Talk:Arthur Irwin

Arthur Irwin has been listed as one of the Sports and recreation good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 3, 2013	Good article nominee	Listed

Biography: Sports and Games

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University of Pennsylvania Coach?[edit]

Nothing in this article or the reference establishes the claim that Arthur Irwin was a UofP baseball coach. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then add it. He was (see navbox). Jrcla2 (talk) 00:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is the navbox referenced? It may be right, from a list somewhere, but how do we know?--DThomsen8 (talk) 00:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know these are old comments, but for the record, I added sourced information to the article on Irwin's multiple stints with Penn. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 18:48, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:Arthur Irwin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sarastro1 (talk · contribs) 12:58, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Ref for nicknames?
"He played regularly in the major leagues for eleven seasons, spending two of those seasons as a player-manager": Seasons … seasons
"that won the first interleague championship to decide the world champions of baseball": Championship … champions
Also, perhaps a couple too many instances of "league", "manager" and "major league"?
"Irwin also became known for several innovations that impacted sports": Maybe "produced" rather than "became known"?
Link soccer?

I changed all of the above except for the fourth bullet and I will look for ways to change those words. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Early life

Link national association?

Done EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Playing days

"The 1884 Grays featured the tumultuous relationship between…": This doesn't quite sound right. How can a team feature a relationship?
"when pitcher Charlie Ferguson developed typhoid fever and died at Irwin's home": Did he develop the fever at his home?
"…but that team folded at the end of the season as well": Don't think we need "as well".
"Within ten days, newspapers brought accusations…": Do we need "within ten days"?
"He tallied 396 runs batted in and 552 runs scored": I've never come across "runs scored" before. Is there a link?

Incorporated all of the feedback above. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Early non-playing roles

"Irwin left Philadelphia in 1896 to manage the New York Giants.[11] He was relieved of his duties after one season. He was subsequently recruited to manage in Milwaukee.": Rather choppy: Irwin...He...He.

Done EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Scouting

"up to steal signs from the opposing team with a system of binoculars and mirrors.": How did this work? And should it be "signings" rather than "signs"?

Can't find a source that explains this in detail, but I at least clarified a little. "Signs" is the usual term here, as "signings" usually applies to new players joining a team. I'm surprised that there is no article on sign (baseball) to link to. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More to come. Sarastro1 (talk) 14:13, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Later coaching career

"Irwin purchased a partial interest in the Lewiston Cupids": Is interest the right word here? (Not suggesting, more asking as I'm not sure.)

I think it was much more common in Irwin's era, but it makes sense to use the modern term (part-owner), which I have substituted. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"the 1920 Hustlers went only 45-106": Link the win-loss thing?

Surprisingly, the win-loss article only discusses that in the context of a pitcher, not as it applies to a team. I've spelled it out to "45 wins and 106 losses" instead of just "45-106". I figure that, even to a non-fan, that should relay the sense that the team struggled mightily. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The lead says "He popularized the baseball fielder's glove during his playing career, invented the football scoreboard". But I'm not sure this comes across as strongly in this section. In terms of the glove, it may just need a tweak in the wording, but the football scoreboard thing just says "a football scoreboard". Had these previously existed, or was he the sole inventor? Or did he just invent a new version? Also, how long-lasting were these innovations?

I tweaked the wording on these items. There were other early scoreboards. I didn't want to lose focus in the article, so I've just changed the language to avoid the implication that he was the sole inventor. As far as how long he lasted, we know he sold his scoreboard rights in the days before his death, but I can't find much as far as whether features of this scoreboard influenced modern ones. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sports influences

"Irwin was president of the American League of Professional Football (ALPF) for its lone season in 1894...": I can find no mention of this in the given reference.

I think I accidentally deleted a reference somewhere along the way. Have added one. Also, it seems that MLB players might not have played on the teams, as the source says the fans were teased. Any advice on the new phrasing is appreciated. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Other influences

Not too sure about the Japan story. Is it really important?
SImilar with the Short-stop story: is it really relevant to Irwin that someone else dedicated a book to him? However important the author, this seems like trivia unless it was a really important book.

I can see your points. I don't want to appear to be shoehorning random information into the article. The resulting section is pretty short now. I thought about merging it with Sports innovations, but it's more promotion than innovation. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Death

The lead says "when it was discovered that he led a double life for nearly thirty years" which suggests that he lived with both women at the same time. However, this section could be read that he simply left one and married the other. While this would still be bigamy, it is rather less dramatic than a double life, and at least in England, was quite common in a period when divorce was tricky. I think we either need to tone down the lead, or bulk up the detail in this section.

My interpretation is that, during overlapping periods of time, each woman thought she was his only wife. Let me see what I can do to clarify the language. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

General

I notice that most of the sources are contemporary newspaper reports. Apart from the odd source already used, (e.g. current ref 1) is there anything else out there which is more modern to place him in a little more context?

Found surprisingly little, but will keep looking. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just an impression from doing spot checks. A few of the sources seem a little vague on when Irwin moved from one place to another; the article seems to use sources which imply that he has moved from one place to another, but do not explicitly say so. Could this be tightened up: i.e. sources which say he has moved from X to Y, not just that he is going to, or which carry a news story which say that he is manager of Z, but not that he has moved. However, from the checks I've done, there is not enough of a problem to prevent the article passing, and it is a case of perhaps stretching the material a little, but nothing actually wrong.

One issue is that many of the sources I found were local articles. They seemed to assume a lot of the context. I will see what I can do here. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from one actual issue mentioned above in "Sports influences", spot checks reveal no problems.
Images fine, but I think more information could be given in the files about original publication dates, or why the images are PD, rather than having to follow the links to the source.

I will work on this. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Everything else seems to check out.

Thank you for a thorough review. Please let me know how we can continue to improve the article. EricEnfermero ^Howdy! 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll place this on hold for the moment. A really interesting article on someone who seems a bit of a character. Very enjoyable and I look forward to passing. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All the changes look good. I think the two wives thing could be made clearer (looking at the sources, I got the same impression as you that each woman thought she was "the one"), but that is not enough to hold up promotion of this article. But I would still recommend clarification. In addition, were you to think of taking this article to FA, maybe some of the sourcing could be made a touch more robust. But no real problems, and I'm happy to pass this as GA now. Great stuff. Sarastro1 (talk) 09:06, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]