AUTHOR: Ryan Armbrust
DATE: 5:31:00 PM
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<div style="clear:both;"></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c351/r84x/wleaguelogo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 144px;" src="http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c351/r84x/wleaguelogo.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>This is a little out of the ordinary for what's usually written about here, but I'm starting a new project.

I'm working on finding and compiling all of the individual statistics from the old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_League_%28defunct_minor_league%29">Western League</a> minor league from 1900-1937.

This is especially interesting to me for a few reasons:

- The Western League had teams in Omaha and Lincoln, and was the top minor league in baseball in the first decade of the 20th century.

- I get to spend more time in the Historical Society looking over microfilm of newspapers. A good place to be in the winter, when it's cold outside and there's no baseball being played.

- The stats seem to have been lost to time, for the most part, and I'd hate to see them disappear completely. By digging through old newspapers, I can save them from vanishing completely.

- I hope to contribute to <a href="http://www.sabr.org/">SABR</a>'s goal of compiling all minor league stats from all minor league seasons. It's an epic undertaking, but a worthwhile one. Minor league baseball is the biggest hole we have in what we know about baseball.

So far, I've found the complete stats for the 1910 and 1911 seasons, and I'm entering them into spreadsheets. I'll keep this site updated with my progress, and possibly make some of the stats available to people who'd like to see them.<div style="clear:both; padding-bottom:0.25em"></div>
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