Retrosheet is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose website features box scores of Major League Baseball (MLB) games from 1906 to the present, and play-by-play narratives for almost every contest since the 1930s.

[3] Building on momentum begun by writer Bill James' Project Scoresheet in 1984, Smith brought together a host of like-minded individuals to compile an accessible database of statistical information previously unavailable to the general public.

[3] Smith originally contacted teams and sportswriters in order to gain access to their scorebooks, while other contributors researched old newspapers for play-by-play accounts.

The lack of television (and prior to that, radio) accounts serve as the main reasons for this disparity, while World War II limited the space that had been used for such information.

By 2007, Retrosheet had been cited as a source in multiple large American newspapers, including The Boston Globe,[5] Chicago Tribune,[6] Detroit Free Press,[7] and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.