Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Bard


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was Keep. Rx StrangeLove 05:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Daniel Bard
NN baseball prospect. Delete --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Speedy as nn-bio/CSD A7 Jamie 10:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as non notable. Jasmol 21:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete wait till he's drafted. There are too many "prospects" in baseball that never see the major leagues. --אריאל יהודה 00:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I updated the article to assert notability. Bard is projected by reputable baseball organizations to be among the top five or ten draft picks in next year's major-league draft. As such, he is currently one of the most notable college baseball players in the U.S. Please reconsider based on the revised article. Sawney 06:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. When he gets his first big league AB, you can try again. Eusebeus 15:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete - Wikipedia requires major league notariety and notability. At present, his notability is in  Class AA. B.Wind 18:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. - There are plenty of players who never played in the majors who are notable. Brien Taylor, drafted No. 1 overall by Yankees comes to mind. (Note: Unsigned edit by User:Santvenk)-Colin Kimbrell 17:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. Both of these statements are simply incorrect. According to Criteria_for_inclusion_of_biographies, the following may be included in Wikipedia (italics added):

"Sportspeople who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in an individual professional sport, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States."

Thus, there is no specification that only major leaguers may be included in Wikipedia.

I'm not sure where the Class AA reference came from; Bard has never played in the minors. (The Cape Cod League, referenced in the article, is an amateur league.)

The original article, which I had nothing to do with, didn't particularly make a case for notability. I came across the article while scanning AfD and felt that it was an easy matter to improve the article to show it belongs in Wikipedia. Anyone who takes the time to do even a little Googling will realize that Bard is considered one of baseball's elite college players. His awards, play, and reputation among major-league scouts, front offices, and organizations such as Baseball America confirm this. Barring injury, he will likely be among the first several players chosen in the 2006 major-league draft, and he'll receive a signing bonus of likely one or two million dollars in addition to his salary. Nonnotable baseball players simply don't happen upon this type of situation.

Bard, in fact, has already been drafted once; the New York Yankees drafted him as a high-school pitcher in 2003, but he elected to attend college instead. So if having been drafted is your criterion for inclusion, he's already done that. If verifiability is your thing, every last fact in the article has, as its source, one of the accompanying links. Sawney 00:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Playing at the top professional level is one way for an athlete to get over the notability bar, but not the only way.  Bard's awards and honors are, in my opinion, enough to establish him as a notable amateur. That said, creating an article for every player ever drafted is an unreasonably broad standard. -Colin Kimbrell 17:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete for now. There is a chance that he will would never play in the Majors. We can't create articles on every amatur or minor league players. Until he makes the major leagues we should not have a article on him. --Jaranda wat's sup 03:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: I would argue that point on the general case, as well as the specific one. Someone like Kip Bouknight is unlikely to ever play in the majors, given that he's a 26-year-old putting up middling numbers at AAA, but I'd support an article on him for his college accomplishments, which include the Golden Spikes Award and the Rotary Smith Award.  To cite a similar example from a different sport, athletes Clint_Frank and Nile Kinnick (among others) are in Wikipedia despite never playing sports at the professional level, because both received prominent collegiate honors (i.e. the Heisman Trophy). -Colin Kimbrell 19:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep WP:BIO allows for prominent college athletes. (ESkog)(Talk) 17:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Seems like another in the series of sadly misguided AfD noms. -- JJay 19:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep - One doesn't need to be in the Major Leagues to be notable. He's part of a major US university and distinguished himself within that realm.  Jussenadv 02:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.