Talk:Pudge Heffelfinger

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I changed football to soccer as if hes a US player then soccer is a more appropriate word than the british word football. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluestreek (talk • contribs) 21:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * He played American football, not soccer. Changed back. 75.22.239.165 20:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

William Heffelfinger disputed as the first pro
I apparently struck the enter key accidently, and saved the explanation of my 2018-09-30 edit before I finished it. This is what shows: "17:01, 30 September 2018‎ Paugus (talk | contribs)‎ . . (20,359 bytes) (-384)‎ . . (→‎First professional football player: I eliminated an entire paragraph which was self contradictory, offered no non-supporting references not supported by the link to another Wikipedia page.) (undo)"

What I intended to say was: "I eliminated an entire paragraph which was self-contradictory, offered no non-Wikipedia supporting references, and was contradicted by the one Wikipedia page it linked to. Because the paragraph contained two errors of arithmetic, it was not possible to be sure what the intended point of it was. However, a reader could possibly interpret it as disputing a major -- and well-referenced -- aspect of Heffelfinger's life, namely that he is believed, on the basis of stated evidence, to be the first professional American football player.

If the deleted paragraph had reasonably stated "other football historians dispute Heffelfinger's priority" or something to that effect, I would have left it in place and noted that a reference was needed. But since the paragraph was logically scrambled, and identified another player who was clearly not the first (based on the linked Wikipedia page), it probably represents vandalism, not scholarship. So I deleted it entirely. Paugus (talk) 18:12, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Correction: On re-reading, I realized that maybe this was not vandalism. I apologize for using that inflammatory term. On re-reading the paragraph I wonder if it's point could have been that a slightly younger player, John Brallier, was the first to publicly and openly accept money to play football. But the amount he took is stated to be $10, which, as the Heffelfinger article explains, was just the expense reimbursement that was routinely paid to amateurs at the time. Paugus (talk) 18:38, 30 September 2018 (UTC)