Talk:Inside baseball (strategy)

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Article life[edit]

I stopped to think whether the buzword "inside baseball" has a literal meaning, and indeed it had! Google Books is a great thing. My next surprize came when "what links here" told me that in fact this article was deleted only two weeks ago (!) after existing for over 3 years. I am wondering whether its deleted contents are recyclable. Laudak 00:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Metaphorical usage[edit]

"Wikt:inside baseball" gives a 1914 quote:

1914 Paul Withington, Lothrop Withington. The Book of Athletics Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.
There always has been a tendency to overlook the catcher, possibly because so much of him is covered up during the game, but more because the greatest part of his work is inside baseball and of the kind which the general public can neither see nor appreciate.

in support of the metaphorical meaning. In fact, the quote works well with the direct technical meaning of "Inside Baseball". Can anyone lay their hands on the book and verify from the wider context that the phrase was used indeed metaphorically? Laudak 01:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There certainly is now a metaphor, which i have heard one baseball commentator attribute to another specifically named (apparently now retired) one.
For now, Inside baseball (metaphor) is a Rdr to the section Inside_Baseball#As_a_metaphor. It should be considered, especially if the popularizer of the metaphor can be identified, whether the section should be moved to an article, replacing the Rdr: they are probably two separately coverable topics.
--Jerzy•t 22:51, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

   What we now have is a multi-topic article, even tho there is a continuity of history connecting the two topics. The original sense was a substantial phase of the history of baseball, but as noted above it's now used w/o awareness of the original meaning that spawned the metaphor, and the two do not belong in the same article. I am splitting them into two articles.
   That does not, however, settle the question i raised above: the metaphor is more a matter of usage and lexicography, and what needs discussion is whether the metaphor needs encyclopedic treatment or just the mention that already exists in Wikt.
   My split is one that creates no primary topic for the topics "Inside Baseball" and "inside baseball". (The confusion that would result from relying entirely on casing to distinguish the two rules out using both titles without disambiguating suffixes.) If the metaphor is not article-worthy, then perhaps the Orioles' strategy is the primary topic; if the metaphor article is not deletable, it's probably the best candidate for primary topic, as it is probably what the overwhelming majority of uses intend. My no-primary-topic approach should not be seen as prejudicing the position that a primary topic should still be designated once the status of the metaphor's article is decided.
--Jerzy•t 04:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Caps[edit]

I don't understand why this phrase, in this literal sense of the game, should be capitalized. - dcljr (talk) 23:09, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neither do I. I have moved the page. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:42, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Small ball (baseball) ?[edit]

As there is limited information here, and it appears that the strategies are very similar, it seems that "Inside baseball" is just a precursor to Small ball (baseball), with a different name. Would it make sense to take the content of this article over there and redirect this title? Back Bay Barry (talk) 22:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]