as far as I'm aware there is no single compendium which lists this information. So I set out to create one.

The goal is to have a finished file which lists for each year the basic details for the leagues which started that season. Here is an example of what the information would look like; it is for 2006.

Year  Class  League                        Tms  Div  Align   RSF  PS  QF  SF   F
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2006   ML    American League                14   3   5-5-4    –    4   –   5   7
2006   ML    National League                16   3   5-6-5    –    4   –   5   7
2006   AAA   International League           14   3   6-4-4    –    4   –   5   5
2006   AAA   Mexican League                 16   2   8-8      S    8   7   7   7
2006   AAA   Pacific Coast League           16   4   4-4 4-4  –    4   –   5   5
2006   AA    Eastern League                 12   2   6-6      –    4   –   5   5
2006   AA    Southern League                10   2   5-5      S    4   –   5   5
2006   AA    Texas League                    8   2   4-4      S    4   –   5   5
2006   A     California League              10   2   5-5      S    6   3   5   5
2006   A     Carolina League                 8   2   4-4      S    4   –   3   5
2006   A     Florida State League           12   2   6-6      S    4   –   3   5
2006   A     Midwest League                 14   2   6-8      S    8   3   3   5
2006   A     South Atlantic League          16   2   8-8      S    4   –   3   5
2006   A     New York-Pennsylvania League   14   3   4-6-4    –    4   –   3   3
2006   A     Northwest League                8   2   4-4      –    2   –   –   5
2006   R     Appalachian League             10   2   5-5      –    2   –   –   3
2006   R     Pioneer League                  8   2   4-4      S    4   –   3   3
2006   R     Arizona League                  9   1   —        S    2   –   –   1
2006   R     Gulf Coast League              13   3   4-5-4    –    3   –   1   3
2006   Ind   American Association           10   2   5-5      S    4   –   5   5
2006   Ind   Atlantic League                 8   2   4-4      S    4   –   3   5
2006   Ind   Canadian-American Association   8   1   —        S    4   –   5   5
2006   Ind   Frontier League                10   2   5-5      –    4   –   5   5
2006   Ind   Golden Baseball League          6   1   —        S    2   –   –   5
2006   Ind   Northern League                 8   2   4-4      S    4   –   5   5
2006   Ind   United League                   6   1   —        –    4   –   3   5

"Class" is of course the classification of that league. "Tms" is the number of teams the league started the season with; "Div" is the number of divisions; and "Align" shows the specific alignment of the league (e.g. "4-4" means the league has two 4-team divisions). "RSF" means the regular season format, where an "S" indicates the split-season format was used. "PS" is the number of teams qualifying for the league's post-season. "QF", "SF", and "F" indicate the length of the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals, respectively, in terms of best-of series (e.g. 5 means a best-of-5 series).

Such data allows the user to quickly see how any individual year was structured, or you could filter the results to show just one league and see how its history unfolded over the years.

It's not shown in the example above, but there'd also be a "Playoff Notes" field which lists any specific info about the league or its playoffs that year, e.g. the playoffs matched 1st vs. 4th and 2nd vs. 3rd, or if the league disbanded before the end of the season. Fields showing the scheduled length of the season and the number of games actually played may also be added, as well as one showing the number of teams that dropped out before the end of the season and another the number of teams that joined the league during the season. At present the leagues included are only the majors and the minors in North America. If I can get the data the various off-season "winter" leagues may be added, along with the domestic leagues operating in other countries.

No timetable for completion is offered. It's strictly a glimpse of a work-in-progress.

[GMLoophole]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

No timetable for completion is offered. It's strictly a glimpse of a work-in-progress.

That's.... ambitious

Can you figure these things out from bb-ref, or how are you doing this? Until I found Mike McCann's site I couldn't even figure out what teams were in the Sunset League in 1911 and so on.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by GMLoophole

That's.... ambitious

Actually, the league-level data is not that bad.

I'm also working on a file with the standings of each league for each of its seasons, along with its attendance. That's a much bigger fish to fry. At least for a good number of seasons the final standings can be grabbed from Baseball-Reference... but I still have to fill in the attendance myself. (I also want to add the first half and second half standings for leagues using the split-season format, something that no centralized reference contains.)

Originally Posted by GMLoophole

Can you figure these things out from bb-ref, or how are you doing this? Until I found Mike McCann's site I couldn't even figure out what teams were in the Sunset League in 1911 and so on.

For the league-level data, I primarily use the book Minor League Baseball Standings—All North American Leagues, Through 1999 by Benjamin Barrett Sumner. I picked that one up eight or nine years ago, something like that. Just last month I (finally!) picked up the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball—Third Edition, edited by Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff, and published by Baseball America. I use the Encyclopedia for the 2000-06 period and for the yearly attendance figures.

The primary difference between the two books is that the Sumner book is just the finals standings and a list of the playoff results, ordered by league. So it's relatively easy to go through all the seasons for a given league. The Encyclopedia is a more comprehensive reference. It is ordered by year, rather than by league, and it also includes the managers for each club as well as the league individual leaders in various statistical categories, and other various bits of info. Being a more recent work it also includes more leagues, particularly for the 19th century.

If you have any interest in the subject, the Encyclopedia is still on sale from Baseball America. You can get the softcover version for just $19.95 (when it first came out it was $49.95). Shipping is also quite reasonable; it was only about $12 to have it shipped to Canada, so to points within the U.S. it should be even less. I'd been wanting to pick up the Encyclopedia for some time, so when I saw that sale price I immediately jumped on it.

I would strongly encourage anyone else who's been interested in the book but not yet taken the plunge to do so now. That sale price is a great deal.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

The goal is to have a finished file which lists for each year the basic details for the leagues which started that season. ...

Just thought I'd let any interested folks know the goal has been reached.

I've got the basic data for the minors (and majors) for 1901-2011 filled in. There are, however, a few leagues which are missing some data (an unavoidable limitation of the sources I currently have at my disposal). Before version 1.0 of this is released into the wild, I want to fill in the scheduled game info for leagues in various years, to provide some reference as to how the scheduled number of games varied at different classifications. I also have to decide on a release format (either text file, Word file, or .csv file). Feel free to suggest what you feel would be best.

Version 2.0 of this project would probably feature inclusion of 19th century North American leagues as well as data for unaffiliated foreign leagues, both regular and winter. That's some ways in the future, though (winter league data is rather scarce).

Anyway, comments, questions, and feedback welcomed.

[rjl518]

cool info