Talk:1959 National League tie-breaker series

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1959 National League tie-breaker series 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.

1959 National League tie-breaker series is part of the Major League Baseball tie-breakers series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 16, 2011	Good article nominee	Listed
January 24, 2013	Good topic candidate	Promoted

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 3, 2011.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Los Angeles Dodgers' victory in the 1959 tie-breaker series was one of five tie-breaker appearances in franchise history, more than any other team in Major League Baseball history?

Current status: Good article

GA Review[edit]

This review is transcluded from Talk:1959 National League tie-breaker series/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: I'll review this either today or early tomorrow. —W F C— 05:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most of this review is focused on criteria 1, along with a couple of baseball-specific points. I have no concerns over criteria 3-6. Criteria 2 will almost certainly be fine, but at time of writing I haven't spot checked the references. I haven't forgotten the lead, but I find that the best way to review it properly is to leave it until after everything else has been sorted.

Background[edit]

Do you reckon there'd be value in putting the standings after 154 games alongside this section? Most of the work has already been done in 1959 Major League Baseball season, which I guess could be considered as an argument either way.

I kinda like that idea. However, do you know how to get the text to wrap around the Wikitable? Here's the edited version with the correct 154 game standings.

I've added it, in as close to the appropriate position as I could get. Off to follow the football (by radio due to traffic problems :( ), but will check everything else later. —W F C— 19:33, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1959 National League standings after 154 games	W	L	GB	Pct.
Los Angeles Dodgers	86	68	--	.558
Milwaukee Braves	86	68	--	.558
San Francisco Giants	83	71	3	.539
Pittsburgh Pirates	78	76	8	.506
Chicago Cubs	74	80	12	.481
Cincinnati Reds	74	80	12	.481
St. Louis Cardinals	71	83	15	.461
Philadelphia Phillies	64	90	22	.416

I think "had a poor 1958 season" would better describe the Dodgers' year than "finished the 1958 season poorly". By the sounds of it, they weren't fantastic at the start either.

Done. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Techically, the September 26 game wasn't a no-hitter.

Anymore, it was at the time though. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The Dodgers were 14-10 against the Braves overall for the season," I assumed that they'd have played 22 times before this play-off? If so, 12–10 after 154 games would probably be a more appropriate statistic for this point in the article. Apologies if I'm wrong. Also, an endash is needed.

BAH! Right you are. I was looking at B-Ref's overall season count as I always do for these articles, but forgot to remove the tie-breaker games. Also changes the 1 run fact. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I acknowledge that this isn't strictly a GA thing, but I always like to give as much feedback as I can in a review. You're right to put the subject towards the start of a sentence. But while bearing that rule of thumb in mind, take every opportunity to avoid starting a sentence with "The Giants", "The Dodgers, "The Braves" etc. For instance, "The Braves won the NL that year with a 92–62 record, on the other hand, and..." could become "By contrast, the Braves won the NL that year with a 92–62 record, and..." Same goes for paragraphs, although admittedly they're extremely hard. I guess the fourth paragraph could start "Both the Dodgers and Braves finished the regularly scheduled 154-game season with 86–68 records, ..."

Changed those 2. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Series[edit]

I'm not too familiar with box score formatting, so there may be a good reason not to. But could the two teams' home runs be put on the same line?

They certainly could be, but the last time I tried messing with the formatting for the box score template it got all wonky IIRC. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps swap the first two sentences of the first paragraph around? (last time I refer to the previous point, promise)

Done. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A few endashes are missing. The ones I spotted were 3-2, 5-4 and 6-5. Ctrl + F should pick 'em up.

I'll run the endash bot. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll return to this section tomorrow. On a first read, I struggled to find any further fault with the prose for the games. I found the second game particularly engaging.

Aftermath[edit]

While accurate in a technical sense (the World Series is an inter-league playoff), would the Dodgers' achievement have actually been considered "reaching the playoffs" in 1959?

Absolutely. The term would mean little since that was the only playoff, but sure. Plus nowadays it is absolutely considered making the playoffs retroactively. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The Dodgers' faced": no apostrophe needed.

Fixed. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Probably worth mentioning in passing who Ernie Banks played for.

Done. Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That'll do for today. I'll try to add to the series section tomorrow, and I'll do spot checks on the sources and have a look at the lead once the above is all sorted. It's mostly pretty minor stuff, and I look forward to promoting this article in the near future. Regards, —W F C— 08:13, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lead and final points[edit]

The first paragraph of the lead is great. It introduces the subject very nicely, and is of an appropriate length.
At first sight I felt the summary for game one was too short (and that's part of the reason that I held off from reviewing the lead). I'd probably start it with "After a rain-delayed start, the Dodgers won Game 1..." simply to pad it out. Otherwise it was a low-scoring, tight, error-free game, so I agree that there's little more to say. But I don't think we get enough of a feel for the second, and that's largely down to chronology. Ideally it should go along the lines of: Braves leading from the first innings --> Dodgers coming back from three down in the ninth --> description of the winning run in the twelth --> Dodgers take the game and thus the series.

Fixed, broke G2 into 2 sentences. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the baseball statistics sentence belongs somewhere in paragraph one. Paragraph two should focus on the event, rounded off with the bit on the World Series.

That's where the sentence has been in the other articles. I don't feel like it makes sense to discuss what happens to the stats from the tie-breaker until there's a tie-breaker. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are six DABs.

I'll fix them right up. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Groundout is left as that isn't really a DAB and there's no better target I can find. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I read through the series section again. My conclusion was that I would struggle even to nit-pick it at FAC, and therefore that for the purposes of a GA review there is nothing to add. Once these final few issues are resolved I'll be very happy to pass this as a good article. Regards, —W F C— 01:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well thankee. As an aside, if you have the time could you check out the 62 article? I ran that through FAC, eventually I'd like to try again but dunno what to change. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I'll give it a go, but probably not today as I intend to see how many reasonable start class or better biographies I can create in a day. I'm satisfied that this meets the criteria, and have therefore passed the article. Keep up the excellent work! —W F C— 23:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]