Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball/Players

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Contents 1 Images 2 Retrosheet player pages 3 Baseball-Reference, linking and citing 4 Kirby Puckett 5 template inclusion 6 players Categories 7 Infobox questions 8 Headshots 9 A problem user 10 Archive page 11 Diamondbacks color scheme 12 Changes to Infoboxes & Templates 13 WikiProject Baseball players - Resources section 14 Stablepedia 15 Did you know? column 16 All-Star categories per CFD consensus 17 Career/season stat templates 18 Wikipedia Day Awards 19 Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball 1876 20 Discussion about splitting YYYY in baseball articles... 21 Infobox MLB player 22 Proposition of a merge between WPBB and WPBBP 23 Baseball FAR 24 Infobox Picture Question 25 Sandy Koufax FAR 26 Vandalism patrol 27 Help for newb please 28 All Time Rosters 29 Soliciting feedback 30 newhan -- are spring training stats trivial? 31 Looking for more feedback 32 Watchlistbot? 33 Baseball card images 34 Moe Berg FAR 35 Newby Here! 36 Images 37 Infoboxes 38 Naming conventions

[edit] Images

On Manny Ramirez's page, I was just putting up the infobox template. However, when trying to put in the image, MR1.JPG, it was much too large for the article. How can I resize it while not breaking the template? Thanks. - PoliticalJunkie 16:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Under where you put Image = MR1.JPG|, you add "width=200px|". You can see the addition here. --Nishkid64 12:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Retrosheet player pages

Baseball-Reference.com is friendlier for the typical visitor and it includes roughly the same information --except for careers covered by the core Retrosheet project, digitizing play-by-play records, whose published scope is now major league regular season 1957 to a recent date.

Retrosheet.org includes cemetery data, career end dates as well as begin dates, and some umpire service data, so it is the better resource for whoever writes a basic stub. (The basic stubs that I have expanded to ample ones did not include cemetery data or Retrosheet links. I put cemetery data in the last line of text and Retrosheet in the References where I relied upon it.)

A template or two for linking and citing Retrosheet may be useful. See below, linking and citing Baseball-Reference. --P64 03:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baseball-Reference, linking and citing

John Hatfield now links to Baseball-Reference redundantly in illustration of several points bulleted here. --P64 04:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The template is not great for use in a list of references, despite fortunate placement at or near the top of any alphabetical list.

• See Harry Wright#References for example with template links to both player and manager records and not quite at the top of the list. See Doug Allison#References for example with the template link and somewhat standard citation for the same source one after the other.
• Should it be used in every biography of a major league player or manager? On the other hand, is its purpose mainly to help people who expand stubs, normally to disappear from an article as it is completed?
• One of these I found as the sole item in "External Links", just below the end of the text (above References, a bad place for External Links). Is the template intended easily and permanently to provide ready access to a major league record from any biography article whose subject is a major player or manager? --that is, not "normally to disappear ... as it is completed"
  • Personally, I applaud this approach in general, having zero interest in a print edition. But Wikipedia may deplore that, even ban it.
  • For the 'pedia, maybe it should expand to an italic blockquote as follows, where the model is "This section is a stub."

"See his Career playing record ^ at baseball-reference" 

(Back to the adorable/deplorable approach in general.) Then (as for "External Links" in John Hatfield a I write) it should be above See also, Notes, References, series boxes, categories, and stub tags. But (contrary to this example) "External Links" sectioning is inappropriate and the template should expand to something along these lines.

Career playing record[^] at Baseball-Reference 
Player record[^] at Baseball-Reference 
Major league record[^] at Baseball-Reference (player)
Vital and Playing statistics[^] at baseball-reference

Those are four alternatives for external links to player pages, easy to multiply and easy to modify for manager(ial) records.

Career managing record[^] at Baseball-Reference 
 . . .

Of course the highlighted linkname should be the first part (marked [^]) of any version selected, not not "Baseball-Reference.com"

• If a link to a manager or player page is included in the text of a major leaguer biography, Baseball-Reference should be one of the listed References too (presuming that the author used it). Perhaps there should be two templates, one catch-all for listing in References and one with variations --at least player and manager-- for inclusion in articles.

- See his Career playing record at baseball-reference.
- Baseball-Reference. "FirstName LastName". Retrieved 2006-??-??.

--P64 04:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirby Puckett

Kirby Puckett is currently in the running for the Article Creation and Improvement Drive. I would appreciate any votes casted by WikiProject members. Thanks! --Nishkid64 00:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] template inclusion

I do not know how to edit templates/infoboxes. But i think the MLB Player Infobox needs to include a few more things. Height/Weight, Nickname for example. Any ideas about that? Also I think it would be cool to create a good free agents list, the latest one I saw was from 05-06. I'd be willing to help with that.

I looked through a few different teams players and there are still different templates being used. I think it would be nice if there was one catchall MLB player infobox to use, I think this group is advocating for one, but maybe it could be more complete. Definitely making constructive criticism here, just trying to do my part. So let me know how I can help. I searched around to see if this had been discussed, but it only seems to have been mentioned and maybe a while ago.

• I agree. At least, we should include height/weight and years experience. Nicknames can be included in the name field (ie. David "Big Papi" Ortiz) to keep the box from getting too bloated. Things like salary (hardly encyclopedic) and college (doesn't apply to many international players & those signed out of high school) don't need to be included. I'm also against listing the draft round/pick where a player was selected, again because it doesn't apply to many players and because many players these days are drafted twice. Caknuck 19:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• The thing about nicknames is some people have multiple nicknames. Babe Ruth and Bob Feller for example. Thats why I suggested that it be included in the template. I think it would be cool to get one good template and go through and make the changes for all the mlb teams. So if anyone wants to get in on that let me know. User:seak17.

[edit] players Categories

For NA and charter NL clubs (thus 1871-1876), I assessed the "players by team" and "defunct team" categories thoroughly and the reported the current state of affairs completely. See

• Category talk:National Association baseball players
• Category talk:Major league baseball players by team
• Category talk:Defunct baseball teams
• Category talk:Defunct Major League Baseball teams

That state of affairs includes my own (re)categorization of some "players by team" categories and "team" articles for consistency. Namely, for the 19 NA clubs that were not NL members, the players by team category is now cat in both and Category:Major league baseball players by team, which was merely the most common of four possibilities. The team article is now cat in Category:Defunct baseball teams and not in Category:Defunct Major League Baseball teams, which was merely the most common of four possibilities. --P64 18:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox questions

I just added the MLBretired infobox to Doug Allison and I had some questions about infobox usage. I used his debut on the Washington Olympics instead of the Red Stockings because that was what was on baseball-reference.com. Should this be changed despite not knowing the date? Should the Red Stockings be added to his teams? It seems like his first time in a 'league' was with the Olympics so maybe that should remain.

The other question I had was regarding what information I could edit out of the article because of the inclusion of the infobox. For example, this paragraph:

Later, Doug Allison played in the major leagues with the Troy Haymakers (1872), Brooklyn Eckfords (1872), Elizabeth Resolutes (1873), New York Mutuals (1873-1874), Hartford Dark Blues (1875-1877), Providence Grays (1878-1879), and one game with the Baltimore Orioles in (1883).

seems redundant with the information given in the box. Any suggestions would be appreciated. -Mattingly23 21:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Headshots

Hey...there's a way to get better headshots of players than the usual MLB.com pics, just copy this link, and replaced the "123245" with the player's ID number on their bio/stats pages.

For example, this is Frank Thomas's image.

http://www.mlb.com/pressbox/photos/headshots_players_coaches/123245_raw.jpg

to get to Doug Mirabelli's image, just go to his MLB.com page copy the jumble of numbers, and delete the Frank Thomas "123245" ID.

You should get this

--CFIF ☎ ⋐ 17:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A problem user

Hello, I just wanted to say that I think you guys are doing a good job with articles here and for the most part, you hit the notability right on the head. Although the user I am to name is not a member of your project, he has created lots of baseball player articles. User:BurmaShaver has created dozens of articles on players, which are listed on his page. A lot of them are pretty suspect for notability, many of the players that he has made articles for have only played one season, and some only played one or two games. And looking at the articles, a lot of them just have needless trivia points, these articles make someone who has played one major league game look like a hall of famer, and that just isn't good for WP or this project. I also notice that for the dead players, the articles end with "He passed away", which should be changed to "He died", otherwise, it violates non-npov, as it portrays the death too positively and there should not be a trace of opinion in this description. And this user keeps creating articles on players who have literally pitched an inning or have had one at bat. And help would be appreciated. WP is not a junkyard, and I don't want this poorly-written and unnotable articles to trash the reputation of everyone. Tony fanta 17:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with your assessment of User:BurmaShaver's articles, although I don't know what we can do to prevent these articles from existing except for putting them up for deletion. On my user page here you can see the lists I've made while going through the 19th century players - I separate them by notability and only work on those that are notable. Maybe at some point I'll put some of the non-notable players up for vote for deletion but I'm not wholly convinced that they would get through or even if its worth my time to do so. -Mattingly23 01:24, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• • I went through the articles he has created on (based on his user page) and I cleaned up nn info and npov statements on the MLB players last named P-Z, if someone wants to work on the other ones, go for it, but I've spent and hour and I'm a bit tired. 68.79.132.216 05:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• According to WP:BIO, "Sportspeople/athletes/competitors who have played in a fully professional league" are notable, so it's likely that deletion would be contested without a consensus being reached. Do I think that Cliff Dapper deserves a WP entry because he played eight games at the start of the 1942 season after many major leaguers enlisted in the armed forces after Pearl Harbor? Certainly not as much as some of the present day big leaguers who are still languishing as redlinks. But at least the guy's thorough... Caknuck 08:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, they have that guideline, but it was created rather haphazardly and there are a fair amount of those who disagree with it, so you never know what could happen. Most of the deletion discussions for those players have ended in no consensus, which means that the WP:BIO isn't airtight. This user should be discouraged from creating articles on those who have only played one game, and at the least, we should clean up the rest of the articles so that they sound more formal, notable and have a npov. 68.79.132.216 22:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive page

I think it would be nice to archive this page. I would suggest we start with anything prior to Sept. 1 2006. Any thoughts?Tecmobowl 22:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diamondbacks color scheme

The Arizona Diamondbacks have a new color scheme. What is being called "Sonona red", "Sonoran sand" and black. I think it might be helpful to establish a set color scheme for the infoboxes and such. The red looks similar to the color being used on the Indians and Astros boxes. Black is the primary second color. Thoughs and opinions are requested. Wxthewx99 02:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Well usually I take the official team logo, go into MS Paint, find the code for RGB and then translate it into Hex and find the appropriate color. I'll try it right now. Nishkid64 02:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's the colors:

• Black: #161712
• Sonona red:#C23852
• Sonoran sand: #ECDEBB

We should now decide which ones should be in the template. Nishkid64 02:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

bgcolor1: Sonora red; bgcolor2: sand; textcolor1: white; textcolor2: black Caknuck 21:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to Infoboxes & Templates

Per a discussion i have already started (slightly edited because of new page) I was thinking that some adjustments could be made to the {{MLB HoF}}, {{Infobox Cooperstown}}, and the {{Infobox baseball player}} templates, but I don't know what the process for suggesting changes to templates is. I think the cooperstown box is somewhat unnecessary on pages where the baseball player box has been used. I think the MLB HoF box could be used a lot more, but think it lacks one piece of important information: induction year. Perhaps changing the display text to be: "ARTICLE NAME, inducted in [[YEAR in baseball|YEAR]], is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame."

What do you think?//Tecmobowl 14:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I honestly hadn't looked too hard at those. I see {{Infobox baseball player}} already has an "inductiondate" parameter so I'm not sure why {{Infobox Cooperstown}} even exists. I've never been impressed with {{MLB HoF}}. As far as where to start a discussion, I'd think the best option would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball. Unfortunately, it's questionable how many people have that on their watchlists (it was dormant for so long that I took it off my watchlist for quite a while). The best way to ensure a lot of participation for baseball discussion is probably to leave a short note on individual users' talk pages directing them to where the actual discussion will be. You could also leave a note on the templates' talk pages. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the need for {{MLB HoF}}, {{Infobox Cooperstown}}, and the {{Infobox baseball player}} templates. I thought the standard player templates were Template:Infobox MLB player and Template:Mlbretired, and it would be better to incorporate Hall of Fame info into the retired infobox rather than having its own. - Mattingly23 14:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with that logic at all. //Tecmobowl 01:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

FYI, I just stumbled across {{MLB player}}, which seems to be redundant with {{Infobox MLB player}}. Rolando 14:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Baseball players - Resources section

I've added a resources section to the project page so everything can share the web resources that they use when editing players' articles. I think it would be helpful to have these links in one centralized place for everyone to use. Please add more links if you want, or if I shouldn't have added the section please remove it. - Mattingly23 15:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] Did you know? column

Just a reminder to everyone to submit new baseball player articles that have an interesting fact to the Did you know? column that appears on the front page. A few days ago I submitted Heinie Reitz's article after I had made it, and it got on the front page today. You can submit articles here. For it to be accepted, the article has to be new, it has to cite its sources, and it cannot be a stub. - Mattingly23 13:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All-Star categories per CFD consensus

Recently, there was a massive CFD that converged all yearly All-Star categories into two categories entitled Category:National League All-Stars and Category:American League All-Stars. As a result, there are many duplicates of these categories on baseball pages, so I'm looking for help from fellow project members in helping remove duplicate categories on individual baseball player articles. I suggest using AWB for this, as it detects multiple categories and fixes up those changes, as well as other formatting and grammar changes. Thanks guys, Nishkid64 18:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering how they were going to deal with that. I assumed there was a bot that could delete duplicate categories - does anyone know if there actually is? - Mattingly23 18:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to look for someone to ask. RobotG was the one who changed all the categories in the first place. Nishkid64 21:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I'll manually do it myself using AWB. I've done 200 so far in Category:American League All-Stars, and I have 550 more to go in that category. I will probably have only a few hundred to do from the National League All-Stars, and I expect to be done by the end of the week. Nishkid64 21:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Career/season stat templates

I have been working on some templates to describe career and season stats for players. I haven't seen any "standard" templates to use — it seems like virtually every player article uses something different (please correct me if I am wrong) — but I would love to donate them to the community. I have been working on them in my user space, but if the community would like to adopt them, they can be moved.

If anyone wants to collaborate/comment, you can find them at:

• User:Wayne Miller/Templates/Batting stats (talk)
• User:Wayne Miller/Templates/Pitching stats (talk)

I don't have a vested interest in the order of the columns, so feel free to move them around.

Full disclosure: I copied at least some of the look and feel from Template:Baseball stats. --Wayne Miller 21:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Since it appears that stats are going to be removed from articles (and since no one, not even me, is using them) I'm just going have these templates deleted. (Just in case any future readers wonder why the links are red.) --Wayne Miller 15:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball 1876

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball 1876, an inactive WikiProject about the early days of Baseball is currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball 1876. Members of this WikiProject are invited to comment. (Thanks to Thryduulf for the idea of notifying the related projects). —Wknight94 (talk) 15:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion about splitting YYYY in baseball articles...

...is going on at Talk:List of MLB seasons#Split the YYYY in baseball articles?. This isn't biography-related specifically but there seems to be overlap between WP:WPBB and WP:WPBBP anyway. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox MLB player

I just changed a stat label for {{Infobox MLB player}}. I replaced the word "Teams" with "Former teams", as this is more accurate. The template specifically uses "former teams" in the labeling, so it would only be appropriate for it to be stated on the infobox. Many people have been adding current teams to that list of teams, and it has been reverted previously. Hopefully, this will clear things up. Nishkid64 01:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposition of a merge between WPBB and WPBBP

A discussion is under way at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baseball#Proposition_of_a_merge_between_WPBB_and_WPBBP about a merger between WPBB and WPBBP, please comment there --Borgarde 00:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Baseball FAR

Baseball has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Picture Question

I'm new to infoboxes, so excuse me if this is a stupid newb question I could found an answer to elsewhere, but is there a way I can thumbnail an image used in an infobox? Some seem to do it automatically, but others are huge and distracting. I was trying to shrink the images on Chris Shelton and Jose Mesa, but couldn't figure it out. I'm assuming it has something to do with the markup not being read, but I couldn't get the nowiki tags right. Thanks. --Djrobgordon 03:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sandy Koufax FAR

Sandy Koufax has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism patrol

I've noticed that baseball articles seem to attract a fair number of vandals -- more than I can keep up with, so I'd love a little help from other project members. Here's my method: (And suggestions for improving efficiency are always welcome!)

When I log on to Wikipedia, I cruise over to the Chicago Cubs all-time roster page, and hit the Related changes link on the left sidebar. This brings up a list of all the pages the roster links to that have been changed recently. I start working down the list, clicking on the "diff" link for each page to see if the change was vandalism. (It also alerts me to new pages that might need cleanup, such as sources, categories, stubs, etc.). Of course, I quickly learn which editors are not problems, and can skip all of their edits. If I have time, I cruise on over to another all time roster or one of the baseball categories to check those changes, too.

Anyone want to help with the vandal patrol? I'll be glad to walk you through it if you need help. Kathy A. 17:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help for newb please

Hello. I'm a newbie to this project and a relative newbie as a Wiki editor. I'm looking for some guidance about how to get started here. As a long-suffering, die-hard Indians fan, I thought I'd try pitching in with standardizing the infoboxes on the player pages. I have some questions about the infobox template:

(1) Career stats seem to be common in the infobox for most player pages I've reviewed. However, the current template doesn't include stat parameters. Is the standard to include or not to include stats?

(2) The template doesn't include a parameter for teams played for either yet most player pages seem to have this information in their infobox. Is the standard to include this information? Is the current team supposed to be listed? If the current team does not belong here, is there some other place to enter when the player was acquired by the current team?

(3) The template includes parameters for feet and inches as well as for height. Is this a mistake?

Regarding the content of the articles, is a section with a table of year-by-year player stats considered to be appropriate or is it best to simply include an external link to the player's page on baseball-reference.com or some other site?

Thanks in advance for any and all input. Sanfranman59 06:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I was writing up a response here, but it got a little long, so I'm leaving it on you talk page. Hope it helps. --Djrobgordon 07:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All Time Rosters

I started a discussion about the All Time Rosters over at WikiProject Baseball (which you can read here). A preliminary consensus was reached, and Djrobgordon suggested I bring it over here for more discussion and work.

Background: I find the all-time rosters useful, and I've spent some time creating a couple of new ones and checking lots of links. In doing so, I've noticed the rosters are pretty varied, both in format, but more importantly in what information they contain. Some of the rosters only contain a list of names of players for that team who have Wikipedia articles (and no other information), which makes them a duplicate of the "abc team players" category. This is discouraged by Wikipedia, so those rosters definitely need some work.

Summary from the previous discussion: include all (and only) players who played at least one game for that team, include the years they played for that team, include where they played the most for that team (P, C, IF, OF), and include HOF as appropriate. Also include a paragraph at the beginning of each roster saying who is included.

As I've been working on some rosters since then, I've also realized that DH and PH should also be added to the list of positions.

Having a template for the beginning paragraph for the rosters would be nice, so we could have a standard wording. (I'd love suggestions on the wording.) Standard formatting would be nice, too.

Any thoughts?--Kathy A. 18:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I looked at a couple of all-time rosters yesterday also as I was trying to decide how I want to pitch in on this project. Another issue is that many of the Wiki links point to an article about another person with the same name as the player. Is it best to fix these by adding (baseball player) in parentheses as part of the Wiki link? In many cases, I think it's unlikely that articles will ever be created for the player and it may be best to not Wiki-link the names at all. Otoh, keeping the Wiki-links makes it easy to scan the list of players for those that don't have an article yet. Are there any WP guidelines about this type of thing? Sanfranman59 23:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I've been using AWB to check the links on the rosters and fix as needed. My process has been if the link goes to the wrong page to manually search for the right page. If I can find the right one, I change the link, otherwise I remove the link (but not the entry). IMHO, better to have no link than the wrong one -- a new Wikipedia user would be less confused by no link than by a link that goes to some completely different person.

With this method, it's still easy to see who doesn't have an article. If you're using the default skin, redlinks and black text have no article, blue links do.--Kathy A. 02:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soliciting feedback

I've recently caught the WP bug and decided to combine it with one of my other passions: The Tribe. Initially, I'd planned to just add infoboxes to players who don't have them and do some fact-checking. But I've gotten a little more ambitious and begun to make some more substantial edits to the articles. As a relative newbie, I'd appreciate any feedback experienced members of this project might have about what I've been doing. Here's my [contributions page]. Thanks! Sanfranman59 01:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Looks good so far. Nobody around here will ever knock you for adding references, {{DEFAULTSORT:}} templates and infoboxes to articles. Keep at it! Caknuck 01:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] newhan -- are spring training stats trivial?

not for guys trying to make the team in spring training, they are not. more important than minor league stats, as the major league staff is watching. imho. --Epeefleche 23:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you going to post stats for Milledge, Ben Johnson, Anderson Hernandez etc?? The thing is, minor league stats are conserved and remembered years to come...they span a greater amount of time and show development. Spring training stats, more or less, are thrown out the window...it's a time for pitchers to try new things and it's more about getting into shape. We can discuss this further but it probably be best to refer it to wiki-project baseball. SERSeanCrane 23:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If I followed them, yes, I would post their stats.

Spring training serves different purposes for different players. What you say as to spring training being about getting into shape is the case for players who have made the team, but that is not what it is about for Newhan. For Newhan, it is about impressing Willie and the coaching staff, so that they pick him for the team.

And as to spring training stats being thown out the window, the trend is the reverse. See, for example, http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/N/David-Newhan.shtml , in which you can see that Newhan didn't have very good springs hitting wise in 2005 and 2006.

As far as referring it to wiki-project baseball, that sounds fine to me if you are unwilling to undo your revert.

Might I prevail upon you to do it for me, as I am not sure how that is done.

Thanks. --Epeefleche 00:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for more feedback

I've just completed a substantial rewrite of the Jeremy Sowers article and am posting this message to solicit comments about it before I replace the existing article. You can find my rewrite here: User:Sanfranman59/Sowers. As this is my first substantial article contribution, I'd appreciate any and all feedback.

I'd particularly like guidance/thoughts about the following:

• I deleted the Stats table. It doesn't seem to me that it belongs in an encyclopedic article, but I feel a little reticent to dump it since someone seems to have put a great deal of effort into it.
• Dead link - I deleted the reference link to Rick Bozich's Courier-Journal article because the page no longer exists on the website. Since the reference wasn't linked to any specific statement(s) in the article, I didn't see a reason to keep it there. Is this reasonable or would it be better to leave the reference there and note it as a dead link? (Aren't references supposed to be linked to statements in the article?)
• Categories:
  • WP categories are a little overwhelming. Is there a standard set of categories that should be used for player articles?
  • More specifically, Sowers was born in Ohio, but grew up in Louisville, KY. I wasn't clear about whether I should use Ohio or Kentucky as the "Major League Players from" category.
  • Is it appropriate to include the "People from Louisville" category in this type of situation?
  • I'm surprised that there's not a category for people who attended/graduated from/are associated with Vanderbilt University ... at least I couldn't find one. How does one search WP for such a category?
• Finally, what is the protocol for doing a complete overhaul of an article like this? Is it considered bad form to simply overwrite what's out there and wait to see if anyone complains? Is there a way to be more proactive in soliciting input before doing so (e.g., what I'm doing here)?

Thanks in advance for your input! Sanfranman59 02:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

As suggested, I've moved this discussion to User_talk:Sanfranman59/Sowers so as not to clutter up the project's discussion page. Please add your comments there. Thanks! Sanfranman59 01:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlistbot?

Has anyone else noticed that Watchlistbot has tagged the discussion pages of everyone who's ever played even one game for either the Astros or the Rangers with "This article is part of WikiProject Texas, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Texas."? It seems to me that this needlessly clutters up the discussion pages and sets a bad precedent. I hope it's not going to be run for every US state! Just think what Jesse Orosco's discussion page could end up looking like! Can/Should anything be done about this? Sanfranman59 19:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Baseball card images

Anyone know if we're permitted to use baseball card images on player pages? Baseball Almanac has them on most of their player pages. Sanfranman59 20:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not at all an expert on fair use criteria, but I know that when magazine covers are used, the image has to serve a purpose other than being a portrait of the subject. For instance, Image:SI cover July 1999 Brandi Chastain.jpg is fair use on Brandi Chastain because it's an iconic shot that illustrates the moment she is most famous for. A posed cover shot probably wouldn't be acceptable for that article. Point being, if you can find a baseball card illustrating a unique or noteworthy aspect of a player (such as a picture of Chad Bradford in the middle of his submariner delivery) it may be usable. A portrait, unless copyright has expired on the card, probably is not. You should look at WP:Fair use to get a more thorough and official view of the subject.--Djrobgordon 22:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, DJ. I've glanced at WP:Fair use on several occasions in the past and my eyes have always glazed over. No big deal. Personally, I don't care for a lot of the photos I see on player pages here. Some of them look to me like they're taken by people attending games and are not very good quality, imho. My preference is for no image at all if the only other option is something like that. Sanfranman59 23:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moe Berg FAR

Moe Berg has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Newby Here!

I have just joined Wikiproject baseball and I would like to join the baseball player task force. Any suggestions would be great.GoldenIrish 03:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)GoldenIrish

[edit] Images

I have several images from a recent Mets spring training game including some of players who have no photo. If I have an image of a player from the back (right handed pitcher taken from right field stands) and no better image is available should I add it?

If you can see the guy's face, then by all means, add it to the page. All free-use images are welcome here. Nishkid64 00:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infoboxes

I think we should add the age of a player to the MLB Infoboxes, like on the football ones.

This would require yearly maintenance for every single player. Ugh. Perhaps adding the date of birth to the info box might give you the info you want without requiring all the maintenance?--Kathy A. 13:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions

Recently, Mayumashu has moved a number of baseball player bio articles from "XXX XXXX (baseball player)" to "XXX XXXX (baseball)". To date, the moves have been piecemeal, meaning that there are numerous articles using both conventions in circulation.

It should fall upon us to set a standard naming convention to disambiguate ballplayers, and then rename all of the articles as necessary.

I'll put a notice on the main Project board to invite the other Project BB members, as well as an invite to Mayumashu. Your feedback would be appreciated! Caknuck 20:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I ve done the same for soccer players (in countries where soccer is the word of choose not football), tennis players, and rugby players. Adding the word "player" makes the name unnecessary long and in some cases the person being named becomes a notable coach or commentator (or pundit), which renders the naming unnecessary restrictive Mayumashu 00:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)