Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Dwyer (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 no consensus and thank you Stifle for adding a new word to my vocabulary. SpinningSpark 17:26, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

John Dwyer (baseball)

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

non-notable, non-female non-minority former baseball player who played in one MLB game with no birthday, no deathday, no batting stance and no throwing stance. The only indicator of notability I could find was an entry in The Rank and File of 19th Century Major League Baseball: Biographies of 1,084 Players, Owners, Managers and Umpires, which is not enough to establish notability on its own. Because he is mentioned as having a minor-league career in The Rank and File, I searched Newspapers.com for additional information, but nothing came up. Therapyisgood (talk) 15:15, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 15:25, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 15:25, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 15:25, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment A Detroit Free Press write-up of Dwyer's lone game includes several lines of a less-than-flattering description of Dwyer's play. The next day, the Press caught up with Dwyer, who was none too pleased with the description of his play, claiming he was sick and exhausted from making the trip from Chicago, and says he is done with the club. Interestingly, Dwyer says he is from Colorado, as opposed to Lisbon, Illinois, where Baseball-Reference lists his birthplace as. He also says he has been playing in Iowa, so perhaps he has a longer career in clubs from Colorado and Iowa? Penale52 (talk) 16:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If one routine source and one non-routine source are enough to keep an article... Therapyisgood (talk) 15:03, 9 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment, how is being a "non-female non-minority" relevant? BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment agreed, there were few, if any, minority, female baseball players in pro-ball in the 19th Century. Non issue. Oaktree b (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe "non-minority" to be a commentary on Articles for deletion/Pedro Pastor, where Pastor's minority status is explicitly used as a keep reason by everyone who commented. I'm neutral towards that discussion. Geschichte (talk) 10:44, 9 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep per Penale52 and poor nomination rationale. Wizardman  17:37, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notable Major League Baseball player. Spanneraol (talk) 02:02, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 1882 Cleveland Blues season per WP:PRESERVE, but also per failing WP:GNG. Two articles is not enough when his career was so incredible short and had no impact on anything. Geschichte (talk) 10:44, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment if one WP:ROUTINE article and one source were enough to keep an article, Lewis (baseball) would have been kept. See Articles for deletion/Lewis (baseball) (2nd nomination), which was merged (former FA). Still fails WP:GNG. Someone please tell me how they are distinguishable. Therapyisgood (talk) 15:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The thing is for "Lewis", we didn't even know his name. We know the given name of Dwyer. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:27, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete Fails WP:GNG due to lack of significant coverage. As can be seen in the recent Articles for deletion/Pete Vainowski, NSPORT/NBASE make it very clear that a topic that meets a SNG but doesn't have enough coverage is non-notable. Alvaldi (talk) 22:41, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * On your Vainowski point, (1) that is not NBASE, and (2) several editors have agreed that was the incorrect closure and I plan on bringing it to DRV soon. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Vainowski was indeed NGRIDIRON which is, like NBASE, part of NSPORTS. So the point still stands, it is very clear that a topic that meets a SNG but doesn't have enough coverage is non-notable. The verdic in the Vainowski AfD was spot on in that regard. Alvaldi (talk) 23:38, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per Penale52's sources, and I agree with Wizardman that nom provided a poor deletion rationale. Waddles 🗩 🖉 22:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, (1) very poor deletion rationale (non-female non-minority? Really? So we're going to base notability on gender/skin color now?) (2) per Penale52's sources and (3) per passing of NBASE. And while topics ultimately have to meet GNG according to NSPORT, I'm a bit more "generous" on older (especially very old topics such as this one) topics as coverage can be very hard to dig up. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete It is time for us to abandon the absurd conceit that someone can become notable for one game. Actors need two significant roles in major productions for notability. We should have the same standard at least for sportspeople, and delte articles on people who only played one game at the top level.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete: I agree that the non-female/non-minority garbage was bewildering, but Penale52's sources don't cut it. The first is routine sports coverage that by longstanding consensus does not contribute towards notability, and the second is effectively an interview of the subject, which explicitly does not count towards notability.  As far as this being an older subject, there is no guideline or policy which waives the requirements of WP:V due to the age of the subject.  The only possible policy-based answer to "It's hard to find reliable sources for a subject because it was a long time ago" is "Then an article on the subject cannot be sustained."   Ravenswing      15:00, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - Also per NBASE. Under the rationale by the nominator, a great many 19th century baseball players would be deleted (white, male, unknown batting and throwing information, lack of contemporary coverage unearthed from 130+ years ago).  Neonblak talk  -  15:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: Well, yes. There are likely a number of sub-stubs on 19th century baseball players with a near-to-complete lack of information, sourced or otherwise, and applying the GNG to those articles (as NSPORTS criteria agree is applicable) would result in their deletion or redirection to appropriate list articles.  This is a feature, not a bug.   Ravenswing      03:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * While I do understand your (and others') rationale, if the deletion of possibly 100s (?) of articles is deemed necessary, this seems like a wholly inefficient method of rectifying a largely static issue.  Neonblak talk  -  17:20, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Coffee  //  have a ☕️ //  beans  // 11:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – AssumeGoodWraith  (talk | contribs) 03:55, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 1882 Cleveland Blues season as an obvious ATD. There are no suitable in depth sources. 1882 is within the era where sources should be able to be found if they exist. The argument that he meets NBASE by itself is not sufficient to keep the article - we must be able to find more than that. As is, we have a one sentence stub with little or no chance of significant improvement any time soon. If sources are found the redirect can be removed and a proper article created. Blue Square Thing (talk) 23:24, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - per NBASE. Rlendog (talk) 01:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * <p class="xfd_relist" style="margin:0 0 0 -1em;border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 2em;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment. I really want to vote "keep" here, but I'm unable to find anything beyond what's already reported here. The excerpt from the Nemec book is really a summary of the game and I can't call it in-depth coverage of Dwyer. I could maybe be persuaded that the first item cited by Penale is at the outer edge of SIGCOV but the second item is a pure Q&A and is from the same newspaper --- either way, that's only one source (the Free Press) and GNG asks us for SIGCOV in "multiple" reliable sources. Also, the article's been around for 12 years so it's hard to say that there hasn't been adequate time to search for SIGCOV. The only other option would be an "IAR" vote, and I might go there if I had better evidence of an extensive career. In this case, I can't bring myself to go there. Redirecting or merging to 1882 Cleveland Blues season would definitely be better than deleting. As for the nominating rationale, I can't find any sources referring to Dwyer's race/ethnicity and suggest that piece is unnecessary and should be omitted from future noms. Cbl62 (talk) 01:24, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I re-read the Nemec excerpt and it does detail to some degree his minor league career, so it could be argued that it is at the outer, outer edge of SIGCOV, and it does come from a highly respected authority in David Nemec. Count me as neutral. Cbl62 (talk) 01:30, 25 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Redirect to the season page per WP:PAGEDECIDE. That we can verify that during this team's season, a player played one bad game, got hounded by the press, and quit, is exactly the kind of interesting information that should be in the article about the season. There's little reason to put it on a separate page though. Levivich 04:43, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER, I don't see any problems in keeping this as a separate article. Deleting "non-notable, non-female non-minority" is not the way to solve biases, the focus should instead be on writing new articles about women, minorities, etc. Also, appears to pass NBASE. NemesisAT (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete No substantive coverage about this person. Just a mere database entry for a single appearance is obscenely insufficient for notability. NBASE is a presumption of notability, but that is apparently not upheld with actual sources. Why would there be for a single appearance in 1882??? The professionalism and coverage of baseball today that would make this guess true (which includes working one's way up through university and minor league play) does not apply then. Reywas92Talk 14:25, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Draftify - Since there's speculation of a longer career in Iowa and Colorado, I'm willing to give folks some time to find sourcing and expand this into a viable article, otherwise it can be speedily deleted after 6 months. –dlthewave ☎ 17:35, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete. I agree with others that the coverage found of him is routine and/or not secondary/independent, and therefore does not meet GNG. As NSPORT requires GNG be met, arguments that NBASE suffices are incorrect. If someone wants to find sources for him he can be listed at the baseball project. JoelleJay (talk) 18:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets NBASE as a major league player. I think Penale52 has discovered enough sources to meet GNG as well. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 02:54, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @Editorofthewiki Which independent secondary sources do you think bring him to GNG? The three I looked at were the brief write-up in an encyclopedia that gives every "19th c. player, major owner, manager, league official, and regular umpire" a biography; a few lines in a routine game report; and a shallow interview (not usable for notability as it's primary and non-independent). JoelleJay (talk) 04:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think that is sufficient. Even if every 19th century player got a write-up in the book, that does not discount it as a source. ~ EDDY  ( talk / contribs )~ 15:14, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * And that still doesn't make it the multiple pieces of SIGCOV required by GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 21:50, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 1882 Cleveland Blues season. Even with the sources from Penale52, there isn't enough significant coverage for there to be an encyclopedic article on this person. His seasonal stats from the only season he played are the only substantial facts we know about him, and those can be sufficiently covered in the season article. Qwaiiplayer (talk) 14:13, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:NBASE. I do not accept the claim that passing a subject notability guideline is not sufficient, otherwise all those guidelines would be otiose. Stifle (talk) 15:25, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Stifle, he doesn't actually pass a subject notability guideline. NSPORT is the SNG, and it says GNG is necessary to merit an article and that all subguidelines on its page merely predict which subjects might meet GNG (see the 1st and 3rd sentences in the lead; the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th sentences in the Applicable policies section; the 1st and 2nd sentences of SPORTCRIT; and FAQs #1, 2, and 5). NSPORT isn't supposed to be used as an alternative conduit to notability, but rather as a collection of rules-of-thumb that focuses editors on the athletes most likely to have received SIGCOV. JoelleJay (talk) 17:06, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree with all of the reasons mentioned above to keep. Why would being a female or minority give the same level of exposure priority over one of any other sex or race. Equality right?WikiGuruWanaB (talk) 19:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to the season page unless more information about them can be added. Gusfriend (talk) 02:23, 3 February 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.