Site News: Oracle of Baseball Fixed
Posted by Neil Paine on June 6, 2011
After months of technical difficulties, we're happy to say that the Oracle of Baseball is once more operational.
For those who don't remember it, the Oracle is a tool that allows you to find connections between any two major league players via teammates. (As an example, here is the shortest possible chain of teammates between Joe Tinker and Starlin Castro.)
For more information about the Oracle, click here. Thanks for your patience as we worked to get the Oracle up and running again.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:07 am
Nice. Very nice.
Question, though. Did you guys decide that the name "Bacon of Baseball" was too cute?
'Cause an Oracle is "a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion, predictions or precognition." Has nothing to do with degrees of separation. Just sayin...
June 6th, 2011 at 11:22 am
I think we named it after the Oracle of Bacon:
http://oracleofbacon.org/
June 6th, 2011 at 11:53 am
Oh, well then that is okay.
I cant very well deconstruct the linguistic semantics of a cultural reference Within a cultural reference @ baseball-reference. Should probably just stick to drooling over statistics.
June 6th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
I tend to think of this feature as "Any Teammate of Mike Morgan is a Teammate of Mine."
June 6th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Once off this Blog Page of the "Oracle", I couldn't find a way to to get to the Oracle.
Finally rooted around and found it under More [+] on the top Gray Bar line.
June 6th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
[...] Oracle of Baseball: B-R has fixed its Oracle of Baseball, allowing users to find connections between two players via teammates. [...]
June 6th, 2011 at 9:51 pm
That six-step route from Tinker to Stalin includes Minnie Minoso with the 1980 White Sox. (Every step goes through a Chicago team.) I don't like to see that one come up, so I always exclude it. When I excluded it this time, the route went to seven steps. So I'm guessing that the only way to do it in six steps is to include the 1980 Minoso stint with the White Sox.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Down again, or is that just me?
June 7th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
It looks OK to me:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/oracle/link.cgi?n1=+Babe+Ruth&n2=+Barry+Bonds
Are you still having the problem now?
June 7th, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Yes, I am. That link worked, but when I start from a player page and click the Oracle link, it tells me the player has to have played in the major leagues. The player I just tried it with was Warren Spahn!
June 7th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
I have found on the Oracle the Early Wynn-Tommy John connection. In Wynn's last season, he was a teammate of rookie Tommy John. Between them, one can quickly connect players fifty years apart.
June 8th, 2011 at 10:11 am
#10 - I see, we'll get that fixed too.