Talk:Mark Kurlansky

NPR
Kurlansky was mentioned on NPR today. If anyone is able to incorporate that information that'd be quite good (I don't know where to find it, but perhaps someone savvier than me does). Thanks, The  Fire  Tones  23:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Accuracy
In a 2010-06-24 edit, an unidentified user attacked the accuracy of Kurlansky's research in Eastern Stars. His edit was reverted 2010-07-05 by another unidentified user, who characterized it as an "unsourced, spurious character attack".

Here are the changes which were made, then reverted:


 * Kurlansky's newest book, "Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris" is rife with research based errors, discrediting some of what the author says.

I really hadn't heard of this author until somebody suggested I acquire his book to ascertain whether a certain player was born in the famous hotbed of Dominican baseball. I found the book to be well-written and seemingly well-documented. Kurlansky obviously traveled to the Dominican Republic, interviewed local people and studied a number of books on Dominican history and politics. He may even have a good working knowledge of the Spanish language.

So was the list of errors accurate? Let's see:


 * Joaquin Andujar p227 "He won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1982, ...and won the World Series in 1985." Andujar finished 19th in voting in 1982 for MVP, and the Cardinals lost the 1985 World Series. In fact, Andujar was ejected in the first inning of Game 7, taking the loss.

This first accusation is correct, sort of. It quotes Kurlansky correctly and gives some of the true facts. In fact, Kurlansky betrays an ignorance of baseball terminology. One pitcher does not "win the World Series", even if he makes a major contribution such as Bob Gibson did in the 1967 World Series when he was the winning pitcher in 3 of the Cardinals' 4 wins. However, the Game 7 information isn't quite right &mdash; Andújar relieved in the 6th inning and was ejected, but didn't take the loss of that game.


 * Pedro Guerrero - p229 "Awarded the title of MVP in 1981" - Guerrero received no votes for the award that season

Correct. It appears Kurlansky was confused by Guerrero's selection as World Series MVP that year.


 * Julio Franco - p231 "In 1990 he was named Most Valuable Player" - Franco received zero votes for MVP that season

Correct again. Kurlansky may be confused here as well. Franco was the MVP of the 1990 All-Star Game.


 * Juan Samuel - p232 " He was the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1984 and 1987." - He finished 21st (with 1 vote) in '84, and 13th in 1987.

Correct yet again. This time, the player was neither World Series nor All-Star Game MVP. Samuel was, however, chosen the NL Rookie of the Year in 1984 by The Sporting News, for whatever that's worth.


 * Tony Fernandez - p233 "From 1986 - 1989... he was the American League MVP" -- These were Fernandez actual finishes in those years. 14th, 8th, 26th, 19th.

And again. Kurlansky's complete statement was "From 1986 - 1989, he received a Gold Glove and was the American League MVP." How could Kurlansky confuse the Gold Glove award with the MVP?


 * Luis Castillo - p244 "...and was the National League's Most Valuable Player in 2003." Castillo finished 21st in that year's voting.

And still again! I can't even find anything Luis might have done in 2003 which the author could have confused with an MVP award. Yes, he won the Gold Glove that year, but he won it again in 2004-2005 and Kurlansky didn't try to claim three MVPs for him.

So it would appear that the reverted edit was very close to being 100% accurate. It pointed out the inaccuracy of some of Mark Kurlansky's research and perhaps an unfamiliarity by the author with America's national pastime. It was definitely not any kind of attack on the author's character. As for sources, even though the editor who made the original changes failed to list his sources, I was able to verify all of his charges via a few Wikipedia articles and by going to two external sites:


 * Baseball-Reference.com awards voting
 * Retrosheet

However egregious these errors may be, though, I don't believe they need to be exposed in Mark Kurlansky's biography, but rather in a new and separate Wikipedia article on the book in which they occurred.

What do you think? DutchmanInDisguise (talk) 05:09, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

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