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Japanese Baseball Database

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Japanese Baseball Database
Eng-san, as promised in this thread, has provided us with his Japanese Baseball Database in both MS Access and MySQL formats. The files include:
     Size File Name       Description
34,767 Readme.rtf Readme file describing tables and credits
5,368,244 JBDPreview.zip Zipped file including Readme.rtf, JDB.mdb, and JDB.sjis.sql
3,375,724 JBD.mdb.gz GNU-Zipped MS-Access database
1,974,724 JBD.sjis.sql.gz GNU-Zipped MySQL dump in Shift JIS encoding
1,975,968 JBD.ujis.sql.gz GNU-Zipped MySQL dump in EUC-JP encoding

The MySQL dumps (MySQL version 3.23 and above compatible) come in both Shift JIS (for Microsoft) and EUC-JP (for *NIX) character encodings to support all platforms. However, the originals I got from Eng-san had the Kanji being output as "?" in all but a couple of places. I'll work with him to get this fixed ASAP. It's not a problem if you're only using English in your queries. If anyone is interested in UTF-8 encoding dumps (MySQL version 4.1 or above necessary.), please let me know.

Also, please note that I renamed most of the tables and a number of fields in the MySQL version. Eng-san used spaces and special characters (such as %, /, and #) which, while possible in MySQL, is hard to type queries in as such table and field names require backquotes (`) around them. If one is only using GUI (Graphical User Interface) tools to access data, it's not much of an issue, but I know that I like to issue commands from a command prompt - thus the name changes to make it easier to do so.

As is noted in the Readme.rtf file, there are errors in the datasets. It is hoped that with more people looking at the data, that many of these errors can get caught and corrected. If you find any, please e-mail Eng-san directly or post corrections here.

I hope you enjoy the data on your own as much as I'm looking forward to integrating it into this site.

Comments
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: Guest: Jim Albright | Posted: Dec 28, 2004 2:19 AM ]

Can you do a comma delimited version or something so that I can use my older version of Access (97)? Thanks.

Jim Albright
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Dec 28, 2004 9:38 AM | YBS Fan ]

I'd recommend installing MySQL, along with its ODBC driver, then use Access as a front end to it. Access 2.0 made it very easy to administer external databases with ODBC, Access 97 (the last version I used) made it more difficult to setup (Microsoft didn't want its users using a different database any more), but it's still possible.

By learning how to use Access in this way, you'll avoid vender lock-in on the database side while still being able to use a familiar tool.

As little as I care for Microsoft, using Access in this way was the last functionality that held me to the platform - until I overwrote my final Microsoft partition at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2000. I rank Access 2.0 (the 16 bit version for Windows 3.1) as the best product Microsoft ever made. As for Access 97, while having a context menu for the right mouse click was nice, it had too many other glitches and usability problems (the main one mentioned above) to surpass the older version. I understand the reluctance to upgrade.

Nonetheless, I'll work on creating CSV files after work tonight.
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: Guest: Jim Albright | Posted: Dec 28, 2004 9:59 AM ]

I sympathize, but right now I've been having trouble downloading as massive a file as MySQL.

Jim Albright
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Dec 28, 2004 7:26 PM | YBS Fan ]

OK. Rather than export all of these to CSV files and create a distribution, then do it all again after they're updated, I whipped together a couple of JSP pages to do it for me directly from the latest version of the database. You can find the index file here.

Download the tables you want one at a time from there. All of the files are in UTF-8 format, so depending on the application, you may either need to specify that on import (OpenOffice has such an option when opening CSV files), or you may need to convert the files to Shift JIS first. Let me know how it goes.

Note: The version I have did not get Kanji correctly. I'm still awaiting a version where the Kanji were properly exported. Once I get that, you will be able to download the new CSV files right away.
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: Guest: Hirofumi Oda | Posted: Jul 2, 2005 11:13 PM ]

Hello, my name is Oda and I am a Japanese baseball fan.

I have downloaded the files and I am enjoying the contents very much. I must thank you and Michael's great effort in making such a great thing. However, I understand that you are still on the way to complete the data. Especially the data for the older players seems to be lacking. I believe I can be of help as I have a copy of the Offical Baseball Encyclopedia of 1998. The data has been endorsed by the baseball commissioner of Japan at the time and is supposed to be the most accurate source.

I would like to volunteer to input the data for older players using this source. I can do it only on weekends and, while it may take some time, it will be my pleasure to help.
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: Guest: Michael Eng | Posted: Jul 6, 2005 11:00 PM ]

Oda-san,

Wow. Thanks. I graciously accept your offer. The tables in the versions in this thread and here are a bit outdated, however. If you e-mail me at fp505JBD at yahoo d0t com, I'll send you a "work in progress" of the NPB Batting table, so you do not duplicate stats unnecessarily.

Thanks.

Michael Eng
Re: Japanese Baseball Database
[ Author: Guest: matt tagliaferri | Posted: Jul 7, 2005 12:39 AM ]

I have a question about these database downloads - are they "live"? In other words, if I download it every day, will new results be posted in the Games table, and corrections be posted as you make them? Or, do you have to do some sort of export in order for updates to be available on this page?

Thank you,

Matt Tagliaferri
Live Data
[ Author: westbaystars | Posted: Jul 7, 2005 10:35 PM | YBS Fan ]

Unfortunately, the answer is "no." Since Borisov-san is providing game scores, box scores, batting, and pitching data on a daily basis, I'm not duplicating his effort this year. I just didn't have enough time to get everything together this year. Sorry to disappoint.

On the other hand, the data is live with everything on the site. So when I fixed nationalities today, those all got updated as well. The 2001 fielding data I entered last week was there as soon as I entered them.
Re: Live Data
[ Author: Guest: matt tagliaferri | Posted: Jul 8, 2005 3:53 AM ]

Is there any way I can pull down 2005 player stats using the playerids in your database? (I don't need game level data, just player/team/year totals.)

If no, will I be able to do so at the end of the year?

Thank you,

Matt Tag
Re: Live Data
[ Author: Guest: Kyle Stark | Posted: Sep 22, 2005 5:02 AM ]

I too am interested in 2005 stats. I notice there is not a reply to the previous post about linking 2005 stats to your player IDs. Any way of doing this? If not right now, at what point do you anticipate being able to link 2005 stats to your player IDs?
Re: Live Data
[ Author: Guest: Michael Eng | Posted: Sep 22, 2005 12:19 PM ]

To gather in-season stats you could write a script to gather the information. You can also download the stats, step-by-step instructions follow. I am going to use Excel as an example, but you can use another program such as Calc.
  • Download the Players table from the Pro Yakyu Database [Link].
  • Copy the pitching and batting stats (third and fourth under each team) from Yahoo! Japan NPB [Link]. The batting stats will go into one sheet and pitching into another (add teams as well).
  • Paste the Kanji and English name fields from the Players into another sheet.
  • Use the CONCATENATE function on the Kanji fields (Last, [Note: a large space], First). Do the same for the English names. Place the Kanji in Column A and the English in Column B.
  • Use the VLOOKUP function on the names in the stats sheets (Name, PlayersSheet A:B,2,False).
  • The stat sheets should now have the English names on them.
Hope this helps.

Michael Eng
About

This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.

It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.

Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder

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