Help:Submitting early baseball research

From SABR Encyclopedia

Revision as of 17:57, 23 February 2010

This page will walk you through entering and editing information for articles relating to early baseball. If you're ready to enter the information, you've probably already done the research. If not, please see the Spread of Baseball project pages on the Origins Committee website for help:

• What we want to know – research goals for the project
• Research tips – advice on how to find the information

For help or instructions on general editing of the encyclopedia, visit the Introduction to editing in the encyclopedia page, or click on "Help" at the left of any Encyclopedia page.

Adding information

The process to add information is very straightforward. First you need to find the page for the region of your research (examples: "Ohio", "Colombia"), then add your new information. You'll add the information using a form that's no more complicated than what you use to buy something online or send an email.

Getting to the information entry page

Early baseball in Ohio page

Start by going to the Early baseball page. From there, choose the region for which you want to add data. In the example picture to the right, we will be adding data for Ohio.

Once you are on a region page, you will see three lists: early games, early clubs, and predecessors games. At the end of each list is a link to add new information to that list. You can see the links circled in red on the Ohio screenshot to the right (click to enlarge).

Adding information

There are three areas in which you can add information: games, clubs, and predecessors games. The process for entering information is very similar for all three.

Adding games

Add game information entry page

Once you've clicked one of the links to add information, you'll be on a form screen like the one at right. The screenshot uses the example of adding a game (again, you can click to enlarge the screen).

On this screen, you can enter the information you've found in your research. A few things to keep in mind:

• Only fill in a date if you are sure of the date. If the date is unclear, use the Date note box instead. For example, if you know that a game was either played on the 4th or 5th of October in 1845, you would enter this:
  • Year: 1845
  • Month: 10
  • Date: (leave date blank)
  • Date note: Either the 4th or 5th
• City, State, and Country should be the modern name, if available. If you don't know, it's OK to leave them blank. They need to be the modern name because these fields are used for mapping.
• Site is the particular location (such as a field, or the name of a parcel of land) where the game was played, if you know it. "Elysian Fields" is a good example of a site, but "Hoboken" or "Washington Heights" is not.
• Was NY Baseball should be your best estimate of whether the game played was the same one we know today. If you're not sure, that's OK, but be sure to choose one of the options.
• Played by locals asks whether the game was played by people living in the area, or by a traveling team of some sort. Soldiers playing while deployed are not considered locals.
• Team 1 and Team 2 are the names of the teams, if any. If the game was intramural, please enter "intramural" for team 2. If you only know the name of one team, enter that one as "Team 1" and leave "Team 2" blank.
• Scores are easy enough fields - if you know the scores, enter them here.
• Length is a free form field – you can enter a length in innings, in hours, or any other metric.
• Reviewed will be unchecked when you enter new information. The box will be checked once someone has reviewed the information and made the entry officially part of the database.

Once you are finished with the basic data, you should move on to the the summary box below. This summary should include a description of why you believe the game took place on this date, and what evidence you have found for whether or not it was played under New York base ball rules. Please cite sources. Games added with no source information will not be added to the database.

You are strongly encouraged to quote directly from newspaper accounts. All newspapers from the era of baseball's early spread are out of copyright, and having the text on the page allows future researchers to see the totality of evidence.

You don't need to use any specially codes for markup, but do leave a space between each paragraph so that the information formats correctly after everything is complete.

When you are done with the summary, click on Save page. This will take you back to the page for the region you are working on. The information you entered will be in gray until it is reviewed.

The same basic process can be repeated for adding clubs and predecessors games – see below for specific information on fields that are different. You can find the links for "Add club," and "Add predecessor game," at the bottom of each respective section.

Adding clubs

This section only lists the one field that is different than the fields for for games. Please see above for information on those fields.

• Date for clubs refers to the specific date the club was formed, if you know it for sure. This will likely differ from the date of the first game, but if you have that information as well, be sure to enter it in the notes field at the bottom.
• Nickname – if the club had an official nickname, this is the place for it. Not all clubs did, and it is OK to leave this field blank.

Adding predecessor games

This section only lists the one field that is different than the fields for for early baseball games. Please see above for information on those fields.

• Name of game – if the account gives a name for the game played, list it here.

Final steps

Once you have added information, it will be automatically brought to the attention of the review committee – you need not take any further action. You may receive an email asking for more information, or you may not. You can check back to see if your information is added to the database.