Talk:Lewis (baseball)

Requested move 1 April 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move (non-admin closure)  — Amakuru (talk) 07:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

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Lewis (baseball) → ? – There are at least 9 other players at Lewis (surname)#Sports. There is no name or birth date to suggest a good new name. So possibly it could be moved to Lewis (1890 Buffalo Bisons baseball player). © Tbhotch^™ (en-2.5). 21:42, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment all these football, cricket, baseball players who we don't even know the first name of, don't seem to meet WP:GNG even if the particular local guideline claims they are notable because they appeared an an international or something. But if we don't even know their first names, it seems pretty wP:NOTSTATS clear cut case -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 04:56, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Just because we don't know his first name today, more than a century after his pro career, doesn't mean there wasn't more about him at the time. And notability is not temporary. Rlendog (talk) 14:33, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
    • They had little impact, so notability is not temporary, but popularity can be, and this player seems to be rated by former popularity instead of enduring notability. -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 02:55, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment - maybe Lewis (baseball player, first name unknown). Rlendog (talk) 14:31, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
• Comment Maybe the current title is fine, and it just needs a hatnote pointing back to the Lewis (surname)#Sports link Tbhotch references (eg. this article is for X, if you're looking for other baseball players... etc). Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 16:47, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't have a problem with that either. Rlendog (talk) 18:51, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the odds of someone typing Lewis (baseball) into the search box and expecting to go to any of the other nine names are slim to none. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 16:22, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. He is the only baseball player who is solely known as "Lewis." The other baseball players are also known by a forename, so I don't think there will be confusion. That being said, I do support Lugnuts' hatnote suggestion. -- Tavix ^(talk) 22:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Baseball"

I've noticed this is a convention for several sports topics, but not others, to have a name qualified by the name of the sport, and not a name of the sport player. For instance, a cricket player might have an article titled "John Smith (cricketer)", and I've seen examples of "John Smith (tennis player)", but a volleyball player might simply be termed "John Smith (volleyball)". This strikes me as an odd way to phrase the parenthetical, as it does not describe the person but rather their field. This article in particular highlights the weirdness, because the mononym makes it unclear that "Lewis" is actually a person, and the article title reads to me as if it were about a baseball itself that were named "Lewis".

Is there any reason why titles like this aren't all phrased like "Lewis (Baseball player)", for instance? It would seem better to me. BlackholeWA (talk) 01:33, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Probably just a convenience to save space. I concur with your suggestion but it is "buried" if only on this page. Martindo (talk) 01:57, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Not sure where the correct venue would be to suggest a broad standard/change on this. Is the current system codified in a MOS somewhere at all? BlackholeWA (talk) 02:01, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The naming is in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (baseball players). Spanneraol (talk) 02:05, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:CONCISE. You should use the least words possible when disambiguating. Baseball isn't the only sport that does this. Another reason is that you should give just enough information to disambiguate. By using (baseball) you can use the same disambiguator for all people involved in baseball, not just players. And only when there are two people in baseball with the same name do you extend to a more specific disambiguator. -DJSasso (talk) 11:43, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Infobox error

Infobox lists 1 hit in the MLB statistics that describe his pitching. Obviously he gave up more (inc 2 HR). This is probably an error due to confusing his batting stats (1 hit) with pitching stats (total hits unknown?). Martindo (talk) 01:59, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Tryout

Is there any information as to how Lewis got a regular game as a tryout? Didn't they check out prospective players in trials and practices first? Did he have some special in with the team? It sounds like there is more to this story.Bill (talk) 04:02, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

It was 1890 so maybe time were different? xdude (talk) 16:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The Lead

I found I had to work quite hard (from a casual read of the Lead) to work out what the notability/interest of this article was - and it may be that’s because I’m not American/don’t know anything about baseball. It was only through clicking through the links for, e.g. ERA and WHIP, that I was gradually able to piece it all together. I think (but may still not have got it) that Lewis’s notability is that he has the worst pitching record in this short-lived baseball league that existed for one season in 1890. As a fairly obscure subject i think it would really help the reader (and per MOS:FIRST) if the first (and second) sentences were a bit more on the nose. Something like: “Lewis (first name unknown; fl. 1890) was an American professional baseball player who, in his sole career game, managed to achieve the worst pitching statistics in the short-lived Players’ League (PL) of 1890. His one career game was with the Buffalo Bisons on July 12, 1890. After asking the Bisons manager for a tryout and pitching three innings, his earned run average (ERA) of 60.00 and walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) rate of 6.667 became the highest in the history of the PL....” DeCausa (talk) 11:07, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Seconded. I initially thought his stats were the best ever recorded up to that point, not the worst. mgiganteus1 (talk) 16:17, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, I had no idea what this article was about until I had read it multiple times. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:19B:B00:87A0:B9AB:DB2:A284:E7C6 (talk) 18:51, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I am familiar with baseball and I am still confused about the notability of this particular player. Eiad77 (talk) 18:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I've come to this talk page to find why this article is today's featured article (23 March 2021). Seems like a very obscure topic which has a very narrow, niche interest.Seaweed (talk) 20:29, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I find pretty cool the fact that someone turned the article of such an obscure player into a FA, kudos to the writers. That being said, I do agree that it was hard to make out why he was even notable and it probably needs some further clarification. But I have to also say that him being a "deplorable" ball player makes this a bizarrely interesting read. A name I won't forget!--GDuwenHoller! 21:57, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Just to be clear on my original post - I wasn’t challenging whether this should be an article or it shouldn’t be FA or today’s main page FA because of its obscurity. Only that there’s a lack of clarity in the opening sentences in bringing out what the reader should be taking away from the article. In my view this is because it doesn’t address the following from MOS:FIRST very well: “If its subject is definable, then the first sentence should give a concise definition: where possible, one that puts the article in context for the nonspecialist.” And “For topics notable for only one reason, this reason should usually be given in the first sentence”. DeCausa (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

As another non-sports guy, I had similar thoughts. Not just about the lead, but also about the Background section which I feel should be pitched (no pun intended) almost in its entirety. In both of these instances, I felt that I was suddenly reading an article about something entirely different. It's rather baffling that an FA has so much content that's irrelevant to the actual subject or their notability. —{Canucklehead} 20:01, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

• Gone ahead and made the change as there appears to be agreement. DeCausa (talk) 12:32, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Better merge target

I just noticed the recent AfD that was closed as "merge this article into the 1890 Buffalo Bisons season". From reading the AfD, I can't really see how anyone thought the content of this biography would fit into a season article. A much better target would be to "merge" this article with an article for the Buffalo vs. Brooklyn game. While the player Lewis might not meet WP:GNG, the game itself certainly does. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 23:26, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball#Featured article nominated for deletion. Trying to sort things out there. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 23:35, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Merged?

@Hog Farm: Why was the "Afd-merge to" notice removed? I can not see any merged content in the target. The AfD clearly said merge the content.Christian75 (talk) 11:18, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

At the top of this talk page is the {{copied}} template that states the content was copied or moved into 1890 Buffalo Bisons season and a diff is provided. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 12:20, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

@Christian75: - Because of this discussion, the content was merged to a different target, instead. If you'd like to merge anything to the one suggested in the AfD, then the page history for this is preserved. Hog Farm _Talk 07:04, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. My mistake. I did not realize it was merged into a different article. Christian75 (talk) 08:56, 14 November 2021 (UTC)