Talk:Sal Maglie/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Wasted Time R (talk · contribs) 00:18, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have begun reviewing this article. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:18, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

A comprehensive article, but a few aspects need attention

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
Lede is too long and misses a couple of key aspects, see below
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
Some additional sources can be mentioned, see below
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
A few topics can be covered better, see below
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
See below regarding images
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Regarding the lede. Per MOS:LEADLENGTH, the general guideline for lede length for an article of this size is three to four paragraphs, and this one is five paragraphs. It dives into too much year-by-year detail when it should be a picture of Maglie's entire career. A lede does not need to include records almost set, or descriptions of shoe lifts, or descriptions of no-decision starts, or mentions of World Series ineligible to participate in, just to pick a few examples. Compare with the ledes of some GA articles for other pitchers from that era, such as Bob Turley or Bob Lemon or Hoyt Wilhelm.

There are three things that stories about Maglie always talk about - his foreboding physical appearance, his love of pitching inside, and that he came to success late. The lede only talks about the second of these. It should mention his appearance, and it should explicitly point out that it took Maglie until age 28 to reach the majors, and then he lost five more years, so his big success started at age 33. That's pretty remarkable.

Regarding topics in the article body. There should be a little bit more about his stint in the Mexican League. Such as that he won 20 games each of the two years he pitched there (from Baseball-Reference). And it would be good to give a little more context, such as that Maglie was one of several quality major leaguers to jump to the Mexican League at the time – others include Mickey Owen, Danny Gardela, and Max Lanier – but that not enough did for the Mexican League to attract the greater revenues it needed to support such players (from The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, pp. 34, 608).

For the paragraph on 1957, if Maglie was pitching effectively for the Dodgers, why did they want to unload him? Were they out of the pennant race by then and looking to trade age for youth? Also re 1957, the two usages of "the playoffs" in this paragraph are an anachronism and should be reworded. Back then there was just the World Series, nothing else. The term "playoff" meant only if a regular season tie for the pennant had to be broken by an extra game or games (and those games counted in regular season statistics).

For the Legacy and career statistics section, after the mention of the Hall of Fame, it could be stated that in the 1964 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting in his first year of eligibility, he was named on only 13 ballots (6.5% of those cast) – see https://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/hof_1964.shtml. I don't think he appeared in any subsequent votings.

This section should also include some modern advanced statistics. Right now WHIP in the career statistics is the only one I see. Maybe include his career WAR, and his season WAR for a few of his best years like 1950 and 1951. You can use the Baseball-Reference formulation for WAR, since it's the basis for most of the stats in the article. You can also say that in the The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001), sabermetrician Bill James ranks Maglie as the best pitcher in baseball for 1951 (p. 225) and says that Maglie probably would have won the Cy Young Award in 1951 had it been in existence at the time (pp. 857–858).

In the Coaching career section, the material about Ball Four could use some better citing and additional use. That Maglie was Bouton's boyhood her and idol is stated on pages 14 and 112. Those pages also have a good physical description of what Maglie looked like as a coach: on p. 14, Bouton says "He still looks like he'd knock down his grandmother. He's got those big evil-looking black eyes." And on p. 112, Bouton says a nickname people on the team gave him was "The Screaming Skull", after the horror film of the same name. The bit about Maglie frequently second-guessing the pitches on the staff is stated on pp. 95–96. But it needs to be added that the greatest friction between Maglie and Bouton concerned the knuckleball. Bouton wanted to use it almost exclusively, while Maglie constantly wants him to throw other pitches as well, as stated on pp. 67, 145, 167. Overall, as stated on pp. 112, 173, Bouton is angered by Maglie's rigid thinking (not realizing that the knuckleball is inherently different from other pitches) and general lack of communication and advice.

There should be a "Further reading" section added, with entries for each of the published biographies about Maglie, none of which are used as a source here (also a summary of the Testa bio is heavily used):

Milton J. Shapiro, The Sal Maglie Story (Julian Messner, 1957) [juvenile]
James Szalontai, Close Shave: The Life and Times of Baseball's Sal Maglie (McFarland & Co., 2002)
Judith Testa, Sal Maglie. Baseball’s Demon Barber, Northern Illinois University Press, 2007)

Regarding image licensing, what makes File:Sal Maglie 1955.jpg and File:Sal Maglie 1969.jpg usable? How do we know there was no copyright on the actual cards? And regarding image captioning, is it possible to pin down when File:Sal Maglie 1956.jpg is from? The Commons description says 1953, not 1955 or 1956. Finally, a good image to add to the Legacy section would be File:Sal Maglie stadium signage.jpg, especially since that image is not used in the article about the stadium itself. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've addressed your changes; hope the lead's short enough for you now. Thank you for finding all those other wonderful sources, which I think improved the article greatly; I tried to add most of them in. (Maglie was well before my time, so please forgive me for not remembering to mention his mound presence!) There are just five things:

1. Regarding the 1957 season, I'd have loved to say that the Dodgers were concerned about his injury, or the Yankees wanted World Series help, or exactly what the reason was. Unfortunately, none of the sources themselves are clear on why he was traded. It's not our job on Wikipedia to speculate; there's enough information that people can make their own guesses, if they want.
2. I don't doubt that Maglie won 20 games both his years in the Mexican League, but I can't find a source for that. Although the Baseball-Reference page says Mexican League Statistics in the title, it doesn't have them (unless I'm missing something). SABR doesn't list his stats either.
3. I added most of the Ball 4 stuff in, but I only put one sentence about the knuckleball. It's relevant to show why Bouton may have felt the way he did about Maglie, but a more in-depth description of the dispute is more relevant to Bouton's article, not to Maglie's. Bouton was just one person, and we've probably already got more than enough information about how he felt about the pitcher in the article right now (his privilege for taking the effort to write a book).
4. We don't need to mention the Shapiro book in the "further reading" section. It's waaayyyy out of print, and it's just a children's book. I doubt featured articles on Hall of Famers list every single children's book written about the player during their careers.
5. Regarding the pictures, you'll see from https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Bowman-Color-Maglie-Giants/dp/B073BYPDHG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Sal+Maglie+1953+Bowman&qid=1598733895&sr=8-1 that that is indeed his 1953 Bowman card (Bowman didn't make cards in 1956, except for a handful of impossible-to-find promos for an unissued set). As for the other photos, I didn't contribute them--they were already on commons, and I assume the fact that they haven't been deleted means they're okay. If they're not, they should be deleted; otherwise, we might as well use them.

Let me know if I need to address anything else. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 20:48, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the 1957 move, I've been looking through newspapers.com hits from that time, but haven't come up with anything definitive yet, although his wife indicates he chose the Yankees over the White Sox because he didn't want to move his family out of the New York area. Regarding the Mexican League, per this piece at Baseball: Past and Present he was 20–12 with 3.19 ERA in 1946 then 20–13 with 3.92 ERA in 1947 (don't know what that site is but the piece seems to be responsibly written). Okay regarding Bouton usage. Regarding the Shapiro book, it's significant in that it shows the level of stardom that Maglie achieved that one was even written about him; maybe it could be mentioned in the text even if it's not listed for further reading. Regarding images, if you look at the uploader's history, some of their images get challenged and removed and some get challenged and kept; I'm not sure what the verdict would be on these.

A few further things I've noticed. In the lede, "45 consecutive innings" is missing the word "scoreless". The Bouton book can be added to the Bibliography, since there are multiple citations to it from different sections now. The ISBN for the Testa book entry is 978-0-87580-367-8, that's better to give than the ASIN number. The Willie Mays entry in the Bibliography should also list his co-author, Lou Sahadi. And speaking of that, is the bit about Mays/Sahadi getting it wrong about hitting a homer off Maglie really relevant here? Are you trying to illustrate how players wanted to say they could hit Maglie well, even if they couldn't? Maybe it would be better going into an article about how athlete autobiographies are not to be trusted :) Wasted Time R (talk) 15:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Made several of the changes. Maglie couldn't have chosen the Yankees over the White Sox, however, because it was a trade that sent him to New York, and I don't think he had a no-trade clause in his contract. I'm against mentioning the Shapiro book; if someone can't tell that he was a star from reading that he won a World Series, pitched a no-hitter, played for all three New York teams, and got a standing ovation at Yankee Stadium when he joined the Yankees, they're just not going to get it. I think Mays/Sahadi getting it wrong should be left in, because not everyone who reads that in the book is going to look through Baseball-Reference's gamelogs to find out which game Mays hit the home run in, like I did. (If you really, really, really don't think it's necessary, though, I'm not against taking it out.) As far as the photos go, they're not mine, and I'm not the person you want to talk to if you're looking for copyright expertise. I'd assume that since these weren't challenged, whoever challenged the others didn't think these violated copyright. If someone wants to challenge them, I don't have a problem with that, but I have no reason to bring one myself. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 17:53, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I still think the lede dives into too much detail in places. Instead of "posting a 2.35 earned run average (ERA) in 13 games (10 starts)." you can say "pitching well as a spot starter". (Is that what he was? The "Rookie season" section doesn't make it clear. Actually 10 starts over less than two months sounds like he was in the four-man rotation at that point. But the next section begins, "A candidate to join the Giants' rotation in 1946" ... so what was he during 1945? Maybe top-line players would be returning from the war in 1946 so a starting slot was not assured? This needs to be clarified.) Why go into the detail of him pitching well but getting a no decision in game 1 of the 1954 Series, but not pitching well and getting a loss in game 4 of the 1951 Series? A true summary would say that Maglie appeared in three World Series during his career, with a such-and-such record. And a true summary could say that he was involved as a starter in two of baseball's most famous games, the Bobby Thompson shot-heard and Don Larsen's perfect game.

Couple of other things. "Not until he was 33 in 1950 did Maglie become a full-time pitcher." needs to add "in the major leagues", since he was obviously a full-time pitcher in the Mexican League. "They never had any children of their own" is unnecessary and makes it sound like adoptive parents are second-class parents – you can just say "They adopted ..." And I still think the Shapiro book should be mentioned; it never hurts to add objective facts that indicate levels of popularity or fame. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:07, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Made the changes. He wasn't a spot starter in 1945-that's someone makes one or two starts in a row occasionally but usually pitches out of the bullpen. However, I clarified in 1946 that he was a candidate to "rejoin" the Giants' rotation. Since he'd only made 10 starts (and since he ultimately did not rejoin it), I didn't want to phrase it like it was assured. I'm not going to mention the Shapiro book - it may be an objective fact, but it's not notable and isn't worth mentioning, as there are already tons of other indicators of Maglie's popularity and fame in the article. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 11:50, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay with the lede changes. We'll have to agree to disagree about the Shapiro book, as well as about the Mays home run. But neither one is a GA deal breaker, although an OR/SYNTH zealot (not me) might bounce the Mays thing down the road.

A few more things I'm noticing. Unless I missed it, the Brushback pitch article is never linked to – you could link it from pitched inside to hitters in the first paragraph. and a 3– record in seven starts is missing the losses number. Maglie was spared from having to go overseas when he failed his physical is a little inaccurate, as many draftees and enlistees spent the whole war stateside and never got sent overseas. relieving ... in the fourth inning and pitching 2⁄3 scoreless innings is a little meaningless – did he pitch well, or did he get hit with runs charged to the starter? The jump to the Mexican League needs a little more motivation – the Testa piece says that Ott was dismissive towards him in spring training, and that Maglie was already familiar with the Pasquel brothers from contact with them during winter ball in Cuba. That makes the jump a little more understandable. in 1948 that Max Lanier is now the second mention of Lanier, so this can be last name only without the link. as the "bulwark" of the – why is this in quotation marks? Better to use a synonym, like mainstay or pillar. never pitched more than 4 2⁄3 innings after July 16 is ambiguous, better to say "never lasted more than ..."

For future Hall of Famer Whitey Ford, you don't qualify with 'future' in other cases like for Spahn and Wynn - either way is okay for GA but it should be consistent. For the William Wrigley Jr. Award, I don't think Wrigley's name should be linked, per MOS:PARTIALNAMELINK. For Dodger manager Walter Alston previewed his team. "Sal Maglie showed me he makes up for his years with a wise head and strong arm," Alston said. "He's good for several more years yet.", that kind of 'Alston said' is how a newspaper story reads and it looks like a copyvio even when it isn't. A better style for here is Dodger manager Walter Alston previewed his team: "Sal Maglie showed me he makes up for his years with a wise head and strong arm. He's good for several more years yet." Same actually for the Maglie quote in the paragraph before that. For His .657 career winning percentage ranked 22nd among major leaguers, does WP have an article listing career W-L percentage leaders that can be linked to? (If not it should ... nobody cares about that stat now, but back in the day it was how pitchers were always ranked in the newpaper pages, just like batters were by batting average.) In In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (2001), sabermetrician Bill James , both the book and the person should be linked. For As of August 2020, Sal Maglie Stadium is the home of ... it looks like Niagara Catholic High School is now closed? I think a better way of handling this is to list the teams that have played there since the name change, regardless of whether they are still active there are not. Also note that Niagara Purple Eagles is an article of its own. In the Bouton quote, The man I love is a reference to something else Bouton wrote right before that and is confusing here - I think it is better to just start with "[Maglie] had ...". In the pitching style section, "Sal the Barber" should not be bolded - that is for the lede only. There's an extra blank line at the end of the Bibliography section that should be removed.

Once these items are addressed, that should be it. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:23, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed those changes. Good catch on Niagara Catholic High School being closed; the stadium website still lists them as a tenant, but you're right - the school closed in 2018! I decided to just remove them, as there have been a lot of teams that have played at Sal Maglie Stadium since the renaming (it was a minor league field at the time), and we might easily leave one out if we tried to list them all. Also, there is no win percentage leaders article that I can find. Maybe you should create it! :) Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 00:49, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I have listed the article as GA. Good job on it, and thanks for your patience with my different rounds of comments ... Wasted Time R (talk) 10:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]