I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, and Cliff's recent
post reminded me again. My question is, how much value is being
placed on data compiled through Retrosheet? I certainly don't mean
this as a criticism of Retrosheet in any way; it's just that I don't
think the overturning of official statistics (particularly from recent
seasons) should be taken lightly.

My primary concern is relatively subtle errors in play by play data.
As an example, I found a problem not long ago (see post 3022) with a
caught stealing that both Retrosheet and BDB had credited to Terry
Pendleton in the 1991 World Series. Other sources I checked did not
show a caught stealing. It turned out that the Retrosheet play by
play data was (apparently) in error. Similar problems might be:

- Intentional walks improperly credited (or not) as intentional
- Sacrifice hits or flies recorded only as regular outs, but not as
sacrifices (see post 2705 for a possible example)
- Errors, wild pitches and passed balls improperly credited (or not)

Depending on the source of the play-by-play data, late scoring changes
(after the game) seem like another potential problem area (for
example, an error changed to a hit).

So ultimately my question is, is there an official BDB stance on
acceptance of Retrosheet data?

Doug