Dumb Things in MLB Recordkeeping, Part 298

[DrungoHazewood]

Somehow I missed this in early June, probably because I try to block out all things that have to do with ARod and the Yanks. But MLB made a small point about ARod moving into 2nd place on the all-time RBI list, passing Barry Bonds.

"So what?", you might say. The problem is the inconvenient fact that Alex Rodriguez is actually Fourth on the all-time RBI list, behind Hank Aaron, Cap Anson, and Babe Ruth.

What's going on here? Well, it seems that RBI weren't "officially" tracked by MLB until 1920. The league and their statkeepers the Elias Bureau, for whatever reason, sees all RBI prior to 1920 as not really existing. Babe Ruth played from 1914-1919 in this historical black hole, so MLB says he had zero RBI for that period. This is despite the fact that the good folks at Retrosheet and others have meticulously scanned pretty much every box score from 1871-present to verify the actual RBI totals. MLB and Elias ignores that. Cap Anson played his entire career before MLB officially sanctioned the writing down of RBI, so by the so-called official book he has a grand total of zero.

The next time MLB says something is an all-time whatever, take it with a grain of salt and look it up on an unofficial site with complete records of what actually happened like Retrosheet.org, bb-ref, or Fangraphs, or the Baseball Cube, or really anywhere except MLB.com.

[DrungoHazewood]

In a wonderful side note, MLB.com actually lists pre-1920 RBIs. But I guess they just don't count for any records. Maybe they were just practice RBIs.

[25 Nuggets]

It seems odd to me that the record books would keep something away from the ineffable Babe Ruth.

[Aglets]

Seems more appropriate to credit Ruth with the RBI's but with an asterisk?