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Infobox colors ---- again

Kinston eagle (talk · contribs) and an IP (presumably one and the same) are currently making mass changes to remove colors from all Infoboxes. While I can support that for 90% of the cases, I don't agree with this action in cases like Tony Gwynn whose entire career was spent on one team. There's no advantage to removing the colors in such cases. I even propose keeping the colors for Ryne Sandberg who played one season doing little with Philly before spending the rest of his HOF-career with the Cubs. Opinions? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not removing colors from all infoboxes. I am changing the colors of retired players' infoboxes to the neutral colors proposed by User:Yankees10 who finally settled the issue for Reggie Jackson. This was something that was discussed in detail here. At that time there was consensus reached for neutral colors on all retired players. There was no exceptions mentioned for players who were only on one team. Kinston eagle (talk) 04:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

In fact, in that discussion it was specifically argued for using the retired NFL infoboxes as the example to go by and in those infoboxes the same neutral colors are used whether someone played for one or twenty teams. (see Terry Bradshaw for example). Why is this an issue now? Kinston eagle (talk) 04:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The specific issue I'm raising was not mentioned in that discussion, i.e., where there can be no argument. Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken, Lou Gehrig, etc. - all associated with exactly one franchise. Such cases were not brought up in that earlier discussion, and there was no mention of Terry Bradshaw either. I disagree just as much with Bradshaw being ugly gray but I don't follow that project and don't care to pursue it. There are a few folks in the NFL camp who are so dedicated to cross-article consistency that the environment becomes caustic when someone dares not conform. I don't want such behavior in this project too. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I really don't see why we have to change hundreds of infoboxes all because there were disputes on at most a few infoboxes. -Street20 04:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Those few disputes will eventually turn into many disputes as time goes on. This is a preventative measure to stop infobox edit wars before they start. Kinston eagle (talk) 04:50, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Turns out one would only have to make a single edit to remove colors from all infoboxes so the disruption is entirely unnecessary. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Again, colors aren't being removed they are being changed to consistent neutral ones. And, they aren't being changed in all infoboxes just those of retired players. That template you refer to is locked, and apparently no one with the power to change it was getting off their asses to make this change so I started making the changes the only way I had the power to. Kinston eagle (talk) 04:50, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

You could have tried {{editprotected}}. But now an uninvolved admin is unlikely to comply until this is resolved here. But that's a very weak argument for the disruption you're causing by changing thousands of articles one at a time. Now I'm aware of three people not particularly agreeing with your approach - myself, Street20 above and MisfitToys. That should be enough for you to stand down. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Make that four. "Pre-empting" disputes is actually causing them, especially when it is done unilaterally. The use of colors this way is purely a decoration, a wikipedia editors' invention, and as such its use is questionable. But if it's going to be used, there has to be agreement on how it's used. If a retired player is primarily associated with one team (which is generally easy to demonstrate) and/or if his HoF plaque identifies him with a particular team, then that's what we should go with. Having all retired players as gray is pointless. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Part of what probably started this was the debate over what to do with the colors on Tug McGraw's article. Kingturtle (talk) 20:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

(Outdenting so that the discussion doesn't end up 1" wide). I have to respectfully disagree with Baseball Bugs that having "all retired players as gray is pointless". It sounds like we all agree that there are a number of players who do not have a team color that is clearly and easily associated with them. But an argument can be made that there needs to be some easy-to-follow standard for colors on retired MLB infoboxes. One standard could be that everyone gets neutral colors. It would be easy for editors (in fact, the color could be coded right into the template). So it certainly wouldn't be pointless.

An argument against grey for everyone seems to be that a number of editors object. But it's still important to have one easy standard. I know the disputes over colors have kept me from adding infoboxes, and probably others, too. One possibility might be to have gray unless a player is HoF (in which case, use the colors he went into the Hall with), or unless a player played more than 50% of his games with a single team (in which case, use those colors). I doubt that these two would conflict with each other, but if they did, HoF trumps. (One question that leaps to mind is "which team colors?" If someone played for the Padres or Astros back in the 1970s, do we use the team colors at that time, or the current ones? What if they played part of their games under one set of team colors, and part for the same team under another set of team colors?)--Fabrictramp (talk) 20:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

To that person who had a concern that I was doing this "unilaterally," you should be made aware that there was a discussion about this very subject here earlier [1]. 11 people weighed in and only one had a real objection. That person's main objection was that the chosen colors were too much like Yankees colors. Wknight94 weighed in on the matter and he only objected to my suggestion that infoboxes be removed entirely. So what the heck happened between then and now that you people all of a sudden have an objection to this? Also, when I check pages to see if they need to be "neutralized" I often come across infoboxes that have already been changed so I'm not the only one doing this. Kinston eagle (talk) 04:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll put it another way: Tell me a source that defines what a retired player's uniform colors should be. This posting of colors is "original research" with no external basis, and as such is unverifiable, and hence the disagreements. In my view, the colors should be scrapped altogether. As should the flags next to peoples' names, which is also "original research", unless you can found an outside source that says what these flags and colors should be. Wikipedians have enough to keep busy with, without inventing decorations that are inherently subject to arguments because they are unsourced. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Bugs. The colors should be scrapped altogether. There is already a section of the infobox which discusses what teams the player belonged to, so the colors are rather redundant anyway. The consensus was for neutral colors though which is why I was changing them to that. If nobody has any objection, I can start removing the colors entirely. Kinston eagle (talk) 04:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Dump the colors. That is, drop them from the template. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Well, after being enlightened to the ambiguity of using colors (the New York Giants didn't use orange until the 1930s - who knew?!), I'm okay with removing all colors. But, if there is indeed consensus for that here, we need to do it with a single edit to the template instead of changing thousands of articles. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:42, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. And if some editors are adamant about using colors for active players, then there could be two templates. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) To make sure it works, I made the template edit to remove all infobox colors. If anyone sees colors in retired players' pages, try following the instructions at WP:PURGE. If that doesn't work, maybe another template needs to be changed. If folks complain about this, that one edit needs to be reverted to put all the colors back. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Post edit-conflict response to Bugs: there is already a separate template for active players: Template:Infobox MLB player. I didn't touch that one. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Roger. Everything is gray now. Was that the intent? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. So everyone likes it better like that? —Wknight94 (talk) 15:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

we're looking for ways to avoid edit wars. Neutral colors is a viable solution. Kingturtle (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed the color change in the Infobox MLB retired template, & I disagree with the change. I understand the point of view that for retired players who didn't spend a clear majority of their time with one team, neutral colors will alleviate current and potential edit wars. However, I believe in this case one size doesn't fit all, and it's disappointing to see the articles of baseball legends such as Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Roberto Clemente lacking the colors of the teams they are so closely associated with. I argue that in cases like this, the team colors are a useful information tool because it allows instant recognition of team association for readers who are avid baseball fans, and reinforces the team association for readers who perhaps know less about Hall of Famers like these. I also realize that lobbying for exceptions to the template change defeats the entire purpose of neutral colors/avoiding edit wars, so without any realistic compromise in mind, I can only express my dismay and disappointment at this change again. :( Monowi (talk) 23:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You have inadvertently pointed to the reason why colors are a problem and why they shouldn't be used. Ruth was in Yankees colors, then gray, then Yankees colors again, and temporarily in both black and red, since he was also an impact player for the Red Sox, before the template was changed to gray. I say again that use of these colors constitutes original research, as there is no external source defining what a retired player's colors "should be". It's strictly a wikipedia editors' invention. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a very good argument, bugs, about original research. Kingturtle (talk) 03:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I amended my statement to say "retired players", since there is no dispute about which team an active player is on, although free agents present a similar dilemma as retirees. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

There's no issue with free agents...►Chris Nelson^Holla! 02:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

There could be, if someone wants to argue that they should have the colors of the team they were most recently with. But a free agent technically is not with any team, so he should be gray until or if someone signs him. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, so there's no good argument for colors on free agents. It's a nonissue.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 17:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I claim there is no good argument for using colors at all, for active or retired players. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I've only been a Wikipedia contributor for a week or two, so some of you will likely dismiss what I have to say, but please consider the possibility that a newbie may have a fresher, less biased viewpoint than someone who has been involved in disputes such as this one for a while. I had no axe to grind when I arrived here, but I seem to be acquiring one, and that is disheartening to me. I came here hoping to find enjoyment, fulfillment, and educational value, not controversy.

Even though I have only been contributing for a short time, I am already starting to become disillusioned. There are so many disputes on this site, some over important matters, and some over matters that are pretty trivial. And I know I am adding to this (arguably) overly-long thread, but gosh, folks, a lot of time has been spent on this argument, and on many, many other arguments, that could have been spent on articles: writing, editing, cleaning up, categorizing, etc. I'm not saying there's nothing of value that's been said here; far from it. But the sheer length of this thread speaks for itself.

One thing that concerns me is Fabrictramp (talk · contribs)'s statement, "I know the disputes over colors have kept me from adding infoboxes, and probably others, too." Isn't that indicative of a problem? Fabrictramp, I am with you 100%.

When I viewed various players' pages, I noticed that the colors weren't consistent from page to page, but I did not notice that the colors were team colors. Perhaps that's because I have mainly been reading and editing KC Royals player pages, so it seems like most of the pages had colors that were either blue or gray. Looking back, I suppose I have seen red or other colors. Regardless, I didn't pay special attention to the specific colors, nor (more importantly) did I try to infer any significance upon seeing those colors; they were just colors, just decoration. My point is, I'm not sure every reader would pay attention to these colors or infer any team affiliation from seeing a color; I know I didn't. Personally, I think the gray is rather unattractive. But it's just a color.

I'm not sure that the use of colors (where there is no source that states what colors should be used for decoration) implies original research unless one assumes that the reader will infer a team affiliation or some arbitrary meaning from the presence of a color. As I said earlier, I didn't infer such an affiliation myself, so I can say that not everyone would see any significance in the color selection, but based on what others are suggesting by their contributions to this thread, perhaps some readers would infer a team affiliation.

There are a lot of different styles of writing and of page layout on Wikipedia. I realize that there are efforts underway to standardize the appearance of pages. Standardization is not a bad thing at all, and I don't mean to imply that it is. But in the meantime, as a guest of Wikipedia for quite some time before I decided (regretfully?) to contribute, I would much rather find a MLB player article with an infobox (be it pink, purple, polka-dotted, etc.) than not find an infobox at all. To me, it's not the color or the presentation of the data that is most important, but the data itself. That being said, if we don't lose the infoboxes, and standardize the appearance of each page, that's fine with me. Really, to me the content itself is most important. The colors, boxes, and other visual tools are just window-dressing.

Anyway, this thread is so long that I am unclear on the outcome. Has a consensus been reached on this? Are we going to use a neutral color on all MLB players' infoboxes (retired or active) from now on? Before I start creating new articles from scratch, I'd like to know that I won't be wasting my time. And for those of you who stuck through this long post, I apologize if you feel I have wasted yours. Jonneroo (talk) 05:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Template:Baseball Year

See Template talk:WikiProject Baseball. I thought I should bring this here to get a wider consensus; most articles now use {{by}}, although that's a redirect to {{Baseball Year}}. If it's OK, I'd like to use Template:BaseYr to replace Template:By in the articles, as I think it is much clearer and easier to understand (especially to users who aren't familiar with baseball articles). Thoughts?   jj137 (talk) 02:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Or, simply move the template itself to Template:BaseYr. It would be easy enough to post an explanation of its use on the template page as well as its talk page. MisfitToys (talk) 02:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine with me, but I'd like to wait for at least a few more people to comment (this is a very widely used template).   jj137 (talk) 02:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with MisfitToys. Monowi (talk) 04:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I like {{by}} as it is. I changed tons of articles to {{by}} and it doesn't make sense to go and change it again. -Street20 04:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Making a template change that would compel changing a bunch of articles does not seem productive. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Street20 on this. I've changed several hundred articles over to {{by}}. I feel it's good shorthand for a template that gets used sometimes dozens of times in an article. Caknuck (talk) 06:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the shorthand {{by}}. It makes dating baseball years much easier than typing a regular link or {{Baseball Year}}. As far as {{by}} being difficult for non-baseball editors to understand, I think clicking a link to a year using that template would instantly explain its function. I also don't see {{BaseYr}} being easier to understand. To an uninformed editor, it would seem to be as much of an enigma as {{by}}. -NatureBoyMD (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that {{by}} should be eliminated; it's just that editors sometimes revise it to {{Baseball Year}} in an effort to avoid the redirect, which essentially negates the point of the template (saving text space). {{by}} and {{Baseball Year}} would still redirect to {{BaseYr}}. MisfitToys (talk) 22:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that if it's a matter of shorthand, we can always go back and change it later.   jj137 (talk) 22:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for keeping {{by}}. As others have noted, a reader can still click on the link and go to the article. Guests, and probably some Wikipedians who do not directly contribute to baseball articles, don't care what shorthand was used, but contributors to large numbers of articles certainly do care. Jonneroo (talk) 04:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

For each year in baseball we have an article called xxxx in baseball (such as 1977 in baseball). These articles are only about Major League Baseball. The article title is generic enough that we should also include all other baseball information, such as results from professional leagues around the world, results from minor leagues, the little league world series, etc. Should 1977 in baseball and all other years be changed to 1977 in Major League Baseball? Kingturtle (talk) 16:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Which brings up a question about xxxx in baseball. In this article, the [[xxxx in baseball]] is redlinked. Is this a matter of the articles aren't going that far back (yet), or is there an error I'm missing in the link?--Fabrictramp (talk) 17:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I believe one idea was to have 1909 Major League Baseball season for MLB and 1909 in baseball for all baseball. These seem to be two separate projects trying to tackle similar stuff. There are a number of xxxx Major League Baseball season articles that don't exist. Should they be merged, and if not, which should the Template:Baseball Year reference? Kingturtle (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Many of the year in baseball articles do include content about leagues outside of Major League Baseball (for example, see 2003 in baseball#Other champions or 1935 in baseball#Negro League Baseball final standings). If non-MLB baseball is underrepresented in these articles, the solution is simply to add the appropriate content—keeping in mind that space in these articles may be limited and the amount of content should be commensurate with the notability of the subjects. BRMo (talk) 00:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

BRMo, I'm new here. I understand what you mean when you say "the amount of content should be commensurate with...notability..." But, and forgive my ignorance...how can space in an article be limited? It would seem that from a strictly technical standpoint, article space would only be limited by hard drive space, server scalability, and to a lesser extent, bandwidth. From a page design standpoint, it might be best to establish a general upper limit on page length to enhance organization and legibility. Is this what you are saying? Jonneroo (talk) 06:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Never mind; I keep forgetting some folks have dialup access and that larger page sizes are undesirable for such users. Jonneroo (talk) 19:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

It appears that someone (or perhaps multiple people) have been redirecting xxxx Major League Baseball season redlinks to point to existing xxxx in baseball articles. Is there a consensus that this is how the remaining unwritten xxxx Major League Baseball season redlinks will be handled? Jonneroo (talk) 04:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Existence at all?

I'm not a big fan of linking the years at all. We got rid of them in NFL boxes, because it leaves so many years unlinked there isn't really a point to it. If a guy was on a team from 1992-2007, you have every year from 1993-2006 NOT being linked. And odds are the years that are linked won't provide much more info on the player, if he's even mentioned in the article at all. I just don't see the point here.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 17:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we've gone back and forth on this a few times. You have a good point; another point is that linking to baseball years breaks date formatting (I think). On the other hand, how else will anyone find the xxxx in baseball pages? A lot of people have put a lot of work into those pages and we should have links to them somewhere. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Well those articles definitely serve a purpose. But if I remember correctly, I saw a policy once saying something about how wikilinking is to further the knowledge of a topic or something to that effect. (Why we don't link dates, I'm guessing.) But do they really enhance the knowledge of a player if the player is nowhere to be found in the article. Joe Borchard played 85 games last season, but he hit .196 and without looking I'm willing to bet he's nowhere to be found in the 2007 MLB season article. I'm just not sure I see the point in linking to what boils down to random MLB season articles, given that all the years in between aren't linked.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 18:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

By similar logic, we should unlink Chicago White Sox, MLB, etc. - he's not mentioned in those articles either. I can see your point about year ranges though. I'd be fine with unlinking years in those cases. For other cases, I'm undecided. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point. I guess I just feel like linking the ends of a range but nothing in between doesn't make much sense.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 19:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I've seen one or two examples where the ends of a range were linked, and most of the intervening years were linked elsewhere in the main text of the article. Let's take a fictional example in which the range was 1985-1992, and both termini were linked. In the main body of the article, the text might read like this: "Joe Blow made his ML debut September 12, 1985 (no link). He was fourth in the ROY balloting in 1986 (link), batting .280 with 11 homers. During the 1987 (link) season, Blow had a dispute with Manager Moe and was benched. In August, Blow was traded to Detroit for Ricky Rookie and Preston Prospect. Blow spent the 1988 (link) season in the Detroit minor league system. In 1989 (link), he had a cup of coffee with the Tigers before being given his unconditional release. Blow missed the entire 1990 (link) campaign due to rotator cuff surgery. In June 1991 (link), after making a comeback attempt with an independent team, he caught the attention of Seattle, with whom he appeared in eight games. He signed with Houston in January 1992 (no link because it is linked elsewhere) and began the season with the big club. The team parted ways with Blow on May 13th, after which he announced his retirement. (etc.)"

In that situation, I see no harm in linking the termini of the date range. But it seems to be of somewhat questionable value otherwise. I will change my practice on this (I had been linking the years regardless). Jonneroo (talk) 07:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

General suggestion for baseball player articles

Why does Wikipedia put stats on player pages? Keeping an accurate article throughout the season would require updating hundreds of players' pages after every game. It's an absurd pursuit. Rather, there should just be a link to a page like baseball-reference.com, considering all of their stats are updated every day and it's a very clean, mostly user-supported website. I mean, am I the only one who thinks this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.122.188.33 (talk) 06:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Stats add to articles. You could add stats to an article and put something like "Last updated:" Or "Through to" and then reference the link to MLB.com, instead of baseball-reference, seeing as MLB.com is the official website and has the stats.--Borgarde^talk 10:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The infobox has a built in field for the last date the stats were updated. There's enough of us here maintaining these articles to make sure they're relatively current. Caknuck (talk) 07:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Both MLB.com and baseball-reference.com should be retained, one way or another. They are not identical information. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 11:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Baseball player infoboxes

On Chrisjnelsons talk page, Chrisjnelson, Ksy92003, and I had a long discussion for the infoboxes under the teams section. We sort of agreed on including everything into the section, minors and years on the disabled list. I began doing a few of them until Yankees10 began to revert them and he suggested to take this here.

I want to know if this is a good thing to do. Samples of real situations are in my sandbox. If you have any questions regarding this potential change, just ask. --Street20 (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess I should also give my reasons to why this is a good thing to do:

1. It will show all the organizations that the player was in and when

2. By doing this, it will also distinguish the years the player was in the minors and majors

3. It will fill up all the gaps in the years that the player did not play in the majors

--Street20 (talk) 22:25, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

one of the main things I dont like about is putting there minor league years before they make the majors, for example for Mike Cameron it says 1991-1994 that is just unnesessary, I mean who cares where they were before there major league debut.--Yankees10 22:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

But wouldn't you want to look at the infobox and know that Daric Barton was in the Cardinals organization before the Athletics? But how about after their debut? It will fill up all the gaps between their first game and present if there are any. I don't want to look at Cha Seung Baek's article and see 'Seattle Mariners (2004, 2006-present). I just think that gap is stupid. --Street20 (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Basically what I'm proposing is to show a timeline effect of a player's career and what organizations he was with, just like the NFL player infoboxes. If it's done for the NFL player infoboxes, I really don't see a problem with doing it for the MLB player infoboxes. --Street20 (talk) 22:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't really like the idea of saying someone was with the Rockies when they were actually with the minor league team.. If you really want the minor league years listed then say he was with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox during that season, rather than the Rockies which is misleading. Also, it is somewhat more difficult to track down minor league years of players from the earlier eras. Spanneraol (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

But there would be a note saying 'Minor leagues only'. And do you really want to put down every minor league team that they played for? Why do that when we could just put down the major league affliation? And for the minor league years of players from the earlier eras, well if we can't find it, then we can't find it. --Street20 (talk) 22:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally I rather prefer it the way it is... I can see allowing years on the Major league DL to be included.. but the minors get tricky. Also, I don't understand your "offseason only" designation. Why would someone be on the team only during the offseason? Do you mean non-roster spring training guys? If they aren't on the roster during the season they shouldn't be included. Spanneraol (talk) 22:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with Spanneraol--Yankees10 23:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The 'offseason only' designation is to show players who go into Spring Training for a team and then get cut and its to also show players like Omar Infante who get traded twice or more in an offseason. --Street20 (talk) 23:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Players who go to spring training and "get cut" are never really on the roster.. I am thinking that it makes no sense to include in the info box all the teams that Infante got traded to during the offseason. You can go into that in his article somewhere but the info box really should show just the teams he actually played for. Spanneraol (talk) 23:05, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

exactly what I think it should be in the ARTICLE not the infobox, thats what I believe with the NFL infoboxes also (I still believe that today, but im not going to start trouble with that again)--Yankees10 23:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I feel that minor league teams and college teams should be included in the infoboxes. I started doing this at one time and was reverted whenever I tried to include those teams (see Jeremy Sowers for example [2]). After all, the box says "former teams" not "former major league teams". In practice, this has already been taken place on a small scale. Pete Rose, Jr., for example, has had all his minor league teams for quite some time now. And, many players who played on Japanese teams have those teams included in their infoboxes even though they aren't major league teams. I don't see any reason why not to include minor league teams besides the usual bias most members have against any baseball outside of MLB. Kinston eagle (talk) 02:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

For the people who are opposing this, what is wrong with it? I don't see any problem including the player's history of what team they were on. --Street20 (talk) 02:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

My only problem with your sandbox examples is that you aren't showing "the player's history of what team they were on", your showing the player's history of what system they were in. Kinston eagle (talk) 02:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I think organization is better because those are way more recognizable than a Single-A or Rookie League team. And it's stupid to include players who were on the disabled list and play a minor league rehab game for a rookie league team. Another thing is that if you include the minor league teams, you'll make the list extremely long. --Street20 (talk) 02:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't imagine anyone's box being longer than the Pete Rose, Jr. example cited above, and nobody's had an objection to that since August. Being recognizable or not is no reason to leave a team off. That's why they are linked to that team's page. If you don't recognize a team and want to know about it, you click on the name and learn more about it. That's what encyclopedias are for, so that people can learn about things they didn't already know. Kinston eagle (talk) 03:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, tough call. Quick idea: how about italicizing the non-Majors lines? Or, conversely, bolding the Majors lines? Regardless, I'm a bit bothered by the Smoltz example in the sandbox page. He was in the minors for Atlanta in 1987 but that's not evident there. Incidentally, what's the source for some of the info, esp. spring training? I haven't found a reliable source for that data, with thebaseballcube.com looking the most reliable. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well baseballreference seems reliable too. They have all the transactions up to date and mlb.com has MOST transactions since 2001. So Wknight94, are you for doing this? Well actually for the Smotlz example I originally had one that showed he was in the minors in 1987 but I changed it so just look at the previous revision. And what do you mean by italiciing the non-Majors lines? --Street20 (talk) 03:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is what I meant by italicizing non-Majors lines. Not sure I like that either... Baseballreference.com transactions are derived from Retrosheet. Retrosheet includes a disclaimer at the very bottom of this page: The last section will contain a list of the player's transactions. This only lists cases where a player changed major league organization. It does not contain information concerning a player's movement back and forth between the parent club and its minor league affiliations, nor does it track a player's movement on and off of disabled lists. In many cases, this data may be missing or incomplete. In Yahoo Groups, I've also followed some of the discussions where volunteers discuss the gathering of that transaction data. It's very generous for those volunteers to compile the data but I wouldn't stake my life on the reliability. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

There has been a pretty long discussion here, but I have just one question. This is one that I tend to ask in discussions that have a wide-range impact: Is there any dire need for change? As far as I've seen, there haven't been any issues with what teams to list in the infobox before. I'm not trying to make this an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra. But so far, there has been a pretty basic standard that in the infoboxes, we list the team whose organization the player was in for any certain time frame. A sudden, drastic change could cause great confusion, as well as the difficulty of finding out why certain players missed certain years on websites like Baseball-reference that don't contain infinite information. Not sure if they even had minor league systems back in the early 1900s, but if there were, I'd be willing to bet that it'd be rather difficult to find out why a player would've played "1896-1901, 1903-1906" and not 1902, for example. Ksy92003(talk) 03:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

There were "farm teams" here and there, but not a formal player-development system like they have now. Most of the clubs were independent, and they came and went like crazy. The high minors were more stable than the low minors, but they still had a fair amount of turnover, unlike the majors. The formal farm system really started when Branch Rickey got it going with the Cardinals. There was no radio until the 1920s, and no TV until the 1950s, so a team like the minor league Baltimore Orioles were the only show in town, in the early years. But if Babe Ruth had played his entire career with the Orioles instead of being sold to the Yankees, he wouldn't likely get a mention here, unless he had done something exceptional, like set a home run record. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll admit it's somewhat traditional in my mind to only list major league years. I'd still want it made very easy to determine which major league teams the player played for. If he was signed by a team, spent a whole season on the DL, then went elsewhere, I want a very obvious marker - maybe more obvious than an asterisk. I also want to quickly see when the player's rookie season was. For Smoltz, it was 1988 but it's difficult to tell from the sandbox example. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Look at the year he debuted. That will tell you all you need to know. --Street20 (talk) 03:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

A little off topic here but still about the infoboxes. What's the deal with listing "2008-present"? For one thing, the 2008 season hasn't even started yet. But, making the assumption that someone on the roster will automatically be playing for the team in the coming year for the sake of argument, shouldn't it just be 2008? I mean, 2008 is the present. This is like saying "from today to the present". Kinston eagle (talk) 03:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I assume it's so we don't have to go back and fix it later. Might as well do it now than later. I don't think you'll want to look through every infobox after the 2008 season and add present to them. --Street20 (talk) 03:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If y'all stop and think about it, there might be a good reason that only the major league stats tend to be listed, and that is that only the major leagues are considered to be "notable" under wikipedia guidelines; or to put it another way, the majors are the only thing that matters. If a guy played 10 years in the minors and never made it to the show, presumably he's not in here, at least not for his baseball career. However, the Sporting News Baseball Register carries the minor league stats also, thus providing the continuum that is being argued here. But is that really appropriate for wikipedia? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a big difference between NFL and MLB - NFL players only spend four years in college (or less). In MLB, I would hate to see a lot of infoboxes looking like Pete Rose, Jr., i.e. where a quick glance implies a career as long as Rickey Henderson's, but a closer look shows Rose Jr. only spent 19 games in the majors. You wouldn't see the same issue for NFL. The only non-pro stats in NFL infoboxes are the four years at the beginning (correct me if I'm wrong). —Wknight94 (talk) 04:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

my opinion is that only teams they played a game for should be in the infobox, it will get overcrowded, because looking at pete rose Jr's it looks like complete ASS--Rockies 17^{Holla at Ya Boy!} 05:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well this looks like it's going nowhere. How about we start doing the timeline effect like in the Dan Miceli article? Instead of bunching up multiple stints for one team into one line, how about we start splitting them up? --Street20 (talk) 06:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. —Wknight94 (talk) 06:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If you've got like 20 entries in the infobox, including college and anything-not-major-league (and I'm sorry, but that includes the Japanese leagues), isn't that kind of excessive? If not, then why stop there? Maybe list his other amateur-level stuff, like high school, junior high, Babe Ruth League, Little League, whatever. d:) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No Japanese, eh? —Wknight94 (talk) 13:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Not that it isn't interesting info, just like the minors and college are. But the relationship of the Japanese leagues to MLB is essentially the same as an independent top-level minor league. Players come here at their peak, and go there when there's no job for them here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't totally disagree, with the biggest exception being actual Japanese players. If Japan leagues were simply minor leagues, then every Japanese player would have tried out for MLB. Granted, it almost seems like they do now, but they didn't back in the days of Sadaharu Oh - that I know of anyway. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:35, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It would interesting to see what's different now vs. then. Expansion is probably one factor. Another could be that there simply wasn't much recruiting. Going the other way, there was a limit of how many non-Japanese could play on a Japanese team. That may still be the case. There is no such quota in the majors. Those facts alone say a lot about the relative skill levels of the two groups. Along similar lines, it would be interesting to list Negro League teams for black players that came along in the 40s and 50s, as those were effectively their "minor leagues" or predecessors to the bigs, just as the Japanese leagues are part of the career continuum of the Ichiros of the bigs. It's just a question of how lengthy you want the infobox to be. I would also say that if someone was on a roster but did not play, then it does not count, at least not in the infobox. Being trade bait is not the same as playing. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so I've started splitting the teams in the infobox into a timeline effect like the Dan Miceli article. --Street20 (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It's important to keep in mind that the purpose of an infobox is to present "summary or overview information" about the article's subject with a "uniform look or common format" (see Manual of Style). The infobox should summarize key information from the article to help a reader opening the page to decide whether to read the full article. It is not supposed to be a comprehensive database. In my opinion, the infobox will work best as a summary if it doesn't try to do too much. In most cases, the article focuses on the player's accomplishments while playing in the major leagues, so a list of his MLB teams seems like the most appropriate standard. However, I think there's a case for some flexibility in allowing the infobox to adapt to players whose articles reflect unusual careers. For example, for Satchel Paige or Monte Irvin, their Negro League play was a very important part of their careers, so I think it's appropriate for their articles to include their Negro League teams in the infoboxes. Buzz Arlett is more notable for his minor league career than for anything he did in the majors, so he might be another exception. I think Japanese teams could appropriately be included in the infobox if they're highlighted in the article. So I'd like to see a standard that calls for generally including just the MLB teams, but allowing for flexibility to include other teams when it's helpful for summarizing the article. BRMo (talk) 03:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose I know I'm late to the discussion, but I'm with Spanneraol and Yankees10 in this matter. In my opinion, the only teams that should be listed in the infoboxes are those which confer notability... i.e. Major League teams (or their equivalents, such as the Negro Leagues and maybe NPB). Here are my reasons:

1. "Career minor leaguers" like Pete Rose, Jr. often play for dozens of clubs throughout the baseball system once you factor in winter ball, rookie ball, summer collegiate leagues and the MiLBs. And as Rockies17 so eloquently put it, it looks like ass.
2. Minor league records/rosters/stats are not readily available for older players, which means this will be implemented piecemeal for retired players, if at all.
3. If it ain't broke...
4. Infoboxes are, by nature, supposed to make the most important infomation radily accessible and "jump out" from the rest of the text. By adding a minor league timeline, we're diluting the important information, namely the player's career in the Majors.
5. Honestly, does the average reader care that Kirby Puckett had a 2-game rehab assignment with the North Swabobia Dingleberries in 1986? Uh, no. Rehab assignments rarely merit mention in the text of an article and now we want to dump them into the infoboxes?

In all, this appears to be a bad, bad idea and a waste of precious editing hours. I can list dozens of things more important to this project than individual minor league timelines. Caknuck (talk) 06:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Category for discussion

BRMo (talk) 12:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

—Wknight94 (talk) 16:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 February 7#Baseball teams by country or state is a batch nomination to rename all of the categories for baseball teams by geographical area. BRMo (talk) 01:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates with red links/2008-Jan-MLB

I believe this collection of red links belongs here. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:26, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow, what a mess. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying that these redlinks should not be satisfied with articles, but before we spend valuable time creating articles for old seasons or teams, is there any chance that they will be considered for deletion, or changed from redlinks to "black" (no links at all)? For example, is a prospective article such as "1884 Altoona Mountain City season" encyclopedic in the context of MLB? I could probably help with this task (at least for post-1900 seasons, for which I have a hardcopy encyclopedia), but I don't want to waste time contributing to articles that may later be deleted. Thanks. Jonneroo (talk) 19:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

An article about a season for a major league team should not be subject to deletion, provided there is sufficient content. Personally I'm not a big fan of the laundry list articles with almost no prose but that's more of a personal preference. I'd recommend not to bother creating an article for no other reason than to turn a red link blue. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Unless, of course, you are able to add some valuble content. On the list, I think we can simply remove them instead of striking them through, right?   jj137 (talk) 20:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind about that last part, I see on other lists completed ones are just removed. I'll go ahead and do that.   jj137 (talk) 20:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that striking through an item was helpful in that it would be easier for interested parties to assess overall progress on the project. But personally I don't care either way. Jonneroo (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

They could probably just check the history for that. ;)   jj137 (talk) 00:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Please do remove completed templates - we record progress on the project page (although we don't yet have a final count for this sub-page). Cheers! bd2412 T 05:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It's y'all folks' WikiProject, I leave it to your judgment to say which articles should never exist - but if that's the case with respect to any of the red links in these templates, that red link should not be in the template at all (or perhaps the template itself should not exist). Alternately, if there is insufficient information to make separate articles, perhaps the templates could direct to a single survey article covering multiple seasons for a given team. Cheers again! bd2412 T 05:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

RBIs

Runs batted in is inherently plural. "Ruth had four runs batted in; Gehrig had one run batted in." But the pluralization of the the abbreviation is RBIs not RBI. "Ruth had four RBIs; Gehrig had one RBI." The URL http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/rbi.html explains it simply.

RBI is an acronym. The pluralization of acronyms is to add an s. To quote Wikipedia:Manual of Style, "Acronyms and initialisms are pluralized by adding -s or -es as with any other nouns (They produced three CD-ROMs in the first year; The laptops were produced with three different BIOSes in 2006). As with other nouns, no apostrophe is used unless the form is a possessive." (i.e. RBIs and not RBI's).

RBI and HR will appear without the s in cases of statistical lists, like the backs of baseball cards and encyclopedia-style charts. RBIs and HRs are when used in sentences.

Examples:

• Led AL in RBIs in 1910, 1914, and 1915
• He was also 3rd in the National League in triples (16), RBIs (104), and slugging percentage (.524).
• Consecutive seasons, 120+ RBIs: 8 (1927–1934)
• In four postseason games, he hit .077 (1-for-13) with a run and one RBI.
• After giving up an RBI single to Pete Rose, Lonborg was inexplicably removed from the game by manager Danny Ozark.
• National League RBI champion: 1952
• 3 time RBI leader (1993, 1995–1996)
• Dropo was the first rookie in the 20th century to top 100 RBIs with more RBIs than games played.
• Belle is also one of only six players in major league history to have nine consecutive 100-RBI seasons.
• List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBIs
• On all charts and infoboxes, it should be RBI

I bring all this up because many, many articles in Wikipedia have RBI in sentences when it should be RBIs. I started going around changing them, but there must be 100s of articles out there that need fixing. We can't set up a BOT to do it because some of the instances that RBI is used are correct. One really has to read the sentence to know if it is RBI or RBIs. What we can do is keep an eye out. Whenever you edit a baseball article, just double check the article and fix any instances of RBI that should be RBIs.

I realize "RBIs" might not look or sound right, but it is consistent with our Manual of Style, and many other Manuals of Style. Thanks, Kingturtle (talk) 04:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. The plural form of the abbreviation for run batted in should be RBIs. X96lee15 (talk) 05:22, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:BaseballStub

Template:BaseballStub has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — NatureBoyMD (talk) 19:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, it is listed here: Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion#February 6. -NatureBoyMD (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Frank Thomas

There are two Frank Thomas' that have played in the major leagues. I originally changed them from Frank Thomas (AL baseball player) and Frank Thomas (NL baseball player) to Frank Thomas (designated hitter) and Frank Thomas (outfielder), respectively. MisfitToys then changed it back and I do not agree with this because it is NOT standard to distinguish it by the league they play in since there is no difference in the AL and the NL except the designated hitter rule. We usually distinguish the pages by position if there are more than one players of the same name but this is extremely stupid to distinguish it by league. --Street20 (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Revert back. It's quite common that we disambiguate first by "(baseball)" and then "([position])" for the next step. Ksy92003(talk) 01:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I did revert it back but MisfitToys just reverted it back again and that is why I took the problem here. --Street20 (talk) 01:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

IMO, it's not worth an edit war. I suggest that you find another article to edit. BRMo (talk) 01:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

No I won't. And I wasn't really editing the article and it's not really an edit war. It's just moving the page. Now is someone else going to agree that the proper name of the page should be Frank Thomas (designated hitter)? --Street20 (talk) 01:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The best solution is to adopt a standard. An old proposal is found here, and the issue also came up earlier today on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball/Players#Player naming standards. BRMo (talk) 01:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

We pretty much use that proposal except we don't use the word 'player' in naming articles anymore. And we certainly don't use leagues. --Street20 (talk) 01:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

How about (I) and (II) as IMDB would do? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with this... you're only giving your side of the story. As MisfitToys states here, Thomas (AL) played almost as many games at first base as designated hitter. I agree with him there. Additionally, he also argues that DH isn't really a position. (I don't agree as much on that point). Incidentally, please dispense with calling actions you disagree with "stupid" [3][4]. That's just going to stir up needless hostility. Thank you. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I think Frank Thomas (AL baseball player) and Frank Thomas (NL baseball player) is the best thing to do. It is the easiest unquestionable distinction. Frank Thomas (AL) was other things besides a DH. Frank Thomas (NL) was other things besides an outfielder. There is a difference between the AL and the NL. No interleague play existed during the career of Frank Thomas (NL) and limited interleague play exists during the career of Frank Thomas (AL). Kingturtle (talk) 07:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thomas could get traded to the NL. Calling him by his position is also shaky. You could say I and II. You could say 60s player and 90s-00s player. You could also (gasp!) say white and black. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I like Bugs' suggestion, 60s player vs. 90s-00s player. Suppose a reader is needing to look up the 90s-00s Frank Thomas, because (s)he doesn't know anything about him. Do you think the reader will already know whether Thomas played in the AL or in the NL, or what position he played? Perhaps so, perhaps not. But the reader probably has a preconceived notion of what era the player represented. E.g., the reader may have seen him play on TV last year, and that (plus Thomas' name) may be the sum total of his/her knowledge of the player. Besides, as Bugs also stated, there's nothing to prevent the 00s Thomas from ending up in the NL (except his declining fielding skill at his relatively advanced age, making him less attractive to an NL club). Jonneroo (talk) 07:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If a reader knows nothing about Frank Thomas, they are going to wind up at the disambiguation page, which should have enough information in the one line description to let a reader choose which one it is. --Fabrictramp (talk) 16:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thomas has never played in the NL. If he does we can have that discussion. It is extremely unlikely that he would play in the NL at this point, considering his inability to play defense regularly. Kingturtle (talk) 07:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The NL could adopt the DH next week if they wanted to. The AL/NL designation would work at the moment. How many times do we want to mess with it? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't like to use 90s-00s player except in extreme cases like Mike Smith. --Street20 (talk) 08:41, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The two Thomases have different middle names. That could work, as with Alex Gonzalez. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

But if we are able to do it with position, then why not? I mean the current Frank Thomas has played more games as a designated hitter than a first baseman and the retired Frank Thomas played more games in the outfield than any other position. --Street20 (talk) 08:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You're only going to get to it from the disambiguation page anyway, so it really doesn't matter much. 09:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs)

It wasn't hurting anything as AL vs. NL. As for "what if he goes to the NL" or "what if the NL gets the DH", it doesn't matter. The move button will still work if that happens. Frankly, I'd prefer someone expanded the Frank Thomas NL article instead of spending all this time arguing over the title. The man had a 16-year career and his whole article is a peculiar unsourced opening and an ugly five-point laundry list of highlights. —Wknight94 (talk) 12:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It is safe to say the NL will not be adding the DH any time soon. It is also safe to say that Frank Thomas (AL) will play in the NL. AL/NL is the easiest unquestionable distinction. Kingturtle (talk) 13:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a very silly debate. Either way works for me. Just pick one and go with it. Does it really matter that much? Spanneraol (talk) 16:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

There's been a lot of standards-wonking going on lately. "We always use position first" and "We need to get standards in place for examples that may come up ten years from now", blah, blah. Just do whatever is least confusing right now and move on. If everyone concentrated more on actually filling out the little stubs we have littering the whole project, the encyclopedia would be much better off. I could write a computer program that would extract Baseball-reference data as XML and use XSLT to format that into all the little stubs we have - and it would be more accurate. Why doesn't one person do that, everyone else flesh out the stubs, and there will be no one left to fret over disambiguation standards. —Wknight94 (talk) 16:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, what if Frank Thomas (90s-00s) was traded to the National League? Then we couldn't use Frank Thomas (NL) and Frank Thomas (AL).   jj137 (talk) 16:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Your side note is part of what I've tried to address - if he gets traded to an NL team, then use the move button. It's a wiki. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:09, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I've slept on this, and now believe that it doesn't make any difference whatsoever (I originally said to go by position). True, it has been a certain way for a long time and there haven't been any problems. I've always been a proponent of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" saying. Wknight94 is right: spend more time worrying about the articles themselves rather than what they're titled. Ksy92003(talk) 16:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I like the suggestion of using Frank Thomas (1960s baseball) and Frank Thomas (1990-2000s baseball). Those labels will never change and require the least knowledge of a players' career in order to choose which article to go to. But I also agree with other comments that this discussion isn't that important. The Frank Thomas dab page is all you need to know which article to go to. X96lee15 (talk) 17:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I decided to let the discussion take its course over the weekend before offering my thoughts. I think there are several disadvantages with using positions to distinguish the two Frank Thomases; perhaps primary among them is that the first player played several positions in his career - he played primarily in left field for four seasons (1955, 1961-63), in center field for four seasons (1951-54), at first base for four seasons (1957, 1960, 1964-65) and at third base for three (1956, 1958-59). (He was used only as a pinch hitter in 1966, his final season.) Complicating this is the fact that clearly his best season (1958, the only year he was an All-Star starter) was at third base, the position where he played the least of his top four positions. As for the current player, he's indeed played more games as a DH - but his two MVP awards were won in seasons when he played first base. He also won his batting title as a first baseman, and clearly the strongest part of his career was the period when he was primarily at first base (1990, 1992-97); since then, he's never led the league in any offensive category. (It wouldn't be advisable, for instance, to refer to Ernie Banks as a first baseman when his best seasons were as a shortstop, even though he ended up playing more at first base.) Both Thomases are right-handed hitters, which rules that out as disambiguation notation. Using middle initials violates the Wikipedia policy that article titles should reflect how the person was primarily known. Neither player used his middle initial during his career; middle initials should be used in article titles only for players who generally were known by their initials (e.g. A. J. Pierzynski, B. J. Surhoff) or players who used their middle initial during their career to distinguish themselves from a contemporary player with the same name (e.g. Bobby J. Jones, Bobby M. Jones). Using years in the title is somewhat cumbersome; neither player's career has been limited to one decade (and the current player's might extend into a third decade), so we'd likely have to note the specific years (i.e. Frank Thomas (1951-1966 baseball player), but that would mean revising the current player's title annually until he retires. Right now, the single clearest distinguishing factor between the two is that the first player spent his entire career in the National League, playing for seven different teams, and the current player has spent his entire career in the American League, with three teams. While it's possible that he could move to the NL if it adopted the DH rule (highly unlikely for reasons of both economics and tradition), it's also possible (though highly unlikely) that he could move to the NL and start playing first base again. Using the leagues as the disambiguation point is the best option. MisfitToys (talk) 20:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I continue to maintain that DH is not really a position; it's not a field position (like shortstop), and it's not an offensive position in the batting lineup (like leadoff or cleanup hitter). The most similar comparison to "designated hitter" is "pinch hitter", and I can't imagine anyone describing that as a position; for example, from 1974 to 1980 one would not have described Manny Mota's position as pinch hitter - rather, he was a left fielder who was primarily utilized as a pinch hitter. Likewise, Thomas is a first baseman who in recent years has been primarily utilized as a DH. MisfitToys (talk) 20:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point; I'd say a DH is closer to a position than a pinch hitter: some will play that game in and game out (and occasionally will play positions), while pinch hitters come in for one at bat and usually don't do anything more than that for the game (well, sometimes they'll stay in at a position).   jj137 (talk) 23:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Well do you think it is best to disambiguate Thomas as a first baseman? --Street20 (talk) 01:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Just throwing this out - how about a standard where we use the player's debut year to disambiguate? At least in complicated cases (not including this one where the AL vs. NL is pretty clearly the best choice as MisfitToys described)? —Wknight94 (talk) 02:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

There's an idea. It's like with films of the same title issue in different years. The other unambiguous fact, of course, is race. I'm guessing you don't want to go down that road? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh ---- no. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I like Wknight94's idea. The debut year in unambiguous and won't have the year-to-year renaming problem that would befall the "Joe Blow 2002-2007", "Joe Blow 2002-2008", etc. type of scenario. Jonneroo (talk) 04:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Cincinnati, Ohio and Cincinnati Reds

OK, we've got a "situation" brewing on those pages, from some over-zealous Reds fans who insist on trying to date their team from the 1869 Red Stockings, on the strength of the "time line" at the Reds MLB.com history site. They're calling me a vandal and they're probably going to try to get me on a 3RR now. Sorry, but the current Reds date from 1882, not 1863. The famous Reds team broke up and some of its players formed a new team, the Boston Red Stockings. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I saw that brewing. How about adding a footnote saying exactly what you said here? I was going to do it but thought maybe it was dying down. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The facts as stated above are fully explained in the Reds article already. I'm assuming you mean in the Cincinnati article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. To keep the peace, I'd recommend leaving as 1869 (or 1863 or whatever) and adding a footnote stating that technically the Cincinnati Red Stockings were a different team and that the current team officially dates to 1882 when the N.L. did something-er-other, etc., etc. Links to History of the Cincinnati Reds would help. In general, the layperson, esp. a Cincinnatian layperson, isn't going to care about such technicalities and I predict you'd be far outnumbered. Just like the astronomer folks who insist on Halley's Comet being at Comet Halley or 1P/Halley or something else that looks silly to a layperson like me. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I explained the facts a little bit more on the Cincinnati page, and added further comments on the Cincinnati talk page. I'm going to have to go back to Lee Allen's history of the Red and see if there really is any connection that the conventional baseball historians have overlooked. It's a slippery issue. It's like dating the Chicago/St.Louis/Arizona Cardinals to 1898, which is a questionable proposition for a team that was out of business for a number of years prior to 1920. Closer to home, it's like trying to date the Cubs to the White Stockings of 1870-71. They suspended operations for 1872-73 and resumed play in 1874. To my mind, that means the current team dates to 1874. If you don't field a team, are you really a team? That kind of thing gets tricky. And meanwhile, as per your advice, if they still insist on switching the article back to 1863 or whatever, I'll leave it be. But if they keep calling me a vandal, I might run to "Mommy" with that. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the vandalism assertions need to stop. But I try not to get overly technical with baseball stuff, esp. when it flies in the face of an official team web site. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The team site conveniently leaves out a few facts, as it's a marketing page. The 1919 Reds tried to claim it as their "50th Anniversary" also. I don't know of any historian who takes that kind of assertion seriously, but I need to rustle up some additional info. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, the Braves date their "timeline" form 1876, contradicting themselves on their history page where they talk about the Red Stockings of 1871-75. So much for the accuracy of the team pages. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

In addition to these nice summaries [5] [6][7][8], I've been reading Lee Allen's history of the Reds, written in 1947. Definitely all different teams. Meanwhile, the furor has died down a bit, with some citations provided, as well as an actual Cincinnatian reverting the "conventional wisdom", as he has been to the Reds Hall of Fame and the accurate info is posted there. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:04, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization

I'm new here, and I'm sure this has probably been addressed before, but please indulge me.

What is the standard (if indeed one exists) for capitalizing terms such as Major League, Minor League, and Spring Training? The team writers on the MLB.com site appear to use a standard of capitalizing these three terms, and to be sure it wasn't just the writer for my favorite team doing this, I spot-checked articles written by other MLB.com contributors. The writers are very consistent from what I have read. As such, I am of the impression that these terms might be trademarks of MLB. (Furthermore, I know from having participated in a collecting hobby that "not just anybody" can use terms like Major Leagues, American League, New York Yankees, etc., in print (such as on baseball cards) without permission from, and/or paying a licensing fee to, the appropriate parties.)

In Wikipedia articles, I've been seeing mixed case all over the place. Earlier today, someone edited an article I had edited less than 24 hours earlier and changed "Spring Training" to all lowercase. In my understanding, Spring Training should be capitalized, but before I dare change it back, I want to ask others for their insight. Thank you. Jonneroo (talk) 20:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I should clarify what I meant by "mixed case" since I used the term incorrectly above. As an example, I have seen "Minor League" in some articles and "minor league" in others (most commonly the latter). Jonneroo (talk) 20:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about "spring training", but there is a corporate entity called Major League Baseball and another called Minor League Baseball (the latter formerly known as the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues), so when addressed that way, they should be capitalized. When speaking of just "the majors" or "the minors", I think you could get away with lower case. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:41, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that Spring Training should be capitalized and major leagues and minor leagues should be lower cased. Major League Baseball is definitely capitalized. --Street20 (talk) 00:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. I have a feeling this has been discussed before. If so, anyone know where off-hand? —Wknight94 (talk) 02:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes

How come we don't add birth places to the infoboxes? If we have birth date, then why not birth place. And basically any non baseball infobox that I see on Wikipedia, has the birth place in the infobox. So could the birth place be accomodated? --Street20 (talk) 03:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no answer. Sounds like a reasonable idea to me. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me as well. We would probably have to eventually go back and add the birth place to the thousands of infoboxes already present in articles.   jj137 (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

We can easily code the new parameter so it is optional in the template. Like other infoboxes. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:22, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, just like the birth date. --Street20 (talk) 04:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Wknight94, can you add it in? I remember I tried doing it before but I couldn't do it right. --Street20 (talk) 04:24, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this thread is growing quickly...Time for my two cents' worth (probably worth less than a penny when adjusted for inflation). If we do add the birthplace to the template as proposed, and edit the articles so the birthplace will appear in the infobox, do we remove it from the article introduction (assuming it appears there)? For that matter, should the date of birth appear in one place only (e.g., the infobox)? In my brief experience here, I recall typically seeing the DOB both places. "Thanks, all!" from a newbie. Jonneroo (talk) 04:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Well we would definitely keep it in both places because I've seen something where somebody said that the infobox was just a sum of what is in the article. --Street20 (talk) 04:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Now I see other infoboxes haven't incorporated birth places, the birth places have just been forced in. See the wiki code for Joe Montana:

|birthdate={{birth date and age|1956|6|11}}<BR>[[New Eagle, Pennsylvania]]

Just add a <BR> and a birth place to the "birthdate" parameter. Anyone care to try it somewhere? —Wknight94 (talk) 04:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I think it shouldn't be forced in because if you do it the normal way, people will know that you have the option to add it in. --Street20 (talk) 04:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably right. I added a birthplace parameter to Template:Infobox MLB player and tried it on Ken Griffey, Jr. Good? Same can be done to the retired player version. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Slightly veering off-topic here, I know, but it's somewhat topical. What are the rules for using HTML code? Is it acceptable to use HTML code as long as there isn't a wikitext equivalent? Jonneroo (talk) 05:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess so, but I think you can do just about anything with wikimarkup. A few things stay the same, such as <s>, <u>, and <br> (strikethrough, underline, and break, respectively).   jj137 (talk) 17:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the rule on cities are but I believe you are supposed to link the city and the state seperately. That's why I guess they have the city-state template 'Template:City-state'. So for Griffey, it would be Template:City-state. --Street20 (talk) 18:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I never liked that style but some people are quite insistent on it. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

For the people that are putting in the birth places, do not use the city-state template for people from Georgia. --Street20 (talk) 05:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Chad Fox

There seems to be a dispute on the place where Chad Fox was born. MLB.com says Fox was born in Template:City-state, ESPN.com and Yahoo says he was born in Template:City-state, and Baseball Reference, The Baseball Cube, and CBS says he was born in Template:City-state. --Street20 (talk) 21:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I would trust MLB.com before the baseball reference websites on this. BTW, Conroe is close enough to Houston that one might consider it a suburb thereof. Jonneroo (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There appear to be two different players named Chad Fox (A major leaguer[9] and a career minor leaguer[10].) I wonder if that is where some confustion is coming in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fabrictramp (talk • contribs) 22:22, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Good intuition you have there. I thought there could be two of them but I figured the likelihood of two players with the same name wasn't high enough to seriously consider it. Good job. Jonneroo (talk) 22:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Not good enough of a job, apparently. Looks like the minor leaguer was born in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Perhaps at one spot someone heard "Conroe" said with a Texas accent" and thought it was "Coronado"? --Fabrictramp (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

See also sections

There are see also sections on some pages. These sections include links to all-time rosters, mainly Tampa Bay Rays all-time roster and Arizona Diamondbacks all-time roster. I think this has been brought up before but these links should be wiped out from the pages since it is pointless. --Street20 (talk) 22:07, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree--Yankees10 02:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, I believe Street20 is referring to player pages in particular, not the team pages themselves. For example, Derek Jeter's page would link to the New York Yankees roster page, but not to the all-time roster page. On the other hand, the New York Yankees roster page would contain a link to the Yankees all-time roster page. Am I understanding you correctly? Jonneroo (talk) 04:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Some may wonder why such see also sections are pointless. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but the purpose of a see also section is to link to related topics that are relevent to the subject of an article, but are too large and/or complex to include in the aticle itself (for instance, large tables or lists). Now consider the inclusion of all-time rosters links on individual player articles. First, you wouldn't even consider including a list of other player that played with a player in their article. Second, the all-time rosters don't add any useful information to the article. If you wanted to find out who else played for a particular team at the same time, you could easily navingate to the team's article and click on their all-time roster link. Third, if such see-also sections existed for every player, imagine how big some sections would be. In other words, they are just an unnecessary waste of space on player articles. Opinions? -NatureBoyMD (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that explains it perfectly. I've stopped adding those.   jj137 (talk) 18:59, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

1885 New York Gothams/Giants season

Is this name correct? The standings on the page say New York Giants. Could someone clarify this and either rename it appropriately or keep it as be. --Borgarde^talk 01:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The team was first called the Giants "about 1885". They were definitely Giants by 1886. The theory is that sometime during the 1885 season is when they picked up that (unofficial at first) nickname. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:03, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Double linking in infoboxes

Should teams be doubled linked in infoboxes? Take Steve Trachsel for example. Should his second stint with the Cubs be double linked? I mean we have been double linking the year for a long time now, don't see a problem with double linking the team. And this type of trend is in other infoboxes too. To me, I think it should be double linked, or it won't 'look good', IMO --Street20 (talk) 02:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it just looks nicer. And if there is a long list of teams it sometimes is tedious to hunt down the first link. Spanneraol (talk) 02:39, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

But, see the Existence at all? discussion above re: unlinking years in some situations. One could use a similar line of reasoning to argue that the team doesn't need to be double-linked. Just playing devil's advocate here. Jonneroo (talk) 04:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Spanneraol, just like in tables when you have a bunch of award winners related to the league and the team name comes up more than once, it's annoying to go searching for the original team name to find the link.--Borgarde^talk 05:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that there are really any true reasons for or against double-linking. Just double-link them just so it's all blue. Ksy92003(talk) 05:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Kansas City Royals WikiProject?

I'm not sure exactly where I should be looking, but I have not found a WikiProject for the Royals. What are the responsibilities of a team-specific WikiProject? What is the benefit in having one? What would it take to start one? Thanks in advance. Jonneroo (talk) 04:50, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know exactly how they work, but I'm assuming the team specific WikiProjects like to have an organisation of just the team specific articles in general, like Boston would have all the Boston players and articles related to the Red Sox organisation and take the responsibility of just those articles. I've added the currently existing ones to the side bar anyway, to try to keep them linked with this project for better organisation.--Borgarde^talk 05:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I know little about setting up projects. I'd imagine you need a certain amount of interest in order to sustain one. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Minor League franchises

I ran across an oddity with Portland, OR, minor league ball that I think needs addressing, as there seems to a lack of uniformity in the way minor league franchises are handled. For major league teams, usually there is a separate article for each club, e.g. separate articles about the various Washington, D.C., clubs. For minor league teams, it doesn't really seem justified, as the minors are much less stable and there have been countless franchise shifts in countless minor leagues over the years, as well as frequent nickname changes. However, in this specific case, there is one article covering four different unrelated clubs that all happened to be called Portland Beavers, and a separate article for Portland Mavericks. The only justification for doing things that way is that the Mavericks were in a different league. But all of them were different clubs. I would argue that they should all be in a single article about Portland professional baseball. By extension, every minor league city could (not necessarily "should") be handled that way. Now, I'm not set in my ways on this one, as there is certainly more than one way to do this. I'd like to hear other opinions on the matter. Maybe there's already a consensus that I don't know about. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I would actually prefer to separate the various Beavers teams into separate articles. The info box information on that page is for the current version not the past ones. In my opinion, each team that is separate should have it's own article. Now if a team moved from one city to another and changed its name but was essentially the same team it should be one article but if its a new team it should be separate. Spanneraol (talk) 19:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

A good thought, and raising new complications. Look at articles about other PCL teams like the Vernon/Venice Tigers, Mission Reds, Hollywood Stars, San Diego Padres (PCL), etc. Note that there is often just one article covering totally different teams, and having to jump to other articles when the teams moved, and you'll see the can of worms that this subject opens. This has been debated in the majors, too, as with the Expos which have an article separate from the Nats, even though they are the same team, and an approach that has not been done with other cities' clubs, but the Nats' fans won that one. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I disagree with the Nats and Expos having different articles... makes no sense.. but I'll stay out of that one... I know the Reds have different articles for the older 19th century versions of the team which is the proper way... This minor league stuff really should be cleaned up at some point... I can see it is a mess in the way it's been handled in the past. Spanneraol (talk) 19:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I've also noticed the inconsistent treatment, but I don't see any urgency to make changes. Taking the example of the Portland Beavers, the article is not too long and if it were split into four articles, you'd have a series of short stub-length articles that would need to be disambiguated. We can wait until the article grows to a length where a split would ordinarily be considered. I strongly dislike the idea of consolidating a minor league team's history across multiple cities in a single article, as is done with the major league teams. I think this approach would create difficulties for readers, who generally are interested in learning about a city's history in minor league baseball rather than the genealogy of the franchise. It would also be difficult to create and maintain such a system, because it isn't always clear from available sources when a franchise moves and when a franchise is replaced by another. (As was noted earlier on this talk page, this type of confusion can also arise regarding the early history of major league teams, such as the relationship between the modern Cincinnati Reds and the original Cincinnati Red Stockings.) Most articles on minor league teams focus on the history within a single city, and I strongly support maintaining that as the standard (despite the inconsistency with the articles on major league teams). BRMo (talk) 05:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of connecting both major and minor league clubs to cities in some way. That's kind of the concept I used in History of baseball team nicknames, except it was restricted mostly to the current major league cities, some of which once featured minor league teams. From 1900 onward, the majors have remained stable, i.e. no franchises have disappeared, although some have moved and/or changed nicknames. The minors are notoriously unstable, even today. The majors were like that in the early years also, which is another place this issue comes to the fore. Although the Altoona club in the Union Association has its own article, how much can you write about a "major league" city whose entire life in the 130-plus years of the majors consisted of a few weeks? Calling Altoona a major league baseball city is akin to calling Shreveport a major league football city. Meanwhile, is there any truth to the rumor that Altoona is a distant relative of Charlie Tuna? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

And you're right, it can be hard to keep track of what team is what in the minors. One problem is a tendency to place too much importance on nicknames, which are nothing more than marketing vehicles. The Greensboro Grasshoppers have been around since 1979, initially known as the Hornets and then as the Bats, but it's a continuous operation albeit affiliated with a number of major league teams. Their predecessors, in several different leagues (especially the Piedmont League) were typically called the Greensboro Patriots. That team had no connection to the current team (nor does it have its own article, apparently), but viewed from a city standpoint, it's part of a near-continuum of professional ball in the city. So, would I want to start a separate article on the Patriots (which had multiple incarnations), or would I be better off to start "Greensboro professional baseball" or some such, and link to articles that happen to exist? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Having just been to the Cleveland Indians page, it seems clear that we don't necessarily need a fully separate article on each city's minor and/or major league teams, as the current team article often has just such a capsule summary, with links to the prior teams where such links exist. That would seem like a pretty good way to do it. In fact, then the Porland article works. So I'm working this out with this continual talking to myself, and sometimes I even listen. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Possible Vandalism?

Please see recent changes here by an anonymous user. The deleted section needed to be rewritten, IMHO, but I'm concerned that its deletion smacks of vandalism and may not be a good faith edit. The anon didn't leave an edit summary that explained the rationale for the edit. I'm new here. I am willing to do a revert, but I'd like the opinion of more knowledgeable individuals, and I don't care to partake in an edit war. That's precisely the opposite of the goals I hope to accomplish here. Thoughts? Jonneroo (talk) 03:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. My philosophy is, if a vandal makes some possibly useful edits but also posts something stupid, then the whole thing gets reverted. It's not an edit war, it's just reverting vandalism, and any good admin would stand behind you. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. I only compared the version before his first edit with the version after his second edit. I didn't look at his first edit. You're absolutely right. But hey, my gut feeling was pretty accurate. Thanks. Jonneroo (talk) 05:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you were right on target. You just gave the vandal more "good faith" than it deserved. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Circle changeup

There is one editor who insists that this is a Circle changeup grip and not a Four-seam fastball grip. Can I get some opinions because I think that is clearly wrong.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 21:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you want us to look at? I think you forgot to link something. --Michael Greiner 22:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

He's talking about the pitch in this picture. That's obviously not a circle change.--Rabbethan 22:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

California Angels, Anaheim Angels, and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

For players that have played for those teams like Garret Anderson and others, how should we properly name the team in the infobox? I've been doing Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim but that doesn't sound really good so I brought it here. --Street20 (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That looks absolutely horrid, as I've seen several places. Maybe something like this:

[[Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim|California Angels<br>Anaheim Angels<br>Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim]] (1994-present)

Which would look like this:

California Angels
Anaheim Angels
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (1994-present)

Ksy92003 (talk) 01:24, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The Garret Anderson article currently says "California/Anaheim/LA Angels" and I think that's a nice and elegant way to do it. There does seem to be a somewhat inconsistent approach. The Willie Mays article, as an example, has "New York/San Francisco Giants". However, the Frank Robinson article lists Montreal and Washington separately. However, that's probably because the articles are separate (which I don't agree with, but that's a side issue). The Giants are in just one article, as are the Angels, so there is one link. Meanwhile, the Jimmy Wynn article says he debuted with the Colt .45s but it lists him as "Astros" because that was the team's name when he played his last game for them. It should probably say "Colts/Astros". A complicating factor is what to do about guys who were with the "original" L.A. Angels of 1961. For manager Bill Rigney, it says "Los Angeles/California Angels". That's consistent, and I think it works. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I sort of like Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The problem is it will be interpreted as 'Anaheim Angels of Anhaeim' and 'Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim'. --Street20 (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Here's an epiphany: How about saying simply "Angels" and be done with it? Same team, same basic nickname since 1961, all based in the Los Angeles area. Anaheim is not really Los Angeles, but it's not like they moved to San Jose or something. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)

Hopefully people would be able to recognize the fact that they were the Los Angeles Angels before the California Angels. I don't like my example of splitting it up into three lines. If you don't want to get technical, you could just put California, Anaheim, and LA of Anaheim all on separate lines with their own separate years. G.A. has played his whole career with the Angels (and hopefully will finish with them) so there's only gonna be one team listed there which would make it easier. The way it is right now I think could suffice (yes, I had a change of heart in the last twenty minutes).

I don't like just saying "Angels" because there needs to be some sort of geographical representation. I mean even if you just said "Yankees" or "Red Sox" people would know who that is, but it's still something that kinda should need to kinda be there. Ksy92003 (talk) 01:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Then you could list his most recent team name (as with Jimmy Wynn) because the link will take you to the right place anyway. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The whole Anaheim vs. LA vs. California controversy is one of the silliest shenanigans MLB and its teams have ever pulled. Shall we call the MLB team in north central Texas the "Dallas-Fort Worth Texas Rangers of Arlington"? Heavens, no. What were these LA area folks thinking, anyway?

The Detroit Pistons didn't change their name to "Auburn Hills" when they moved to a new suburban arena years ago. They still represent Detroit and its metropolitan area. The Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, Golden State Warriors, and others don't really have a controversy over what to name their teams. Why they have to be different in the LA area is beyond me.

Anyway, as far as Wikipedia is concerned, I think there should be one page for the Angels. It's not the same situation as those of the Cleveland Browns, Washington Senators, et.al. who had a team, lost it, and acquired another franchise that received the same moniker. As far as naming them is concerned, I like Bugs' idea of "Angels". My two cents (less than one cent when adjusted for inflation). Jonneroo (talk) 02:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is in fact just one page for the Angels. All the various nicknames they've had since 1961 link to it. This business of playing somewhere beside the city you call yourself is nothing new. The Alleghenys renamed themselves Pittsburg(h) in the late 1880s, well before Allegheny was annexed by its larger neighbor. And then there's the Dodgers, who continued to call themselves Brooklyn long after Brooklyn became part of New York City. Which reminds me, the Dodgers still haven't taken up my suggestion that they rename themselves the Brooklyn Dodgers of Los Angeles. d:) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a very good idea to abbreviate teams in the infobox. In fact, I think for players like Anderson it's even more important to show all the cities. He's been with the team for his whole career. He was with them for 14 seasons (and still going strong) and I think that to show that one player played through three different times of the team, wore three different uniforms, that it'd be a good idea to show that he played for a team that had three different team names, and that he played for every single one of them. Ksy92003 (talk) 03:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

"All the cities"... but the Angels have had only one city since 1966. It's just that they've had several variations on the same team name. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It's like the address of a house where I lived in the '80s. The house was just outside of town, and it had a street address. The US Postal Service decided to change the address because they were adding a fifth rural route, and they decided to put our street on that rural route. Later, they added a sixth route, and they put our address on that route. Then, inexplicably, they changed the address to what it had been previously, a street address. So we had been in one house, but we had had three different addresses in about a three-year period of time.

I bought a car and applied for a loan through GMAC. The auto dealership said that there was a holdup in approving my credit, and of course, I asked them why. They said that on my application, I had stated that I lived at the same address for (at that time) six years, but that I had moved three times in that time frame. I said, no, I hadn't moved; I had three different addresses (I didn't add, but should have added, "...because some bureaucrats had nothing better to do but keep changing our address..."

It's like Bugs said; the Angels have only been in one city, one place. Just the name keeps getting changed. In the '90s, I moved out of state. When I filled out applications and had to list my former address, I didn't list all the extra addresses the Postal Service used to identify my residence. I just listed the one that we used most of the time; it was representative of all of them. I fail to see why the Angels need to have three different names for the same place and the same team. Like Bugs said, it's not like they moved to San José; they were still in the greater LA area the whole time (and didn't even migrate around the area once they settled into their digs in Anaheim). Jonneroo (talk) 03:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It makes no sense to me why you would abbreviate it as a substitute. It's just senseless to me why you would. For example, say Anderson was traded to the Diamondbacks during the season. It doesn't make sense to say

Angels (1994-2008)

Arizona Diamondbacks (2008-present)

Also, for somebody over in someplace like Croatia who has no idea who "the Angels" are, then the geographic representation ("Los Angeles" Angels of Anaheim) could give them a clue as to where they play. Can't it just stay as [[Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim|California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim]]? I mean that pretty much says everything you need to. The infobox, after all, is supposed to summarize as much information as possible. Ksy92003 (talk) 04:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I've been ugly in this discussion. My quarrel is not with you, but with some very silly people in baseball who put their own misguided agendas over common sense and tradition.

With all due respect, I doubt the proverbial Croatian would know who the Red Sox or Yankees are either, but remember that s/he can click on the blue link if s/he wants more info.

Really, I do agree that we need to have more than just "Angels" in the listing. And like I said, my quarrel is not with you; it's with the Angels and with MLB. The whole situation is preposterous. I'm just irritated that the team kept changing names every five minutes and that the Selig-run administration has let them name themselves such a silly name as they have now. Gene Autry is probably turning in his grave. Even a Hall of Fame radio announcer whom I highly respect has let it be known on the air (albeit, perhaps, more with his tone, inflection, etc. than with his actual words) that he thinks the situation is silly. And where does it all end? Is "LAA" really the correct abbreviation (similar to the way "LAD", "NYY", "NYM", and "CHC" are sometimes used? "LAA" doesn't take into account the "of Anaheim" tag. Should it be "LAAoA"? One of my hobbies is replaying old baseball seasons with various simulation games. I always refer to that franchise as the "California Angels" regardless of year; it just seems so ridiculous for them to change names seeming every other year.

As far as the player pages are concerned, perhaps the best thing to do is list each of the different Angels team names like you proposed. There won't be that many players who will be affected by this multiple-listing situation. Garret Anderson is a bit of an anomaly because so few players remain with their teams for so many years. Jonneroo (talk) 05:53, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The Angels haven't really changed their name as much as it seems, and when they have, it's with reason. They were the Los Angeles Angels when they played in Los Angeles. When they moved to Anaheim, they changed to the California Angels because nobody had a clue where Anaheim was (they had no professional sports teams then). They were California for decades. When the Rams moved out of Anaheim and went to St. Louis, Disney bought the team and converted Anaheim Stadium to a baseball-specific complex. Disney then changed their name from California to Anaheim. Arte Moreno bought the team from Disney in 2004, and during his first offseason changed the team name to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

In other words, the two times that the team changed their name in the past 44 years have both been after a change in ownership, and both times it was because the owner wanted more exposure for the team. So the name changes have been perfectly reasonable when you look at it that way. Ksy92003 (talk) 07:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

As an old-timer and with some knowledge of geography, I can tell you that I knew where Anaheim was, and also because of Disneyland being there... and particularly because of the Jack Benny show and Mel Blanc's oft-repeated gag, "Train leaving on track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc...amonga!" However, I doubt that the average American was all that familiar with Anaheim. "Anaheim Angels" was OK. I think the "L.A. Angels of Anaheim" is what really drew the public ridicule. None of this comment helps fix the issue, but it's late at night and my mind's wandering. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 10:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is late at night...guess we've got nothing better to do. :) I agree; "Anaheim Angels" is a tolerable name, although I hate the loss of continuity. But there's no disguising the fact that the new name is poorly conceived. Perhaps well-intentioned, but poorly thought through. Sounds like someone didn't do an adequate job of market research. Jonneroo (talk) 10:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I remember that all us Angel fans hated the name change when Arte first made it, but now it's kinda grown on us. But down here in Southern California, we don't call them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. When David Courtney announces the Angels coming on the field for the first inning, he says "the A-team, your Angels!" We all hated at it first, but it's not like we call them that every day. And the publicity attempt makes some sense to me. I mean with the exception of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays changing their name to the Tampa Bay Rays, it seems to me that if a big-market team (yeah, Tampa isn't in a big market, I know) changes their name, it's gonna get significant attention. If the Yankees decided to change their name, not only would it create a lot of publicity for the team, but it would incite riots and bomb threats, probably. For the Angels name change, it created a lawsuit by the city of Anaheim, so it was big for getting the team exposure (although Arte wasn't happy about the 'suit). When they made the name change, the Dodgers were immediately against it and remained to put "ANA" on their schedules instead of "LAA" in their refusal to accept the Angels as a true "Los Angeles" team. Everybody made a big deal about the name change, and now the Angels field a better team than the Dodgers and were being talked about as one of the top-3 teams in the majors for most of the season. People were talking about the Angels. The Angels were getting attention. So although we've all hated the name change since day one, we Southern California baseball fans don't think about it anymore, and I'd have to say that it worked out a little bit for the Angels. I certainly wouldn't say that the name change hurt the team (fans hated the name, but we've still got one of the largest fan bases and highest average attendance) at all. Ksy92003 (talk) 15:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if the Dodgers field the worst team in the league - they're still the only real LA team.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 16:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

In the case of Garret Anderson, since he is currently on the roster, why not go with only the current team name...Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (1994-present). ? Kingturtle (talk) 16:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Because they weren't called that his entire career. He hasn't played for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim since 1994 because the team under that name did not exist the entire time.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 16:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I just think that [[California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim]] is best enough. --Street20 (talk) 16:54, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean that we need to change most of the Tampa Bay Rays' players for the same reason? --Rabbethan 00:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Only the Tampa Bay players who play in 2008. Kingturtle (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict 2x)

I don't mind the Angels trying to act like a Los Angeles team. I live in Long Beach, which is only 10 miles away from Anaheim, 25 miles away from Los Angeles. I like all the Los Angeles teams except for the Angels. For me, it just makes it easier to say that every team I'm a fan of is a Los Angeles team (and the New York Giants, but I digress). During the Stanley Cup Finals, people were asking me why I wasn't a Ducks fan if I was an Angels fan (I live on the same street as Honda Center and Angel Stadium). It's too confusing for me. But the Dodgers will always be the only true Los Angeles team. I mean if you go up to Dodger Stadium, you're up in the mountains, you can see the mountains, you can see the skyscrapers of Downtown Los Angeles, and it just has that Los Angeles vibe. At Angel Stadium, the only thing you can see from the ballpark is the freeway and Honda Center, nothing that really symbolizes Anaheim (you can't see Disneyland itself, but you can see the nightly firework show from the outfield and third-base exit ramps at Angel Stadium). The Dodgers will always be the only true Los Angeles team.

As for the issue here, I think either we could just leave it the way it is or just list the three names separate. They weren't the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim forever (thank God). [[Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim|California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim]] I think is a very reasonable format. Ksy92003 (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kingturtle, the label on the infobox should just be "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (1994-present)". While the names of the team has been different, it's the same organization. It's too much non-essential information to be putting on Anderson's article. The history of the Angels should just be included on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim article. — X96lee15 (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they've been the same organization. But say Anderson only played one game for the LA Angels of Anaheim in 2005 and then retired. Would you say "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" in the infobox for the whole 12 seasons, even though he would've only played one game for the team with that name? Ksy92003 (talk) 19:06, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not really a different team so much as a different name. The franchise is the same. The roster didn't change enough during that time to call them a different team. They play in the same stadium. The fan base is basically the same. Let's say you had an article about a musician who played with Sean Combs. Would you list him as having played with Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, and all the other names by which Combs has marketed himself, or list just the one musician? Surely not.

You guys (and/or gals) do what you want on this. I'm bowing out of the discussion. Jonneroo (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that makes the most sense. The infobox should reference the current organization name or the name of the organization when the player's career ended. If not, what if the player played 5 years with an org under one name and 5 years with an org under another name? Then you get into the whole "what color should the infobox use for retired players" argument. — X96lee15 (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The infobox is supposed to be a summary, not a blow-by-blow detailed history. The current Garrett Anderson infobox says "California/Anaheim/LA Angels". That explains it all in a single line. If someone wants to know what that means, they can click on the link. I would similarly argue that the Jimmy Wynn page should say "Houston Colts/Astros" instead of just "Houston Astros". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

We also have the same issue with Darin Erstad who played with the Angels from 1996-2006. They are the only players (that I can think of) that have played for three different variations of the same team. The current form of both has California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, so that seems to be an agreed-upon format at the time. I honestly think that the way that they both are right now is good enough and they don't need to be changed. Ksy92003 (talk) 19:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Anderson's abbreviated entry takes one line and Erstad's spelling-it-all-out entry takes two lines, at least on my screen. We don't need to be a slave to the Angels' marketing department. Scoreboards typically list them as "LAA" vs. "LAD", i.e. "L.A. Angels" vs. "L.A. Dodgers". Whether we like them usurping the L.A. part shouldn't really matter. Keep in mind that the New York Giants don't even play in New York State, let alone New York City. I think if they were to rename themselves "New York Giants of the Meadowlands", the media would still list them as just plain "NYG". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Much ado about nothing. My favorite idea is Kingturtle's - just list as Los Angeles Angels - plus add a little asterisk or something which leads to a note explaining that he actually played for three different team names. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You know what, Wknight? That actually doesn't sound like a bad idea. I mean for NFL player infoboxes, people asterisk things (like practice squad, offseason player only) to save their lives. I wouldn't have a problem if that's the way that we decided to do it for both Garret Anderson and Darin Erstad. I'm gonna do it to Darin Erstad to see what it looks like. Ksy92003 (talk) 15:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I've done it to both Erstad's and Anderson's infobox just to see what it look like (it's currently up right now) and it doesn't look that bad to me. Ksy92003 (talk) 15:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I like it. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

How about for players who only played for the Anaheim Angels and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Just keep it as Anaheim/Los Angels Angels of Anaheim? --Street20 (talk) 18:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd still say do it the way Ksy92003 did it. Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim - if you insist) with a footnote listing a breakdown below. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

See Chone Figgins or Vladimir Guerrero for an example of a player who only played for Anaheim/LA Angels of Anaheim. I'll start doing this to other players, and eventually players who played for team name changes like Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Tampa Bay Rays if nobody objects. Ksy92003 (talk) 19:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

But why only do this for the Angels? Is it because of the 'of Anaheim' part at the end of the team name? --Street20 (talk) 22:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I haven't examined every other franchise to see where this applies but the Angels are the ones that have changed their "city" name three times while never actually moving. Taking up two lines of infobox space for that level of distinction just seems like overkill to me. Similarly, the Tampa Bay "Devil Rays" vs. "Rays" should only warrant a footnote (or nothing). Brooklyn vs. Los Angeles Dodgers is a completely different distinction and warrants different consideration IMHO. Houston Colt 45s vs. Astros is probably somewhere in the middle... —Wknight94 (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You know what? I like the old way better. Kingturtle (talk) 22:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Wknight, I agree with you. It shouldn't take up two lines. But in the case of the Devil Rays and Rays, keep it that way since it is short. --Street20 (talk) 22:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The previous way keeps it on one line, and is less confusing to the eye and to the reader, IMHO. Kingturtle (talk) 22:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess that way is better. But I think it's better to do California/Anaheim/LA Angels of Anaheim. The 'of' Anaheim to distinguish it. Actually, I did a test edit and it still crosses over to the second line. But for just Anaheim/LA Angels of Anaheim, it doesn't. --Street20 (talk) 22:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, especially since the were the Los Angeles Angels in the early 1960s. Kingturtle (talk) 22:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well if we use California/Anaheim/LA Angels of Anaheim, it would be only for two people, Anderson and Erstad. The notation is just confusing and stupid. --Street20 (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, "Anaheim/LA Angels of Anaheim"?! Read that out loud to yourself and tell me it's not silly... —Wknight94 (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not silly. It's just an abbreviation to keep it to one line. --Street20 (talk) 22:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It's like the Department of Redundancy Department. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well that's not my fault the Angels are stupid and want to have both city names in their team name. --Street20 (talk) 22:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I put in my vote - one name with a footnote. FWIW, put me down for Kingturtle's idea - "California/Anaheim/LA Angels" - as my second choice. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I put in my vote for California/Anaheim/LA Angels and Anaheim/LA Angels of Anaheim --Street20 (talk) 22:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I vote for one name with a footnote. Jonneroo (talk) 00:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Why didn't they call themselves the "LA/Anaheim Angels" or "LA-Anaheim Angels"? That would be scorned by many, but it's better than the "of xxxx" tag on the end. Jonneroo (talk) 00:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

"California/Anaheim/LA Angels" is elegant. No footnote. It needn't be that complicated. Reasoning being that anyone who knows the Angels history won't be confused with that format, but a footnote might make them go, "Huh?" and check the footnote and then say "Duh!" And someone who doesn't know can click on the link and find out the whole story. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs, your comments always interest me.. at times, it's hard for me to tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Anyway, back on track. I don't like the idea of abbreviating in infoboxes at all. I don't like the idea of saying "LA Angels of Anaheim" or "LA Angels". I'm not a huge fan of abbreviating at all, especially in the infoboxes. I think abbreviating is just something that somebody does when they're too lazy to write out the full name. I think that it'd be best that we at least write out the full team name at all times. And I also think that we should try to keep it on one line so it's aesthetically pleasing, which I don't think is possible if you say "California Angels/Anaheim Angels/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim," or even "California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim."

I still don't see any problem that could come up with a simple footnote, as I've done to Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad, Chone Figgins, and Vladimir Guerrero. Ksy92003 (talk) 04:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Always like to keep 'em guessing. :) I assumed you meant an actual footnote, i.e. that someone would have to go all the way to the bottom of the page to find. The way you've got it, with a * and the note right under it or not far away, seems OK. It still wouldn't be my first choice, but it's not terrible. Meanwhile, I wonder how Angelinos like being called "L.A." as it seems to happen a lot. You've probably heard this one - Question: What happens when the smog clears in southern California? Answer: U.C.L.A. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I've heard that one plenty of times before. And it makes sense as many mornings there is a bunch of smog from the freeway (and airport, I suppose) and the fog is a rather frequent occurence in Los Angeles, so much that you can see the top of the skyscrapers break through the heavy clouds of fog. It's a great view from where I live because there's a part of Long Beach (right near Signal Hill) that you can see downtown Los Angeles on a clear day, and sometimes you can see the skyscrapers if the fog is low enough.

Anyway, yeah, a footbote at the very bottom of the page would be absolutely ridiculous. As for the footnote in the infobox.. there are dozens of ways somebody could list that one team, each with it's pros and cons. I doubt we'll be able to find a "perfect" way; no matter what you do, there's always gonna be somebody opposing it. We can come awfully close, and that's as good as we're gonna get.. that's as close to "perfect" that we can get (I'm not saying the footnote is that way, just in general). Ksy92003 (talk) 04:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Aren't citations and adherence to style guidelines policy requirements of WP articles?

Just one illustrative example of what I'm going to point out. The History of the Chicago Cubs is one of a number of MLB related baseball articles called History of.... that are written in a journalistic style and have few (if any at all) cited sources. Seems like I read somewhere that such articles are frowned upon. Anyone (an WikiProject Baseball Admin preferably) care to weigh in on policy/guidelines for articles? These are rather substantial bits after all, seeing as they are directly linked to MLB teams both in subject and content. 76.223.30.228 (talk) 08:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly. Another issue is that these "history pages" are often copy-and-paste from the main pages with little or no attempt to trim the main page down. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

And... what are editors supposed to do according to the WP regulations state? Besides what I already stated, cutting and pasting are violation of copyright policy. If you cared enough to remove the templates I added, why not help clean these up? At least the Cubs one, since you seem to be a fan. That's why I'm pointing it out here, so that dedicated baseball project members might add these to the task list.76.223.30.228 (talk) 09:01, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

My primary objection is to the "press release" nonsense. No team would issue a press release bragging about how they haven't won a World Series in 100 years. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Some sources are listed on the main page, though not enough. No question that fans writing from memory nonetheless need to point the casual reader to something they can verify. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Another thing is that some pages just have references listed at the bottom of the page. Although not a major priority, I've been trying to move them to in-text citations where possible.   jj137 (talk) 14:25, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) If there are statements that obviously need sourcing, please tag them with {{cn}} as needed. If the article generally lacks referencing, place the {{unreferenced}} template at the top. Caknuck (talk) 20:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Spink Award years in Hall of Fame infoboxes

A couple days ago I noticed a user changing the years of the infoboxes on J. G. Taylor Spink Award winners. For example, the infobox used in the article H. G. Salsinger lists him with the Hall of Fame class of 1969. The award was until this year announced in the before it was presented at the HoF ceremony. So, sources list Salsinger as having won the 1968 Spink Award, including the HoF website: http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/spink.jsp . HOWEVER, the award was presented in 1969, along with the 1969 HoF inductees, which is of note. Recently, "the BBWAA changed the year designation for the Spink Award to coincide with that of the Hall of Fame induction ceremony" (from the link). I think it is deceiving, or at least confusing, to list awardees in the infobox of their award presentation, rather than the year that is commonly referred to (example: Peter Gammons is in the 2005 HoF box, but the award he received is referred to as "the 2004 winner of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award" ([11]). You can see some previous discussion I had with the user here: User talk:MisfitToys#Spink Award Winners. Open question: is there a decent way to reconcile these facts into the Category:Baseball Hall of Fame navigational boxes? Wickethewok (talk) 03:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Category:Tampa Bay Devil Rays players

Someone has nominated this category for merger with Tampa Bay Rays players... see this discussion here. They should really remain two separate categories per our current policy for keeping separate categories for each successive team name. Please particiapte in that discussion. Spanneraol (talk) 14:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Managers' stats

I'm French, so excuse my very bad English. I work on baseball on the french wikipedia and I noticed differences between stats on the internet (include WP) and books for the managers. For exemple, the list of managers of the Cleveland Indians have 39 names on WP and 44 in the Russell Schneider, The Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia. What can be done to put the "correct" numbers on WP and not just rewrite baseball-reference (false) figures? Clio64B (talk) 02:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• I would think that the Indians managers listed on the teams official website would be a more accurate source than Russell Sneider's encyclopedia. Spanneraol (talk) 02:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
  • OK, but what about the exemple of Charlie Manuel (Indians manager from 2000 to 2002) who was at the hospital from may 4 to may 17 2000. Grady Little (bench coach) was the manager for 13 games. Is it logical to ignore Grady Little as a manager for those 13 games? Clio64B (talk) 02:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, can we have a list of the differences? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I only have the numbers about the Cleveland Indians. The 39 names list is here : Wikipedia.en ; the 44 names list is here Wikipedia.fr. Clio64B (talk) 03:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think a bench coach filling in for the manager while he is ill or suspended really should be included in the list of official managers. The team doesn't recognize them as official and neither does any of the recognized sources. Spanneraol (talk) 03:12, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the differences are:

1. Bill Bradley - 41 games in 1905
2. Mel Harder - three games in two seasons
3. Bibb Falk - one game
4. Jo-Jo White - one game
5. Grady Little - 13 games while official manager recovered from surgey

—Wknight94 (talk) 03:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure there are official records for MLB managers as such, but I would need to look into it further. Another example could be Lou Piniella, who was suspended for several games this past season following the hat-kicking incident on June 2, but I would suspect he was credited for the full season. Typically the guy currently employed as manager gets the credit for wins and the blame for the losses even if he's not there. For example, if the manager gets tossed, obviously a coach will fill in, but that doesn't really matter. Generally, I think the only time an interim manager gets the credit and blame is when the previous manager isn't coming back. "Unofficial" interim managers are of interest, though. One is the theory that Ernie Banks was actually the majors' first black manager, not Frank Robinson, in a game where he had to fill in because there weren't any white coaches left (no prejudice in that front office, no, sir.) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Baseball-reference, which of course is unofficial, regards Piniella as having managed all 162 games last year. [12] Similarly, they regard Manuel in 2000 as having managed all his teams' games. [13] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:14, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand that view, because even suspended or ill an "official" manager can give instructions to manage the games from the stands or the hospital, but from a stats view, that seems strange. I didn't notice it before reading the Russell Sneider's encyclopedia. He choose to give the credit to the guys who were "on the field". It's seems more "logical", and useful to write complete bios. (excuse again my very bad English...). Clio64B (talk) 04:16, 4 March 2008 (UTC)