Talk:Rally Squirrel

Other baseball squirrels, importance of?

There are three sections: One about Rally Squirrel, one about other squirrels also named Rally Squirrel, and one about about other squirrels who appeared at ballgames but weren't (necessarily) named Rally Squirrel. An edit has tagged the the latter section with the importance tag, like this:

I'm not a big fan of drive-by tagging like this and would have preferred if he'd gone to the talk page, but whatever. The editor is making the point that other squirrels not named Rally Squirrel don't belong, and maybe he's right. On the one hand, it's related info. On the other hand, it's not directly related, so I don't know. At any rater, either the tag or the section should be removed. Which? I can see it either way, but my inclination is to keep the material. Herostratus (talk) 13:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm the tagger, I did put an edit summary, but of course that got lost over time. On the subject of tagging, there's discussion at Village Pump about the pros and cons. The article is about Rally Squirrel, the 2011 STL phenomena. I can understand the mention of other past squirrels specifically named "Rally Squirrel" as a type of disambiguation, but mention of all instances of other squirrels is trivial, and doesnt help to understand Rally Squirrel any better. At best it might warrant a single sentence to the effect of "there have been other reported squirrels on baseball fields" without needing to enumerate them. Reader can go to the citations for more details.—Bagumba (talk) 18:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, I see your point. I don't feel strongly about it but I still think the material is OK. Let's see if anyone else weights in. Herostratus (talk) 17:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that the whole "Rally Squirrel" phenomena is not just that a squirrel or two appeared at a couple of ball games but that this was taken up by both Cardinals fan and the team itself, and has developed significant interest. It certainly is worth mentioning that squirrels have appeared on other occasions at other ballparks, but unless they were called "rally squirrel" too or otherwise became some sort of phenomena, there is no need to list each occurrence. Wschart (talk) 05:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

It is rather difficult to disambiguate this phenomenon when the wiki article is titled "Rally Squirrel." Maybe it could be retitled along the lines of "Buschy the rally squirrel" or "Busch Stadium Rally Squirrel." The Rally Monkey article is not about all primates that have appeared at sporting events--it is limited to the Anaheim monkey phenomenon. If this article is about all squirrels appearing on all ballfields, then it might be germane to add a [Controversy] section explaining that relocation can be bad for mammals...some scientists argue that it is less humane than euthanasia. (Trustworthy sources abound.) Jcalton (talk) 20:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

It's particularly bad for squirrels at this time of year -- they haven't saved up any nuts. And squirrels are territorial and unlikely to welcome interlopers. I hope they animal rescue people aren't really just going to (or already have) just dump them in Castlewood State Park as threatened. Also, his name is not "Buschy" but "Stan" after Stan Musial -- although IMO it should be "Roy", after Roy Sievers, another denizen of Busch Stadium -- admittedly, a different Busch Stadium, and with a different team -- who actually was called "Squirrel". Sievers was Rob Petrie's favorite player, by the way.

Anyway, I don't think we want to get into mammal relocation in general, and based on the above discussion it looks like the general consensus is the we should not include much material on squirrels other than the One True Rally Squirrel, and I've reduced this material considerably (although not removed it altogether) and removed the tag, is this acceptable? The material could just be deleted altogether and that would arguably be OK too. Herostratus (talk) 03:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

New pics

FYI -- I replaced the generic squirrel pic that lacked relevance with one taken of the Rally Squirrel as shown on the Busch Stadium scoreboard. Added two additional photos taken the same night, Game 7 of the 2011 World Series. What a thrill for this lifelong Cardinals fan! Sector001 (talk) 21:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Picture of regular squirrel

The picture of the non-Rally Squirrel should be removed because it is, well, not a picture of the subject of this article. Would you put a picture of a regular Collie in the article on Lassie? No, because that would be dumb, even if "all [Collies look pretty much alike]." This is doubly true because there are actual photos of Rally Squirrels available.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

If you have a photo of the Cardinals Rally Squirrel that passes muster as far a CC lcensing or public domain by all means be bold, upload it nd replace the current pic. As you'll see above I tried once but it was deleted on some rather nit-picky grounds by some Russian admin. dude. Good luck! Sector001 (talk) 00:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd put a picture of a regular collie in Lassie if that's all I had. If you don't know what a squirrel (or a collie) looks like, a picture of a squirrel (or collie) is useful for envisioning the Rally Squirrel (or Lassie), in a general sense, I think, and is a lot better than nothing. The Rally Squirrel may have been a little bit fatter or thinner or differently-colored than the generic squirrel shown in the pic, but probably not so much as a person would much notice. It's better than a person envisioning a mole or badger or having to click over to another article, I think. If we had a decent picture of the Rally Squirrel that'd be different, but we don't. There's a good picture on Skip Schumaker's baseball card, for instance. But that's under copyright. The Commons pictures are of stuffed squirrels and so forth. Herostratus (talk) 06:12, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Do what you all want, I have no interest in the NL, but as an outside observer, having a generic squirrel in the infobox makes this article seem dumb.--GrapedApe (talk) 00:03, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on non-free content, but your best bet would be to argue WP:NFCI #8, "Images with iconic status or historical importance." However, it would have to some awesome pic which has a scene that is described in the article, and showed something significant that could not be captured by any ol generic squirrel picture.—Bagumba (talk) 06:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Legal issues

As the Cardinals have made it back into the World Series, I was wondering if the rally squirrel was going to appear again. Seriously, there are some trademark issues that might be worth discussing.

Rally Squirrel may have left the field, but trademark dispute lives onTedperl (talk) 05:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

References