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Seventy-four players have pitched a shutout in their major league debut and eighty-two players have hit homers in their first major league game. But no player had pitched a shutout and hit a home run in his major league debut since 1900 — until Rockies pitcher Jason Jennings threw a shutout and hit a home run in a 10-0 victory Aug. 23 against the Mets.
Who provides interesting baseball statistics such as that one? I understand that today we've got many sophisticated statistical methods for measuring athletic performances but I've always wondered who was keeping track of on-base percentage and the aforementioned stat-lines back in the beginning of the American sporting institution.
I've found the source with the Elias Sports Bureau (ESB), who kept track of baseball since before the Babe had ever cursed the Red Sox but pitched for them. The ESB is the official stat keeper of Major League Baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. More recently, Elias added pro women's basketball (WNBA) and soccer (WUSA) to the list of leagues using its services.
The ESB started with a salesman named Al Monro Elias who was such a big fan of baseball that he kept track of National League statisitcs. Soon enough sports writers began using his information and in 1922 the president of the Naitonal League, John Heydler, hired Elias to help in the record keeping. Within a few more years, the ESB became the full-time statistician for the NL and grew to be the industrial behemoth in American athletics it is today.