Ernest Lanigan is largely forgotten in baseball history. A newspaperman, official scorer, and executive for the minor leagues and the Hall of Fame, Lanigan is largely responsible for getting the RBI accepted as an official statistic. Though he recorded it for quite a few years previous to the statistic’s acceptance, RBI was finally accepted with the support of NL President John Heydler.
Shown here is a historic letter dated April 30, 1957. Lanigan writes in his capacity as official historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame on the Hall’s beautiful letterhead.
“I did the RBI’s in 1907 to 1919 inclusive, they were adopted by the majors in 1920 not on my say so and made their beginning into the Associated Press box score two years later when John McGraw said they were the best batting figures.”
Lanigan has been referred to as the Patron Saint of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and no wonder.
“I really don’t care much about baseball, or looking at ball games, major or minor,” Lanigan once said. “All my interest in baseball is in its statistics. I want to know something about every major league ball player, not only what he is hitting, but his full name with all middle names and initials, where they were born, and where they now live.”
I wonder if Ernie Lannigan had to deal with angry fans preferring “old school” statistics.