David Smith (baseball historian)

David Smith (baseball historian)
David W. Smith (born March 17, 1948) is an American microbiologist, baseball historian and analyst, and statistician. He is best known as the founder of Retrosheet, a volunteer organization whose mission is to collect, digitize, and distribute play-by-play accounts from every game in Major League Baseball history. Additionally, Smith also writes research articles on baseball. Smith's work in baseball research has been widely praised and he has received a number of awards for his work, including from the Society for American Baseball Research and the Baseball Reliquary.
Early life and career
Smith was born in Dayton, Ohio on March 17, 1948. His family moved to Connecticut when he was two before eventually settling in San Diego, California. Smith became a baseball fan at a very young age and was a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers before the team even moved to the West Coast, seeing his first game between the Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1958; the first at-bat he saw was between Richie Ashburn of the Phillies and Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers – both future Hall of Famers.
After graduating high school, Smith graduated from the University of California, San Diego with bachelor's degree in Biology, and from Indiana University with a master's degree in Microbiology. He earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and did two years of postgraduate work at the University of California, Los Angeles.
From 1975 to 2014, Smith worked as a professor of microbiology (with an emphasis on ecology, genetics, and evolution) at the University of Delaware, during which time he wrote a number of scientific papers and two textbooks on microbiology. He was the director of the undergraduate biology program and the grievance officer of the Delaware chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He won the University's Excellence in Teaching Award in 1977, and was Faculty Senate President in 1983–1984.
Baseball
A baseball enthusiast since childhood, Smith founded Retrosheet in 1989 for the purpose of compiling play-by-play accounts of as many major league games before 1984 as possible (data for games since 1984 has collected by Project Scoresheet/Baseball Workshop and other organizations). In addition to collecting accounts of major league games, Retrosheet also publishes research papers on baseball with the help of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
As of 2013, Retrosheet had recovered the box scores and entered in the likely play-by-play for over 70% of all the major league games played between 1903 (the start of the modern era of baseball, with the first World Series) and 1984, representing over 115,000 games. As of June 2023, Retrosheet has the play-by-play descriptions for all games played between 1973 and 1983, with a list of "games needed" indexed by season going back to 1920.
Additionally, Smith has contributed to Total Baseball, the official baseball encyclopedia, and has written a number of journal articles for the Society for American Baseball Research; he received the Doug Pappas Award for best oral research presentation by SABR in 2001 (on the 1951 NL Pennant Race) and 2016 (on the role of closers in baseball).
For his services to baseball, Smith received the 2001 "SABR Salute". He has subsequently been awarded the Bob Davids Award in 2005, and the Henry Chadwick Award in 2012 by SABR for "services to baseball research". In 2008, Smith received the Tony Salin Memorial Award from the Baseball Reliquary for his "commitment to the preservation of baseball history".
Works on baseball
Contribution to books
Total Baseball
The Midsummer Classic: The Complete History of Baseball's All-Star Game (2001; with David W. Vincent and Lyle Spatz)
Articles for SABR Journal
The 1966 Orioles: More than Frank Robinson
Time Between Pitches: Cause of Long Games?
Why do games take so long?
Did Sign Stealing Make A Major Difference in the 1951 Pennant Race?
The protested Dodgers-Cardinals game of July 20, 1947
Coming from Behind: Patterns of Scoring and Their Relation to Winning
Sunny Jim Bottomley’s Big Day
Effect of Batting Order (Not Lineup) on Scoring
Does Walking the Leadoff Batter Lead to Big Innings?
Do Batters Learn During a Game? Part I
Do Batters Learn During a Game? Part II
Maury Wills and the Value of a Stolen Base
References
Further reading
Books
Articles
External links
David Smith's scientific research and contributions at the University of Delaware
David W. Smith at the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
1948 births
Living people
American microbiologists
Baseball statisticians
Baseball writers
Indiana University alumni
People from Dayton, Ohio
University of Delaware faculty
University of California, San Diego alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni