Sports Reference Blog

Search Secrets: The Power of “The”

Posted by sean on March 8, 2012

Searching for players can be a chore sometimes. You want Alex Rodriguez's page, so you search for Rodriguez and get like 2,000 results, which we need to do, so you can find every player. But 99% of the time you are probably looking for A-Rod and not the other players.

Adding the string "the" to the start of a search will automatically send you to the most popular player page matching that search. Also, you don't have to enter the entire player name just entering the first few characters will work as well. We've always has the "the" feature, but I just tweaked it so that it now matches only on first and last names and no longer on things like given names or nicknames. So search "the L" now sends you to Cliff Lee instead of Barry Lamar Bonds. Enjoy.

Example searches:

the Mick
the Barry
the George
the Rod
the Albert
the Q
the One
the Guy
Bar Bon

No related posts.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2012 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

10 Responses to “Search Secrets: The Power of “The””

  1. Jeff Says: March 8th, 2012 at 2:00 pm

    "The Man" gives you Mickey Mantle, which is fine, but what about Stan Musial? "The Kid" gives you Kid Nichols, which makes sense, but what about Ted Williams?

  2. BoSoxFan Says: March 8th, 2012 at 5:49 pm

    Jeff, this was pretty clear: "we've always has the "the" feature, but I just tweaked it so that it now matches only on first and last names and no longer on things like given names or nicknames"

  3. Jacob Says: March 8th, 2012 at 8:49 pm

    Searching for "the Ichiro" doesn't have the desired result, unless by some chance you're looking for former NPB player Ichiro Akamatsu.

  4. Jeff Says: March 9th, 2012 at 1:41 pm

    I wasn't complaining, just noticing.

  5. Zach Says: March 9th, 2012 at 10:08 pm

    Similar to 3, searching for "The Keith Hernandez" brings up a minor leaguer, not the Seinfeld guest star.

    I appreciate the removal of middle names from "The" search results, but I don't like the nicknames were also removed. I searched for "the scooter" and got some minor leaguer I'd never search for instead of... well, another Seinfeld guest star.

  6. Ari Says: March 10th, 2012 at 7:15 pm

    Also, "the Hanley" brings up Hanley Frias

  7. BoSoxFan Says: March 11th, 2012 at 11:54 am

    the Albert P gives me this What a disgrace

  8. BoSoxFan Says: March 11th, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Wow, did not know pujols' name was Jose

  9. admin Says: March 12th, 2012 at 11:32 am

    Sorry, this was messed up. I've fixed the issue, so the The Pujols, the Ichiro, etc all go to the correct players. Will work on "the nicknames" next.

  10. admin Says: March 12th, 2012 at 11:52 am

    Just fixed the nicknames with "The" issue. Should be good to go now.