Talk:National League (baseball)

Designated hitter

The article states that without the designated hitter rule ". . . the role of the manager is more important in terms of actual play". How is this so? -- Prometheus7Unbound 01:23, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Because he has to make critical decisions about whether to leave a pitcher in or put in a pinch-hitter for him in late innings of a close game. In the AL they have no such problem. They leave a pitcher in as long as he's effective, because he doesn't bat. Wahkeenah 03:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

St. Louis

The St. Louis Cardinals page indicates that the current Cardinals team evolved from the brown stockings, contradicting what this article says about only the Braves and the Cubs being modern equivalents. Which is right? --jcarkeys 02:10, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

It was a different team. The early National League team folded. The Brown Stockings or Browns of the AA were a new team in 1882. However, if you could find some evidence that it was the same organization, which was merely inactive for a few years, that would be worth noting. But I don't think so. All the literature I've seen indicates the current Cardinals date their beginnings from the 1882 club. Wahkeenah 03:52, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Philadelphia and New York

The article currently states that Philadelphia and New York were new franchises in 1883. However, I have read some other sources that indicate they were indeed transferred from older cities. The Worcester team (formed in 1880), relocated to Philadelphia, and Troy (formed 1879) moved to New York. Cincinnati, however, is the same team that it was in 1876. They were booted from the NL in 1880, spent one year playing independently, then joined the AA in 1882. The same team then transferred to the NL in 1890, along with the Brooklyn entry from 1884. David Nemec and his book The Beer and Whiskey League help shed some light on this area concerning the AA. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Baseball247 (talk • contribs) 00:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

More on this: The Phillies' own history states: "The original Phillies began when the Worcester Ruby Legs were disbanded and the franchise was moved by the National League to Philadelphia." Additional sources note that once the Worcester team was disbanded, the Philadelphia team (Quakers) was organised and that there was no connection between the teams, just a case of the League replacing one franchise spot with another. That indicates the team didn't relocate, but that a new one rose to fill the space left by the disbanded one.

This would make the article's sentence: "Since the NL's formation, the Cubs are the only team to play continously in the same city" inaccurate, as the Phillies have certainly been in Philadelphia continuously since 1883.

The Reds have been in Cincinnati even longer, just not continuously in the National League. Nevertheless they have also been in the same city since the formation of the NL, so technically the sentence is inaccurate on two fronts.

Hence the wording "The Cubs are the only charter member to play continuously in the same city." That is a true statement. The Reds club dates from 1882. The 1876 Reds team was a different team from the 1882 team. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Canada-Accuracy dispute

I dont think interleague play in Toronto should count as the NL in canada because it should be determined with which teams make their home in the country, No NL team plays at home in canada. Someone who doesn't care to look at the "edit page" and doesn't know much could get the wrong idea, and even if not, it still seems incorrect to me. Crd721 (talk) 08:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

MLB itself spans USA and Canada. That point is a little confusing in the article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue seems to be the flag. I just about changed it to say (Interleague play only), and then it occurred to me that although there have also been regular-season games in places like Japan, Mexico and Puerto Rico (albeit as "neutral sites), the NL itself is not based in those countries and their flags are not shown. So neither should the Canadian flag be shown. It's fair to retain the fact that MLB is in both Canada and USA. I wouldn't say this is the last word on the subject, though. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed the accuracy tag, as the thing I objected to is gone now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crd721 (talk • contribs) 05:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If I had known that was what the tag was for, I could have removed it myself, a month ago. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Timeline

I created a timeline of the National League, and think it would be a good addition to this page. It nicely illustrates the how the league grew and changed over time. I'm pretty sure I got all the teams in there, although some of the nicknames might be a little wonky as they didn't become official for most teams till the '20s or 30's. shaggy (talk) 00:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

NL Entry fee

The math here is confusing; it lists $172 as the 2007 equivalent for $10 in the late 1800s. Shouldn't it read that it cost $10 in 2007 dollars, and XX cents in 1875 dollars? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.147.139.184 (talk) 21:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Red Sox or Braves?

The article states "... game between the Orioles and Boston Beaneaters (a precursor to the Red Sox) in 1894 ended up having tragic consequences when players became engaged in a brawl and several boys in the stands started a fire." The Red Sox didn't exist until the American League was created in 1901; the Beaneaters would've been the precursor to the Boston Braves, not the Red Sox. 199.43.48.149 (talk) 20:29, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed merge

NL Constitution --> National League The orphan stub doesn't contain enough context or independent notability to remain its own page. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

• Merge Androids101 (talk) 08:42, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Correction needed for Houston Colts / Colt 45s

The fact that the Houston club was originally the "Colt 45s," then the "Colts," and then the Astros should be made clear in the article. I don't remember when the 1st change was made but I believe it was only in the 1st season that they were the "Colt 45s." (There was a trademark dispute with the Colt Mfg. Co. that prevented them from continuing to use the "45s".) I'm really surprised that's not already in this article. 209.179.21.14 (talk) 22:57, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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Oh Lord.

What a mess. The posting about the Cincinnati Reds under "Current Teams" is soooooo off. You had them listed in the NL East, which they never played. The modern club was formed in 1882 in the American Association. Period. It has nothing to do with the first and second incarnation of the Reds. I edited it to fix it. Hopefully it will stay that way.

Cincinnati Stars

The 1880 Cincinnati club was a separate franchise than the 1876-79 club. I can pump you full of articles that support this. Retrosheet has corrected the record. Wiki should consider correcting theirs as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SCSRdotorg (talk • contribs) 08:30, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Terrible sentence structure

The passage pasted below is horribly written and borderline unreadable. Seems like it was written by a 12-year-old. It may be the longest run-on sentence in the history of the English language. There must be someone with the factual expertise and writing ability who can present this info in a more orderly and grammatically correct fashion. …

(After two years of conflict in a "baseball war" of 1901–1902, the two eight-team leagues agreed in a "peace pact" to recognize each other as "major leagues", draft rules regarding player contracts, prohibiting "raiding", regulating relationships with minor leagues and lower level clubs, and with each establishing a team in the nation's largest metropolis of New York City, and the league champions of 1903 arranged to compete against each other in the new professional baseball championship tournament with the inaugural "World Series" that Fall of 1903, succeeding earlier similar national series in previous decades since the 1880s.) 72.78.108.80 (talk) 03:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Suggested move to National League (baseball)

This page received 14.9k views last month. National League (division), the page about the English football league received 149k views in the same time period. While page views are not the only criterion in designating WP:Primarytopic, it is really clear that this page should not be the primary article for such a broad title.

There are 'national leagues' all around the world in every nation and it is only US-centrism that would make this the most notable among those. My personal suggestion would be to move this page to National League (baseball) (which is already has as a redirect) and to move National League to National League (disambiguation), which can note in the lead that the two most prominent National Leagues are the English (soccer/football) and North American (baseball) National Leagues. Please vote on your agreement/disagreement for the proposed move and outline any counter-suggestions below. Mountaincirque^talk 11:33, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

It's certainly an ambiguous term. I regularly update links, intended mainly for National League (division), which wrongly imply that people and clubs in other sports play baseball. Certes (talk) 14:36, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

The baseball league definitely meets the historical importance criteria, as it has over 100 years more history than the soccer division. The views for National League (division) abnormally high, so I'd like some assurance that these aren't artificially inflated by some unknown factors (not implying ill intent in any way). BilCat (talk) 03:06, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, all fair comments. The National League (division) (which is also part of the National League (English football) is a very popular league, even though it is the 5th tier of football in England and Wales, football is huge here and there are 24 sides from across the countries taking part in the top tier. I have just used this tool to double check the views over a 7.5 year period: [1], it shows that National League (division) had 5.75mn views, compared to National League's 2.32mn since July 2015.

However, a reminder that I am not advocating for National League (division) or to be made the WP:Primary, I am arguing that National League should be a disambiguation page as the baseball league is very notable and historic, but only in the USA really. It would still be listed in the disambiguation page lead, as it currently is. There are so many 'national leagues' around the world in both politics and sport, that it just doesn't compute that the American one should be 'grandfathered in' despite having minimal page views and having an English league of the same name that many people will be looking for here.

For a final statistical look, I have compared National League with National League (division) and its constituent league pages (North/South/combined): [2] - it is clear to me that your general Wikipedia user looking for the 'National League' will be looking for football/soccer information in 5/6 of cases, not baseball. Mountaincirque^talk 10:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Just to clarify, National League (English football) is a pyramid of three divisions – National League (division) above National League North and National League South – and forms the top part of the National League System. The (division) topic dominates both page views and location-agnostic search results and is clearly the sole candidate for primary topic by usage. The baseball competition may still be primary by long-term significance. Faced with such a conflict, we often put the disambiguation page at the base name. Certes (talk) 11:42, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

This discussion has been posted for 3 days at this stage and there hasn't been any major disagreement with the proposed move to rename this page National League (baseball) (an existing alias of the page), and point the generic National League to the disambiguation page. I will wait another day or so and then be bold and make the move. As Certes and myself pointed out above, there is a clear split claiming a WP:Primary in this case between history and usage statistics, making it a very strong example for putting the disambiguation page as the base name. Mountaincirque^talk 10:30, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I support the move but such a high-profile topic might merit a formal RM first, so that it gets advertised in the usual places to attract more opinions. We could also notify WikiProject Disambiguation and the relevant sporting WikiProjects. Certes (talk) 11:24, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I object to moving without a discussion. The baseball league is one of the major baseball leagues, and the football league is in the fifth division of English football. Page views notwithstanding, the baseball league is the primary topic. I'll oppose a RM and I imagine a lot of WP:BASEBALL editors will as well. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 17:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Concur. I wasn't objecting strongly above because this is an informal discussion, not an RM. Had I realized the OP intended to move the article on the basis of this discussion alone, I'd have pointed that out at the beginning of this. The baseball league is high profile, not just in the US but in the wider baseball world as well, so an proper RM need to be done. BilCat (talk) 19:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@BilCat is correct that the numbers are inflated. This is likely due to the TV series Welcome to Wrexham and international interest surrounding the football club Wrexham AFC in Wales. This new found interest is likely to be short lived over time. Nemov (talk) 17:27, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

There may be something else going on too that skews the numbers, like a transclusion or something. I'm not up on the technical side of things, but hopefully that will come out in an RM. It might be good to compare the page views of the higher divisions of English soccer to see if they are also this high or not. BilCat (talk) 19:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

This being a Wrexham-related spike makes a lot of sense. It looks like page views increased once in November 2020 after Rob and Ryan bought the team and again in August 2022 when Welcome to Wrexham debuted. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:28, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The data here cannot be disregarded as a spike related to the Welcome to Wrexham show. I posted a 7.5 year graph in the thread above, the views for National League (division) have been slightly higher over the entire period with a more recent spike in interest. This disregards the fact that there is another page National League (English football) which also has high views (that page covers the three divisions that fall under the National League umbrella). So if you take the combined page views for the National League (football), they are substantially higher over 7.5 years, as shown in the other graph I posted; the views for this baseball page are below even those of the National League South and National League North, the 6th tiers of English football that don't have the 'Wrexham factor'. Here and here for a reminder: [3] & [4]

A reminder that this is not a thread calling for National League (division) to be the primary topic, and I acknowledge that choosing a primary isn't on page views alone. But as an editor trying to be neutral this is quite clearly an example of where the primary topic should be a disambiguation page due to the majority of people looking for 'National League' globally not wanting to find content on baseball, a sport that is not played globally. The USA doesn't have claim to the words 'National League', which is about as generic a term you can get and has been used worldwide for various sports and political parties for over a century. I'd argue also that considering the fact that the 'baseball page' is currently sat at the primary that its view count is massively inflated due to people landing there looking for soccer information.

Based on the more detailed comments above I agree that taking this to an RM would be highly preferable and I won't be making any moves. Mountaincirque^talk 11:55, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The National League has been around since 1876. I'd oppose changing the title. GoodDay (talk) 21:50, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

That's not how WP:Primarytopic works. Why should the vast majority of people looking for soccer content be forced onto a page about Baseball because it happened to originate first? That's not a good encyclopedia if you have lots of people going to the wrong place. The logical and fair option is to show them a list of 'National Leagues', highlighting the fact that the soccer and baseball leagues are the most notable in the opening sentence. Mountaincirque^talk 11:58, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Age is a factor, but not the only one. Boston, Lincolnshire has been around since at least the 11th century, yet Boston is still about the younger American city named for it. Certes (talk) 14:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

• I also oppose a move based on long term significance (having used the name for over a hundred years before) and notability. The recent spike in page views doesn't erase the facts that the baseball league is the (co) top flight of the sport in the world and has been consistently the most notable thing under that name for over a century. A fifth-tier league in one country doesn't compare. At all. If the National League needs disambiguation, then so does the Premier League. oknazevad (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  I've addressed the fallacy that this is a recent 'spike' above. The NL football pages have been getting more views than baseball for 7.5 years, until recently when they have been trouncing them. The National League is the successor to the Football Conference and Alliance Premier League, and has 72 teams from across England and Wales competing in a 44-year-old competition, this results in a huge ongoing interest in the inter-connected and similarly-named pages across: National League (English football), National League (division), National League System, National League North and National League South. The combined monthly views for that eco-system of pages last month were 294,328 [5]. Page views here? 16,587, less than any of the above pages, and I'd guess a substantial proportion of the views here are people who have ended up on the wrong page. Put any biases aside for a second and ask yourself if a page should be the primary even if it has only 5.6% of page views for the 6 main pages containing 'National League'.

  I find your comment on the Premier League quite disingenuous, the Premier League is the most-watched sport league in the world with an audience peak of 4.7 billion across 212 territories whereas the National League (baseball)/MLB is only really watched in North America, it had over 1.6 million page views last month. The numbers above pale in comparison, in fact they are 1% almost exactly. If Wikipedia was just for North America and the rest of the world didn't exist then this page would definitely fairly sit at National League. However, there are 211 other territories, and the vast majority of them don't play baseball.

  Would you rather have 95% people arrive at a page that they weren't looking for, rather than make a sensible choice to disambiguate based on global searches/usage. Having a (baseball) after the page title isn't some massive disrespect, it's a way to make the encyclopedia accessible and understandable and not waste thousands of peoples' time every month. Mountaincirque^talk 11:32, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  95% people arrive at a page that they weren't looking for - I'm confused how you are coming to this conclusion that users are landing on the wrong page in the first place. If they were landing on the incorrect page, wouldn't the view numbers represent an increase on National League? Regardless, without some type of path analysis we can't come to that conclusion.

  All that said, while I'm not particularly opposed with the disambiguation, I do not think age and prominence should be simply overlooked. Skipple ☎ 07:08, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  The 95% figure is not substantiated. In February, there was 13.2K incoming views of "National League", and "National League (division)" was not listed among the top 10 outgoing clicks.[6] The 10th entry had 194 clicks. Neither was "National League" listed as a top 10 incoming source for "National League (division)"[7] —Bagumba (talk) 12:24, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Cool tool! Exactly was I was looking for. Skipple ☎ 15:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Happy to retract that, I had mis-presented the stats. What I was referring to was that of all the main 'National League' pages, this one only gets 5% of the total hits. But I went off piste with flipping that to 95%. Another editor above noted that there are often many link corrections needed on soccer pages as people assume that National League is a soccer page, I think I had that in my mind. Mountaincirque^talk 16:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Bagumba, just to let you know that I only added the disambiguation link for National League (division) into this article last week. Someone in their wisdom had decided to only link to the disambiguation page, rather than the most viewed page. So it's no wonder that the page isn't in the 'top links out', it wasn't there until a few days ago. Mountaincirque^talk 08:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  English football has over 70% of the pageviews for "Premier League" It also dominates incoming wikilinks (with 16,000) and search results. Quantitatively, it's a very different case. Certes (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 27 April 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. There's a consensus that whilst the baseball conference is probably the top of the list, it doesn't reach PRIMARYTOPIC status because of the generic nature of the name. I also don't think the argument that the English football league is temporally more notable because of Wrexham is particularly persuasive against the argument that the baseball conference isn't primary. Basically, User:Jayron32 puts the general thrust of this discussion better than I do! (closed by non-admin page mover) Sceptre (talk) 15:10, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

---

• National League → National League (baseball)
• National League (disambiguation) → National League

– The baseball league has longer-term significance but is not the primary topic by usage, National League (division) having significantly more pageviews and international search results. Please see other arguments for and against the moves in the preceding section. Certes (talk) 10:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The only reason I see discussed as a motivation for the move in #Suggested move to National League (baseball) is based on page views. That's only one factor. Wikipedia:Pageviews and primary topics is a good essay on this. The baseball league is the primary topic based on the long-term significance. It was founded in 1876, surviving competing leagues until meeting their match with the American League and forming Major League Baseball, the top-level in baseball. The football league is fifth-level, founded in 1979, and is seeing a pageview spike due to the publicity around Wrexham, which just won the National League. And Wrexham was promoted to the fourth-level for next season. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:03, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  As discussed and proven in the previous topic, the page views for National League (division) have been higher in almost every month since November 2015, claims about the TV show are in denial of the longer-term data. This '1 v 1' comparison doesn't take into account the fact that there are secondary pages at National League (English football) and National League System that captures the three divisions in the National League, which when considered together dwarf National League: link here [8]. Another point to note is that is can be seen in this data that at times when there is most interest in National League (division), National League also spikes, so the number for this page would undoubtedly be significantly lower without people ending up here rather than at a soccer page. Mountaincirque^talk 12:12, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - Per Muboshgu, the baseball league has long-term significance over any other topic, and thus is primary. BilCat (talk) 08:12, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, per above; long-term notability points us to the current primary topic. 162 etc. (talk) 14:30, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support Given the population disparity, it is highly unusual for a UK topic to beat out a US topic by usage (especially by a more than 5x margin: 2022 full-year data). As an American I am quite surprised, but we should listen to the numbers here and organize ideas in the most helpful way for our readers. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:24, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  This is way out of proportion to the norm, as I mentioned above. It makes me think there is something odd going on, like a small group of very obsessive users who visit the site multiple times a day, or perhaps a website that links to the article and accesses it excessively. Again, I'm not implying malice on anyone's. part, just that the amount of page views so unusually high that they should probably be ignored. BilCat (talk) 01:59, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  Location-independent search results also favour English association football over U.S. baseball here. Even when I search via Tor with a U.S. exit node, I consistently see a majority for the UK topic over the U.S. one across Google, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. I don't think it would justify moving the English league to the base name, but it's definitely enough to prevent anything else being a primary topic. Certes (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry @BilCat but I'm not following your logic, "so high it should be ignored", I think you hav just underestimated how popular football is here that even the fifth tier is hugely supported. We can see that from November 2015 the views for the English soccer pages have been consistently higher than this baseball page. There are 24 teams in the top English National League division and people will use the pages regularly to check league tables etc. Mountaincirque^talk 13:26, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  You're actually undermining your own point that the views aren't skewed. And since neither of you are arguing (bludgeoning!) for the soccer division to be the primary topic, it's going to be two clicks for viewers anyway. That leaves historical significance as the main factor here, and that's clearly the baseball league. BilCat (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• I support making "National League" a disambiguation page. I agree with the earlier analysis that historical trends, predating recent events, supports there being multiple primary terms for National League. isaacl (talk) 00:44, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support the English football league has exceeded the American baseball league in pageviews for long enough that it cannot be discounted as a result of American interest in a TV show about Wrexham AFC. As there are so many other entries on the DAB page, there is no primary topic here. The "long-term interest" claim I must discount as interest in the National League separate from Major League Baseball has clearly been declining over time. Walt Yoder (talk) 20:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Isaacl. It's unhelpful to have one organisation be the primary topic. RoadSmasher420 (talk) 04:46, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
• Mountaincirque — Lepricavark — Nemov — GoodDay — Oknazevad — Skipple — Bagumba: pinging those who contributed above but not here. Certes (talk) 11:20, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per my previous comments. An unusual spike in recent page views doesn't trump the century-plus primacy of the topic in long-term significance. And a fifth tier league on one small island doesn't trump the highest level of a sport in the world. oknazevad (talk) 11:29, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  How long is "recent"? Pageview data only goes back to 2015, but for at least 8 years the football article has had more views almost every month except for the MLB finales in October, and 2.5 times as many in total. Should we wait another couple of years for WP:10Y to apply before moving the pages? Certes (talk) 11:47, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  Are you mistaken in thinking that this is a request to make National League (division) primary? It's not. It's a request for a disambiguation page, which is clearly needed for such a generic title that is little known internationally and is not the most searched for term. Mountaincirque^talk 12:14, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Muboshgu. Plus, I suspect the pageviews to change now that Wrexham has been promoted to another division. Now isn't the time for this change. Nemov (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Nemov: See Certes' pageview link; although there is certainly an increase in the last year, even during 2015-2021 the English league has been consistently 2x the baseball league. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:40, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Nemov, please actually consult the data rather than suspecting anything or going on an unproven statement by another editor, you can see that there has been more interest in the soccer page since late 2015. Link here to data: [9] Mountaincirque^talk 12:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Weak Support - While the age and prominence of the league should not be overlooked, the generic naming of the league, which has multiple uses across the world, is a good argument in support to move to the disambiguation page. Per other's arguments, I don't think simply pageviews is a good rational for this move given the current circumstances surrounding National League (division). Skipple ☎ 14:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose the baseball league has long-term primary significance. The football league is currently experiencing a very brief spike in popularity that seems unlikely to last. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:41, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - What can I say. When I read or hear "National League"? Major League Baseball comes to my mind. GoodDay (talk) 20:43, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  Perhaps the most commonly rejected criterion is that the primary topic should only belong to what "first comes to mind". Certes (talk) 21:36, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is not how we decide page titles in Wikipedia. You are meant to be building an encyclopedia for the world, not just yourself or America. Please read WP:NWFCTM. There are 'National Leagues' around the world and not much reason for the USA to have the main page for it other than the fact that it is mostly Americans here. Mountaincirque^talk 12:17, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support. There are many national leagues in the world. This is just one. This probably is the first one that comes to mind for Americans, but not for most other people around the world. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:34, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Strong support - It is clear that if we are creating a global encyclopedia here we need to carefully disambiguate pages with generic titles such as National League. There are national leagues in sports and politics around the world and despite the baseball league being old and notable it does not justify being the primary article at present as there are many other 'National Leagues' and some of them such as the soccer leagues are much more heavily viewed. Sadly, it seems that many editors want to 'protect' baseball from the ignominy of not being the primary page and are going to vote accordingly rather than by best practice. I hope that that editors can put their own bias aside and look at the bigger picture worldwide.

For those on the fence, I ask you to think for a minute from the perspective of a British person (National League (division)), an Indian person (Indian National League), Swiss person National League (ice hockey), Burmese person (National League for Democracy and Myanmar National League). I hope that the admin closing this page can neutrally analyse the subtexts here and realise that that getting the American baseball community of editors watching this page to support move 'their own' page to a disambiguation is going to be a challenge, despite it being necessary.

Mountaincirque^talk 12:53, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Subtle request for the closing admin to ignore the oppose !votes Y

Not-so-subtle insinuation that opposers are acting in bad faith. Y

Policy-based argument in favor of moving the page. N

As the purportedly baseball-centric editors might say, that's three strikes. I get that your position is likely to win this RM, but in the future please remember to assume good faith and to refrain from insulting hard-working contributors who happen to disagree with you. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Sorry if you or anyone else were insulted, that wasn't my intent. I thought it a fair comment that people protect the things they are interested in and passionate about, I implied no maliciousness to that. Mountaincirque^talk 15:11, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Mountaincirque: For future reference, avoid commenting on other people, even obliquely in discussions such as this. Especially don't speculate on the motivations of others. Always assume that everyone who has voted differently than you did so for the same reasons you did: they read the relevant policies and guidelines, they formulated an overall opinion by weighing various options based on the evidence, and they came down with what they thought was the best result because of that. I'm fairly certain that's what you do when you comment on discussions like this, so it's safe to say that everyone else is as well. Poisoning the well in discussions is generally quite rude. Avoid doing so and you'll have very little problems at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 18:19, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support Seems reasonable. While the baseball topic may have a few marginal claims to a primary topic, they are not so overwhelming as to overcome the alternate organization scheme. There's enough other topics called "National League" that it makes more sense to me to make that a DAB page. --Jayron32 13:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support as National League (baseball) has weak claims to be the primary topic. This may seem strange because interest in MLB and its teams will dwarf those of the National League (English football) and its clubs. However, I suspect the low page views is because it is not a particularly important page among those covering MLB topics. I'm sure the page views for the main MLB page, the season pages (which cover both NL and AL), and the team pages will all be much (orders of magnitude?) higher. There is relatively little reason to look at National League (baseball) page itself because other pages provide most of the information. —  Jts1882 | talk  13:51, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The baseball league is far longer established and has a far bigger following. The football competition in England is far younger and the name 'National League' is the third name it has used (ignoring sponsors). Red Jay (talk) 14:07, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  This is a move request to disambiguate a very broadly titled page, not to shift the primary to the football league page. Maybe reconsider on that basis? Mountaincirque^talk 15:40, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support I liked Necrothesp's perspective on this. Take a global view of all national leagues. Paul W (talk) 14:22, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support as a DAB page is better when the baseball tournament doesn't clearly demonstrate that it's the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. National League is a common name for many sports, so depending where in the world people are from, they could be looking for any of a multitude of leagues. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - The baseball league is clearly the primary topic. The soccer league is more popular right now because it's the league Wrexham A.F.C. are in, but that will change once their promotion takes place at the end of the season. – PeeJay 16:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  @PeeJay do you care to review the data on that...as your hypothesis isn't borne out. There are a few page view data posts above, showing 8 years of the soccer pages being more viewed (which is the extent of the data). This was long before Wrexham's buy-out. Mountaincirque^talk 17:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  You made your argument eight times on this RM. While I don't necessarily disagree with your arguments, this is bludgeoning at this point. Let's let the process play out. Skipple ☎ 17:53, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Skipple I've only been adivising that people look at data to inform their view, which is surely a light form of 'bludgeon'. I've frankly found it very frustrating that erroneous views are being peddled on the page views being skewed, we're meant to be logical. I do however take your point and will disengage from further comments. Mountaincirque^talk 18:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support no clear primary topic for this fairly generic title. WP has a global audience, not just North American sports fans. Spike 'em (talk) 18:10, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support Someone interested in baseball would probably be looking for the baseball page, someone interested in soccer would be looking for the English page. Wikipedia isn't a country specific encyclopedia (and especially since English is the dominant language in both England and the United States - if one of those countries spoke a different language, then maybe the logic regarding a country tie could be made). As a North American who enjoys MLB baseball as well as European football/soccer, I recognize that both are important topics in their respective sports. A disambiguation page is not diminishing the importance of either article, but instead recognizing that both are important. Primary topic are supposed to be clear and obvious (ie. like a worldwide recognition that transcends borders). This does not as different sides of the Atlantic will think of different things when they hear the term, therefore a diambiguation page makes sense. RedPatch (talk) 19:16, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support Clearly a disambig page is the way to go as claiming that the American baseball league is the primary topic is US-centric and claiming that the English soccer league is the primary topic is Euro-centric. Both get plenty of coverage and notability in each country and also a bit globally. --SuperJew (talk) 19:20, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support There is a world outside the US and it is a bit disingenuous to claim that people only think of baseball when they say National League because in the UK and Europe, people might assume the non-league football league. It's best to just disambiguate to make it fair for all. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 22:27, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support national league just being a disambiguation is fair, seems odd its not already. if anything, a page that would warrant the article without any parsers would the football division. though with wrexham no longer in it, people's interest in the division will wain. neither should be primary, however.Muur (talk) 07:06, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support I found the pageview detail (over some years, not just this year) to be somewhat surprising, but it is clear that this is not the primary topic and should be disambiguated. I am not entirely sure why "historical significance" is being argued as a thing, though; the point of disambiguation is to make it easier for our readers to find the article they want to read, which at this moment in time and for quite a few years has not been the baseball one. Black Kite (talk) 10:36, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC refers to long-term significance to avoid basing decisions on a temporary spike or lull in popularity. If no one had read the football articles until Wrexham hit the headlines, then this RM would deserve to fail, because a move could be justified only in the short term. What we need to decide is whether pageview data from 2015–2020, coupled with other evidence such as global search results, make the case for a move. Certes (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. May I remind participants that the proposal is certainly not saying that the British football league is primary (it's not even close). These are not the only two entities around the world called "national league" by a very long shot. We need a global perspective, neither American nor British. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:26, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly, this is a case where the proposal is that National League is such a general and internationally used term that there is WP:NOPRIMARY. For soccer alone I've found: National League (division) (England), New Zealand National League, Samoa National League, Gibraltar National League, Bhutan National League, Myanmar National League, Nepal National League and the Russian Football National League. There are tens of other examples across other sports including cricket, hockey, netball, ice hockey and basketball.

  This argument shouldn't be boiled down to page views as that is only one factor, my main argument is that this is a global encyclopedia and we need to be very careful on pages like this to avoid systemic bias and try for a neutral point of view. I'm sure all of us here acknowledge that National League (baseball) is intrinsically significant, while acknowledging that there are 'National Leagues' all around the world that deserve to be listed in a disambiguation page, rather than being Americentric. Mountaincirque^talk 15:47, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&source=wikilinks&range=latest-90&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&target=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National%20League%20(disambiguation) seems to clearly indicate a lack of primary topic by usage. At the same time, https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=National_League registers a negligible ratio of hatnote clicks. Still, with a title this generic, it seems like the safe choice is to make it fully disambiguated for a while, observe the statistics in a few months time after the search engine patterns settle, and then decide whether there's a primary topic. --Joy (talk) 17:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Joy as noted in the previous discussion, there was no hatnote until I added one last month. Mountaincirque^talk 18:02, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  I guess you mean [10] but the basic hatnote was there before. While it's possible that this additional hatnote link dispersed that traffic a bit, as a whole it does not register in the top 20 which is not typically indicative of a need to do anything. In any event, I've already noted that it doesn't have to matter. --Joy (talk) 18:19, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-move clean-up

I've fixed the incoming links from templates, FAs, GAs and pages which contain neither "baseball" nor "MLB". All but four were for the baseball league (though I've fixed plenty of others in the past). About 7,500 links remain. Do we think it's safe to change the rest of the links to National League automatically by bot into piped links to National League (baseball)? Certes (talk) 00:52, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Now halved following sterling efforts by BD2412 and others, so let's wait awhile before resorting to a bot which might make mistakes. Certes (talk) 11:12, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

List of Previous Winners

This article seems to be missing a simple list of winners by year. John arneVN (talk) 04:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It's at the linked entry List of National League pennant winners. Mindmatrix 15:29, 31 December 2023 (UTC)