Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frank Fletcher (baseball)


 * 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 was   keep. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:48, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Frank Fletcher (baseball)

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This player has only played in one single match in 1914 and, even if it was in the Major League Baseball, I doubt that makes him notable. WP:SINGLEEVENT recommends that if the role played by an individual is not significant, an independent article may not be needed, and a redirect is appropriate. Laurent (talk) 17:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:ATHLETE would permit him to have an article based on having played the one game of Major League Baseball. Crazy?  Perhaps, but that's pretty much the rule. Mandsford (talk) 19:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Meets the notability requirement from WP:ATHLETE. — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  00:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions.  -- — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  00:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep meets WP:ATHLETE.  black ngold29  01:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - He does meet the notability requirements of WP:ATHLETE, but the athlete notability standard is an additional criteria. Meeting one or more of these criteria "does not guarantee that a subject should be included". They must also meet the basic criteria which is that the person "has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." This person's article lacks such citations. The only source seems to be a stats site. Recent AfD nomination debates for minor league players have numerous arguments from the Baseball wikiproject that using stat sites as a reference is not a sufficient to establish notability. If they are insufficient to establish notability for a minor league player the same rule should apply for major league players. If no significant third party sources can be found for this player, people who wish to keep should explain why a stat site is sufficient as the only source for major league players but not minor leaguers. Kinston eagle (talk) 01:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I note that while I was writing the above paragraph, someone added a secondary source that has a brief mention of Fletcher. It should be emphasised that "If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be needed to prove notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability." as evidence of the triviality of this source, please note that the writer made one brief mention of Fletcher where he calls him "one of the stars with Pat Moran's champion Phillies." I would suggest that a player went 0-1 in one at-bat is not a "star" by any stretch of the imagination and the Phillies weren't champions of anything during the season Fletcher made his contribution to the team. If this erroneous brief mention is the only secondary coverage available on this person beyond stats, I am still of the opinion that he is not notable by Wikipedia's standards. Kinston eagle (talk) 01:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I had some second thoughts about the source. But the Phillies did win the NL pennant in 1915, and it seems that Fletcher was under contract until 1915. (see, bottom right corner). The "star" bit is probably just puffery. I'll have comments about notability later. Zagalejo^^^ 04:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Response A reliable source for a major league baseball player would be inclusion in The Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia or Palmer & Thorn's Total Baseball, both of which are considered official statistical records. Although neither consist of narrative data, there is no requirement that WP:N tell a story in prose. WP:Athlete indicates that all who played at the fully professional level, i.e., major league, are considered notable. Therefore, this one should be considered a Keep. Eauhomme (talk) 07:33, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep All players who played on Major League teams are notable.Spanneraol (talk) 02:27, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Professional baseball player. Borgarde (talk) 03:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * So are minor league players yet they are deleted every day. Kinston eagle (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep I scraped up a little bit more info using NewspaperArchive.com. It's still not much, but it's better than nothing, and there's probably more out there that isn't available online. I'll say keep, mainly for the sake of completion. Why not aim for comprehensiveness? I'm also wary of the precedent a deletion decision would set. We'd open the door to debates on thousands of other athlete bios, leaving us with a mess even worse than the WP:FICTION battles. If we're going to start changing our standards for athlete bios, it's better to take things slow and have some large community discussions first. Zagalejo^^^ 07:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "Why not aim for comprehensiveness?" Where are you on minor league AfDs? I've been asking the baseball wikiproject that same same question for the past three years. Kinston eagle (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A minor league player isn't barred from having an article, he just isn't entitled to one merely by being on the team. He must still demonstrate notability.  In practice, outstanding minor league players are more likely to reach the major leagues than less notable players.  Mandsford (talk) 13:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think it's possible to be fully comprehensive in our coverage of the minor leagues, since there are all kinds of obscure independent leagues whose records are probably lost to time. Having an article on every major league player is a more realistic goal. (Every player from the 1900- Modern Era, at least. I can't make any guarantees about guys from the 19th century) Zagalejo^^^ 19:38, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. Meets WP:ATHLETE. The issue of one-game sportspeople has been raised on numerous occasions in the past (Articles for deletion/Lecomte is the first one I remember, but there are lots more), and it's always decided in favor of inclusion. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 13:04, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep A prime example of the overuse of oneevent. It's a lot simpler to keep the rule that any major league appearance is enough. DGG (talk) 13:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. WP:ATHLETE states that an athlete is notable if he/she "has competed at the fully professional level of a sport" (emphasis mine), not "competed for a full season" or "competed in [insert arbitrary number of contests here]." KuyaBriBri Talk 15:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. It seemed to me that competing for only one game was a borderline case. How about an unlucky athlete who only plays for 5 minutes before having to leave the competition for injury? Would he/she still deserve an article per WP:ATHLETE? I think it would make sense to expect the athlete to play in a "reasonable" number of games, or at the very least more than one. Laurent (talk) 15:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Response He was not a professional in only one game. The article makes mention of him playing at least a few years in the minors, where he achieved some success.. Thus his "professional" career was a few years (at least) even though he only appeared in the one MLB game.Spanneraol (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Response Larry Yount has an article, and you can't stay in a game for less time than he did (Pitcher, injured during his warmups, never faced a batter). Drawing a line at any place other than where it is currently (any appearance at the top level equals notability) becomes too difficult. Is John Paciorek notable for his miraculous 1-game career (3-3, 2 BB, 4 R, 3 RBI)? How about Ron Wright (0-3, strikeout, double play, triple play)? One was great, one was historically bad, and neither had a second game. Eauhomme (talk) 16:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * For a similar case, see Adam Greenberg (baseball) - Came into his first game as a pinch hitter, hit in the head and knocked unconscious by the first pitch thrown to him, spent the rest of the season on the DL, never appeared in another ML game (as of today, anyway). -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 21:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep As you guys know already, I'm not a fan of these one gamer articles, but I guess this provide more content than most others, shame The Sporting News archives are no longer avaliable on the Internet, could have been expanded more. Secret account 23:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think Google is eventually going to index those as part of GBooks. But yeah, they'd be nice to have on hand right now. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 13:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - Meets the notability requirement from WP:ATHLETE. Hardnfast (talk) 14:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. The one appearance guideline has had long standing consensus. People who were professional athletes in 1914 won't have most of their sources available online; I'm impressed at what's been found already.-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  15:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per long-standing consensus and many previous AfDs.  caknuck °  needs to be running more often  17:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep per above. Wizardman  02:57, 8 April 2009 (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.