Wikipedia:Peer review/Steve Dalkowski/archive1

Steve Dalkowski

Steve Dalkowski was a minor league pitcher for the various Baltimore affiliates, he was as much known for his 100mph+ fastball as his inability to control it. I've been working on this article since last week and it's slowly starting to come together. What it really needs is more baseball buffs to have a good look over it (and hopefully some minor league experts as well, since this is not my forte) and iron out the rough edges. It also needs a good copyedit and the structure improving. Also, does anyone have a better picture? He's a fascinating character and this could easily become a great featured article with some TLC. Thanks for your attention. :) Zerbey 18:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Update: Article has been largely rewritten to address all concerns, feedback would be greatly appreciated. Zerbey 17:50, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Zerbey, you've certainly picked an interesting topic to work on! I found the article fascinating. However, I do have several concerns.

I read your sources, and comparing them back to the article, it is apparent that much of the material in the wikipedia article would definitely be considered plagiarism, if not an outright copyright violation. This material needs to be rewritten, where it matches the language and phrasing of the source article too closely.

~~:*Agreed, and this is my primary focus right now. Zerbey 19:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)~~

Dalkowski's claim to fame was his fast pitches -- however (as I'm sure you are aware), even today there is dispute over the measuring of pitch speeds (what with "fast" and "slow" guns), making radar gun measurements best used for relative, not absolute, speed comparisons. Earlier technologies were likely even less reliable. I think that this article needs to discuss more thoroughly that the purported speeds of 105 to 110 mph were never verified. This doesn't make the article non-notable; it just shouldn't be reported as fact that his fastballs "on a good day" reached the 105-110 range.

~~:*Noted, will work on this. He was officially clocked at 95mph in the 60s but the results were controversial, this will be included soon Zerbey 19:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)~~

Testimonials of other players are very interesting and good sources, but it is known that some pitches "look faster" than they actually are, due to various factors including the pitcher's arm motion and release point. Some discussion on how pitchers in general can make pitches appear faster than they are, any information on whether Dalkowski used those techniques (although I realize that info might not exist), and the inherent unreliability of batter's testimonials due to these effects, should be included.
A parallel project could be the history of radar guns and other technologies for measuring pitch speed; lots of information on that is scattered through the Dalkowski article, but would be a good read by itself if collected in a new article. It would also shed lots of light on the whole question of "how fast were Dalkowski's pitches, really?".

Again, fascinating topic, I'll try to keep up with changes and help the article along where I can... it'd be a fun FAC, but not yet. Bantman 19:35, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Zerbey 19:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not an American, and don't really understand baseball, so a few baseball terms should probably be explained. For instance, what does "walked" and "strike out" mean? I would also redistribute those external links in the lead section to the text, and reference them properly in the reference section. The trivia section is evil :-) that needs to be incorporated into the text as it's all interesting and good information! I must say, this has been a valiant stab at writing about a sports star. Usually I find it pretty dull, this article was actually interesting and informative! I'd love to see this on FAC and onto the featured articles page. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:42, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind comments. Trivia: I am looking into making this better without turning the page into a list of anecdotes (see above). Strikeout/Walk: I will link to the already excellent wikipedia articles on these subjects. Links: OK, will do. Any other comments welcome. Zerbey 02:05, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have just started merging it. I'm thinking that some of the trivia can be incorporated into the history section into the relevant section. I just processed the first item (check the diffs), maybe that would give you some idea of how to procede! - Ta bu shi da yu 02:55, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Merge is done! Someone might want to look at this to see how well I've done this. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:58, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Excellent. Zerbey 20:39, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have found an image at http://www.astroland.net/belinsky.jpg and have emailed the owner of the site to see if we can use it under the GFDL or Creative Commons license. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:48, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How would a picture of a different ball player be relevant to this article? Zerbey 01:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It couldn't! I made a silly mistake, and the owner of the picture (a fellow Wikipedian, User:Rastro) also asked me the question... Rastro says that he might be able to help out if we can give him some focussed questions on stuff about this player. Do we have any? - Ta bu shi da yu 03:16, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We need to know:

More on what happened after he retired. What little we do know is already in the article, I'd really like to have some more on his life as a migrant worker and how it affected him.
I'm not actually sure if he's still alive (hopefully he is!) as the last information we have on him has him sick, but active in 2003. So, more on what's going on with him now, he has a family and he still attends ball games. What else does he do with his time? Any recent pictures? Zerbey 04:34, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Updates on the picture issue:

Steve Dalkowski either hated his photograph being taken, or people just didn't like taking photographs of him!
Wrote to the Orioles about a month ago asking for help but haven't got a reply yet.
As far as baseball trading cards are concerned the image we have is the only one he ever appeared on. Am waiting for a reply from Topps to see if we can use it (they're not very forthcoming)
Wrote to the Assoc. of Professional Ball Players asking for help this week, no reply yet.
Last resort: SI did an article on Dalkowski in their July, 2003 issue - I'm hoping that there was an image and that they will let us use it. To this end, I'm ordering a copy.
As always, any help Wikipedians can provide would be appreciated!

Zerbey 01:23, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hello

Ta bu shi da yu emailed me yesterday, thinking that a picture he had found on my website was that of Dalkowski. It wasn't, it was of Bo Belinsky. The reason why TBSDY's google image search came up with the image was that on the same page as the image, I mention that Belinsky (who believe me is worth an article himself) was a teammate of Dalkowski's for the 1958 Aberdeen Pheasants. They were also rivals the following year in the long-defunct Alabama-Florida League. http://www.geocities.com/dalkowski110/dalkowski.jpg is also posted at this site, and for this reason I have always thought that the picture portrays him pitching for the '59 Pensacola Dons, though I have no proof of this. sparks81@nc.rr.com, who posted the same picture at http://www.alabama-florida-league.com/dalkowski.jpg might know this for a fact (or not)

This highly recommended book (link to Amazon) introduced me to Dalkowski. Its first chapter is on Dalkowski, by Shelton. Also stories on Moe Berg, Manny Mota, Karl Spooner, Bill Lee, and other fascinating if not always so famous players. . . .

It also has this picture, from when Dalkowski pitched for the Rochester Red Wings. The original belongs to the Hall of Fame. http://www.astroland.net/dalkowskiredwings.jpg

The following is a post by Society of American Baseball Research member Kit Krieger on Dalkowski. He is wrong about Etchebarren, who is very much alive:

Dave Baldwin write about the legendary speed and wildness of Steve
Dalkowski. Many of the stories derive from Pat Jordan's writings more than 30 years ago. I never had the privilege to see Dalkowski pitch but remember that his arm was a frequent topic of conversation in my clubhouse when I was the visiting clubhouse attendant for the Vancouver Mounties of the Pacific Coast League from 1967-69. I remember a conversation about ten years later with Andy Etchebarren, who caught Dalkowski when they both played with Elmira in the Eastern League in 1962. I started the conversation and repeated some of the stories I had read, including the one that Dalkowski had once hit a batter in the on-deck circle. Etchebarren said that Dalkowski was not tough to catch. He described his fastball as "light". He also remarked that Dalkowski's wildness was high and low (mostly high) and not inside an outside. He said that Dalkowski had trouble because his ball had so much upward movement and not because he couldn't come within range of home plate. I know that the question of whether a fastball can rise en route from the pitchers hand to home plate is of some dispute among people with more knowledge of physics than this teachers' union president. The new biography of Koufax has some commentary on this possibility. I distinctly remember Etchebarren saying that Dalkowski would throw a fastball that looked like it was coming in a knee level, only to see it said past the batter's eyes.

I think that Etchebarren died a couple of years ago. Harry Dunlop, one time Oriole coach and catcher in Ron Necchai's 27-strikeout performance in Bristol, VA is still alive. He caught Dalkowski and should be contacted.

Kit Krieger
Cubaball Tours 4772 Narvaez Drive Vancouver, BC Canada V6L 2J2
tel: 604-266-4664 e-mail: kkrieger@bctf.ca

I'd definitely email Mr. Krieger if you wanted to use excerpts from the above.

"Lost Phenom Finds His Way," a story in the February 16, 2003 Baltimore Sun is a good pre-Camden story on Dalkowski

Found that in the web archive and several others, I'll see what information they yield! :-) Zerbey 23:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm certain I would have heard through SABR if he had passed.

Rastro 03:27, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Lots of food for thought, and some more letters to write! Many thanks for the information :-) Zerbey 04:01, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I also tightened some of the article up, improved the look of the table, etc.

Rastro 04:55, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, collaboration at its finest! And to think I found you via a google image search :-) Ta bu shi da yu 13:01, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, the APBA wrote back to me confirming that they provided support for him between 1974-1992, which is useful to know. Unfortunately, they where not able to give any more information for confidentiality reasons but that little titbit is useful :). Zerbey 23:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Letters have been sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame and to Mr Krieger, I will post here if there is any response. Zerbey 18:34, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Success! Kit Krieger was kind enough to allow us to use text from his post. :) Zerbey 21:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Success 2! The Baseball Hall of Fame where kind enough to send us a free picture. :) Zerbey 18:24, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)