[2] By the mid-1960s, advances in computer technology allowed for a level of data collection that would support a project aimed at producing an accurate and comprehensive record book for MLB.
[3] Statistician David Neft, who had recently been hired by computer data processing company Information Concepts, Inc. (ICI), first proposed a new baseball encyclopedia in 1965.
[6] ICI sought to use box score information from MLB games played since 1876 to create a statistical database, which would be utilized in making files for all players and managers.
[3] Biographical details for approximately 5,000 players had already been compiled by Lee Allen, a historian at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and his research provided an early foundation.
[7] Another boon to research efforts for the book came from ICI's acquisition of scrapbooks owned by steamship executive John Tattersall.
His records included a full collection of box scores dating back to 1876, and a mostly complete daily statistics log that covered the period between 1876 and 1890.
To permit these categories to be deduced for each season, Neft's research team consulted newspaper accounts of old games, focusing on the 1876–1919 period.
The system allowed for teams' season statistics to be totaled, combined, and compared with the numbers kept by the leagues; inconsistencies were flagged by the computer and logged by Neft for investigation.
[15] An ad in The Sporting News claimed that The Baseball Encyclopedia took three-and-a-half years to research and develop, and that it cost $1.5 million to produce.
[17] Attracting more attention than those changes was a rule interpretation that would have altered a well-known record: Babe Ruth's total of 714 career home runs.
[19] In a 1918 game, Ruth had a game-ending hit which would have been scored as a home run under modern rules, as the ball went over the outfield wall.
[20] Thirty-seven hits that would have counted as home runs under modern scoring guidelines, including Ruth's, were discovered by the researchers for The Baseball Encyclopedia.
The record committee initially voted to credit the batters with home runs, which would have increased Ruth's career tally to 715.
[17] Another critic was MLB public relations director Joe Reichler, a member of the committee who had been absent from the meeting where the home run ruling was voted upon.
[22] The first edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia was publicly unveiled at a New York City press conference on August 28, 1969,[3] and released on September 10.
The Baseball Encyclopedia received three separate reviews in The New York Times, by Jimmy Breslin, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, and Leonard Koppett.
Reichler was hired by Macmillan for the position; Schwarz saw him as wanting to "please his bosses at MLB", who were dissatisfied with the changes to player statistics that had been incorporated into the first edition.
Schwarz noted a pattern in which adjustments that would result in additions to the stats of big-name players were made, but not those that required subtractions.
[28] Sports Illustrated's Jonathan Yardley criticized the second edition for its size reduction, suggesting that updated player stats should have been released in a supplement to the original book.
[30] Jeff Neumann, one of the book's editors, later said that editions consistently sold 50,000 copies while he was involved with The Baseball Encyclopedia's production, and that it was "a very profitable enterprise" for Macmillan.
[1] Aiding the publisher was an agreement it had made with the researchers before the original book was released, which allowed Macmillan to avoid making any royalty payments.
[33] For this version, Wolff elected to rely heavily on the database from the first edition, rejecting adjustments made under Reichler that were not backed by firm proof.
"[1] Neft cited the encyclopedia as having an effect in publicizing the statistical achievements of players like Addie Joss and Sam Thompson to Hall of Fame voters.