Nice.

In the article on Posey batting out of order, it mentions a game a couple of years ago when Mattingly brought in Broxton, then returned to the mound to set up the defense.

Bochy told the umpires it was a second visit to the mound, so the pitcher had to come out, and Broxton was finished without throwing a pitch.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/...

For me the end of the Baseball Abstracts (I think 1992 was the last one, with a different name) made a difference to me, as James' evaluations and observations helped me a lot.

Some rare good news!

Again, apologies for cocking up this games collection: USSR Championship (1940)

Thanks to me, 190 pgns were instantly changed from Moscow (correct) to Leningrad (incorrect), but now they have been restored to the correct city.

Daniel did it today, and he had to write a bit of code, or jury rig some kind of special search and find program, to do it- apparently there wasn't an "insta fix" option. So he made one.

Also, with regard to the intro paragraphs for the History of the World Chess Championship- we don't have editing power over those, but Daniel said if we fact-check them all and then present any corrections in an omnibus file then he could fix them all at once.

What do you think? Could we organize and do this project in the <Biographer Bistro>?

I don't have enough books to reliably fact check all the World Champion intros, but I could do it for a few. I could do it for <Steinitz-Lasker-Capa-Alekhine> for example. I have a good collection of stout books on those championship encounters.

Between all the biographers I think we could do a decent fact checking job on all of the intros?

What I'm mainly talking about is simply making sure what's already there is factual and properly sourced- I don't mean we should re-write them all. They don't need to be re-written.

The main leg work would be sourcing the intros to reliable books and journals.

Right now the intros are sourced to Wikipedia and Graham Cree's website, both of which are notoriously unreliable.

I think we should start doing this now because Daniel is ready for us to do it, and says he trusts us to do it properly.

Going methodically and not rushing would seem to be the way to go, I agree heartily on this point.

What about you overseeing the work? Would you be willing? Everyone trusts you the most, and though your position as "Biographer Leader" may be unasked for, you've actually held this position <de facto> for some time.

And with good reason.

This project might be less daunting than it sounds- I don't think very much in the existing intros needs to be changed. Further, since any source is better than Wiki/Graham Cree, in many cases simply using the <Oxford Companion> should be sufficient for basic fact checking?

A review of what Edward Winter's website has to day would be another key fact checking resource for many of the Championships as well, since he keeps well abreast of the "state of actual scholarship" on such events, as you know.

The place where we could really make a group contribution would be on controversial events such as <Alekhine-Capablanca>, <Alekine-Bogo>, (who was ducking whom, if indeed there was any ducking involved?), and on <Lasker-Schlechter> (need +1 or +2 to beat Lasker?).

Maybe we could divide up the work chronologically and dedicate a forum for each time period?

We could use these fora for this purpose, and for any length of time necessary:

User: lotsapoppa

User: Analysis Forum

User: USSR Championships

User: Hungarian Chess

That's four we could use to make sure revision texts don't get lost.

Daniel says the <CG.com Librarian> is interested in helping by checking for "typos and style," but I suggest we tell Daniel that <Ohio Chess Fan> would be the man to do this work if he's willing. He has done a great deal of top rate editing for <twinlark> and me on player page bios. I've not seen better style editing in my life, frankly. If he's willing to help I think he should do it.

That would be last stage of course.

I think now is the time to do this project, because we now know that Daniel will enact our end product- we won't be working blind or on speculation.

So let's start? You agreeing to oversee would be a big help to actually getting this going.

If you introduced the project to the Bistro, and if you divided up the time periods for each of the four dedicated fora (if you think that is a useful way to organize the work), then the other biographers would agree to help under your direction. I'm sure of it.

One last thing, and maybe the most important- I think you should contact Daniel directly by email and tell him what you just told me in my forum today.

Given your recent memory feat here- Alekhine vs Flohr, 1936- we might think you don't need benefit of books.

In fact, of course, the site would benefit greatly from both your memory and chess book collection for this project.

I'd like to say something else- we should avoid mentioning controversial subjects whilst revising these intros.

Unless we have undisputed, cold hard facts, we should avoid making value judgments- stay as objective as possible.

The intros shouldn't be analytical essays, just brief (and hopefully factual) accounts of what happened.

One of the reasons Daniel hasn't given us direct editing control over History of the World Chess Championship is to avoid the nightmare scenario of an "editing war" in which two people keep changing each other's account of a given match.

The latest Winter chess note <8134. The Kings of Chess> just prompted me to glance at William Hartston's <The Kings of Chess>, which I'm looking at right now. I'm literally looking at the book, and I just ran my hand over the pages. Yes, it's right here in front of me all right.

Winter has written approvingly of Hartston in the past, and the current chess note features a largely laudatory review of <The Kings of Chess> by "GH Diggle." http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/

I think this volume would be useful- Hartston peppers each chapter with primary source material, BUT, maddeningly, these excerpts are not properly cited and sourced in proper bibliographical fashion.

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?cid=mlb&c...

As for the batter/runner interference, I think we're talking the Comment to rule 6.05(k) here:

<"The lines marking the three foot lane are part of that lane and the batter-runner is required to have both feet within the three-foot lane or on the lines making the lane. The batter-runner is permitted to exit the three-foot lane by means of a step, stride, reach or slide in the immediate vicinity of first base for the sole purpose of touching first base.">

So it looks like the umpire's judgment was that he left the running lane too early, thus interfering with the first baseman's ability to make the catch.

In my view, he did have one foot completely on the dirt outside the line about three steps from first, so the call seems technically justified. But it's still cheap, especially when the pitcher is rewarded for making a bad throw. If he throws the ball further off the line, where the first baseman had his glove ready, no problem. In fact, he gets doubly rewarded since the advance of the other runners is cancelled; interference means the ball is dead.