Wikipedia:Naming conventions (baseball players)

This is the naming conventions guideline for the naming of Wikipedia articles about baseball players, including managers, coaches, umpires and other personalities associated with the sport.

As sports go, baseball has a long, rich and well-documented history, resulting in the creation of several thousand biographical articles for baseball players. To avoid confusion among baseball biographies, and to avoid duplication of articles, a set of article naming standards has been proposed:

General rules

The title of an article for a baseball player should reflect the name they most commonly went by during their career. Informally, the name that appeared on a player's baseball cards should serve as the article's title.

Nicknames should only be used when a player went by their nickname professionally instead of their given first name.

Examples: Babe Ruth – Whitey Ford – Lefty Gomez

Disambiguation

Because of the large number of articles about baseball players, disambiguation is often necessary. In cases where two (or more) ballplayers share the same name, disambiguation is often complex and confusing.

The following steps should be followed to disambiguate baseball player articles:

1. Where disambiguation is necessary between a baseball player and another person unrelated to baseball, then the baseball player be disambiguated (if less notable than the subject of the other article) using "(baseball)" in the article name. Example: Lee Smith (baseball)
2. In situations where two baseball personalities have the same name, but different occupations, disambiguate using the occupation. Example: Mike Smith (baseball manager)^§ and Mike Smith (baseball player)^§
3. If there are two baseball personalities who were predominantly associated with different leagues (not including the modern American and National Leagues of Major League Baseball), then the league name can be used to disambiguate. Example: John Smith (Negro Leagues baseball player)^§ and John Smith (Major League Baseball player)^§
4. Where disambiguation is necessary between two (or more) baseball players who play different positions, the position should be added to the article name. Example: Ramón Martínez (pitcher) and Ramón Martínez (infielder)
   • Note: When two pitchers share the same name, but one was a left-hander and the other was a right-hander, then this may be used to dismbiguate. Example: John Smith (left-handed pitcher)^§ and John Smith (right-handed pitcher^§
5. Where the previous steps are insufficient and further disambiguation is necessary between two (or more) baseball players who play the same positions, it should be achieved using the most conclusive of the three steps below:
   • When two retired players' careers did not overlap and both players each predominantly played in a single decade, then use that to differentiate between them. Example: John Smith (1930s outfielder)§ and John Smith (1960s outfielder)^§
   • When two retired players spent the majority of their careers with one team, then the team name may be used. Make sure that Player A did not play for the team used in Player B's article title and vice versa. Use the full name of the team. Example: John Smith (Houston Astros outfielder)^§ and John Smith (Philadelphia Phillies outfielder)^§
   • If team and decade are still insufficient, then use the players' year of birth. Example: John Smith (baseball outfielder, born 1943)^§ and John Smith (baseball outfielder, born 1950)^§

^{§ - Fictional player used for demonstration purposes.}