Talk:Kenny Lofton/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: We'll see if we can get this review done in under one month. I will take a look. Go Phightins! (talk · contribs) 03:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I'll start with the prose-y suggestions, and then finish with any other concerns that may arise, though a first glance makes it look like this is going to be a review of nit-picky suggestions rather than of substantive issues, as the article looks pretty good.

Lead

• A six time all-star (1993-1999); this would encompass seven years. Which year was he not an all-star? Were there no all-stars in the shortened 1994 season? If so, clarify.

'94-99

• At retirement, he was fifteenth...; the source is to the current stolen base leaders, not how they stood when Lofton retired. Either find a source that indicates what they were when he retired or simply state that he currently is fifteenth all time.

added sourc at time of retirement

• You can probably remove separate from the "three separate stints" after Cleveland Indians in the listing of his teams. "Three stints" is hardly ambiguous.

Three different times. I feel it's pertinent enough to warrant inclusion; he's in the franchise's HOF and is a popular player with the org. If I added the years he played with CLE, I would need to add the years for the other teams but that would make the lead awfully odd as this player has played for so many different teams.

• The first sentence of the second paragraph is moderately awkward. Look to rephrase. Perhaps "During his career, Lofton led the MLB in stolen bases in three seasons and the American League (AL) twice more." The current phrasing makes it sound like leading the American League is more of an achievement than leading the major leagues.

Adjusted; however, I feel by listing the MLB feat first, it places the proper amount of importance on the more notable feat. I think leaving AL as second is best but am open to other suggestions.

• Change "had" to "made" in the third sentence regarding postseason appearances.

Done

• The next part is kind of confusing. It says that he didn't play more than one season with one team from 2001-2007, when in fact he played for Cleveland in both 2001 and 2007. Therefore, in order to make the sentence factually accurate, you would need to make it more than one consecutive season with the same team from 2001-2007.

Changed. Added another tidbit in the next sent to make it clear he played for only 1 franchise multiple times in his career, not just that time span.

• I'm assuming that you mean Lofton broke Henderson's postseason record of 33 career stolen bases?

Changed

• I don't think the White quote fits in its current spot...it kind of jumps in out of nowhere. Perhaps you could create a new paragraph in the lead for quotes, or remove the quote from White. As is, it just doesn't quite fit.

Re-worked that portion. I put the CLE HoF with his CLE stint, then stolen base stuff with base running skills. I think it's much improved. Thanks for the suggestion.

• Perhaps a mention of his college sports career would fit, as it seems to have been pretty notable.

You're right; added.

Early Life

• You can probably remove "had" from the sentence regarding him building a house.

Changed

• The last sentence of the section is kind of awkward considering the previous sentence; look to combine the two.

Changed

College basketball and baseball

• The section needs an introductory sentence...it doesn't make sense to jump right in with Lute Olson.

Changed

• Though I'm assuming it was a bachelor's degree based on the context of the Sports Illustrated article, it doesn't say, so perhaps it would be best to just say he cited a promise to finish his degree.

Bachelor's indeed, but changed.

Minor league career

• How is stealing 26 bases in 30 attempts "struggling", especially considering it was a short-season A team? I get the batting average, but perhaps you could say he "struggled offensively but continued to excel on the basepaths" or something else to that effect. I would especially dispute saying his second season was struggling offensively or on the basepaths.

Struggling is explained by mentioning his BA in the following sentence, but I've added clarity.

• Removing his doubles total while with the Toros would be a good idea...I'd keep the triples reference, but 19 doubles doesn't seem especially noteworthy, especially since you already mentioned three other statistics.

I am not certain, but he was probably a lead-off hitter. To have roughly 40 of his league-leading hits be extra base hits, I feel mentioning that for a (likely) lead-off hitter is notable. I can be persuaded however if there are strong objections.

• Moving back a sentence, if you're going to reference the "PCL championship", you should include "(PCL)" after "Pacific Coast League".

Added

Zepppep (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

MLB career

• I don't like the title of the subsection; debut implies one game. I would simply call it "Houston Astros" especially considering the subsequent titles.

Better? Whilst he played in a few more games than just one, it wasn't much with HOU having arrived in mid-Sept.

• Instead of "the club and Lofton", why don't you just say that "Lofton agreed to an x year deal worth y"?

Changed

• Change "infield single (a bunt)" to "bunt single"

Changed

• Who called him an emotional and offensive catalyst?

It's referenced (AP article, no author; if the author was prominent I would've included it; if I remove the quotes, I'm afraid it might be singled out as peacocky)

• It would be prudent to clarify that he set the Indians single season record for stolen bases in the last sentence, since the sentence also mentions gold gloves and all star games.

Clarified

• Zepppep (talk) 21:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll move on to the remaining sections later, but that's all I have time (a.k.a. energy to stay awake) for now. Go Phightins! 04:41, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• Is there any chance something could be mentioned as to how Lofton got to the Braves in the beginning of that section? I forgot how, and I had just read the previous section to figure out where I was in the review, so I'm thinking others probably will forget as well.

• "The Indians lost in six games to the 114 regular season win-New York Yankees in the 1998 ALCS." --This sentence is pretty confusing, perhaps it could be reworded. My initial thought would be "Cleveland lost the 1998 ALCS in six games to the New York Yankees, who had won 114 games in the regular season", but feel free to mess around with it.

• It's not necessary to say, "At one point in the game the Indians were down 14-2 in the 7th inning..." late in that paragraph...you can either say "in the 7th inning" or "at one point in the game"

• The title of the next section is moderately wordy; is there any chance it could be rephrased to something of the same effect that's a little shorter?

• Though the tidbit about Dusty's son is amusing, I think it might lend a bit of undue weight to a trivial event...the NY Times article simply mentions what the son said, it doesn't expand upon it other than to give a sentence of background on the son. If the article was about the son, OK, but in this case, I don't think it's necessary.

That's all for the prose-y suggestions of the article itself. I will spot check the references soon, and then we can address any final concerns, and then I'll list it. Go Phightins! 21:06, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and addressed the concerns sans the first one, since after looking through I wasn't really sure what you wanted fixed. Wizardman 01:10, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I completely forgot about this review until I saw it on my watchlist. I think the first one had already been fixed. Let me just take a look at the references, but I'm not seeing any other issues related to the article, so passing seems likely here. Go Phightins! 03:01, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

In reference 78, there is a link to Google Books, however the page that is cited is not viewable, nor are any pages beyond the intro. I'm not sure of the standard operating procedure for this is, as I've never used Google Books, but it seems to me that the link is rather unhelpful.

Reference 43 is a web citation that doesn't actually link to a website...

I believe this is a link to the article cited in reference 46.

Other than those few referencing things, this article looks good! Go Phightins! 03:08, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Added the two URLs. For the Baseball Abstract link, I don't really find it useful either for Lofton's case, but I have been able to read a good amount of it through Google in the past. Might be dependent on who's reading it. Wizardman 04:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

That may be...I seem to remember Malleus saying that a Google Book link that an American editor posted and could read didn't work for him in the UK, so there may be a geographic problem. Anyway, I'll promote this in the morning as I've reached the point of dozing off at the keyboard--usually a good sign that I should turn in. Thanks for all you and Zepppep did to improve the article. Go Phightins! 05:01, 23 December 2012 (UTC)