Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
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:
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.
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:
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)
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)
In situations where there are two (or more) retired baseball personalities, these options also become available:
If their careers did not overlap and both players each predominantly played in a single decade, then use that to differentiate between them. Example: Tom Baker (1930s pitcher) and Tom Baker (1960s pitcher)
