Our First Sports Notables Challenge - Baseball Legends!

Question

On the heals of this morning's very special BINGO guest from Georgia's Ty Cobb Museum, the Sports Notables Project is excited to announce our premier challenge: Baseball Legends!

We have selected 40 of Major League Baseball's all-time greatest players, with the goal of raising each of their profiles to a higher level of excellence while also helping to expand the greater WikiTree. 

We'll be focusing on making connections and increasing CC7s, as well as general profile improvement. To do this, we will need BioBuilders, Categorizers, Connectors, Data Doctors, Formatters, Photo Finders, Sourcerers, and any other WikiTreers looking to have a good time upgrading these baseball profiles.

Follow the link here to see our complete list of Baseball Legends and to learn more about what needs to be done. Then jump in wherever you think you'll have the most fun. Just be sure to drop us a note here to let us know what you're working on and to periodically update us on your progress.

Comments

I think you mean "USA baseball legends". Could you please change the wording to reflect this ?  There are over 100 countries playing professional baseball, but only the USA is represented in your free-space profile and challenge.

Answer 1

I'm in for categories.

Comments

Great Natalie. If anyone knows categories its you.

Answer 2

I'll try to do some connecting.

Answer 3

I connected Wilver Stargell in July 2022. I will continue working on his lines. It would be nice to have someone who can sort his Seminole lines. Wilver was proud of his Seminole ancestry.

Comments

I update Willie's status on our list to show that he is connected. Perhaps you can reach out to the Native Americans Project to see if anyone has experience in Seminole research.

Answer 4

Easy choice for me.... I will take Ty Cobb.

Comments

I have taken Ty's CC7 up 400+ 

.......which by the way, Ty hit over 400 three times. 

Answer 5

Congratulation to Kandita Post for making our first connection! Known for his overpowering speedball, Yankees pitcher Lefty Gomez was part of five World Series championship teams - all in the 1930s.  

Answer 6

connected Foxx and Ott yesterday, think there was another one.

Comments

Great job! Two great players that maybe don't get as much attention as they should.

Answer 7

Working on Robert Evans Roberts. Had no idea he had such close Welsh roots.

Answer 8

Vida Blue is in the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, so I'll see what I can do to expand his CC7 and get him connected.

Comments

LOL - not sure why I thought this was the case, but I guess I got him confused with someone else. He's never been on the Reds... ANYWAYS - I've expanded his tree a bit, so hopefully that gets us a tiny bit closer to a connection.

---

Vida Blue pitched for the Oakland As, the San Francisco Giants, and the Kansas City Giants. He won three consecutive World Series 1972-1974.

---

Well... I'll still work on him, even though the more that I think about it, the A's were pretty tough on the Big Red Machine. Even Pete Rose said Vida Blue was one of the hardest throwing pitchers he'd ever faced.

Answer 9

I connected Stan Musial.

Comments

Great job Elizabeth!

Answer 10

I've just connected Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers to the Big Tree. Unfortunately, I had to go through his wife, who appears to be still living. That means her profile must remain blocked from viewing, but the connection should be viewable after the next software update.

Answer 11

With today's connection of Phil Rizzuto, we have officially reached the halfway mark on connections. We began with fourteen unconnected baseball legends. Today, just two weeks into the project, we have seven left to go:

Roy Campanella

Robin Roberts

Roberto Clamente

Bob Gibson

Lou Brock

Vida Blue

Kirby Puckett

But remember, this project isn't just about making connections. Many of these players need significant improvements on their bios. Some are too long, some are to short, and some have no bios at all. Many also focus too much on career highlights, ignoring any genealogical details. Regrettably, some also appear to have simply been cut and pasted from Wikipedia. If you like writing bios, our baseball legends need your help.

Comments

I added more profiles to Vida Blue's CC7 today, but no connection in sight as of yet. Might take some work to get enough profiles within his CC7 and beyond to find that elusive connection.

---

Ugh. Vida Blue is an interesting research project. SO MUCH MISINFORMATION in his lines. I've found 3 lines that should "in theory" point to a very easy connection, and in each case after some careful research, I've had to dismiss them all. So frustrating to see such poor research where someone picks out the letter "J" in a Census and "ASSUMES" it must be their ancestor. If they'd just do the proper research, in 99% of the cases, a further Census, will, or other document proves it otherwise. I'll stop ranting now... not that I'm perfect about this in any way, but I guess these are a bit more obvious (to me at least) than normal.

---

You'd think "Blue" would be a rather easy name to trace. Anyway, it's good to remind people to be careful not to be too quick to draw conclusions when researching notables. We want to give them the same careful attention we would our own families.

---

I've kind of exhausted the "Blue" line, so on to Johnson, Stringer, McMillan, White, Caldwell and Rutledge. Started with the paternal Blue side and have expanded it about as far as I could go with it without involving living profiles, and now working the married in branches. I did touch on the maternal side too, but I don't want to get too scattered in my research. Otherwise I spend all my time digging and not enough time creating. I'm close to exhausting the Johnson line too, but as you can tell, I've got plenty more at the moment to work with.

---

I think I've got Vida up to a CC7 of 58, but still no connection in sight.

---

Finally encountered my first "already created" profiles that I absorbed into the unconnected cluster. Nothing promising, but it was nice to find some that the work was already done. Up to CC7 of 71 now. Still no connection in sight.

---

I believe that Vida Blue should be connected tonight when the links update. I didn't "quite" make it to a CC7 above 100, but I did make it to the 90's.

---

I think it will be a long distance connection for now. Around 45-50 degrees.

---

Looks like the CC7 is showing 113 now. The connection works (I was able to pull up a connection between me and him at 46 degrees).

---

Answer 12

I've added a few to Roy Campanella's line - none of his wives were researched or added, so now he has all 3. He now has lots of new profiles that can be added and lots of new avenues of connections to review. I'm not sure if the Italian Roots project might be interested in him, as his paternal line runs up through Italy, so it could be a good partnership there.

Comments

I also just added some sources to his direct ancestor Hattie Mercer on his mother's side that would allow that branch to go back another generation and add siblings for her, if anyone wants to work on that line.

---

His CC7 should be up to 50 once that last profile posts. I've got several avenues that could lead to connections. Just will need to explore them a bit to find it.

---

Roy will be connected tonight after the links update. Just took some time to flesh out his Italian side of the family and their marriages to find a line that had an existing connection to the global tree.

---

Congratulations Scott. My brother once met Roy Campanella and has had an affinity for him ever since. He'll be thrilled to learn that they are just 32 degrees removed from each other!

Answer 13

I was able to increase Cy Young's CC7, but there may be some issues. If anyone finds any information that is incorrect, please let me know.

Comments

Thanks Kevin.