Wikipedia:Peer review/Doc Adams/archive1

Doc Adams

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want this fairly new page on an 1800s baseball figure to become a GA. Any pre-GAN comments should make the process a little easier for me, which is important since I've only done this a couple of times. I'm looking in particular for prose comments (always good for me) and issues that impair the reader's understanding (there's plenty of discussion of baseball rules that Adams had a hand in making, which hopefully isn't too technical). All comments will be acted upon and are very much appreciated.

Thanks, Giants2008 (Talk) 16:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: I no little about baseball, and absolutely nothing about its history and development, so this was an interesting experience. Well done in working up the article. You have made it reasonably clear to ignoramuses such as myself; I have indicated where I think more explanation is required.

General issue

• Have you investigated whether there is a copyright-free image of Adams avaialble for use? This image appears on some online sites; can we establish if/when it was first published?
• Retrieval dates to Google book pages are pointless. It is the book itself, not the google publicity preview, which is your source.

Prose issues

Lead

• "first recorded game" is slightly ambiguous; it could mean the first-ever game, or it could mean the first game for which records of the play have survived. I think it's the latter, but maybe clarify?
• "...and was a bank president and representative in Connecticut after his baseball career." Needs stating more clearly, especially for your non-American readers. Perhaps: "...and was a bank president and member of the Connecticut legislature after his baseball career".

Early life

• "The pair worked in the younger Adams' birth town of Mont Vernon, before he relocated twice, to Boston and New York City." The subject of this sentence is "The pair", which means the sentence becomes grammatically awkward with "he relocated twice". I don't think it's necessary to repeat that Mont Vernon is Adams' birth town, so the sentence could be: "The pair worked in Mont Vernon, before the younger Adams relocated, first to Boston and then to New York City".

Player

• First sentence: Should the words "around that time" be inserted after "indicates that..."? Otherwise it's not clear when Adams began playing with bats and balls.
• "...who have been identified in several baseball history books as responsible for beginning the spread of what became the modern version of baseball." Unnecessarily longwinded. Perhaps: "who are credited in several baseball histories as pioneering the modern version of baseball." (14 words instead of 23)
• Similarly, "The type of baseball was an early variety of the game" → "Adams played an early form of the game"
• "At the first baseball game with existing records, Adams participated" Suggest "surviving" rather than "existing". Also, turn the sentence: "Adams participated it the first baseball game with surviving records;" And maybe "lost 23–1" rather than putting the score at the end of the sentence.
• "he said that his batted balls occasionally went into a river by the Elysian Fields, the Hoboken, New Jersey field where the Knickerbockers practiced and played". The commas make this extraordinarily awkward to interpret. You could perhaps salvage this with something like "he said that his batted balls occasionally went into a river by the Elysian Fields, the ground in Hoboken, New Jersey where the Knickerbockers practiced and played".
• If the Knickerbockers were the only organised team, against whom did they play? Did the two squads just play each other?
• What does it mean, "which Adams is said to have led"?
• "In later years, Adams obtained the material for the insides of baseballs, which was rubber from old galoshes." This rather tends to suggest that the insides of baseballs are still made from old galoshes. Tweak to something like: In later years Adams used rubber from old galoshes for the insides of baseballs".
• "which he started playing at" → "at which he started playing"
• "sometime from 1849 to 1850" → "in about 1849 or 1850"
• "pitcher was the only position he never played at." Odd use of the negative form to make this point. I would say "he played in every position except pitcher."

Knickerbockers and NABBP executive

• "serving for three years" → "serving for three further years"
• I'm afraid the distances in the third paragraph completely lost me. Particularly confusing are "89 feet apart, counting a pace as three feet" (89 is not divisble by 3), and the mention of "74¼ feet", which I can't relate to anything. It may be that you are overdetailing here and that some of these particulars could be simply omitted.
• Fourth paragraph: you say Adams called his preferred rule "the fly-game". How did this differ from the rule he was campaigning against?
• I think you should explain the Nestor reference. The link is of no help to the general reader.

Later life

• "Now living in Ridgefield," → "Then living..." etc
• Say a little more about his membership of the legislature. Did he only serve "during 1870"? In what circumstances? What you have at the moment is no more than you have said in the lead.
• The words "with the bank" are redundant
• He "served as a treasurer". A treasurer of what?
• "still was" → "was still"

Legacy

• I am a bit puzzled by "Before those rules were enacted, he had traveled to California, abandoning his position with the Knickerbockers." What has this information to do with this legacy? Also this is the first mention that he went to Californis. And did he "abandon" his position with the Knickerbockers?
• The second paragraph has too much detail about the Doubleday claim to have invented baseball. I would eliminate almost all of this; the focus should be on Adams. I would add the text you have in the display box to the text of the final paragraph, which would end the article in a highly positive way.

I hope that you find these points helpful. As I am not able to watch my individual peer reviews, please call my talk page if you have any issues arising from this view that you would like more help on. Good luck with the article. Brianboulton (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I've started to work on the comments and have finished the routine copy-edits and added a photo with Adams in it from a 1911 book (thanks to Brian's efforts). A half-dozen of the comments (most content-based) remain, and I will peck away at these over the next several days as time permits (well, that and shutdowns of Wikipedia :-)) Giants2008 (Talk) 22:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Just finished addressing the rest of the comments. I'll explain what changes I made to the six that still needed work:

• How Adams led the team isn't specified in that source, but based on the weight of other sources I think it referred to his efforts to get his teammates to go to practice games. I added a couple of sentences on this, and removed the leadership bit since it wasn't really backed up elsewhere.
• I agree that the sentences on baseline distances you mentioned were confusing, and I shortened them into an easier-to-understand form. I did want to leave some explanation, since this is one of the more significant things Adams is remembered for.
• Added a sentence on what the fly game entailed.
• Added a brief explanation of the Nestor reference.
• Unfortunately, I was unable to find much more on his time in the Connecticut House. The only things I found were that he represented Ridgefield, and that one source says he served multiple terms (the conflict with other sources is noted).
• Regarding the Cartwright part, I confused the meaning with my wording; he moved to California and left the team, not Adams. The reason I had this was that he's received more credit than Adams for things Adams had much involvement in. I modified the sentence with these two factors in mind. It relates more strongly to Adams now.

Thank you very much for the review, and for your help in uploading a good image with Adams. I really appreciate it. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:58, 18 January 2012 (UTC)