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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 GrahamColm 14:06, 25 August 2012 [1].

Philip Humber

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Philip Humber (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): – Muboshgu (talk) 15:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC), TonyTheTiger (talk · contribs)[reply]

When Humber threw his perfect game in April, it drew me to this article, which was in lousy shape. TonyTheTiger was drawn to it too. In an excellent collaboration, we performed a 5x expansion to promote the page for DYK, passed it through GA, and also obtained a peer review. Now, we're ready to co-nominate this article for FA. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:52, 2 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: I don't like seeing FACs waiting a week or more for their first comments, so here are a few observations on the prose in the early sections - by no means a complete review, but hopefully this will kickstart this FAC:

  • Some repetitive prose in the lead: "He subsequently played for the high school baseball team at Carthage High School in Carthage, Texas. Humber led his high school baseball team to the state championship..." It should be possible to avoid this.
  • Perhaps give the year Humber was "Player of the Year".
  • I would except an encyclopedia article to use the formal the medical term rather than "Tommy John". Many of your readers will have to use the link to understand the term, which is never a good idea.
  • The sentences in the "Early life" section seem haphazardly ordered, without any sequential thread, and with unexplained statements. For example, what is the relevance of "As of 2004, the Panola County Dixie League teams had won 15 state championships in the preceding 20 years..." I would give this section some serious attention.
  • Same section: "Carthage was a Texas anomaly with its baseball athletes being the most admired role models rather than football players." Not the best phrasing. I'd put a comma after "anomaly", lose "with" and add "its" before "football players".
  • "Humber attended Carthage High School in Carthage, Texas". The Scool's location is a given, and you have referrd to "Carthage, Texas" in the previous section.
  • What is "junior varsity"? Link "sophomore" for non-US readers, and give a date for the sophomore year.
  • A general point, after which I will stop. I appreciate that, when writing an article related to a particular sport, you will need to use the language of that sport to a certain extent; you cannot keep stopping to explain terms. But in a general encyclopedia you have to take some steps to make the article broadly accessible. Sentences like "Humber struck out six and walked only one in a three-hit shutout..." are pretty well impossible to fathom, unless you are familiar with the game. I suggest you look out for this aspect through the article, and add the odd few words of explanation from time to time.

I don't have time at the moment to go any further, but I'll keep an eye on progress. Brianboulton (talk) 21:53, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – Sorry, but I'm just seeing way too many issues after reading only the lead and first two body sections. I can see why Brian is having trouble with certain aspects of the article, and there are some subtle prose and MoS issues as well.

  • "It took him several years to regain his velocity after the surgery." I know what this means, but fear that non-baseball fans won't know that this refers to the speed of his pitches. Maybe that could be made more clear as a way to avoid jargon.
  • Amateur career: I don't see how the second sentence of this section is relevant to Humber's career. It's already been made clear that the area has some baseball tradition, which is all that is needed. I think this is an extension of the issue Brian already spotted.
  • Hyphen should probably be removed from "nationally-ranked".
  • "and a (WAC)-leading 130 strikeouts in 110 2/3 innings". Parentheses are undesirable here.
  • Remove "the" from "Nonetheless, Humber earned an invitation to the USA Baseball's national team trials."?
  • The sentence about Humber being scheduled to start against Notre Dame appears to be about the College World Series. If so, it should be moved up to before the sentence about the national team trials. It makes no sense to have the writing jump around like this.
  • Spaced em dashes in the next paragraph are a no-no according to MoS. Another more acceptable format should be found instead.
  • Last three words are quite redundant in "as Rice won its first national championship in any team sport, not just baseball." Doesn't "any team sport" say everything that needs to be said?
  • "He pitched a complete game four-hit in the decisive third game of the series". "four-hit" → "four-hitter".
  • I find it odd that after discussing his College World Series performance, we go to facts about the middle of the season. Shouldn't the order be reversed, to remain as chronological as is practical?
    • I had felt that the following sentences were season summaries, rather than inseason accomplishments, but I have moved them to earlier in the paragraph at your request: "That season, Humber achieved his 17th consecutive win in WAC play. He was recognized as a Third Team All-American by Collegiate Baseball and was a First Team All-Western Athletic Conference honoree."
  • "He also set the Rice single-game record for strikeouts when he fanned 17 Hawaii Rainbow Warriors hitters March 20, 2004." Ignoring for a second that "fanned" is jargon that non-baseball fans will get lost with, it may not even be accurate. Fanned is used in baseball terms for swinging strikeouts, and would only be appropriate here if every batter who struck out did so while swinging.
  • Also, "on" should be added before the date in the above sentence.
  • "most recently when Steve Hosey, Tom Goodwin and Eddie Zosky were selected in the first round of the 1989 Major League Baseball Draft of the Fresno State Bulldogs." Would read better if "of the Fresno State Bulldogs" was moved directly after the three names.

Giants2008 (Talk) 23:26, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, this is a lot of outstanding issues and I don't claim to have caught every issue. I wonder if at some point withdrawing and resubmitting the article after some more work would be the best course. It's not an easy decision, but I'm not convinced this can be improved to meet the FA prose standards in the timeframe of an FAC. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:40, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

      • Two more I noticed while checking the recent edits. First, the double punctuation in "striking out 422 in 354 innings pitched.," should be fixed in Amateur career. Second, the Mets section has one instance where Oliver Perez's name has diacritics, and one instance where it doesn't. The second instance probably doesn't need his full name, but it shows an inconsistency that should not be there. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Personal life:
  • "2011–2012 offseason" - would put "after the 2011 season" or (similar) to avoid readers from potentially thinking it's including offseasons of post-'11 and '12 seasons
  • "currently lives in Tyler" - switch to "as of (year)" Zepppep (talk) 03:25, 24 August 2012 (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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