Talk:List of 19th-century Major League Baseball players with unidentified given names

Gilroy

Gilroy's B-R page lists a first and middle name, not to mention birth and death locations and a death date. Why is he on the list, when his full name- in addition to other biographical details- is apparently known? -- Mike (Kicking222) 17:31, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

@Kicking222: A very fair point. I'm sure some of the names on this list will be eventually identified. I've removed him from the list and updated the table. Thanks again. Seattle (talk) 17:26, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

@Seattle: Thanks- I would've done it myself, but having not worked on the list, I didn't know if his name was still disputed, or there was some other complication. Best, Mike (Kicking222) 14:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Split article

I am thinking of splitting this article into two separate articles, one for MLB players and another for NAPBBP players since the MLB doesn't recognize the NAPBBP as a major league. Thoughts? Other alternatives? Therapyisgood (talk) 17:02, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• I would not oppose such a split. I was thinking of dividing the remaining list members by league (UA, PL, etc.) myself. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Negro leaguers

The Negro leagues were reclassified by MLB as major leagues in December 2020 and its players are therefore Major League Baseball players. There are over 200 Negro leaguers with no first name given by Baseball-Reference. This list either needs to be exponentially expanded or the list (and its title) need to narrow its scope to exclude players from the non-white leagues which does not seem right. --Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 17:07, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

That is a good great point, what to do. My first thought is this article is titled "Major League Baseball," which implies the National and American League only, but it also includes players from other leagues classified as "major league." Screw MLB, it's not all about them. Rename the article & include Negro leaguers. Can you provide a link to the Negro leaguers on B-R? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 20:58, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

If we're going to include Negro Leaguers, I don't think we need to rename the article. The pre-MLB major leagues are basically de facto included as part of Major League Baseball. The problem is I think including all of the mononymous Negro Leaguers would make the article too big. I don't have a concise list because it's impossible to search Stathead for players with only one name. The best I could do was search for Negro Leaguers who were classified as still living because their death dates (and other biographical details) were unknown. Here is a link to that Stathead query. From there I pulled out all the players with no first name or initial and wound up with 258 bookmarks. --Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 14:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@Denniscabrams: Using seamheads.com, here are links that may be useful: NNL1, NNL2, NAL, ECL, NSL (1932 only), ANL, EWL. Also, I agree this would make this article too long. Might be best to start List of Negro league baseball players with unidentified given names. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 19:50, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

@Bison X: Honestly even if you did that, the Negro Leagues list would still have 250+ entries. Even that might be too big for one list. And I still don't think separating the Negro Leagues from the rest of the Majors would make any sense if the Negros are now classified as Majors. There's not any distinction between white and black major leagues anymore. --Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 23:47, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok, your last sentence really touched a nerve with me. Who the hell is MLB to say that now Negro leaguers are major leaguers? Fuck MLB. Howard Bryant wrote and excellent article for ESPN awhile back that sums up my viewpoint pretty good here. I hope this gives you a better perceptive going forward. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 00:32, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Rename?

Rather than leave the "Update" tag on this list indefinitely, given the difficulty of updating it per the section above, I suggest renaming it to List of nineteenth-century Major League Baseball players with unidentified given names as more accurate to its current contents (the MLB announcement only applied to Negro Leagues from 1920 onward, so there's no contradiction there). blameless 04:55, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, I have now done this--anyone should feel free to revert the move if they'd like to discuss. blameless 02:56, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

32 or 34

The lead currently begins Thirty-four individuals who played professional baseball [...]. All 32 played between 1872 and 1892. Which is correct? Thryduulf (talk) 02:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Counting up the entries gives 32, so I changed the sentence to reflect that; I assume that was just overlooked after the most recent update. Hatman31 (talk) 03:12, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Do we just remove an entry if a player is later identified?

McGovern/Gavern has recently (2024) been identified as Tom McGovern. Should I just delete his entry and act like he was never on the list? 2601:408:C401:5907:B453:FA00:EB4E:9C3B (talk) 23:10, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

It would be helpful to have a reliable source for the changes that need to be made. Where did you learn about this? Hatman31 (he/him · talk · contribs) 18:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The July/August 2024 SABR Biographical Research Committee newsletter. https://sabr.org/research/biographical-research-committee-newsletters/ has links to the newsletters as PDFs--which download rather than open in a new webpage, so I don't know how to link it directly. 2601:408:C401:2CAC:5CF3:F98C:2F49:4D69 (talk) 04:08, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Based on this information, I removed McGovern from this list, updated the numbers in the introduction, and created the page Tom McGovern (baseball). Thank you for noticing this! Hatman31 (he/him · talk · contribs) 02:08, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Great, thanks. 2601:408:C401:F035:1156:CFE8:F0B4:80D8 (talk) 22:49, 20 November 2024 (UTC)