Template:Did you know nominations/William Wheaton

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Rcsprinter (Gimme a message) 13:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

William Wheaton

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... that William Wheaton helped draft the first set of baseball rules in 1845?

Reviewed: Karol Boscamp-Lasopolski

Created/expanded by PM800 (talk). Self nom at 22:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The article is new enough and long enough, and the article has good sourcing overall. Wheaton is a fascinating character, and I may be able to help out a bit on the article. However, I'm not sure this hook holds up to the test of historical accuracy. The cited source states that Wheaton claimed in an 1887 interview that he wrote the Gotham rules in 1837, but as for the 1845 Knickerbocker rules, the author merely states that the evidence indicates that Wheaton "probably worked with Cartwright in the development of the Knickerbocker rules." (p. 33) It's also debatable whether the 1845 Knickerbocker rules were "the first set of baseball rules." Cbl62 (talk) 16:19, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

You may want to look at this article from Baseball magazine that does claim that Wheaton was one of three authors of the 1845 Knickerbocker rules. Cbl62 (talk) 16:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
One more lead. The full transcription of Wheaton's 1887 interview is available on the web site of John Thorn, MLB's official historian here. While he touts his role in drafting the 1837 Gotham rules, he makes no mention of playing any role in drafting the 1845 Knickerbocker rules. Cbl62 (talk) 16:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. I've made a few minor changes to the article. How about this:

ALT1: ... that William Wheaton helped draft the first formal set of baseball rules? - PM800 (talk) 19:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The alt1 hook looks good. Cbl62 (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)