2011 Independent League Statistics

In the constantly-changing world of Independent Baseball, there were 6 leagues this season:

• American Association
• Atlantic League
• Canadian-American League (CanAm)
• Frontier League
• North American League
• Pecos League

The North American League was a merger between teams from the Golden League, Northern League and United League.

The Pecos League, also new in 2011 is a continuation of the Continental League. Most Pecos players were new to The Baseball Cube.

Because of the current design of the site's database, when a team change's leagues or league name, the continuation of the franchise does not continue. In other words, teams in the North American League, like the Calgary Vipers, will appear as a new team with no history. Meanwhile, Calgary's seasons in the Golden League and Northern League will remain as a separate team. I won't be changing this any time soon unless the Minor Leagues decide to do the same thing.

TBC now have complete independent League statistics since 1999.

Minor League Uniform Numbers

If you've looked around the Minor League section of the site, you'll have noticed sporadic uniform numbers throughout history. Its a difficult task to find documentation on all minor leaguers, let alone Major Leaguers, but I've done my best.

For 2011, I've done my best, using Wikipedia and MILB.Com to fill in uniform numbers where available. Players on rehab and who had brief stints with a team are difficult to find but I'd say about 80% of players were found.

TBC Compare Player Stats Tool

First it was there and then it was gone. Amid the explosion of the new version of the TBC site, the TBC Compare tool got lost in the shuffle but it has been reconstructed and simplified and it is ready for use.

The Compare Tool allows you to take up to 5 players and compare their historical statistics for a range of years at the Major League, Minor League and College levels. In addition to the regular batting statistics, I've added ratios for key fantasy stats to allow for quicker comparison when trying to decide which players to take for your fantasy team. The ratios are essentially a given stat (like homers) divided into plate appearances which will tell you, over the range of years, who has the higher frequency of occurence of the stat.

The Compare tool is available on its own but you can also quickly jump from a player page by using the box in the Analysis section. Simply type in a few players separated by commas (e.g. uggla,r weeks) and then click "Compare".

Data Products Updated

If you'd like a copy of a portion of the TBC database in Excel or text file, you might want to check out our Data Store.

Here's what I have pre-packaged:

• TBC Stats Register: Historical stats for active Major Leaguers and Minor Leaguers in Excel.
• TBC Stats Register Update: 2011 Stats for active Major Leaguers and Minor Leaguers
• Minor League Stats 2007-2011: Complete minor league batting and pitching stats for the last 5 seasons with profile info.
• Major League Stats 1903-2011: Batting, Pitching and Fielding stats for major leaguers since 1903.
• College (Div I) 2007-2011: Batting and Pitching for about 300 schools for the last 5 years.
• Draft Register: List of all picks since 1965
• Scouting Scores: As seen on player pages

All files will be sent within 24 hours of payment.

Also, don't forget that I can provide customized datasets based on your needs. If the data is available on the site, I'll be able to get it to you within a few days.

Please consider Signing a page if you visit the site often.

1978 Topps Baseball Cards

726 Cards are available in the 1978 Topps Regular Issue set. It is the 24th set added to our Baseball Cards archive section.

Personally, it is the first set that I began to collect cards in my youth, though sporadically. I think my father bought me a few packs as I remember seeing a few of these cards in my collection, all with puffy rounded edges (like most of my cards).

Some of the subsets:

• Record Breakers
• Team Cards
• Managers (with picture as player as well)
• League Leaders
• Rookie Cards by position (4 players per card)
• All-Stars (logo indicated on player card)
• Topps All-Star Rookies (also indicated on player card)

Version 10 of TBC :: New Layout

I'm calling this version 10. I'm embarassed that the site has been changed so often but there's a vision in my head and I've had difficulty producing that vision. This is the closest I've come so far.

I've gone back to the "Sponsorships" model but instead, have named them "Signatures". They are $15 for a player page for a year and I'll expand to other pages in the future. I have reduced the ads a little bit on the site and I hope to make up the revenue on the site through these signatures.

Take a look around the site. There are more pages and more features, especially in the boxes section. There's a few bugs still hanging around but I'll be trying to fix those over the coming weeks.

This is a one-man show. All data and programming are by me and so if you enjoy the site, please consider a Signature.

Gary Cohen

1974 Topps - 660 Cards

There are 660 cards in the 1974 Topps set. The cards are on a white background with the team city at the top on a pennant with a colored background. Next to the city is the player's position. At the bottom is the team's nickname, also in a pennant and the player's name, on two lines sits adjacent. Some cards have a picture in landscape mode with the city name and team nickname stuck together, sometimes scrunching together the player name and the position.

The subsets:

• Hank Aaron home run king special. Cards #1-7
• Team Cards for each team which is a group photo of the team in landscape format
• Managers and Coaches: Each team has a card with a large photo of the manager with smaller photos of each coach on the team.
• League Leaders: 8 stat categories with AL and NL leaders on same card
• All-Stars: 9 different positions with AL and NL all-stars on each card.
• World Series Summary cards and AL and NL Playoff cards. 10 cards
• Rookies. 4 players per card by position. 13 different cards #595-608