Wikipedia:Peer review/Stan Musial/archive1

Stan Musial

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to continue this article's journey towards Featured Article status. Any comments or suggestions are welcome, particularly those related to prose.

Thanks, Monowi (talk) 22:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an excellent article about a truly unusual sports figure. I think the article is close to FA, and I have several suggestions for further improvement.

Lead

"At the time of his retirement, Musial held or tied for seventeen major league records, 29 National League records, and nine All-Star Game records." - WP:MOS#Numbers as figures or words suggests that these three numbers be either all figures or all words since they all relate to the same thing, records. Since you are (generally) using digits for numbers bigger than nine elsewhere in the article, the three numbers should be 17, 29, and 9 in this sentence.

Changed Monowi (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Musial served as the Cardinals' General Manager in 1966 and 1967, in addition to overseeing various businesses both before and after his playing career, such as a restaurant." - I might flip this sentence to put the vague time before the specific time: "In addition to overseeing businesses such as a restaurant both before and after his playing career, Musial served as the Cardinals' General Manager in 1966 and 1967."

Great suggestion, thanks! Monowi (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Early life

"When Musial enrolled in school, his name was formally changed to "Stanley Frank." - I'd add the last name here too. Otherwise it might be misinterpreted to mean that he changed his last name from Musial to Frank.

Changed. Monowi (talk) 07:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"At the age of fifteen, Musial joined the Donora Zincs, a semi-professional team managed by Barbao. In his Zincs debut, Musial pitched six innings and struck out thirteen batters, all of them adults." - I'd change "fifteen" to 15 and "thirteen" to 13 for consistency. The guidelines are a bit confusing on the question of "six" in this sentence, but I'd probably change it to 6 to maintain consistency within the sentence.

Changed. Monowi (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Musial's father initially resisted the idea of his son pursuing a baseball career... " - Any idea what his father wanted him to do instead?

One of Musial's biographers, James Giglio, argued that Musial's father wanted him to pursue the stable income of a coal-mining job. This contrasts drastically with what Musial and writer Bob Broeg relayed in Musial's offical bio, which was that his dad wanted him to focus more on college. I don't think Giglio has enough direct evidence to include his view in the body of the article, but I think it's clear his dad wasn't a proponent of college either. That's why I have the sentence phrased this way; it's the best compromise I could come up with. Monowi (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"In what was then a common practice, the Cardinals did not file the contract with the Commissioner's office until June 1938." - It might be helpful here to readers not familiar with baseball to give the full title, Commissioner of Baseball (or whatever it was in 1938) and link it to an explanatory article if possible.

Added wikilink. Sentence now reads, "In what was then a common practice, the Cardinals did not file the contract with the Commissioner of Baseball's office until June 1938." Monowi (talk) 06:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Career

Since foreign readers may not understand baseball jargon, it might be helpful to link or briefly explain "signs", and "pickoff attempts". I realize that trying to explain all of the game's intricacies might make the article unreadable, but a few explanations might fit into a "Notes" section, if necessary.

I decided to decrease use of extra baseball jargon here, since it really didn't serve the reader very well in terms of info. The new combined sentence reads, "Musial began gaining more in-depth knowledge about baseball strategy while posting a 6–6 record and a 4.66 ERA, to go along with a .258 batting average." Monowi (talk) 06:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1941–45

"Over the next three games at Yankee Stadium, Musial had three more hits as the Cardinals defeated the Yankees in the series four games to one, finishing the series with a .222 batting average and two runs scored." - I'd suggest splitting off the final clause and turning it into a separate sentence to avoid suggesting that the team batting average for the series was .222. Also, "series" appears in lowercase in this sentence but as "Series" elsewhere. You should decide which you want to use and then make them consistent throughout.

The text now reads, "Over the next three games at Yankee Stadium, Musial had three more hits as the Cardinals defeated the Yankees in the Series four games to one.[42] Musial's final batting statistics for the 1942 World Series included a .222 batting average and two runs scored." The only other instance I could find of the word "series" not being capitalized occurred in the sentence, "The Cardinals finished the season tied with the Brooklyn Dodgers,[64] prompting a three-game playoff for the pennant. Musial's Game 1 triple and Game 2 double contributed to the Cardinals' two-games-to-none series victory" from the 1946-1949 section. I have capitalized the word "Series" when in reference to the World Series, but since this instance referred to a playoff series that wasn't the World Series, I didn't capitalize it. Monowi (talk) 19:07, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1950–54

"To date Nate Colbert is the only player besides Musial to have hit five home runs in a doubleheader, doing so in 1972. As an eight-year-old, Colbert had been in attendance to witness Musial's feat.[citation needed]" - "To date" is one of those vague terms best replaced with a specific date; e.g. "as of 2010". Also, the "citation needed" tag will need to be addressed.

The world's biggest Nate Colbert fan keeps harassing the body of the text so that mention of Colbert is included. I'd prefer to keep the article focused on Musial, as it would avoid the need to annually update a sentence like, "As of {insert year here} Nate Colbert is the only player besides Musial to have hit five home runs in a doubleheader, with Colbert having achieved the feat in 1972." The other editor never did provide a reference for the other fact, so I'll delete that sentence yet again. Monowi (talk) 19:07, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After thinking about it, I've gone with the more simplistic, "Nate Colbert is the only player besides Musial to have hit five home runs in a doubleheader, with Colbert having achieved the feat in 1972." Monowi (talk) 20:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1955–59

"Instead, Lane dealt Musial's close friend Schoendienst to the New York Giants, ushering no immediate comment to the press from an upset Musial." - I don't think "ushering" is the right word. Perhaps "prompting"?

Good choices of wording there. Thanks. Monowi (talk) 20:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Musial's consecutive games played streak ended at 895" - Either hyphenate the compound adjective or re-cast as "Musial's streak of playing in 895 consecutive games"?

I went with the first suggestion. Monowi (talk) 20:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Post-playing career

"Musial's longtime business partner Biggie Garagnani died in June 1967, promoting Musial to devote more time to managing his restaurant and other business interests." - I don't think "promoting" is quite right. Maybe "requiring"?

Wow...what a terrible choice of wording; it was definitely a spelling mistake on my part, as I wanted to use the word "prompting" all along. Monowi (talk) 20:03, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Link Obama since you linked Johnson?

Wikilink added. Monowi (talk) 19:07, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See also

This is a pretty big list. I'd be inclined to cull any that are already linked in the main text.

None of these links are currently included in the body of the text. I experimented with incorporating them into the text, but contextually, I think a lot of them don't really fit into the body of the text well, even as wikilinks. I'd much rather delete a large portion of the listings since they all are links to lists anyway, but I'm sure someone would come along again shortly and simply re-add the links. I honestly don't know how to best address this issue, which is why I'm leaving it as is (for now). Monowi (talk) 03:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

References

Each of the book refs should include place of publication as well as publisher. You can find these through WorldCat if you don't have the data in your notes; e.g. here is the first James book, published in New York by Free Press. You can add OCLC numbers for any books with no ISBN; WorldCat usually has them.

Wow, WorldCat is such a great resource; I wish I had known about it earlier! I've even gone ahead and added the OCLC numbers for other books. Monowi (talk) 02:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other

The link checker at the top of this review page finds one dead url in the citations.

All dead links have been fixed. Monowi (talk) 23:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 19:24, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your outstanding peer review! I have already started to address these excellent suggestions, and look forward to implementing these suggestions over the next couple of days. Cheers, Monowi (talk) 07:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that after you implement Finetooth's suggestions, this can go to FAC. This is a really good article on one of the greats of the game. Since I did the GA review I don't have much to add, but I would like to see citation dates written out (i.e. August 1, 2007 instead of 2007-08-01). If it passes FAC and nominated for it soon, there's time to make it the TFA on his 90th birthday, which would be awesome. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 18:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Per your excellent suggestion, I have modified the dates in the references to make things more clear. I hadn't even really considered trying to make it The Featured Article of the day for his birthday...but heck, let's go for it!! Monowi (talk) 03:40, 10 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]