MLB PACK — SOURCES & VERIFICATION NOTES

Companion to mlb-rafters-world-series.md and mlb-records-feats.md. Compiled 2026-10-19. Rule applied throughout: no entry printed as fact on one source alone; disagreements printed, not silently resolved; anything that could not be corroborated is flagged here and, where noted, withheld from the rolls.

Method

Each part was built from one primary list and at least one independent corroborating source. Wikipedia list articles were used as primary lists only where their own sourcing runs to Baseball-Reference / MLB.com / Retrosheet, and each was checked against a structurally independent second source (Baseball Almanac's research tables, Retrosheet, or contemporaneous AP reporting). Row counts in the finished files were machine-checked against the totals claimed in prose (see "Count reconciliations").

Sources by part

Part 1 — World Series roll & franchise totals

• Primary roll (winner, runner-up, games, year by year 1903–2025): Baseball Almanac, "World Series History" — https://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/wsmenu.shtml (its table runs through the 2025 Series and lists 2026 as "To Be Determined," consistent with the Series not yet played at writing).
• Corroboration: Wikipedia, "World Series" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series — prose confirms "contested 121 times through 2025, AL 68, NL 53," the 2025 result (Dodgers over Toronto in seven), and the franchise table, which Wikipedia sources to MLB.com.
• MVP column (1955–2025): Wikipedia, "World Series Most Valuable Player Award" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_Most_Valuable_Player — including its totals reconciliation (71 seasons, 70 Series, 73 MVP awards) and the 2025 winner (Yoshinobu Yamamoto), which matches the Baseball Almanac result for the 2025 Series.
• Pre-1903 section: Wikipedia "World Series" historical prose (1884 scoreline, 1887 10–5, the 1885/1890 ties); Wikipedia, "Temple Cup" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Cup — for the four Temple Cup results; Wikipedia, "1886 World Series," and the St. Louis Cardinals history article for 1886 (4–2) and 1888 (Giants over Browns, winner only).

Part 2a — Triple Crowns

• Primary lists (batting and pitching tables, with per-row citations to Baseball-Reference league leader pages): Wikipedia, "Triple Crown (baseball)" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Crown_(baseball). The article's general references name Baseball-Reference's "MLB Triple Crown Winners" as its base list.
• Corroboration: the same article's prose tallies (batting "17 times... most recently 2012") match the AL/NL row count in our roll (17). The pitching tally does not match — see Flags, item 1.

Part 2b — Perfect games

• Roll (dates, pitchers, teams, opponents, scores): three-way agreement among (i) Retrosheet, "Perfect Games" — https://www.retrosheet.org/perfect.htm; (ii) the perfect games flagged ★ inside the no-hitter roll below; (iii) Wikipedia, "List of Major League Baseball perfect games" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_perfect_games — count of 24, most recent June 28, 2023.
• Strikeout column: sports-king.com, "Every Perfect Game in MLB History" — https://www.sports-king.com/mlb-perfect-games.php — the only complete K table found. Spot-corroborated: Koufax's 14 (BR Bullpen's perfect-game article notes it independently) and Germán's 9 (Associated Press game report, June 28, 2023). See Flags, item 5 — this column should get a Retrosheet box-score pass before print.

Part 2c — No-hitters

• Primary roll (all 327, with dates, pitchers, teams, opponents, scores, leagues, combined-game innings splits, and the near-no-hitter sections): Wikipedia, "List of Major League Baseball no-hitters" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_no-hitters (current revision, updated October 2026; its header states the MLB-recognized total of 327 and the most recent game, May 25, 2026).
• Corroboration: Retrosheet's no-hitter listings (franchise-organized: https://www.retrosheet.org/nohit_franch.htm) agree on the roll's contents and on combined-game pitcher splits; the no-hitter portion of the perfect-game Retrosheet page cross-checks the early decades. The No. 327 game is independently attested by a FanSided analysis piece ("These historic MLB no-hitters could never happen today") referring to Houston's combined no-hitter against Texas — see Flags, item 6.

Count reconciliations (all verified in the finished files)

• World Series: 123 year-rows = 121 Series played + 2 printed gaps (1904, 1994). Franchise win column sums to exactly 121 across 30 franchises. MVP awards: 68 single + 3 (1981) + 2 (2001) = 73.
• Batting Triple Crowns: 17 AL/NL rows (18 with the AA crown, footnoted). Pitching: 40 AL/NL rows (41 with AA, footnoted).
• Perfect games: 24 rows; the same 24 appear flagged ★ inside the no-hitter roll.
• No-hitters: rows numbered 1–327, sequential, no gaps or duplicates; the 24 ★ rows and 22 combined rows were counted off individually. Postseason rows: exactly 3 (Nos. 136, 269, 318).

Flags, discrepancies, and judgment calls (printed, not buried)

1. Pitching Triple Crown count: 39 vs. 40. The Wikipedia article's prose says the pitching crown "has been accomplished 39 times in the American and National Leagues," but its own winners table contains 40 AL/NL seasons (41 rows including Guy Hecker's 1884 AA season). We print the table's 40, and the mismatch is disclosed inside mlb-records-feats.md itself. A future print pass should reconcile against Baseball-Reference's winners list directly.
2. Radbourn's 1884 wins: 59 vs. 60. The standard table prints 59; the article prose says "at least 59," and some record books credit 60. Printed as 59 with a dagger in the roll.
3. Hornsby's 1922 RBI: 152 vs. 151. Wikipedia/Baseball-Reference print 152; some secondary lists print 151. We print 152.
4. Duffy's 1894 RBI lead is doubted by researchers (flagged in the source table itself). Printed as listed (145) with an asterisk in the roll.
5. Perfect-game strikeout column is the softest data in the pack. One comprehensive source (sports-king) with two independent spot checks (Koufax 14; Germán 9). Two of its figures contradict common memory — Dennis Martínez struck out 5 (not a higher figure often assumed) and Kenny Rogers 8 — which we take as a sign the table was built from box scores rather than lore, but the whole column is flagged for a Retrosheet box-score confirmation pass before anything goes to print.
6. No. 327 (May 25, 2026, Houston combined vs. Texas) rests on the current Wikipedia roll (itself updated October 2026 and internally consistent — it also records that 2025 had no no-hitter) plus the independent FanSided mention of Houston's combined no-hitter against Texas on a Monday night (May 25, 2026 was a Monday). Adequate for the foundation pack; a Retrosheet/MLB.com confirmation is recommended at print time, as with all 2026 material.
7. 2026 World Series not included — deliberately. As of October 19, 2026 the LCS round was still in progress and no Series had been played. Any "2026 champion" data encountered in low-quality aggregators during research was disregarded (one data feed showed internally inconsistent 2026 playoff entries, including games marked "Cancelled," and was used for nothing).
8. Wikipedia franchise-table anomaly (Brewers). The current revision's franchise table shows Milwaukee as "0 wins, 2 played, last played 2026" — impossible on its face and contradicted by the roll itself (Milwaukee's only appearance: 1982). Our franchise table prints the corrected 0–1 and discloses the anomaly in the Rafters file.
9. Stale figures inside otherwise good sources. Wikipedia's World Series article also carries older text ("120 World Series played"; Cardinals' share computed off 120) alongside the correct 121/68/53 figures; Baseball Almanac's trivia line gives "NL 58" titles through 2023, which is arithmetically impossible against its own table (51 through 2023; 53 through 2025). We used the tables, not the trivia lines, and the league split printed (AL 68 / NL 53 through 2025) reconciles with the roll.
10. BR Bullpen not used for detail data. Its perfect-game table misprints Lee Richmond's score as 4–0 (Retrosheet, the no-hitter roll, and sports-king agree: 1–0) and misnames the 1904 Boston club. Noted so no one "verifies" against it later.
11. Withheld for insufficient corroboration: 19th-century series scores for 1888 (Giants–Browns), 1889 (Giants–Brooklyn), and the 1900 Chronicle-Telegraph Cup. Winners are printed; scores were found only in single-source form during this pass and are omitted from the Rafters file rather than printed as fact.
12. Scope decisions (per the commission). Triple Crown rolls are AL/NL only. The AA crowns (O'Neill batting 1887; Hecker pitching 1884) are footnoted, not counted. Negro leagues Triple Crowns exist in the same source table (batting: Oscar Charleston three times, plus Gibson twice and five others; pitching: four) and, since MLB's December 2020 recognition of the Negro leagues as major leagues, they are legitimately part of the wider record — they are simply outside this pack's commissioned AL/NL scope and deserve their own roll rather than a footnote. O'Neill's .435 is the modern recalculation; under 1887 rules (walks counted as hits) his average was .492 — noted in the roll.
13. Period team names are printed as of the date of each game, following the source rolls (e.g., the 1902 Chicago AL club appears as "Chicago White Stockings" — period-correct for the White Sox franchise, not the Cubs). The no-hitter source roll also carries a catcher column; it was not carried into our roll because the commission's fields are pitcher(s), team, opponent, date, score.
14. Sam Kimber (No. 18, 1884) is counted in the official 327 by the source roll although the game ended 0–0 in 10 innings — a complete game under the definition as applied to tie games of the era. Printed with its tie flag rather than silently normalized.
15. Zimmerman 1912 was omitted from Triple Crown lists for a century; research published in 2015 restored him (his RBI lead had been mis-credited). He is in the roll with an asterisk; very old record books will not show him.