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Free / open data · United States

Lahman Baseball Database logo

Lahman Baseball Database

Free downloadable database of major league baseball batting, pitching, fielding, standings, managers and postseason records from 1871 through 2025, including Negro Leagues.

Facts verified against the provider's site on

Commercial use: not disclosedBetting use: not disclosedNeutral
Visit official siteOpen API docsCompare
Featured in:⚾ Best Baseball APIs
48

SportDex Score

#67 of 233 sports APIs

See the full ranking →
Popularity
31

Brand demand, developer discussions, GitHub repos and videos

Community & reliability
—

Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; not enough public discussion to judge.

Transparency
75

Public prices, docs, terms and coverage you can check before calling sales

Developer experience
50

Free access, docs, SDKs, OpenAPI, sandbox, realtime delivery, ecosystem

Computed from public data only; uptime and latency are not measured yet. Enterprise feeds that sell by contract score lower on transparency by design. How the score works

Starting price
Not public
Free access
Free tier
Sports
1 (Baseball)
Live data
No
Delivery
CSV download
Discussions
1 threads
GitHub adoption
61 repos

Best for

Baseball analysts and students who want free historical MLB batting, pitching, fielding and standings data from 1871 on, as CSV or SQL files.

Historical baseball analysisTeaching and research projectsSabermetrics models

Not ideal for

Live or current-game data and API-style access; it is an annual downloadable dataset, and the dataset license is not stated on saved pages.

Limitations to check

  • − Annual download, not an API
  • − No live or in-season data
  • − Dataset license not stated on saved pages
  • − SABR site terms bar scraping and commercial exploitation of site content

Written from the provider's own pages (source).

Last checked 2026-11-03

Lahman Baseball Database at a glance

What is Lahman Baseball Database best for?
Baseball analysts and students who want free historical MLB batting, pitching, fielding and standings data from 1871 on, as CSV or SQL files. Not ideal for: Live or current-game data and API-style access; it is an annual downloadable dataset, and the dataset license is not stated on saved pages.
How much does Lahman Baseball Database cost?
Lahman Baseball Database does not publish prices on the pages we checked.
Does Lahman Baseball Database have a free tier?
Yes. Lahman Baseball Database lists a free plan called "Free download".
What does Lahman Baseball Database cover?
Lahman Baseball Database is a free / open data. Its sports: Baseball; data: Historical data, Player stats, Results, Standings, Team stats.
Does Lahman Baseball Database have a WebSocket or streaming API?
No streaming is listed. Lahman Baseball Database delivers data by CSV download, so you poll for updates.
What do developers say about Lahman Baseball Database?
Free downloadable MLB history database (1871 onward) with R and Python packages and SQL ports. Mostly cited as a data source in side projects, tutorials and chart videos, often alongside the MLB Stats API and Retrosheet. Little direct opinion; it is a static dataset, not a live API.
What are the alternatives to Lahman Baseball Database?
Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: NHL Records and Stats (nhlapi docs), CollegeBasketballData.com, Sportradar, FootyStats, iSports API.

Commercial decision

Pricing & plan limits

PlanPriceRequestsWhat's included
Free downloadFree—SQL, Access and CSV versionssource

Annual dataset release (version 2025 released 2026-01-02). Not an API.

Before choosing a paid plan, confirm

• What counts as one request (per call, per market, per region?)

• What happens when you exceed the quota: blocked or billed

• Whether live and historical data are on your plan

• Whether your use (public app, betting, resale) is licensed

The critical question

Data coverage

Sports
Baseball
Data types
Historical dataPlayer statsResultsStandingsTeam stats
Key competitions
MLB, Negro Leaguessource
Competitions
Not disclosed
Live / in-play
No
Women's competitions
Not disclosed
Betting markets
Not disclosed
Bookmaker regions
Not disclosed
Bookmakers
Not disclosed
History depth
1871-2025
Update frequency
annual release
Name languages
Not disclosed
ID mapping
Not disclosed

Coverage often depends on the plan; confirm the exact league and season on your plan.

Before you build

Usage rights & access

Commercial use
Not disclosed
Betting products
Not disclosed
Redistribution
Not disclosed
Storing data
Not disclosed
Attribution
Not disclosed
Logos & photos
Not disclosed
Who can buy
Individualssource
Verification (KYC)
Not required
Not available in
Not disclosed
Only available in
Not disclosed

Database is offered as a free download by SABR

Read the terms

Developer-ready evaluation

Integration & documentation

Protocols
CSV download
Formats
CSV, SQL, ACCESS
Authentication
none
SDKs
Not disclosed
OpenAPI spec
Not disclosed
Claimed latency
Not disclosed
Status page
Not disclosed
Sandbox / test keys
Not disclosed
Support
Not disclosed
SLA uptime
Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: Lahman Baseball Database

Goal: build a feature on Lahman Baseball Database data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth.

## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them)
- Website: https://sabr.org/lahman-database/
- Docs: https://sabr.org/lahman-database/
- Sports: Baseball
- Data: Historical data, Player stats, Results, Standings, Team stats
- Protocols: CSV download; formats: csv, sql, access
- Auth: none
- Free plan: Free download
- Note: Annual dataset release (version 2025 released 2026-01-02). Not an API.

## Verify before writing code
- whether commercial use is allowed on the plan you pick
- exact endpoint paths, parameters and response fields (read the official docs, do not guess)

## Implementation rules
- Keep the API key on the server (environment variable, backend route or edge function); never ship it to the browser.
- Cache responses and respect rate limits; count how many requests each screen triggers.
- Handle errors explicitly: invalid key, quota exceeded (429), missing fields, empty fixtures, timeouts.
- Start with one demo request and log the raw response before building UI on assumed field names.

Data quality signals

Data source & company

Official partners
Not disclosed
How data is collected
community
Certifications
Not disclosed
Payment methods
Not disclosed
Minimum contract
Not disclosed
Country
United States
Founded
Not disclosed

Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube

What developers say

Neutralfree tiercoverage

Free downloadable MLB history database (1871 onward) with R and Python packages and SQL ports. Mostly cited as a data source in side projects, tutorials and chart videos, often alongside the MLB Stats API and Retrosheet. Little direct opinion; it is a static dataset, not a live API.

Praised for

  • Deep historical coverage
  • Packages for R and Python
  • Common benchmark and teaching dataset

Complaints

    Nothing specific.

    Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.

    Discussions

    Shortlist next steps

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    Evidence & transparency

    Official sources

    Facts were extracted from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing. How we know