Frequently Asked Questions about Baseball Oracle

1. What exactly is Baseball Oracle?

Many fans may be familiar with The Sports Encyclopedia of Baseball, Total Baseball and MacMillan's (both now out of business) and other encyclopedias found in many book stores. Baseball Oracle is such an encyclopedia of all major league players and their statistics since 1871. The difference is that Baseball Oracle is a computer database which means that the user can query the data in ways not possible using books. It can also be easily updated every year at a fraction of the cost. Baseball Oracle also contains much more information that you cannot find in those reference sources.

2. I'm not a programmer. Can I still use Baseball Oracle?

That's the idea! You don't have to know anything about databases or programming. The main feature of Baseball Oracle is the Stats Wizard from which you choose only the statistics you are interested in.

The Stats Wizard makes it easy to get the answers you want. And because the stats are in a computer format, not on paper, you can quickly get statistical questions that a book cannot tell you unless you are willing to gather and calculate the information yourself.

3. What kind of computer do I need?

Any PC-compatible computer running Windows 2000 or later (later is preferred). As with most Windows applications, the more memory and hard disk space you have, the better and will make Baseball Oracle run faster. We recommend 256 megabytes of RAM or more and at least 250 megabytes of free hard disk space. Baseball Oracle looks best using a resolution of 800 by 600. A printer is recommended but not necessary.

Baseball Oracle is a Windows application. However, MacIntosh users have reported it works well with Windows emulation software installed.

4. Which stats are available?

There are 159 fields in the 2007 version. All the hitting, pitching and fielding statistics are included, vitals statistics such as given names, nicknames, the side from which the player hits and throws, height, birth and death statistics and managers statistics.

These stats are available for each player for each team and season played as well as post-season. Lifetime totals can easily be calculated. Note that some statistics were not kept for all years and Baseball Oracle shows zero for those. An example is the sacrifice fly was not an officially recorded stat until 1954. Research is on-going for early years where stats may be missing or incomplete and those will be available in updates as they are found. Click here for a complete list.

5. What about next year? Will I have to buy Baseball Oracle to get this season's stats?

No. At the end of the regular season, an update file is made available at a fraction of the cost. Baseball Oracle now get updated using an Internet connection as data is made available, at the end of a post-season series or when award winners are announced for example.

6. What about other statistics?

Some fans would like to have the newer stats such as OPS (on-base plus slugging), RC (runs created) and others. These are not available in Baseball Oracle as shipped but can be easily created using the UDF (User Defined Function) feature.

7. Can I program my own queries?

Yes. A programming window allows users knowledgeable in databases and using a language called SQL to query the database in ways that the Stats Wizard cannot. You must however be familiar with database programming to use this feature.

The Stats Wizard can handle most of your queries and we are improving it all the time. The programming window is only for the most sophisticated queries.

8. What about output?

Query results can be sent to a printer in an ad-hoc fashion. For better looking printouts, Baseball Oracle comes with a powerful report designer that lets you control the way results can be printed. It includes advanced features but many fans can quickly learn the rudiments and find it worthwhile to do so. If you have used Visual Basic reports, you can use Baseball Oracle´s reporting features. You can also send the results to a text file you can edit in a word processor or to an Excel spreadsheet file for even more flexibility.

9. Does Baseball Oracle have split stats?

No. Only the season totals for each player and teams are available.

10. What about Minor Leagues statistics?

Baseball Oracle has only Major League statistics. We would love to be able to offer statistics from the minor leagues as well as any other professional league such as the Japanese and Mexican leagues. Should anyone know of such (reliable) sources, please let us know.

11. Can I use Baseball Oracle for my Little League team?

No. There is no way for users to edit the existing data or add data from other leagues.

12. Can I use the data with other programs such as Access?

You could but there really is no reason to. Baseball Oracle was created for the everyday fan who knows nothing about databases and does not want to invest time and money on expensive database software. You can do everything using Baseball Oracle that you can with Access or other database management systems. And it is easier to use and much cheaper, the very reasons we created Baseball Oracle. For your information, the database is in an xBase (.dbf) format.