Early statistics caveats
Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2021 11:50 am
The following paragraphs appear in the Research Notes for a book that I'm wrapping up. Does anyone else have any thoughts about caveats that should be mentioned about statistics from old newspaper articles?
It’s worth noting that sports-writing during and before the early 1930s provided different, less exact information than it does today, especially in terms of statistics. Sportswriters and team statisticians had no film to watch later to double-check observed yardage gained, and while one source might give a runner two yards on a play, another source might give three yards. Observers typically rounded up for their own players and rounded down for opposing players. Depending on weather and field conditions, the disparity between observed yardages might be wider. Whenever possible, I deferred to using information from sources local to the home team.
Also, because the forward pass was relatively new in importance, some observers awarded the entire distance of a pass from where the passer stood behind the line of scrimmage to where the receiver caught the ball, while others awarded the distance of the pass from the line of scrimmage to the receiver. Some tacked on the receiver’s yards gained after the catch, but not all observers awarded that yardage. Some broke down a pass into pass yardage and run yardage. Modern practice awards the distance of the pass from the line of scrimmage and includes the yards gained after the catch. Whenever possible, I share passing yardage gained using the modern practice.
Sometimes, accounts of the same game in different newspapers awarded touchdowns and other scores to different players. Accuracy depended on knowing who was whom and being able to read numbers on jerseys, if they had them at all and if they were clean, and if the players wore their correct numbers. In these situations, I deferred to using information from sources local to the home team.
In rare instances, newspapers shared the events of a game that were recorded second-hand from firsthand observers who relied on memory, which is very fragile.
A key observation I can share about newspapers and statistics is that early on, when football was primarily a running game, most articles only mentioned the final score, starting lineups with last names, and how many first downs each team gained. As football progressed to include more of the passing game, fans grew more interested in the game, and newspaper articles began to share more statistics.