Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball/Players/Archive 2

Images
On Manny Ramírez's page, I was just putting up the infobox template. However, when trying to put in the image, MR1.JPG, it was much too large for the article. How can I resize it while not breaking the template? Thanks. - PoliticalJunkie 16:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Under where you put Image = MR1.JPG|, you add "width=200px|". You can see the addition here. -- Nish kid 64 12:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Retrosheet player pages
Baseball-Reference.com is friendlier for the typical visitor and it includes roughly the same information --except for careers covered by the core Retrosheet project, digitizing play-by-play records, whose published scope is now major league regular season 1957 to a recent date.

Retrosheet.org includes cemetery data, career end dates as well as begin dates, and some umpire service data, so it is the better resource for whoever writes a basic stub. (The basic stubs that I have expanded to ample ones did not include cemetery data or Retrosheet links. I put cemetery data in the last line of text and Retrosheet in the References where I relied upon it.)

A template or two for linking and citing Retrosheet may be useful. See below, linking and citing Baseball-Reference. --P64 03:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Baseball-Reference, linking and citing
'''John Hatfield now links to Baseball-Reference redundantly in illustration of several points bulleted here. --P64 04:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)''' The template is not great for use in a list of references, despite fortunate placement at or near the top of any alphabetical list. "See his Career playing record ^ at baseball-reference" (Back to the adorable/deplorable approach in general.) Then (as for "External Links" in John Hatfield a I write) it should be above See also, Notes, References, series boxes, categories, and stub tags. But (contrary to this example) "External Links" sectioning is inappropriate and the template should expand to something along these lines. Career playing record[^] at Baseball-Reference Player record[^] at Baseball-Reference Major league record[^] at Baseball-Reference (player) Vital and Playing statistics[^] at baseball-reference Those are four alternatives for external links to player pages, easy to multiply and easy to modify for manager(ial) records. Career managing record[^] at Baseball-Reference . . . Of course the highlighted linkname should be the first part (marked [^]) of any version selected, not not "Baseball-Reference.com" - See his Career playing record at baseball-reference. - Baseball-Reference. "FirstName LastName". Retrieved 2006-??-??. --P64 04:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * See Harry Wright for example with template links to both player and manager records and not quite at the top of the list. See Doug Allison for example with the template link and somewhat standard citation for the same source one after the other.
 * Should it be used in every biography of a major league player or manager? On the other hand, is its purpose mainly to help people who expand stubs, normally to disappear from an article as it is completed?
 * One of these I found as the sole item in "External Links", just below the end of the text (above References, a bad place for External Links). Is the template intended easily and permanently to provide ready access to a major league record from any biography article whose subject is a major player or manager? --that is, not "normally to disappear ... as it is completed"
 * Personally, I applaud this approach in general, having zero interest in a print edition. But Wikipedia may deplore that, even ban it.
 * For the 'pedia, maybe it should expand to an italic blockquote as follows, where the model is "This section is a stub."
 * If a link to a manager or player page is included in the text of a major leaguer biography, Baseball-Reference should be one of the listed References too (presuming that the author used it). Perhaps there should be two templates, one catch-all for listing in References and one with variations --at least player and manager-- for inclusion in articles.

Kirby Puckett
Kirby Puckett is currently in the running for the Article Creation and Improvement Drive. I would appreciate any votes casted by WikiProject members. Thanks! -- Nish kid 64 00:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

template inclusion
I do not know how to edit templates/infoboxes. But i think the MLB Player Infobox needs to include a few more things. Height/Weight, Nickname for example. Any ideas about that? Also I think it would be cool to create a good free agents list, the latest one I saw was from 05-06. I'd be willing to help with that.

I looked through a few different teams players and there are still different templates being used. I think it would be nice if there was one catchall MLB player infobox to use, I think this group is advocating for one, but maybe it could be more complete. Definitely making constructive criticism here, just trying to do my part. So let me know how I can help. I searched around to see if this had been discussed, but it only seems to have been mentioned and maybe a while ago.


 * I agree. At least, we should include height/weight and years experience. Nicknames can be included in the name field (ie. David "Big Papi" Ortiz) to keep the box from getting too bloated. Things like salary (hardly encyclopedic) and college (doesn't apply to many international players & those signed out of high school) don't need to be included. I'm also against listing the draft round/pick where a player was selected, again because it doesn't apply to many players and because many players these days are drafted twice. Caknuck 19:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The thing about nicknames is some people have multiple nicknames. Babe Ruth and Bob Feller for example. Thats why I suggested that it be included in the template. I think it would be cool to get one good template and go through and make the changes for all the mlb teams. So if anyone wants to get in on that let me know. User:seak17.

players Categories
For NA and charter NL clubs (thus 1871-1876), I assessed the "players by team" and "defunct team" categories thoroughly and the reported the current state of affairs completely. See That state of affairs includes my own (re)categorization of some "players by team" categories and "team" articles for consistency. Namely, for the 19 NA clubs that were not NL members, the players by team category is now cat in both Category:National Association baseball players and Category:Major league baseball players by team, which was merely the most common of four possibilities. The team article is now cat in Category:Defunct baseball teams and not in Category:Defunct Major League Baseball teams, which was merely the most common of four possibilities. --P64 18:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Category talk:National Association baseball players
 * Category talk:Major league baseball players by team
 * Category talk:Defunct baseball teams
 * Category talk:Defunct Major League Baseball teams

Infobox questions
I just added the MLBretired infobox to Doug Allison and I had some questions about infobox usage. I used his debut on the Washington Olympics instead of the Red Stockings because that was what was on baseball-reference.com. Should this be changed despite not knowing the date? Should the Red Stockings be added to his teams? It seems like his first time in a 'league' was with the Olympics so maybe that should remain.

The other question I had was regarding what information I could edit out of the article because of the inclusion of the infobox. For example, this paragraph:

Later, Doug Allison played in the major leagues with the Troy Haymakers (1872), Brooklyn Eckfords (1872), Elizabeth Resolutes (1873), New York Mutuals (1873-1874), Hartford Dark Blues (1875-1877), Providence Grays (1878-1879), and one game with the Baltimore Orioles in (1883).

seems redundant with the information given in the box. Any suggestions would be appreciated. -Mattingly23 21:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Headshots
Hey...there's a way to get better headshots of players than the usual MLB.com pics, just copy this link, and replaced the "123245" with the player's ID number on their bio/stats pages.

For example, this is Frank Thomas's image.

http://www.mlb.com/pressbox/photos/headshots_players_coaches/123245_raw.jpg

to get to Doug Mirabelli's image, just go to his MLB.com page copy the jumble of numbers, and delete the Frank Thomas "123245" ID.

You should get this

--CFIF ☎ ⋐ 17:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

A problem user
Hello, I just wanted to say that I think you guys are doing a good job with articles here and for the most part, you hit the notability right on the head. Although the user I am to name is not a member of your project, he has created lots of baseball player articles. User:BurmaShaver has created dozens of articles on players, which are listed on his page. A lot of them are pretty suspect for notability, many of the players that he has made articles for have only played one season, and some only played one or two games. And looking at the articles, a lot of them just have needless trivia points, these articles make someone who has played one major league game look like a hall of famer, and that just isn't good for WP or this project. I also notice that for the dead players, the articles end with "He passed away", which should be changed to "He died", otherwise, it violates non-npov, as it portrays the death too positively and there should not be a trace of opinion in this description. And this user keeps creating articles on players who have literally pitched an inning or have had one at bat. And help would be appreciated. WP is not a junkyard, and I don't want this poorly-written and unnotable articles to trash the reputation of everyone. Tony fanta 17:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with your assessment of User:BurmaShaver's articles, although I don't know what we can do to prevent these articles from existing except for putting them up for deletion. On my user page here you can see the lists I've made while going through the 19th century players - I separate them by notability and only work on those that are notable.  Maybe at some point I'll put some of the non-notable players up for vote for deletion but I'm not wholly convinced that they would get through or even if its worth my time to do so. -Mattingly23 01:24, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I went through the articles he has created on (based on his user page) and I cleaned up nn info and npov statements on the MLB players last named P-Z, if someone wants to work on the other ones, go for it, but I've spent and hour and I'm a bit tired. 68.79.132.216 05:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * According to WP:BIO, "Sportspeople/athletes/competitors who have played in a fully professional league" are notable, so it's likely that deletion would be contested without a consensus being reached. Do I think that Cliff Dapper deserves a WP entry because he played eight games at the start of the 1942 season after many major leaguers enlisted in the armed forces after Pearl Harbor? Certainly not as much as some of the present day big leaguers who are still languishing as redlinks. But at least the guy's thorough... Caknuck 08:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, they have that guideline, but it was created rather haphazardly and there are a fair amount of those who disagree with it, so you never know what could happen. Most of the deletion discussions for those players have ended in no consensus, which means that the WP:BIO isn't airtight.  This user should be discouraged from creating articles on those who have only played one game, and at the least, we should clean up the rest of the articles so that they sound more formal, notable and have a npov. 68.79.132.216 22:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Archive page
I think it would be nice to archive this page. I would suggest we start with anything prior to Sept. 1 2006. Any thoughts?Tecmobowl 22:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Diamondbacks color scheme
The Arizona Diamondbacks have a new color scheme. What is being called "Sonona red", "Sonoran sand" and black. I think it might be helpful to establish a set color scheme for the infoboxes and such. The red looks similar to the color being used on the Indians and Astros boxes. Black is the primary second color. Thoughs and opinions are requested. Wxthewx99 02:27, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Well usually I take the official team logo, go into MS Paint, find the code for RGB and then translate it into Hex and find the appropriate color. I'll try it right now.  Nish kid 64  02:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's the colors: We should now decide which ones should be in the template.  Nish kid 64  02:59, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Black: #161712
 * Sonona red:#C23852
 * Sonoran sand: #ECDEBB
 * bgcolor1: Sonora red; bgcolor2: sand; textcolor1: white; textcolor2: black  Caknuck 21:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Changes to Infoboxes & Templates
Per a discussion i have already started (slightly edited because of new page) I was thinking that some adjustments could be made to the MLB HoF, Infobox Cooperstown, and the Infobox baseball player templates, but I don't know what the process for suggesting changes to templates is. I think the cooperstown box is somewhat unnecessary on pages where the baseball player box has been used. I think the MLB HoF box could be used a lot more, but think it lacks one piece of important information: induction year. Perhaps changing the display text to be: "ARTICLE NAME, inducted in YEAR, is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame."

What do you think?//Tecmobowl 14:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I honestly hadn't looked too hard at those. I see Infobox baseball player already has an "inductiondate" parameter so I'm not sure why Infobox Cooperstown even exists.  I've never been impressed with MLB HoF.  As far as where to start a discussion, I'd think the best option would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball.  Unfortunately, it's questionable how many people have that on their watchlists (it was dormant for so long that I took it off my watchlist for quite a while).  The best way to ensure a lot of participation for baseball discussion is probably to leave a short note on individual users' talk pages directing them to where the actual discussion will be.  You could also leave a note on the templates' talk pages.  —Wknight94 (talk) 14:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see the need for MLB HoF, Infobox Cooperstown, and the Infobox baseball player templates. I thought the standard player templates were Template:Infobox MLB player and Template:Mlbretired, and it would be better to incorporate Hall of Fame info into the retired infobox rather than having its own. - Mattingly23 14:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see a problem with that logic at all. //Tecmobowl 01:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * FYI, I just stumbled across MLB player, which seems to be redundant with Infobox MLB player. Rolando 14:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to ask this, perhaps somebody here can help me. MLB player and have a "Career Highlights" section, which I think is very useful/informative. (See, e.g., highlights in the Willie Mays article. Can this be added to ? -- Sholom 14:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Baseball players - Resources section
I've added a resources section to the project page so everything can share the web resources that they use when editing players' articles. I think it would be helpful to have these links in one centralized place for everyone to use. Please add more links if you want, or if I shouldn't have added the section please remove it. - Mattingly23 15:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia
Beginning cross-post.
 * See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★ MESSED  ROCKER ★  02:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

''End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.''

Did you know? column
Just a reminder to everyone to submit new baseball player articles that have an interesting fact to the Did you know? column that appears on the front page. A few days ago I submitted Heinie Reitz's article after I had made it, and it got on the front page today. You can submit articles here. For it to be accepted, the article has to be new, it has to cite its sources, and it cannot be a stub. - Mattingly23 13:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

All-Star categories per CFD consensus
Recently, there was a massive CFD that converged all yearly All-Star categories into two categories entitled Category:National League All-Stars and Category:American League All-Stars. As a result, there are many duplicates of these categories on baseball pages, so I'm looking for help from fellow project members in helping remove duplicate categories on individual baseball player articles. I suggest using AWB for this, as it detects multiple categories and fixes up those changes, as well as other formatting and grammar changes. Thanks guys,  Nish kid 64  18:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was wondering how they were going to deal with that. I assumed there was a bot that could delete duplicate categories - does anyone know if there actually is? - Mattingly23 18:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll try to look for someone to ask. RobotG was the one who changed all the categories in the first place.  Nish kid 64  21:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I'll manually do it myself using AWB. I've done 200 so far in Category:American League All-Stars, and I have 550 more to go in that category. I will probably have only a few hundred to do from the National League All-Stars, and I expect to be done by the end of the week.  Nish kid 64  21:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Career/season stat templates
I have been working on some templates to describe career and season stats for players. I haven't seen any "standard" templates to use — it seems like virtually every player article uses something different (please correct me if I am wrong) — but I would love to donate them to the community. I have been working on them in my user space, but if the community would like to adopt them, they can be moved.

If anyone wants to collaborate/comment, you can find them at:
 * User:Wayne Miller/Templates/Batting stats (talk)
 * User:Wayne Miller/Templates/Pitching stats (talk)

I don't have a vested interest in the order of the columns, so feel free to move them around.

Full disclosure: I copied at least some of the look and feel from Template:Baseball stats. --Wayne Miller 21:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Since it appears that stats are going to be removed from articles (and since no one, not even me, is using them) I'm just going have these templates deleted. (Just in case any future readers wonder why the links are red.)  --Wayne Miller 15:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball 1876
The WikiProject Baseball 1876, an inactive WikiProject about the early days of Baseball is currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball 1876. Members of this WikiProject are invited to comment. (Thanks to Thryduulf for the idea of notifying the related projects). —Wknight94 (talk) 15:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about splitting YYYY in baseball articles...
...is going on at Talk:List of MLB seasons. This isn't biography-related specifically but there seems to be overlap between WP:WPBB and WP:WPBBP anyway. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox MLB player
I just changed a stat label for Infobox MLB player. I replaced the word "Teams" with "Former teams", as this is more accurate. The template specifically uses "former teams" in the labeling, so it would only be appropriate for it to be stated on the infobox. Many people have been adding current teams to that list of teams, and it has been reverted previously. Hopefully, this will clear things up.  Nish kid 64  01:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * So does this mean that current teams should be removed? This is something that I have considered doing, but it seems that some people are adding current teams to the "former teams" list. ADman


 * I've been wondering since I got involved with this project why the header is "Former teams". It doesn't make sense to me not to list the years the player has been with his current team. --Sanfranman59 06:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Since people keep adding the current team to the list of former teams, I'm guessing it's not an intuitive heading and should be changed. --Kathy A. 23:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, but it is currently flawed. Do you suggest that the template be changed so that it doesn't say former teams?  Then current teams could accurately be added.  I don't really know much about proposing those kinds of things and getting templates changed, but it does seem like something should be done about it. ADman 10:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * My preference would be to change the header from "Former teams" to just "Teams". I'm guessing that there was at least some discussion of this when this project first implemented the infoboxes, but I haven't yet taken the time to track it down in the archives. Do any of you WP:WPBB vets have any history on this? --Sanfranman59 22:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I've gotten into it with this whiny guy named User:MetsFan153 about this. I've undone some edits he has made placing the current teams in the infoboxes under former teams. I agree this system is flawed and it should just be 'Teams' but it isn't right now. He wants me to "leave as is" but he's not doing that, considering his edits have come today. My view is that right now, it says Former teams whether it's a good idea or not. Because of that, a current team should not be listed because given the current heading, it is false information.Chris Nelson 02:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

A member has recently gone around and starting editing out all the current teams, after I specifically referred him to a previous discussion, and he gave some wise guy answer, saying basically I'll do what I want and I don't care what others say, (on my talkpage). Anyway we should really come to a decision on this to keep at former teams and remove all the current teams from all players to revert former teams back to Teams and add current teams, which is my preference because you have a player like John Smoltz who has been with the Braves since the late 80's. We should really come to a decision on this. MetsFan153 02:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposition of a merge between WPBB and WPBBP
A discussion is under way at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baseball about a merger between WPBB and WPBBP, please comment there --Borgarde 00:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Baseball FAR
Baseball has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 20:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Picture Question
I'm new to infoboxes, so excuse me if this is a stupid newb question I could found an answer to elsewhere, but is there a way I can thumbnail an image used in an infobox? Some seem to do it automatically, but others are huge and distracting. I was trying to shrink the images on Chris Shelton and Jose Mesa, but couldn't figure it out. I'm assuming it has something to do with the markup not being read, but I couldn't get the nowiki tags right. Thanks. --Djrobgordon 03:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Sandy Koufax FAR
Sandy Koufax has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 22:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism patrol
I've noticed that baseball articles seem to attract a fair number of vandals -- more than I can keep up with, so I'd love a little help from other project members. Here's my method: (And suggestions for improving efficiency are always welcome!)

When I log on to Wikipedia, I cruise over to the Chicago Cubs all-time roster page, and hit the Related changes link on the left sidebar. This brings up a list of all the pages the roster links to that have been changed recently. I start working down the list, clicking on the "diff" link for each page to see if the change was vandalism. (It also alerts me to new pages that might need cleanup, such as sources, categories, stubs, etc.). Of course, I quickly learn which editors are not problems, and can skip all of their edits. If I have time, I cruise on over to another all time roster or one of the baseball categories to check those changes, too.

Anyone want to help with the vandal patrol? I'll be glad to walk you through it if you need help. Kathy A. 17:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Help for newb please
Hello. I'm a newbie to this project and a relative newbie as a Wiki editor. I'm looking for some guidance about how to get started here. As a long-suffering, die-hard Indians fan, I thought I'd try pitching in with standardizing the infoboxes on the player pages. I have some questions about the infobox template:


 * (1) Career stats seem to be common in the infobox for most player pages I've reviewed. However, the current template doesn't include stat parameters. Is the standard to include or not to include stats?


 * (2) The template doesn't include a parameter for teams played for either yet most player pages seem to have this information in their infobox. Is the standard to include this information? Is the current team supposed to be listed? If the current team does not belong here, is there some other place to enter when the player was acquired by the current team?


 * (3) The template includes parameters for feet and inches as well as for height. Is this a mistake?

Regarding the content of the articles, is a section with a table of year-by-year player stats considered to be appropriate or is it best to simply include an external link to the player's page on baseball-reference.com or some other site?

Thanks in advance for any and all input. Sanfranman59 06:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I was writing up a response here, but it got a little long, so I'm leaving it on you talk page. Hope it helps. --Djrobgordon 07:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

All Time Rosters
I started a discussion about the All Time Rosters over at WikiProject Baseball (which you can read here). A preliminary consensus was reached, and Djrobgordon suggested I bring it over here for more discussion and work.

Background: I find the all-time rosters useful, and I've spent some time creating a couple of new ones and checking lots of links. In doing so, I've noticed the rosters are pretty varied, both in format, but more importantly in what information they contain. Some of the rosters only contain a list of names of players for that team who have Wikipedia articles (and no other information), which makes them a duplicate of the "abc team players" category. This is discouraged by Wikipedia, so those rosters definitely need some work.

Summary from the previous discussion: include all (and only) players who played at least one game for that team, include the years they played for that team, include where they played the most for that team (P, C, IF, OF), and include HOF as appropriate. Also include a paragraph at the beginning of each roster saying who is included.

As I've been working on some rosters since then, I've also realized that DH and PH should also be added to the list of positions.

Having a template for the beginning paragraph for the rosters would be nice, so we could have a standard wording. (I'd love suggestions on the wording.) Standard formatting would be nice, too.

Any thoughts?--Kathy A. 18:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I looked at a couple of all-time rosters yesterday also as I was trying to decide how I want to pitch in on this project. Another issue is that many of the Wiki links point to an article about another person with the same name as the player. Is it best to fix these by adding (baseball player) in parentheses as part of the Wiki link? In many cases, I think it's unlikely that articles will ever be created for the player and it may be best to not Wiki-link the names at all. Otoh, keeping the Wiki-links makes it easy to scan the list of players for those that don't have an article yet. Are there any WP guidelines about this type of thing? Sanfranman59 23:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been using AWB to check the links on the rosters and fix as needed. My process has been if the link goes to the wrong page to manually search for the right page. If I can find the right one, I change the link, otherwise I remove the link (but not the entry). IMHO, better to have no link than the wrong one -- a new Wikipedia user would be less confused by no link than by a link that goes to some completely different person.


 * With this method, it's still easy to see who doesn't have an article. If you're using the default skin, redlinks and black text have no article, blue links do.--Kathy A. 02:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Soliciting feedback
I've recently caught the WP bug and decided to combine it with one of my other passions: The Tribe. Initially, I'd planned to just add infoboxes to players who don't have them and do some fact-checking. But I've gotten a little more ambitious and begun to make some more substantial edits to the articles. As a relative newbie, I'd appreciate any feedback experienced members of this project might have about what I've been doing. Here's my [contributions page]. Thanks! Sanfranman59 01:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good so far. Nobody around here will ever knock you for adding references, templates and infoboxes to articles. Keep at it! Caknuck 01:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

newhan -- are spring training stats trivial?
not for guys trying to make the team in spring training, they are not. more important than minor league stats, as the major league staff is watching. imho. --Epeefleche 23:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you going to post stats for Milledge, Ben Johnson, Anderson Hernandez etc?? The thing is, minor league stats are conserved and remembered years to come...they span a greater amount of time and show development. Spring training stats, more or less, are thrown out the window...it's a time for pitchers to try new things and it's more about getting into shape. We can discuss this further but it probably be best to refer it to wiki-project baseball. SERSeanCrane 23:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If I followed them, yes, I would post their stats.

Spring training serves different purposes for different players. What you say as to spring training being about getting into shape is the case for players who have made the team, but that is not what it is about for Newhan. For Newhan, it is about impressing Willie and the coaching staff, so that they pick him for the team.

And as to spring training stats being thown out the window, the trend is the reverse. See, for example, http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/N/David-Newhan.shtml, in which you can see that Newhan didn't have very good springs hitting wise in 2005 and 2006.

As far as referring it to wiki-project baseball, that sounds fine to me if you are unwilling to undo your revert.

Might I prevail upon you to do it for me, as I am not sure how that is done.

Thanks. --Epeefleche 00:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking for more feedback
I've just completed a substantial rewrite of the Jeremy Sowers article and am posting this message to solicit comments about it before I replace the existing article. You can find my rewrite here: User:Sanfranman59/Sowers. As this is my first substantial article contribution, I'd appreciate any and all feedback.

I'd particularly like guidance/thoughts about the following:
 * I deleted the Stats table. It doesn't seem to me that it belongs in an encyclopedic article, but I feel a little reticent to dump it since someone seems to have put a great deal of effort into it.
 * Dead link - I deleted the reference link to Rick Bozich's Courier-Journal article because the page no longer exists on the website. Since the reference wasn't linked to any specific statement(s) in the article, I didn't see a reason to keep it there. Is this reasonable or would it be better to leave the reference there and note it as a dead link? (Aren't references supposed to be linked to statements in the article?)
 * Categories:
 * WP categories are a little overwhelming. Is there a standard set of categories that should be used for player articles?
 * More specifically, Sowers was born in Ohio, but grew up in Louisville, KY. I wasn't clear about whether I should use Ohio or Kentucky as the "Major League Players from" category.
 * Is it appropriate to include the "People from Louisville" category in this type of situation?
 * I'm surprised that there's not a category for people who attended/graduated from/are associated with Vanderbilt University ... at least I couldn't find one. How does one search WP for such a category?
 * Finally, what is the protocol for doing a complete overhaul of an article like this? Is it considered bad form to simply overwrite what's out there and wait to see if anyone complains? Is there a way to be more proactive in soliciting input before doing so (e.g., what I'm doing here)?

Thanks in advance for your input! Sanfranman59 02:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * As suggested, I've moved this discussion to User_talk:Sanfranman59/Sowers so as not to clutter up the project's discussion page. Please add your comments there. Thanks! Sanfranman59 01:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Watchlistbot?
Has anyone else noticed that Watchlistbot has tagged the discussion pages of everyone who's ever played even one game for either the Astros or the Rangers with "This article is part of WikiProject Texas, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Texas."? It seems to me that this needlessly clutters up the discussion pages and sets a bad precedent. I hope it's not going to be run for every US state! Just think what Jesse Orosco's discussion page could end up looking like! Can/Should anything be done about this? Sanfranman59 19:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Baseball card images
Anyone know if we're permitted to use baseball card images on player pages? Baseball Almanac has them on most of their player pages. Sanfranman59 20:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all an expert on fair use criteria, but I know that when magazine covers are used, the image has to serve a purpose other than being a portrait of the subject. For instance, Image:SI cover July 1999 Brandi Chastain.jpg is fair use on Brandi Chastain because it's an iconic shot that illustrates the moment she is most famous for.  A posed cover shot probably wouldn't be acceptable for that article.  Point being, if you can find a baseball card illustrating a unique or noteworthy aspect of a player (such as a picture of Chad Bradford in the middle of his submariner delivery) it may be usable.  A portrait, unless copyright has expired on the card, probably is not.  You should look at WP:Fair use to get a more thorough and official view of the subject.--Djrobgordon 22:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback, DJ. I've glanced at WP:Fair use on several occasions in the past and my eyes have always glazed over. No big deal. Personally, I don't care for a lot of the photos I see on player pages here. Some of them look to me like they're taken by people attending games and are not very good quality, imho. My preference is for no image at all if the only other option is something like that. Sanfranman59 23:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Moe Berg FAR
Moe Berg has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 01:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Newby Here!
I have just joined Wikiproject baseball and I would like to join the baseball player task force. Any suggestions would be great.GoldenIrish 03:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)GoldenIrish

Images
I have several images from a recent Mets spring training game including some of players who have no photo. If I have an image of a player from the back (right handed pitcher taken from right field stands) and no better image is available should I add it?
 * If you can see the guy's face, then by all means, add it to the page. All free-use images are welcome here.  Nish kid 64  00:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes
I think we should add the age of a player to the MLB Infoboxes, like on the football ones.
 * This would require yearly maintenance for every single player. Ugh. Perhaps adding the date of birth to the info box might give you the info you want without requiring all the maintenance?--Kathy A. 13:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
 * would work fine for this. For instance, November 6, 1922 gives the result of November 6, 1922. Caknuck 19:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of including age information in the infobox and agree with Caknuck that the birthdate and age template is the way to go. --Sanfranman59 04:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * yeah i agree but how do we do that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.83.16.137 (talk • contribs)
 * I've updated the template to use . To use it, add the line " birthdate=yyyy| " (ignoring the quotes & replacing the "yyyy" with the year, etc...) to the infobox fields in the player's article (below the "throws=" field should work best). Check out Ron Mahay (diff) if you need an example. I'm not savvy enough with templates to figure out how to eliminate that blank row between the Position and Born fields, so any help there would be appreciated. Caknuck 04:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. I have no idea how to modify the template but I'm not sure what you mean by the blank rows between the Position and Born fields. When I look at the Ron Mahay page, I see a double-lined between Position and Born, but not really a blank row. The double-line seems to be in all of the infoboxes after the Position row. --Sanfranman59 05:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The double line is a blank row (I think). It only showed up after I added the birthdate. It'll still work for now. Caknuck 07:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Even with the blank line, it looks good to me. Should we start adding this info, or hold off until the blank line issue is fixed? (I probably wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't drawn my attention to it.)--Kathy A. 13:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * We can go ahead and start adding the dates in now. The blank line (once I figure out where it is) can be deleted from the template without having to go back to all of the individual player articles to make changes. So get crackin'! :) Caknuck 18:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it looks good--Bucs10 22:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)Bucs10
 * Can You also add the date of birth to the infoboxes that players like Joe Torre,Don Mattingly, Jeff Bagwell, etc. have--Bucs10 02:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Bucs10

Naming conventions
There are a few problems with article titles for baseball players. In cases where player articles have been disambiguated, the naming has been haphazard. I've noted the two most common instances below, so let's discuss away.

It should fall upon this WikiProject to establish a set of standard naming conventions to disambiguate ballplayers, and then rename all of the articles as necessary.

I'll put a notice on the main Project board to invite the other Project BB members, as well as an invite to Mayumashu. Your feedback would be appreciated! Caknuck 20:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm also going to post a link to this discussion at the Village Pump and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions to try to generate some kind of consensus. Caknuck 18:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

"(baseball)" vs. "(baseball player)"
(See Lee Smith (baseball) vs. Dave Smith (baseball player))

Recently, Mayumashu has moved a number of baseball player bio articles from "XXX XXXX (baseball player)" to "XXX XXXX (baseball)". To date, the moves have been piecemeal, meaning that there are numerous articles using both conventions in circulation. Caknuck 20:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Even the redirects are contradictory. For instance Lee Smith (baseball player) redirects to Lee Smith (baseball), but Dave Smith (baseball) redirects to Dave Smith (baseball player). Seems goofy to me. Caknuck 20:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I ve done the same for soccer players (in countries where soccer is the word of choose not football), tennis players, and rugby players. Adding the word "player" makes the name unnecessary long and in some cases the person being named becomes a notable coach or commentator (or pundit), which renders the naming unnecessary restrictive Mayumashu 00:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Per WP:D, If there is a choice between disambiguating with a generic class or with a context, choose whichever is simpler. Use the same disambiguating phrase for other topics within the same context. For example, "(mythology)" rather than "(mythological figure)".. In this case, using "(baseball)" makes more sense. Plus, it does leave wiggle room for managers and umpires as a second level of disambiguation (see below). Caknuck 20:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This certainly is a problem. Here is even another way that someone has been named - Christopher Michael Woodward.  I agree that "(baseball)" absolutely makes the most sense.  I would help standardize this, but I don't really even know how.  When we come to an agreement, I will be happy to help. ADman 11:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

"(RHP)" vs. "(right-handed pitcher)" vs. "(pitcher)" etc...
Honestly, take a look at the myriad of naming conventions in use now:
 * Matt Miller (baseball RHP)
 * Ramón Martínez (baseball pitcher) {as opposed to Ramón Martínez (baseball infielder))
 * John Patterson (pitcher)
 * Bob Adams (AL baseball pitcher)
 * Dutch Leonard (left-handed pitcher)
 * Rube Foster (AL pitcher)
 * Nick Cullop (MLB pitcher)
 * Frank Smith (starting pitcher)
 * Joe Coleman (MLB pitcher 1965-1979) (as opposed to Joe Coleman (MLB pitcher 1942-1955))
 * Bob Miller (1960s pitcher)
 * Rich Rodriguez (L.H. pitcher)
 * Tom Baker (1963 pitcher)
 * John O'Donoghue (short career) (as opposed toJohn O'Donoghue (baseball))

This, quite frankly, is a mess. Per WP:NAME, we should avoid abbreviations, so "RHP", "AL" & "MLB" should be tossed. Years played make sense, but could be confusing for overlapping careers.

Proposal
I propose the following naming convention. If we can reach a consensus, I'll post it at Naming conventions (baseball) for discussion in the greater community.

Here goes...
 * 1) Where disambiguation is necessary between a baseball player and another person unrelated to baseball, then the baseball player be disambiguated (if less notable than the subject of the other article) using "(baseball)" in the article name. For example: Lee Smith (baseball)
 * 2) Where disambiguation is necessary between two (or more) baseball players who play different positions, the position should be added to the article name. For example: Ramón Martínez (baseball pitcher) and Ramón Martínez (baseball infielder)
 * 3) Where disambiguation is necessary between two (or more) baseball players who play the same positions, further disambiguation should be achieved using the years of birth played or birth. ''For example: Joe Coleman (MLB pitcher 1942-1955) would be renamed to Joe Coleman (baseball pitcher, born 1922) and Joe Coleman (MLB pitcher 1965-1979) would be renamed Joe Coleman (baseball pitcher, born 1947).

Please respond with your comments/suggestions/feedback. Caknuck 20:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * For your third point you say use year of birth, but then you use years played. I think year of birth is probably better because for active players will not have a final season.  Otherwise this looks like a great solution. - Mattingly23 21:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, I think years played would be better, because a reader looking for the article would be more likely to know when the player played over when he was born. And to me it reads better next to the position descriptor. For active players, "Joe Smith (baseball pitcher 2001-)" or Joe Smith (baseball pitcher 2001-current)" or -active would do. Now, what if two active Joe Smith pitchers started the same year...? Never mind. -- JHunterJ 23:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * My original draft used year of birth, but then I changed my mind and decided to go with years of career. I just forgot to change the text prior to leaving work this afternoon. Caknuck 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I like 1. For 2, I vote to omit "baseball".  Just Ramón Martínez (pitcher) and Ramón Martínez (infielder).  For 3, I dislike years in article names.  I'd prefer anything else - although you picked a good example with the Joe Colemans.  I can't come up with anything better.  Maybe just Joe Coleman (senior) and Joe Coleman (junior).  —Wknight94 (talk) 00:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * But "junior" and "senior" won't help a reader who is looking for "Joe Coleman" and didn't even know there were two to choose from. It would get worse if there were ever three on a name/position match. -- JHunterJ 01:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Really, only year of birth or years of career will work as a standard. Both have their flaws. The former leaves it open for the rare instance that two players who were born in the same year make the majors playing the same position. The latter leaves some confusion regarding players with the same name who have overlapping careers. Unfortunately, I can't see an elegant solution to this. Year of birth is more specific, but years playing is more helpful to identify the correct player when given the options available. I'm leaning towards the second of the two options right now. Caknuck 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 1 and 2 work well for me. (I'd prefer to see the word baseball left in, as it would be less confusing for people looking at disambiguation pages). For 3, while years played would be helpful, there isn't a good way to use that for current players without forcing a renaming of the page at some future time. --Kathy A. 15:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd forgotten about that. Another thing working against the career years is that the casual reader may mistake them for the years of birth and death instead of their tenure in baseball. Year of birth then? Caknuck 15:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * When possible, how about another proposal item to say (Tigers pitcher) or (1930s outfielder) or basically anything but year of birth? To me, year of birth would be a last resort as I don't know when any player was born.  I would have no idea what is meant by Bobby Jones (born 1972) but Bobby Jones (right-handed pitcher) would be pretty clear as well as brief and unique.  —Wknight94 (talk) 16:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Date of birth would only be used in the rare instances when position failed to differentiate between players. The key here is to establish a set of conventions so we don't have the mess of different naming styles like now. Look at the Joe Colemans (linked above), both played for the A's and Tigers, and both played for at least three different teams. Both of the Ramon Martinezes played for the Dodgers, and each for at least three different clubs. Using teams as a disambiguation tool doesn't seem reliable. And in your Bobby Jones example, the article would be titled Bobby Jones (baseball pitcher, born 1972) (and then only if there were two or more pitchers named Bobby Jones). Again, no system will work perfectly, almost anything is better than the mess of article names above. Caknuck 19:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh I know teams are not reliable - I'm just saying I would want to see that higher on the precedence list than birth date. I'll agree the Joe Colemans would probably need to go all the way to birth year but I'd like to avoid that whenever possible.  To sign off on a cast-in-stone naming convention, I'd want to see 3. For pitchers, use (right-handed pitcher) if possible; 4. Use team, e.g. (Tigers shortstop) if possible; 5. Use league, e.g. (National League pitcher) if possible; 6. Use decade, e.g. (1950s outfielder) if possible; 7. Use year of birth.  —Wknight94 (talk) 22:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (I think that's enough colons...) I can't condone using team or league in article titles, because a) they're subject to change over the course of a career and b) it would confuse things more than help with active players (possibly resulting in numerous article moves and duplications). How about 3. Pitcher handedness ("right-handed pitcher" and "left-handed pitcher"), 4. Decade and 5. Year of birth? Good compromise? Caknuck 04:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Plus, anything's better than the O'Donoghues above. (I just added a new example further up in the article.) This is a textbook example how not to disambiguate! Caknuck 13:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

If there are no other comments, then I'll go ahead and put together a final draft for the naming conventions. And if we can come to a consensus on that, I'll post it to Naming conventions (baseball players). Caknuck 08:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

 players categories
There are categories for players who have played on various minor league teams (e.g., Category:Kinston Indians players). An anonymous editor added the Kinston Indians category to Cliff Lee's article, although he's only appeared in one game for them prior to this season during a rehab assignment in 2003 (he's supposed to pitch a couple of innings for them tonight). Since I don't think that players on rehab assignments are even added to the official minor league team roster, it seems to me that we shouldn't put the categories on the player pages in these situations. I'd like to get some consensus on this issue. Does anyone recall any discussion of this in the past? --Sanfranman59 17:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * There is at least one editor here who is quite determined to get Kinston Indians players into Wikipedia. I have not seen consensus on that issue at all and that editor (Nick something) seems to be alone (or in a very small club) in this quest.  I have personally started AFDs on some of the Kinston Indians players but that was a while ago and I have not seen much activity since.  —Wknight94 (talk) 18:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * He is listed on their roster at their website If these categories are going to exist, they should be as complete as possible or they're useless. If one game is not enough for inclusion, what's the cutoff? Two games? Five games? Either he played for them or he didn't, and he did. 69.68.238.142 20:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's reasonable to make an exception in the case of a rehab assignment where I don't think the major league player goes onto the official minor league roster. Although Lee is listed at the link you provide, he has no uniform number and there are 25 other names, which I think implies that he's not on the official roster. In the current example, the only reason Lee is making an appearance with Kinston is because Northeast Ohio is covered with snow. Otherwise, he'd be making his rehab appearance this week for Akron. My guess is that after the weather turns for the better, that's where he'll go.


 * Actually, I don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other. I just wanted to put it out there to see if we could get some consensus. --Sanfranman59 01:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * He pitched for them, it was a regular season game, he was on their roster, he's on the Carolina League leader board, he wore their uniform, his stats counted, the hitters' stats against him are on their official records, when you look him up in Who's Who in Baseball next year there'll be a Kinston line, he was a Kinston Indian. It doesn't matter why he was there or for how long, he was there.Kinston eagle 11:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't feel too strongly one way or the other, but I'll still add my two cents. For the minor league teams, I think anyone who a) has been on the official roster and b) has played in at least one game should be in the category. If I had to choose only one of the two conditions, I'd say b is more important than a. However, I don't think every career minor leaguer needs an article, because they don't meet WP:NOTABILITY. (I also think consistency is important, and there should be some rhyme and reason as to which minor league teams have player categories). --Kathy A. 15:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Kathy, I don't know the link, but it has already been decided that players who have never been to the majors are not notable enough for their own articles. These categories are mainly for major league players who used to be on those minor league teams. Which brings up another debate. If these categories are deemed useful and are kept, wouldn't they be more accurate if they were titled something like - Category:Former Kinston Indians - since most current minor leaguers are not notable enough to have their own articles. I'm starting to see why Citizendium is doing away with categories altogether. All the time debating about categories could be better spent adding usable content.Kinston eagle 18:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * One final thing from me to consider. Early in Ty Cobb's career, he was suspended for a number of games for being his normal self, but on this occassion his teammates actually stuck by him and sat out a game in protest. The Tigers were forced to field a team of replacement players, most of whom had never played MLB and never would again. Yet, all the record books, encyclopedias, and baseball-reference.com list these guys as official members of the team for that season. A more wiki-relevant example is Eddie Gaedel, the famous midget brought in as a publicity stunt for one at-bat. Again he is listed in all the sources as a legitimate member of the team and is included in the wikipedia category Category:St. Louis Browns players. The fact that a player appeared for only one game or that he played for a limited one time purpose should have no bearing on whether they should be considered to have been a member of the team in question.Kinston eagle 18:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the lively and thoughtful discussion, everyone. I now find myself leaning the opposite direction of where I was when this debate began. I think the KISS principle applies here as well (keep it simple, stupid). If we're going to have the categories, it will be much easier to decide if someone belongs in the category if it's simply based on whether or not they played an official game with the team. --Sanfranman59 01:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Birth Date on Baseball Infoboxes
I think we should put a persons birth date on the MLB infoboxes like on the football, basketball and Celebritys. I think we should add June 26, 1974, which would be Derek Jeters.--Bucs10 21:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)Bucs10
 * Bucs10, there is an open discussion about that very topic a little to the north of here. Please help us come to a decision there. Thanks, Caknuck 00:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing stub tags from articles
Newbie question here ... What is the process for getting a stub tag removed from a player/coach article? I did some work on Dan Williams today and think that it may no longer be a stub (don't ask me why I chose to work on such an obscure page). Is it kosher for me to simply remove the tag myself or is the article supposed to go through some sort of review process first? --Sanfranman59 23:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Check out Stub for reference: Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes a larger article, any editor may remove its stub template. No administrator action or formal permission is needed. Many articles still marked as stubs have in fact been expanded beyond what is regarded as stub size. Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable. The article you worked on is definitely not a stub, so I removed it. One tip on citations: if you are citing from a source multiple times, name the reference the first time, and then use that shorthand throughout the rest of the article.  I did this in the article as well, so you can look at it for an example. - Mattingly23 01:09, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip! --Sanfranman59 02:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

HOF Infobox
Hi all! I'm kind of new here, and am going around putting infoboxes on some retired players. However, something is unclear. What infobox are we supposed to put on HOF players. The link on the project page is redlinked. I see a couple of diffent styles. Babe Ruth just has the retired players infobox, while Cal Ripken has one that's not nearly as attractive. Seeing as we should be looking for consistency here, what should we do?Duckblazer 04:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The one with Babe Ruth is much better considering it has color and is much nicer looking.

Yeah the one that Babe Ruth has is much better--Yankees10 22:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)Yankees10

I am actually starting to change the infoboxes that Cal Ripken had to ones that Babe Ruth has, so if you would like to also change them you can change players like Willie Mays, Mark McGwire, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Tony Gwynn, etc.--Yankees10 23:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)Yankees10

Former Teams on Infobox
A member has recently gone around and starting editing out all the current teams, after I specifically referred him to a previous discussion on this later, and he gave some wise guy answer, saying basically I'll do what I want and I don't care what others say, (on my talkpage). Anyway we should really come to a decision on this to keep at former teams and remove all the current teams from all players to revert former teams back to Teams and add current teams, which is my preference because you have a player like John Smoltz who has been with the Braves since the late 80's. We should really come to a decision on this. MetsFan153 02:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not making the edits because "I do what I want." I'm making them because the template CURRENTLY says 'Former teams' and therefore putting the current team in that spot is false information. I agree, the template should be changed. But making the edits he's making is premature.Chris Nelson 02:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am definitely in favor of changing the heading to say "Teams" instead of "Former teams". I think it's useful to know at a glance how long a player has been with his current team. It makes no sense to me to list the years with his former teams but not those with his current team. --Sanfranman59 02:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you Sanfranman, this guy just doesn't get it, too leave everything as is, until a decision is reached, he just went around and edited out the current teams out of a lot of players because he thinks its wrong, even when on this page it said to leave as is, by yourself and other respected editors. Continue good work on your valuable edits on here. MetsFan153 02:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 1. I said I was in favor of changing the template too, so Sanfranman and I agreed.
 * 2. YOU added the current teams TODAY. How is that "leaving this as is" until a decision is reached. Your edits are premature. Mine are correct. I don't know what you want me to tell you on this one. You're in the wrong.Chris Nelson 02:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually my edits today were on 1 team on about 5-6 players, get your facts straight first. MetsFan153 02:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Totally not addressing the point.Chris Nelson 03:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the infobox should say Teams instead of Former Teams.--Yankees10 23:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)Yankees10


 * I agree. "Former teams" doesn't make much sense. And Chrisjnelson and MetsFan153: I understand you're both upset with each other and feel you're in the right, but attacking each other isn't helping things. How about if everyone leaves the information alone, right or wrong, until people chime in on the template and everything can be standardized? You're both actually on the same side: correct information. -Phoenixrod 15:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then we have to go around all current player pages to make sure the stat label is correct, and that it includes the current team of the player. When I was updating templates, I counted it as "formerteams", and after I saw users adding current teams, I also make a revision to the original baseball player infobox template. Nishkid64 (talk)  22:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * So Nish, I can't tell from your note if you're in favor of making the change or not. Do you have a position? --Sanfranman59 23:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I wasn't really stating my position in the previous remark. I'm just mentioning that it would be a pain in the ass to make all the necessary corrections now, when most of the existing ballplayer pages only list former teams. Of course, if we're an encyclopedia, we need to keep our information easily accessible, so it may be best to change the template to include "teams" instead of "formerteams". Nishkid64 (talk)  23:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It may not be as much work as you think. I think quite a few of the pages have the players' current team listed already. --Sanfranman59 23:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm also in favor of having all the teams listed, but only once the box is changed to say "Teams" or "Major league teams" instead of "Former Teams." As it is, it is definitely inaccurate information, and above all considerations of standardization, pretty infoboxes, etc., Wikipedia has to be accurate.  -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 02:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Myke and Chris and everyone else. Unless the box is changed to say "Teams", please do not put a player's current team in the list. It makes no semantic sense to put a player's current team under "Former Teams". I would support changing it to "Teams" but that's a lot of work. Rhobite 01:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * So there seems to be general consensus on this issue (at least among the few of us who have commented). As a relative WP noob, I'm not completely sure what the process is supposed to be in these situations. Are we supposed to take an official poll or something? I'd hate to see this die without coming to some kind of final decision and taking action (as I've often seen happen in my short time as a WP regular). Do we need to solicit more comments from the community by posting notes on active editors' talk pages? Or do we just give it a few more days to see if anyone else wants to chime in? Or shall we move ahead with changing the infobox to say "Teams" (or maybe "Major League Teams" or do we want to leave the door open for other professional league teams around the world as has been done with Brian Sikorski)? Hmmm ... an awful lot of "or's" there! --Sanfranman59 18:10, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so I went ahead and changed the template. "former teams" is still an option (to be removed in the future) but now if you list teams=... it will say "Teams" instead. I also added some more documentation on stats based on the information below. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 19:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Also made sure that the first 50 links on "What links here" for the infobox were correct. Seems to include some high profile players.  I left alone whatever was in the box and just made sure that if it included (-present) that the box was labeled "Teams" and if not, "Former teams."  For retired players, I think "Teams" is more appropriate, but "Former teams" works as well, I suppose, though it seems too obvious to me.

So this is where this moronic idea came from. The infobox already has the fact that David Wells is currently on the Padres. The infobox is color coded to indicate that he is on the Padres. The infobox has a large picture of him pitching for the Padres. The opening lines of the article specifically state that he is currently with the Padres. Do I really need to be told once again at the bottom of the infobox that he is currently with the Padres? This is the height of redundant BS. If there were a redundancy barnstar, I would award it to you guys for your tireless efforts.Kinston eagle 09:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)