Folks,
Quoting the first paragraph from part one:
>>
A fortnight ago I phoned Rick Benner to talk about 19th century
collegiate baseball records, especially game logs. I promised him I
would both explain Spalding's Guide coverage and illustrate game logs in
email to this group. I have written some details in useful tables and
the unknown number of email articles will follow pretty quickly now.
<<

Spalding's Base Ball Guide 1884 and 1885 covers the Western Collegiate
(WCA) and Inter-Collegiate (ICA) Base Ball Associations in two short
chapters or sections. Inside each section it names the clubs and gives
final standings. Here is that data for the WCA only, presented in a way
that hints how a database deftly uses abbreviations and multiple tables.

CLUBS AND LEAGUES
In its prose history of the WCA, Spalding's 1885 identifies the four
members for each season 1882-1884. That is five clubs in all because
Beloit replaced Michigan in 1883. In this case, where the club names
are names of colleges and universities, we know their city and state
"homes" from other sources but that information must commonly be
gathered from the baseball reports. I don't know any park or field
names, which might change over time in a given home city, so I have used
a city abbreviation to *suggest* a more complete example.

Teams and Homes [for WCA 1882-1884 only]

Team Club City State Site
nwu Northwestern University Evanston IL eva
rac Racine College Racine WI rac
umi University of Michigan Ann Arbor MI ann
uwi University of Wisconsin Madison WI mad
bel Beloit College Beloit WI bel

Leagues [for WCA 1882-1884 only]

League Year Team
WCA 1883 bel
WCA 1884 bel
WCA 1882 nwu
WCA 1883 nwu
WCA 1884 nwu
WCA 1882 rac
WCA 1883 rac
WCA 1884 rac
WCA 1882 umi
WCA 1882 uwi
WCA 1883 uwi
WCA 1884 uwi

These two tables jointly provide a lot of information about each
league-season without repeating long club names or city-state data.
A table such as this one for WCA 1883 is implied for every season.

WCA 1883
Team Club City State Site
rac Racine College Racine WI rac
uwi University of Wisconsin Madison WI mad
nwu Northwestern University Evanston IL eva
bel Beloit College Beloit WI bel

The abbreviations save time and clerical error in game logs, which are
typically much bigger tables.


STANDINGS
The simplest final standings identify each team and its numbers of wins
and losses during a season. That does cover the basics if every game is
played to a W-L decision, as in the WCA 1883 or 1884.

Team W L
WCA 1883
nwu 6 0
uwi 4 2
rac 1 5
bel 1 5
WCA 1884
uwi 5 1
rac 4 2
nwu 2 4
bel 1 5

Correct final standings for a league-season can be derived from correct
and complete game logs for all the teams but the standings are redundant
only when everything is correct. Published standings are useful during
the process, and the process may never end.

In fact, Spalding's commonly published final standings in team-vs-team
format and WCA 1884 is one instance.

WCA 1884
uwi rac nwu bel W L GP
uwi ... 1 2 2 5 1 6
rac 1 ... 1 2 4 2 6
nwu 0 1 ... 1 2 4 6
bel 0 0 1 ... 1 5 6

L 1 2 4 5 12


P/\/ \/\/t

Paul Wendt, Watertown MA, USA <pgw@...>
Chair, 19th Century Committee, SABR
Owner-Administrator, 19cBB (egroup at Yahoo)