Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. L. Smith


 * 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 Redirect to College World Series Most Outstanding Player. (non-admin closure)  Jim Carter (from public cyber)  13:18, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

J. L. Smith

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Smith doesn't appear to be known for anything other than winning the College World Series Most Outstanding Player Award. I don't think this is enough to make him notable. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 19:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 19:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 19:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep That is a major college award, and winning it is an automatic notable.--Yankees10 19:32, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep That is one of the tops honors a college player can win. The deletionism running through the Wikipedia baseball project lately is nuts. Alex (talk) 19:34, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete - Very specific notability guidelines governing sports players exist, and this guy doesn't meet them. If you disagree, please point to the exact criteria you think this player meets. NickCT (talk) 19:35, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Redirect to College World Series Most Outstanding Player as a possible search term... but I don't feel that winning this award by itself is enough for automatic notability... particularly when all we know about him is what school he played for and that he won this award. He never even played minor league baseball after this so he couldnt have been that significant of a player. Winning a tournament MVP award is nice, but not enough. Spanneraol (talk) 19:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete As it stands, college awards aren't included in BASE/N. There may be offline sources, like this one, that can build a case to GNG, but that one is all I found. I can be convinced to keep if someone else can find more on him. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:32, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Redirect as a plausible search term, this is pretty much WP:BLP1E Secret account 22:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be fine with a redirect. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:26, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep That award seems like enough to make him notable. StewdioMACK (talk) 01:42, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * By what policy/guideline? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:26, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would say WP:NCOLLATH #1.RonSigPi (talk) 03:40, 13 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment - I need to think about this some more, but his award arguably meets WP:NCOLLATH criterion #1. Rlendog (talk) 00:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment I guess I would support a redirect to College World Series Most Outstanding Player, but that's it. There is literally nothing in the Smith article that one cannot learn from reading College World Series Most Outstanding Player. If Smith is truly notable, how can his article have nothing in it? Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 02:43, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, and there's literally nothing we can learn from the articles about the big league baseball players for whom we only have last names, yet we keep those... Alex (talk) 00:34, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There's a bit of a difference between playing in the bigs and winning a college tournament MOP award. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 18:34, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Texas-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I want to believe that a College World Series MVP would have no trouble passing GNG, but i did an exhaustive search and could find nothing. I found what I think is a media guide that gave a blurb about him playing there in 57 after going back to school, but I have no idea if it's reliable and it wouldn't satisfy GNG anyway. We've made exceptions for the presumptively notable in the past (single name MLB guys) and perhaps this is another case. Wizardman 17:43, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would probably concur with that. If an exhaustive search turned up no coverage on a modern player who won the College World Series MVP I wouldn't have a problem claiming he was non-notable, but given Smith won his award in 1953 I am less confident that the lack of coverage turning up is due to non-existence of coverage as opposed to coverage having existed but not readily available on the internet.  My only reservation about this is that the college WS may well have received far less attention in the 1950s than it does today. Rlendog (talk) 00:53, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It may also be fair to say that the college WS may have received far more attention back then with the overall popularity of baseball at the time. I dont know either way, but its possible it received more or less coverage.RonSigPi (talk) 03:40, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment: Since Newspapers.com actually had some 50s Texas papers, I searched there, and found a couple sources to add to the article. It's routine coverage in a sense I guess, but if the utter lack of sources was the only barrier then that has now been addressed. Wizardman 18:57, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Redirect per Spanneraol, Secret and Mellowed Fillmore's rationales. Non-notable college baseball player who received College World Series MVP honors, looks like a WP:BLP1E scenario.  CWS MVP is not the equivalent of the Heisman Trophy, first-team All-American honors, college hall of fame membership, or other major national awards; it's the equivalent of being the MVP of a college football bowl game -- not exactly the same thing.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think the analogy with a college bowl game is quite appropriate since there are dozens of bowl games each year but only one college world series, which itself spans multiple games. A possible analogy might be an MVP of the BCS championship, but not an individual, random bowl game. Rlendog (talk) 15:32, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, fair enough. But my larger point is that it's not a major award -- it's awarded for a limited performance during a relatively limited time.  Major awards usually reflect excellence over an extended period of time during a season or career, not a tournament or game.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:55, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep As discussed by others, I do think he does meet WP:NCOLLATH #1 with the award. It think goes above a bowl game award in that it goes above a single game and is for a set of high-level, end-of-season games.  I think winning an award like this or NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player meets the criterion.RonSigPi (talk) 03:36, 13 December 2014 (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.