Established in 2003, The Baseball Cube was named after the data concept of multi-dimensional data analysis (Data cubes). A cube is a block of data containing dimensions and facts that used as a source to provide reports in customizable views. TBC is essentially a giant block of multi-dimensional baseball data.

The site was created by me, Gary Cohen. I grew up an Expos fan and consumed baseball morning, day and night as a child. The sport was introduced to me by my father and something about it, early on, connected it to me the way that other sports could not. I loved the mechanics of the game itself, I found myself attracted more to the numbers. The ability to compare players statistically, the apparent infinite nature of the statistical possibilities. As I grew older, I became additionally interested in not just how well a player performed but also in how he arrived there.

The baseball journey fascinates me. It can apply to just about any profession. For baseball, I view the journey as a long-term tournament over the course of many years where young athletes compete with each other, over and over, to move up to the next stage of the tournament. At a younger age, kids must show a knack. As they get older, they must show physicality and perserverance and committment in addition to mental toughness. As they mature, many will lose interest, run out of tools or move on with their life. The tournament is a game of survivor. You must place well in each stage to advance.

I believe the site had always lived inside of me as a child. Growing up with tens of thousands baseball cards, organizing them into categories. Grouping players by college or place of birth. I bought the Sporting News Baseball Registers and would read the player blocks like they were a book. The registers showed more information than baseball cards. They showed a player`s high school and college. They showed their minor league stats. They even showed some players without Major League experience. But those minor league stats...seeing how a Major League star fared in the minors. Looking at video-game stats for young prospects got me excited about future Expos players (Cliff Floyd + Vlad Guerrero!) and it was fun to identify high school and college teammates. But those player blocks ... I loved them ... but as informative and interesting to me as they were, they still didn't feel complete.

In the early 2000s, I discovered, upon right-clicking on an Internet page, the "View Source" option. This would allow you to know exactly how that HTML page was programmed. I had always loved to play with code and I learned HTML quickly and realized that when I woke up in the morning, that all I wanted to do was learn more. And thus my passion for information technology was discovered. This path introduced me to databases and another connection was made. I loved data and databases. I remember a day at the dinner table with my parents and my father asked me the pointed question about what I wanted to do with my life. "I don't know" I replied. "You need to start thinking about that" he said. "I like baseball stats..." My father shook his head and firmly said "You can`t make money with baseball statistics"

So I started building web sites and learning how to code pages content from a database. All self-taught. I built a few crappy web sites but I gained experience in coding. I can still remember the day where I had a page with 2 frames. A list of players on the left and on the right, player information. Clicking the player name on the left would show all the information for the player on the right. Though not necessarily an earth-shattering discovery, at the time, it was a jolt of energy to me. I could do it... I enrolled in an IT program at University. I got my undergraduate degree. My obsession with baseball and the Internet were now colliding and something was bound to be born from this. I graduated University and in 2003, The Baseball Cube was born.

The site started out small. MLB stats only (which hardly made it value-added). I added minor league data. But not in a separate grid. Together with the MLB stats, like the baseball registers. And then I added player attributes like high school and colleges attended. And suddenly, I had built my own online Baseball Register and the baseball world seemed to love seeing MLB/Minor stats combined. But it wasn`t enough for me.

It didn't seem to ever be enough. Minor League stats were a hit and so I started digging for College stats. I added D1 stats and now the player grid had Todd Helton's stats at Tennessee, and his minor league stats and with the Rockies. It was beautiful to me. But then the site hit a wall.

The site struggled with its identify. Many other sites sprung up and started to not only add more content, but they added more width to the stats. Analytics. Moneyball had taken hold and while other sites embraced the new metrics, The Baseball Cube was fighting with itself. Trying to find a presentation that worked, let alone focusing on the data. The competition was not only presenting these new stats, they were inventing new metrics. TBC was still just a longer view of baseball card stats. The advent of smart phones and tables also presented a struggle for TBC. As a 1-person operation, building a useable site that balances content, revenue and accessibility became a challenge beyond my reach.

TBC pivoted slightly and focused more on providing more types of data and providing services for the more fanatic of fans. The TBC PREMIUM section and PLAYERS TRACKER service are 2 tools built to monetize the site and provide more value-added to site visitors. There is a Data Store that allows you to pay for data files.

And now, the focus is back on finding better and faster ways to present the data. In 2022, TBC developed a new site that was (finally) mobile-friendly, and deeper in content for both the free and PREMIUM users. In 2024, a new archicture was launched with the intention of speeding up page delivery and providing more different views of the data.

In conclusion, the site is a life-long project. It has brought me emails from the names and teams I saw on the baseball cards on the floor of my bedroom. It brought me to a Major League front office and I have had contact with baseball operations analysts, scouts and even reporters. It has been a fun ride and I look forward to where it takes me next!

Thanks again for your support and remember that suggestions make the site. Please don't hesitate to help direct the future of The Baseball Cube.