BR Bullpen:Featured Article Candidates

Nomination procedure Check the featured criteria and make sure the entry meets all of them before nominating. Place ===[[name of nominated entry]]=== at the top of the approprite list of featured entries. Below it, write your reason for nominating the entry. Supporting and objecting Please read nominated articles fully before deciding to support or oppose a nomination. To edit nominations in order to comment on them, you must click the "edit" link to the right of the article nomination on which you wish to comment (not the overall page's "edit this page" link). If you believe an article meets all of the criteria, write '''Support''' followed by your reasons. If you oppose a nomination, write '''Object''' followed by the reason for your objection. Each objection must provide a specific rationale that can be addressed. If nothing can be done in principle to "fix" the source of the objection, the objection may be ignored. To withdraw an objection, strike it out (with <s>...</s>) rather than removing it. Resolution Please read nominated articles fully before deciding to support or oppose a nomination. A nomination will become a featured entry if there is no objections to the entry or if all objections are "fixed". An entry must have three support votes other than its nominator.

Featured Article

Max Scherzer

Support We need the Joe Robinson link filled in, though. Not sure if he's one of the Joe Robinsons who played in the pros. I found something from his 2017 retirement saying he had 50 years in pro ball, so he could be this Joe Robinson? - Mischa (talk) 15:52, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Support I've added a sentence about his most recent season, and a paragraph summing up his career and why he's an almost certain Hall of Famer. This could also serve to draft the lede paragraph if this becomes a featured article. Philippe (talk) 13:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Neutral Might want to break the paragraphs into smaller chunks as there are some mighty large blocks of text there. Could potentially use subheads. Could potentially use another image. Content is good. 11:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I fixed the subheader issue. The long paragraphs go season-by-season, so that seems reasonable to me as a way to keep like information together. Two images is probably around the average for a featured article. Occasionally we have more, like Owen Ozanich, but many only have one. Not sure if that's enough to swing either of you guys from Neutral to Support, but figured I would address them. Looking at the article again, maybe some coverage of his amateur career would be useful. - Mischa (talk) 20:38, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Still needs an introduction too. Philippe (talk) 14:23, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Support I agree that some of the paragraphs could be broken up, and there's nothing about his minor league numbers prior to his debut with the Tigers. Might think about breaking up some of the sections as well, but overall, it would make a good featured article. (D.C. Lundberg (talk) 05:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC))

Support I added an image. Now all is well. Alex (talk) 22:15, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

With that, I think you can go ahead and make Mad max our next featured article. Philippe (talk) 14:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Smoky Joe Wood

He is my suggestion for the next featured article so vote on this I guess. Cody n Nelli (talk) 03:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose (for now): the article is short by our standards. SadGoth: if you're interested, why don't you take on fleshing it out as a project. You could start by mining the SABR Bio Project article for info, but there's a lot more available in other sources (for example, his performance in World Series play). See the work Mischa did recently bringing the Arky Vaughan article up to featured article standards. Philippe (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Neutral There were complaints that the Ayami Sato article was too short when I proposed that and this is shorter. OTOH, he is an interesting player. I'd support it if it was expanded more. We probably don't want to copy the SABR BioProject too much so that our articles are distinctive. Maybe there are some books he could use as reference? My other thought is that we tend to alternate featured articles of 1) Fairly notable MLB player-to-star (ex. Charlie Hough, Tommy Leach or Dock Ellis) 2) More obscure MLB player or non-MLB player (ex. Benny Distefano, Owen Ozanich or Koichi Tabuchi) 3) Event or team (ex. Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, 1983 Expos or 2007 Japan Series)

so it would probably go on the back burner (like the 2010 European Cup did for a while)

- Mischa (talk) 15:41, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose We already had Arky Vaughan recently, I thought having another pre-1940 player was not proper. Also, this article itself didn't met our standards, and SadGoth should first improved the article then we can started to discuss whether it should be featured or not - Rugosa1134 (talk) 15:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Ayami Sato

• Support We've never had a featured article for a female player and she's been one of the best. - Mischa (talk) 18:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
• Support It's time indeed for an article on a female player to be featured, and she has a great track record. Philippe (talk) 19:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not going to support someone just because they fit a demographic checklist. The article on its merits doesn't fit our standards. Too short (compare hers to all our most recent featured articles). Sourcing is weak, number of images are pretty weak. Alexsautographs (talk) 22:53, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Responding to different points raised -

• 1) I wasn't meaning that we need to check off numerous demographic boxes. No featured player from New Mexico? Let's put Ralph Kiner in! No player over 7' tall yet? Let's put Loek van Mil in! (Actually, both gentlemen had interesting careers and would be good candidates at some point - I haven't checked Kiner's page to see if it's complete enough) My point was more to use the featured article to expand people's knowledge of areas of the baseball world - ex. Owen Ozanich was featured not so we could have a French player so that people could learn about French baseball.
• 2) In terms of length, it would be one of our shorter features, though double the size of Spread of baseball project (OTOH, that did not go through our usual review process). It's not a lot shorter than Ming-Tsu Lu, which might be our shortest player page to date. I tried to see if we have a rule on page length for featured articles but can't find it. Anybody know?
• 3) Good point on sourcing. I can amend that.
• 4) Number of pictures - I thought 2 is about average for a feature. Some are more, some only have one. - Mischa (talk) 12:27, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

• Diversity is important, in that we don't want to solely have major league players from the same era as our features. It's worthwhile to reflect the diversity of articles that the bullpen holds - which includes a large number of biographies of female players. I don't mind a shorter article, or one that's not littered with end notes. The importance is that it treats its subject comprehensively and that one can learn about baseball from the article, and that's clearly the case in the proposed article. As for pictures, one is the minimum: just adding barely relevant pictures (e.g. adding a picture of Babe Ruth because the subject once did something usually linked to the Babe) is not going to improve an article. Philippe (talk) 12:34, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

2009 All-Star Game

What do people think? Long enough? It would be neat to have another game as the featured article. - --Mischa (talk) 14:17, 4 August 2016 (EDT)

I wrote most of that article, so obviously I think it's fine. However, it's not much different from other recent All-Star Game articles that also feature a game description. The main distinguishing feature is that President Obama was there, and as a result we have some pictures. --Philippe (talk) 09:25, 5 August 2016 (EDT)

I'll mark your vote as Support; do you have an All-Star Game candidate (or other game candidate) you'd prefer? I picked this one as a candidate mostly because it has more pictures and about as much text. - --Mischa (talk) 12:38, 5 August 2016 (EDT)

I figured the presence of pictures made it the better candidate. --Philippe (talk) 14:02, 5 August 2016 (EDT)

Honestly not a huge fan of this one. Most of the body is the roster lists. Alex (talk) 21:42, 5 August 2016 (EDT)

2003 Philadelphia Phillies

What are peoples' thoughts? Comprehensive article, but too opinion-laden? - --Mischa (talk) 12:33, 26 January 2016 (EST)

Support I like it; it gives a good sense of how the season went. It's clearly been written from a fan's point of view, but there is still lots of factual information that makes the article worthwhile. We don't have that many team season articles, and that one is clearly among the most comprehensive ones. --Philippe (talk) 15:19, 26 January 2016 (EST)

Support Wouldn't take much to even out the fan viewpoint - a word here or there. Maybe a few points could be added giving the team's standings/games back at certain points during the season. --Jeff (talk) 22:17, 26 January 2016 (EST)

• Neutral Probably needs another image or two. Will support when images are added. Alex (talk) 10:27, 29 January 2016 (EST)

What other images could we put up? Does anyone have a team photo of the club? - --Mischa (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2016 (EST)

• Neutral I think it could use a little more work, breaking it up with a few topic headers for readability, and adding one or two images (a team photo, as mentioned, a photo or two of its best players, showing the uniforms, or an action photo shot at their home park that season). The last sentence sounds like it was written as a season summary that year, with no knowledge of what the next 12 years held. -- Couillaud (talk) 10:01, 5 February 2016 (EST)

Roberto Clemente

We won't need a new featured article for a couple months, but I'd throw a couple suggestions out there for now. The Roberto Clemente article is immense, well-crafted, highly-detailed and extremely well-sourced. Especially impressive is that it was done almost entirely by one man! Alex (talk) 12:02, 4 August 2014 (EDT)

I haven't looked at the article in a while, but I thought he was still in progress with it. If it is complete, it needs some editing-over, probably. I don't have time to look right now; good job thinking ahead on featured articles. - --Mischa (talk) 12:32, 4 August 2014 (EDT)

The article is still incomplete as there are a few planned sections in the middle which are still empty. David Speed has only been contributing intermittently in the past while; maybe if we let him know his article is contemplated for featured status, it would encourage him to complete his Herculean task. It would be difficult for anyone else to contribute the missing sections. I have no issues with the content generally, but a lot of work has to be done on the formatting and lay-out in order to bring it closer to the usual Bullpen style. --Philippe (talk) 03:52, 5 August 2014 (EDT)

Jim Lemon

Support - I cleaned this up a bit. It's informative, covers his career, and life outside of baseball as well. It has a picture, it's detailed - it may just be featured article worthy. Alex 19:40, 20 July 2008 (EDT)

I'll give my vote when I've had more time to review. Two problems: 1) The second picture is unsourced and Auricle99 was noted to copy stuff without permission so it should probably be removed. 2) There are no sources listed. - --Mischa 19:50, 20 July 2008 (EDT)

Peanuts

Support, although it needs a longer intro, refs, and an image. --MichaelEng (talk) 15:28, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

Oppose. Seems awfully trivial. Let's focus more on the history of the game than on pop culture treatment of it. - --Mischa 15:44, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

Oppose. Looks to be wikipedia-sourced as well, and not original bullpen material. --Philippe 01:32, 9 November 2007 (EST)

Richard Nixon's All-Time All-Star Teams

Support, although it needs a longer intro, refs, and an image. --MichaelEng (talk) 15:31, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

Neutral. Anyone's personal All-Star list doesn't strike me as major enough as it should be featured. OTOH, Nixon's a major figure and the list is somewhat well-known. I think some other articles are more important. - --Mischa 15:58, 26 October 2007 (EDT)

Oppose. A fairly trivial issue. Apart from the list being President Nixon's concoction (and who knows if he didn't have a few white house staffers pouring over an old McMillan's encyclopaedia to help him out) it hasn't been influential in any meaningful way after its publication. For example, no player's status in the game has been reevaluated as a result of Nixon's list, and no one cites it as an autoritative source. These would be the factors to make such a list truly memorable. --Philippe 01:38, 9 November 2007 (EST)