Talk:Washington Nationals (National Association)

Washington NA clubs
Elsewhere [including the following Talk pages] I have observed that the 1872 and 1875 teams represented distinct clubs and I have incorporated that in reporting the state of NA player and team categorization in terms of 25 clubs (counting these as two) that entered 50 teams in five NA seasons. The leading online encyclopedias share this position but I plan to support it by reference to published prose and to provide an update in that Category Talk if I cannot do so. (The players by team and team *categories* do not distinguish these clubs.) --P64 18:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Category talk:National Association of Professional Base Ball Players members by team
 * Category talk:Major League Baseball players by team
 * Category talk:Defunct baseball teams
 * Category talk:Defunct Major League Baseball teams
 * Today I have fixed those 3-year old links without checking that the targets remain based on counting two Washington Nationals clubs and 25 NA clubs.
 * I was not able to pursue this to a conclusion three years ago and I am not sure I can do so now. A natural conclusion would be that all wikipedia articles and categories are based on the same list of distinct ballclubs and therefore the same count of ballclubs, such as 25 for the five-season NAPPBP. As far as I know, 25 including two editions of "Washington Nationals" in 1872 and 1875 is the best candidate for consensus, but there is in fact no consensus among baseball historians. --P64 (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks P64. I agree that information in secondary sources is conflicting as to whether there are 1, 2, or 3 NA teams in Washington between 1871 and 1875, so I've updated this article to be clear about the uncertainty. If anybody does the primary source research, please do update the article to whichever answer is correct! --LbPirate (talk) 03:41, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Years later
 * • Indeterminacy should be 2 or 3. A secondary source for 1 (1871 Olympics = 1872 Nationals with name change) is out of date and must have been uninformed when written. • There may be a secondary consensus now, or a single definitive recent secondary source, if you can find it (SABR). • Vaguely (secondary source forgotten) I recall Nationals (of 1872) participated in 1871 planning, or played some series vs league team(s) in 1871, but failed formal admission. Primary sources may now be easy to find on this latter: 1871/72 newspapers online. --P64 (talk) 13:32, 19 February 2023 (UTC)