Helpful search tip on Baseball Reference
Sean Forman has implemented a new search modification to his Baseball Reference database.
For those searching on a common player name (or part thereof), you can put the word “the” in front of the search term and the database will bring up the most popular searched player.
I just added a mod to the search box on the site. With the addition of all of the minor league pages, getting to someone like Alex Rodriguez’s page via a search “A Rod” returns like 50 people. Now, if you type in “the A Rod” it looks through our db and returns the most popular major league player who matches the search “A Rod”. Adding “the ” to the front of any player search will send you to the most popular player matching that search.
I did my own test. I searched for “ramon martinez” and got back three results including two minor leaguers. When I searched for “the ramon martinez”, it took me directly to the page of Ramon Martinez who pitched for the LA Dodgers.
This trick works with initials too though your mileage may vary. “the jason v” did return Jason Varitek as I intended it too. For that matter, so did “the j v”.
Anyway, this mod might save a few mouse clicks for those of us who search Baseball Reference’s database on a frequent basis.
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The initiative is appreciated. Although I don’t know how much time the new feature saves, maybe 5 seconds until you read all the results. I think it was more like a “hey, I could do that”-revelation of Sean’s :)
tis true.. it’s more of a geekier function of the database…
if anything, it gives us an idea which search is more popular.
hmm.. albert or luis… which pujols is searched on more??
now we know! ;-)