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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Karanacs 17:45, 1 June 2010 [1].

Paul Krichell

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Paul Krichell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Secret, Wizardman 18:14, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In baseball, players and managers can be placed into the Hall of Fame. Even journalists and broadcasters can get a place there through winning an annual award. Scout, by contrast, do not have a way to make it in the Hall. This article is about one of these scouts, considered one of the greatest scouts of the game. One of the many reasons for the Yankees' perennial success from the 1920s to the 1950s, Krichell's article has went through a detailed GAN review, passed GA, and I believe that it now meets FA criteria, or I hope that it is at least close to doing so. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 18:14, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment—no dab links or dead external links. The article mentions "Murderers Row", but the article for that term is titled "Murderers' Row". Which is correct? Ucucha 20:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The latter; fixed. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 20:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
  • Krichell's talent evaluations and signings were a key reason for the Yankees' dynasty from the Murderers' Row teams of the 1920s to the 1950s teams led by Casey Stengel.[2] - the "were a key reason" part should be reworded so that it is more direct. Maybe something like played a central role?
  • Considered to be one of the greatest scouts in baseball history, he signed over 200 players who later played professional baseball.[3] - it sounds like you are talking about the man in the sentence before
  • His recommendation of Stengel for manager of the Yankees helped persuade their front office to hire him in 1949.[5] - similar to above, but this time it sounds as if you are referring to krichell
  • Early life: maybe some more information and a picture? Maybe you could combine the first two sections?
  • During the offseason, Krichell became a saloon owner, popular with players in the Bronx.[12] - a job popular...
  • In Managing career; Sentence variety issues: lots of sentences begin with "He..."

Generally, it looks like the article is in order. I'm going to weakly support pending the resolution of my concerns above, but I have two suggestions: maybe combine some sections so that it's not choppy, and add maybe a few images important to these sections. ceranthor 17:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I'll look for another picture of Krichell if I can find one, though no guarantees there. Trying to look for those first, if I find none I'll add in one of Greenberg or another signee. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 02:05, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Source comments –

  • What makes http://thedeadballera.com/Obits/Obits_K/Krichell.Paul.Obit.html a reliable source? Also, do they have the right to reprint this New York Times story?
  • The publishers in references 20, 47 and 54 (Sports Illustrated), 34 (USA Today), and 43 (Baseball Digest) should all be in italics as printed publications.
  • Reference 25 should have the page number with a p. instead of pp., since it's only one page.

Otherwise, everything looks okay. Personally, I can't wait to read this one, as the resident Yankees fan of FAC. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 00:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

TheDeadballERa seems somewhat reliable, maybe not as a source in of itself but fine for viewing a New York Times piece. Other two issues fixed. I have no idea of their reprinting rights, though the Times' decision to not have public archives probably complicates that question. If it's an issue I'll just replace with [2]. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 03:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Further sources comments

  • You should certainly switch from Deadballera to the NYT site. I very much doubt that Deadballera has the right to reproduce an article that the NYT charges for. In any event, the working standards of Deadballera are clear from its reference to the "Hew York Times"! You will need to add the (subscription required) template to the NYT source.
  • Refs 3 and 42 need to give publisher details: Baseball Digest (italicised)
  • Italics also required for the journal names in 46 and 53
  • Book sources should have publication dates (per WP:CITE)

Brianboulton (talk) 21:33, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Not sure how I missed the years for books, but I got them all now. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 16:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All my referemce/sourcing issues resolved. Brianboulton (talk) 18:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Wizardman, this is a very interesting article about a baseball pioneer. I have some comments before I support or oppose.

lead. The first sentence talks about Krichel as a baseball player, yet his notability rests in his reputation and achievements as a scout, so that should be the focus of the lead. When I read the first sentence, Ithought, what on earth? I hadn't even known that Krichel had only two seasons as a ball player in "the show" and that is actually incidental to his career as a scout.
prose. There are many ambiguous statements, or confusing ones. For example, this sentence in the 1940s–1950s section particularly perplexing. Stirnweiss refused, but his father's death soon after his college graduation left him as the sole supporter of his mother and younger brother. Could you get an uninvolved editor to go through this and help you tighten it up?

suggestion tighten up the lead so it focuses on the Krichel's notability up front, and make sure your text says what you want clearly. it's difficult when you're so involved with it to realize that others aren't as familiar with the subject as you are—been there done that myself!—but ... Auntieruth55 (talk) 15:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will be working on this over the next couple days. That's always been my weakness, trying to make sure I write it so non-baseball experts can read the article without a problem. Him being a scout makes it harder since I'm used to writing those that primarily played the game rather than another position. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 15:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've done what I could; if there's any further issues I'll try and find an outside person to copyedit. The person I usually have do that already did, so I'll look around. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 16:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – To start, I should have come back for a full review earlier, and I struck my source comments above. Though it pains me to fall on the oppose side, I don't think that this is ready for FA, and I'm not convinced the problems can all be fixed in the course of an FAC. In reading just the lead and a couple sections of the body, I found multiple factual errors, along with material not covered by sources and comprehensiveness issues pointed out earlier. Some less important things are also listed below, but there's enough serious problems for me to lack confidence in what I didn't review.

  • Important one from the lead: Stengel was hired by the Yankees in 1948, not 1949, when he actually started managing them. Also, I didn't notice anything about Stengel in the body, though I could have missed it. What's in the lead should be in the body as well.
  • Early life: Yankee Stadium link goes to the new stadium. Yankee Stadium (1923) is surely the intended destination.
  • Feels like the bit about him playing for Ed Barrow would be more appropriate in the next section, where his time with the Royals is further discussed. It would fit well at the end of this paragraph, after the statistics.
  • Playing and managing career: Just discovered a link for the Connecticut League. Seems useful for the first sentence of the section.
  • "The St. Louis Browns signed Krichell in 1911. He was used as a backup catcher during his career." It should say somewhere in here that this is a major league team, to help the non-baseball fan. I can imagine one tripping over the "during his career" part, when his pro career had started several years earlier. Perhaps consider changing that to "during his major league career" or similar (I'm sure that's the intention).
  • Reference 7 says nothing about him platooning with Jim Stephens. It may give his games played, but I don't see Stephens mentioned anywhere.
  • No need for two at bats links in three sentences. Also, there is an inconsistency between "at bats" and "at-bats".
  • "His fielding was among the worst in the league for catchers, with a fielding percentage of .943 that season." Multiple issues here. First, this appears to be his 1911 percentage, not 1912 as indicated; that one is .959, according to the Baseball-Reference profile. Second, I don't see any rankings for AL catchers in the statistics, which would be needed to verify that he was "among the worst". Perhaps the site has a page with year-by-year figures to cover this?
  • I would recommend linking "stole" by the Ty Cobb sentence to stolen base to assist the non-baseball fans again. I dislike having so many links in a row, but they are all baseball jargon or otherwise useful, so I can put up with it.
  • I agree with YellowMonkey that the post-major league playing career needs some expansion. Baseball Reference's minor league page on Krichell has statistics for each year he played in the minors, so that would provide for significant improvements, even if the end result may be a bit stat-heavy and dry.
  • No need for another Barrow link here when there is one in the previous section, which could be moved into this section with one of my suggestions above. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 00:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since the article pretty much needs a rewrite based on a couple of the comments, and the likelihood of me finding time to do that is not very good, it's probably better for me to withdraw it. It sucks, I haven't had to fail an FAC before, but things happen. If it's not ready it's not ready, I'll fix it up when I get some free time. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 01:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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