Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Writing Player Articles

The purpose of this page is to serve as a guide for creating and editing baseball player articles.

Finding players

If you just want to work on baseball player articles in general and don't have a specific focus in mind, the first step is to determine what player you want to write an article on. Here are some places you can find red links pointing to articles that need to be created:

Requested Major Leage People (and all baseball categories below it)
Go through the 31 team all-time rosters and create articles for the remaining red links.

If you want to work on improving existing baseball player articles, look here:

Infobox

After knowing what article you're going to create, the next step is to fill out the player's infobox. The easiest way to find all the information you need to fill out a player's infobox is to search for the player's name on Baseball-Reference.com.

The standard templates now in use are Template:Infobox MLB player for current players and Template:Mlbretired for retired players. For examples of their use, see Johnny Damon (a current player) and Babe Ruth (a retired player). Note that each template has slightly different formatting and sections.

Templates used inside infoboxes include:

Year in baseball (used in 'teams' section): {{by|2000}} = 2000
Birth date and age (for living players): {{birth date and age|1973|11|5}} = (1973-11-05) November 5, 1973 (age 51)
Birth date (for deceased players): {{birth date|1973|11|5}} = (1973-11-05)November 5, 1973
Death date and age (for deceased players): {{death date and age|1948|8|16|1895|2|6}} = August 16, 1948(1948-08-16) (aged 53)

The Career Highlights and Awards section currently does not have any standards associated with it, as this section's contents will vary greatly with each player.

Images

For sources of baseball player images, see the Images section on the Player's Task Force page.

Be sure to find images that are compatible with the GFDL. Do not upload copyrighted photos. For more information on what images are acceptable on Wikipedia, see the Image use policy. For tips on finding images, see the Finding images tutorial.

For an image in an infobox, it is best to place an image that is a headshot or close up of a player. Other images may be added to the page using the following syntax:

[[Image:Image_Name.jpg|left|thumb|This is the caption.]]

For example:

generates the photo seen on the left.

For more information on the syntax used for inserting images, see Wikipedia:Image markup and Wikipedia:Picture tutorial

For more information on using images in Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia:Images.

Lead section

The lead section should briefly state who the player was and their major accomplishments in a concise way that a reader unfamiliar with baseball could follow. It should summarize the major points made in the rest of the article.

See Wikipedia:Lead section for more information on writing a lead section.

Using references

Adding external links

The external links section should include links to relevant web sites that have not been included as references.

It has become standard to include a link to Baseball-Reference.com in the External links section. For example, to include a link to Jake Daubert's Baseball-Reference.com page (link http://www.baseball-reference.com/d/daubeja01.shtml), use the baseball-reference template like this:

*{{baseballstats|br=d/daubeja01}}

which results in:

Career statistics from Baseball Reference

Note that an asterisk (*) is placed in front of each external link.

Remember, don't include links in the External links section if you have included them in the references section.

For more information on External links sections, see Wikipedia:External links.

Adding categories

These categories should go on every major leaguer's page (if applicable):

{{DEFAULTSORT:LastName, FirstName}}
[[Category:*Year* births]]
[[Category:*Year* deaths]]
[[Category:Major league *Position*]]
[[Category:*Team Name* players]]
[[Category:*Nationality* baseball players]]
[[Category:Baseball players from *State*]]

Instead of {{DEFAULTSORT:LastName, FirstName}} [[Category:*Year* births]] [[Category:*Year* deaths]], you can use the template {{BD|*birthyear*|*deathyear*|LastName, FirstName}} if you prefer.

Links to the categories:

Here are more categories may be included if necessary:

(List categories here)

For example, here are the categories Jake Daubert is in:
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daubert, Jake}}
[[Category:1884 births]]
[[Category:1924 deaths]]
[[Category:Major league first basemen]]
[[Category:Brooklyn Robins players]]
[[Category:Brooklyn Dodgers players]]
[[Category:Brooklyn Superbas players]]
[[Category:Cincinnati Reds players]]
[[Category:Baseball players from Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:National League batting champions]]
[[Category:Kane Mountaineers players]]
[[Category:Marion Moguls players]]
[[Category:Nashville Vols players]]
[[Category:Memphis Turtles players]]
[[Category:Toledo Mud Hens players]]

For more information on using categories in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Categories.

Adding stub messages

Below is a partial listing of stub messages that can be included in a baseball player's article. For all of them see Category:Baseball biography stubs.

{{baseball-catcher-stub}}
{{baseball-first-baseman-stub}}
{{baseball-second-baseman-stub}}
{{baseball-shortstop-stub}}
{{baseball-third-baseman-stub}}
{{baseball-center-fielder-stub}}
{{baseball-left-fielder-stub}}
{{baseball-right-fielder-stub}}
{{baseball-pitcher-stub}}
{{baseball-manager-stub}}

For more information on what constitutes a stub, see Wikipedia:Stubs.

Adding the Wikiproject Baseball template and assessing the article

Each baseball player article should have the Wikiproject Baseball template on the top of its Talk page. For example:

{{WikiProject Baseball|player=yes|class=start|importance=high|image=yes|needs-infobox=yes}}

This shows that the article is a player, its quality (start class), its importance (high), that it needs an image, and that it needs an infobox.

See Template:WikiProject Baseball for information on its use. For information on assessing baseball articles, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Assessment.