Talk:Billy Sunday

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Contents 1 User 66.57.105.182 2 User 209.173.13.167 3 User eosha 4 User rocketj4 5 User Rocketj4 6 POV? 7 User Rocketj4 8 Wealth at death 9 Citations needed 10 Scholarly biographies 11 Financial success denied! But why? 12 Conversion date uncertain 13 Baseball career recap 14 Showing Sunday as more than one-dimensional 15 It simply can't be correct 16 Maybe too long?? 17 Sunday's appeal 18 Softpedaling his critics? 19 Footnotes 20 Religious views 21 GA Review

[edit] User 66.57.105.182

User is just vandalizing, just ignore. I just removed that nonsense. Best wishes Feydey 20:13, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User 209.173.13.167

Vandalism on 5th of April, removed...

Where is Bina, Iowa? I have never heard of this place. I have read that Billy Sunday was born in Ames, but also in Nevada. While researching Glenwood, Iowa on wikipedia, I noticed that it once was called something else by the mormons who founded it. Maybe Bina is either an extinct town or the previous name of a current town.

[edit] User eosha

This article needs help... I added the two tags. Spelling, grammar, content, links... everything.

[edit] User rocketj4

Cap Anson, Sunday's manager, said in his 1900 autbiography that Sunday struck out his first 13 times at bat. However, contemporary newspaper accounts report 11 strikeouts at most, with 2 of those outs reported simply as outs and likely being made another way. His verifiable strikeouts-in-a-row are four. See: "Sunday at the Ballpark: Billy Sunday's Professional Baseball Career 1883-1890," by Wendy Knickerbocker, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000, p. 31-32.

[edit] User Rocketj4

This article has been cleaned up and expanded. There is now more information on his preaching career, and links have been fixed and added. I left the POV tag. There is controversy about his wealth, his conversion date, and his influence, and I didn't edit the tone and content of some sentences that reflect this. Rocketj4 14:13, 6 August 2006 (UTC)rocketj4 8/6/06

[edit] POV?

I'm an agnostic and I can't see any bias in the article.Wilton Dorsey 23:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User Rocketj4

Thanks--I removed the POV tag.Rocketj4 17:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wealth at death

Sunday should have died a wealthy man, but his sons' ex-wives bled him dry through the years. Only one of his children survived him. Actually two did; Billy, Jr. died in 1938 (at 37) and Paul in 1944 (at 33).--John Foxe 13:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Even if he was bled by relatives, Sunday still died leaving $50,000 during a time when the average skilled industrial worker earned substantially less than $1,000 from an entire year of labor (Fite, G. and Reese, J. Economic History of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959, p. 579). He died with an exceptionally large fortune. Indeed, many rich people lost their money during the Depression and died in poverty.Sermonizer 04:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Where does the $50,000 come from? I checked McLoughlin and Bruns and couldn't find it?--John Foxe 15:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The Detroit News reported the $50,000 figure [1]

and USHistory.com reported additional information on Sunday’s wealth at death [2]. Both of these references are listed on my revision of November 7, but were reverted within about 30 minutes by Moeron. Sorry that you didn't get a chance to see them before they were so quickly removed.Sermonizer 19:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The Detroit News notes the $50,000 offering collected during the 1916 campaign (not at Sunday's death in 1935). That was a powerful lot of money in 1916, but Sunday shared it with his staff. The USHistory.com sentence is just gossip. I don't think anyone knows what Sunday left at his death. In any case, neither McLoughlin, Dorsett or Bruns--the three scholarly biographies--mention it. If McLoughlin had known, he would have shouted it from the housetops because one of his theses is that Sunday was in league with the running dogs of capitalism.--John Foxe 19:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations needed

I'm not going to stick those silly little "citation needed" tags on this article, but it certainly needs some citations.--John Foxe 21:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scholarly biographies

The Bruns book, while thorough and engagingly written, shouldn't be regarded as having the same authority as McLoughlin, Dorsett, and the most recent biographer, Martin, and, for Sunday's baseball career, Knickerbocker. Bruns' book has some factual errors in it. I don't know whether those errors represent not enough close editing or insufficient scholarly attention, but the errors are there. Nevertheless, it's the most accessible full biography out there.Rocketj4 18:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. To my mind, and with due respect to the late William McLoughlin, a fine historian, Dorsett's biography is the best of the bunch. --John Foxe 18:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Financial success denied! But why?

It's unfortunate that such a concerted effort is being made to hide the fact of Sunday's financial success. Not only did he raise huge sums of money for the cause, but he accepted very large (and perfectly legal and moral)personal gifts. One example is the new $8,000 Cadillac given as a personal gift at a time when skilled industrial workers labored for an entire year to earn less than $1,000. These efforts to conceal the truth, for whatever reason, give the article a clear POV in violation of Wikipedia policy.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with such a gifted and successful evangelist being financially successful and Sunday could have made more money as a baseball player. He obviously didn't evangelize for the love of money and I'm unaware of any hint of financial misconduct.Sermonizer 19:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Trust me. There will be no attempt at hiding Sunday's financial success if I have any say in the matter. If you give me a chance, I'll spell it out in detail--and with citations. What we were talking about earlier was his wealth at death, which is a different matter entirely.--John Foxe 21:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion date uncertain

The date of Sunday's conversion is uncertain. He generally referred to it without any specific date, but when he used particular baseball games as part of the story, those games were in 1885, 1886, and/or 1887. The evidence seems to indicate that the conversion was most likely in 1887. See the extensive discussion in Knickerbocker's book, p. 80-89. A very perceptive description of Sunday's conversion may be found in Firstenberger, p. 17-20.--Rocketj4 22:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Another note: Dorsett isn't entirely correct when he said that Sunday's conversion was noted in the newspapers. Contemporary newspapers in Chicago and elsewhere did begin to comment on his religious activities, but not right away. Unfortunately, there are no newspaper references to his conversion experience; if there were, then this discussion would be moot.--Rocketj4 19:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baseball career recap

I have tried to round out the description of Sunday's baseball career, to include the information that baseball fans usually look for in career recaps.--Rocketj4 20:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me, although as you can probably tell, I don't know much about baseball. --John Foxe 20:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't mean to be picky, but...Sunday's all-around good play was as important to the Pittsburgh fans as his stolen bases, and the strike-created league wasn't simply a competing organization. (Baseball clubs are referred to as organizations; leagues are a bigger deal.)--Rocketj4 18:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC) Even more nit-picking....in the complicated world of baseball finances, even back then, it matters that the team had no cash for payroll and that a trade involved cash; teams can have money but still badly need cash. Also, most baseball readers and writers don't refer to teams so formally as to use "it" instead of "they." Sorry--just tweaking that section to read the way baseball historians and fans would expect.--Rocketj4 18:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the corrections--and for rewording the sentence to make it grammatical as well as acceptable to sports fans. My feeling was that the "all-around good play" business was null for vagueness, but having taken a look at Knickerbocker, I'm satisfied.--John Foxe 19:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Another small change...I put the Marshalltown-Des Moines game back in the text, instead of tucked off in a note. It seems to me that Sunday's having been instrumental in an event that not only was of major social importance in Iowa in those days but also garnered as much press coverage as any of his early revivals is worth as much space as the fact that J. Wilbur Chapman had a doctorate. "Our" article is under consideration to be added to the Wiki basball project. Sunday belongs there, as an important character in the game's early days and also because baseball was a major part of Sunday's life. Let's have the article's baseball portion be as well developed as the rest of the piece.--Rocketj4 18:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree.--John Foxe 19:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Showing Sunday as more than one-dimensional

Again, I must protest tucking some of my additions into footnotes. I think it is as interesting that Sunday played for both teams in a pickup baseball game in rural Iowa as that Bob Jones thought Sunday was a poor speaker. A great deal of Sunday's popularity was due to the fact that he was not a one-dimensional evangelist--that he had an active life in an enormously popular venue (baseball) and that he understood intimately the attractions of popular culture. I know those details seem trivial to you, but I submit that portraying Sunday in all his dimensions by no means trivializes his stature.--Rocketj4 21:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly willing to put Bob Jones in a footnote if you'll do the same for the baseball stuff.--John Foxe 21:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I will defer to your judgment about whether or not Bob Jones belongs in a footnote. I was hoping you might grant me the same respect. In other words, since this piece is going to be a lengthy one, let's treat each other(and others who might add information) with collegial respect. Our assumptions should be that we are serious, that we want to increase general knowledge about Billy Sunday, and that we want to produce a worthwhile and authoritative short biography of the man.

That having been said, I repeat, Sunday was not a one-dimensional evangelist, and much of his popularity during his lifetime was due to that fact. Had baseball not been an important and integral part of his life, then he would have been a very different preacher. Consequently, there should be a fair amount of textual space afforded to that aspect of his life and his ministry. (I suspect that he mentioned baseball in at least 80% of his sermons.) I don't think I have inserted too much material relating to baseball, at least if one looks at the word count. --Rocketj4 22:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with an emphasis on Billy Sunday and baseball. What I find out of place is the use of quotations more appropriate to a journal article than an encyclopedia entry. I've tried to avoid that. It's great to say that Billy Sunday used his baseball experience as a public relations device, but the quotations from the Garner newspaper, etc. belong in the footnotes just like the material on Cap Anson's aunt.--John Foxe 23:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't disagree. (For the record, I am not the one who inserted the material on Cap Anson's aunt.) However, I do think judicial use of quotes will enhance this piece. For example, you used one of my favorite Sunday quotes (when he says he became a Presbyterian because he was hot on the trail of Nell), and it is useful because it illustrates Sunday's personality in a way that expository prose cannot. In the same manner, I think the Garner newspaper quote is useful, because it illustrates how Midwesterners viewed Sunday before he became a well-known evangelist in a way that expository prose would not. So, in my opinion there is room and value for both of those quotes. (By the way, how do you pronounce "tomato"?)--Rocketj4 23:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree to disagree with you about those Garner quotes. There's a legal maxim, "De minimis non curat lex," usually translated as "The law is not concerned with trifles." But I think a better translation is "Don't sweat the small stuff."

You did get me thinking about Sunday mentioning "baseball in at least 80% of his sermons." You know, if you have some way of documenting that, it should be included in the text.

Although most of my immediate ancestors are immigrants from eastern Europe, you and I pronounce "tomato" the same way.--John Foxe 15:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm-don't know if could document it--probably not. But, for a quick summary of how much baseball was part of his revivals, see Rodeheaver, 88,90,133-4. Of course his conversion story included baseball, so every talk that included that story included baseball, and he has baseball anecdotes in 2 of his stock sermons, his talk to men and "The Devil's boomerangs/Hot cakes off the griddle." I don't think baseball is in the "Booze" sermon, although he often referred to famous players whose lives and careers were shortened by booze. He did continue to umpire minor league games and appear in charity games right into the 1930s, and in each city that he did that he would talk baseball on the day of the event. He was also asked by popular magazines (Cosmopolitan, Saturday Evening Post) to comment on baseball, which he did. His first "book" was "Burning Truths from Billy's Bat." Baseball was a big deal in American culture in the 1920s, so it helped Billy's cause to refer to it in his talks. Baseball was just integral to who he was--hence my guess that 80% of his talks included some mention of baseball.--Rocketj4 20:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It simply can't be correct

The assetion that Sunday preached face-to-face with 100,000,000 simply can't be true, even thought it is accompanied by a reference. In 1910, the total population of the entire country was only 92 million. For the first 12 years of his career, Sunday spoke to communities mainly in a couple of states. For perhaps 12 more years he often preached in cities. That brouight him to 1920, at which point his career was alreading fading. In the absence of come convincing evidence, the 100 million figure should be deleted. Incidentally, this outlandish assertion should cast doubt on the credibility of the reference source itself.Improbably 23:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course Sunday did not preach to 100 million different individuals but to many of the same people over and over again during a campaign. Before his death, Sunday estimated that he had preached nearly 20,000 sermons, an average of 42 per month from 1896 to 1935. During his heyday, when Sunday was preaching say, twenty times a week, his crowds were huge. Firstenberg estimates just the number of people who "hit the sawdust trail" at 1,250,000. By the way, Firstenberg as well as Dorsett's biography gives the 100 million figure. In the face of two scholarly biographers, the burden's on you to prove this improbable statistic wrong.--John Foxe 15:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging that this incredible statistic is "improbable." However the place to note that it is questionable is in the article itself.Improbably 18:51, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Just because something's improbable doesn't make it incorrect. The statistics to prove it are there. For instance, well into Sunday's decline, his six-week 1923 Columbia, South Carolina campaign had 479,300 people in attendance at 79 meetings. That number was 23 times the white population of Columbia--and nearly 1/200th of those 100 million. Rather than trying to back away from the statistic, I'll try to emphasize it more in the article.--John Foxe 19:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe too long??

With all due respect, this piece seems somewhat too long and involved for an entry in a nonspecialized encyclopedia. The piece is now about 5000 words, and you aren't finished. The entry for Sunday's contemporary, William Jennings Bryan, is only 3500 words. (Word counts for both are text only, not introductions, notes, and bibliographies.) Maybe you might consider some summary arguments and judicious pruning? --Rocketj4 12:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about the length. The article on Fawn M. Brodie (biographer of Joseph Smith and Thomas Jefferson), which I wrote earlier, is 39K, and it's an official Wikipedia "good article" even though Brodie is a far less significant figure than Sunday or (especially) Bryan. Of course, that doesn't mean that "Billy Sunday" can't be pruned. Cutting the unnecessary is a virtue.--John Foxe 14:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Some summarization of your discussion of his religious views might also help to avoid POV tags, too. I don't think either Sunday's fundamentalism or his knowledge of the Bible is in question, or even unique in any particular way. But that's only my opinion.--Rocketj4 14:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In the next paragraph, I'll question Sunday's fundamentalist credentials. On the other hand, if there's no question about his religious views, then my discussion of them can't be POV. --John Foxe 14:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In my (never humble) opinion, it's a POV issue because.....you are the only one who cares how fundamentalist he was. The general reading public understands that he was a fundamentalist, and the depth and rigor of his fundamentalism wasn't important to him, so is such a discussion necessary in this venue? I submit that it's a POV.--Rocketj4 15:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sunday's appeal

One of the unusual features of Sunday's revivals was the high percentage of men who attended, and many contemporary commentators remarked on that. (Bruce Barton, 1913: "no other evangelist can number a larger proportion of men than women on his convert rolls.") A large part of his success was due to the fact that he did not discuss theology; instead, he talked about personal salvation, using the popular vernacular. He used Biblical stories, not exegesis, and he used alliteration and slang, not rhetoric. In other words, in the eyes of the American public, he was not an egghead or a prissy preacher--he was a man's man and he knew how to talk to ordinary people. (Yes, this is how his baseball background and his use of baseball anecdotes and imagery enhanced his ministry, but that's not the subject of this particular rant.) His sermons would have been out of place in a church, but they worked just fine in auditoriums and concert halls, and tabernacles. From Literary Digest, 1916: "other preachers have said the same things before, but never in the same way--the way that the highbrow, lowbrow, or middlebrow all can understand. He has gone out to the people, found them where they are, and delivered his message in terms they could grasp." I'm having trouble recognizing that guy in this article.--68.238.56.79 15:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S. (Martin's book, "Hero of the Heartland"," covers Sunday's appeal in depth.)--68.238.56.79 15:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC) Oops--I imagine everyone knew it was me, but I forgot to sign the above.--Rocketj4 15:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I've heard this tale before, but I don't think it's based on any hard evidence. I don't believe Barton. Not that Sunday didn't attract men, but that other evangelists didn't. I'd bet that Edwards, Whitefield, Finney, Moody, and Chapman all attracted more men than women. But I wouldn't know how to go about proving that thesis.--John Foxe 03:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, given the times and social conditions (not to mention denomination and geography), I'm sure Edwards and Whitefield spoke to many more men than women. Studies of the revivals and camp meetings of the early Methodists and Baptists often discuss the prevalence of women; those conditions are often regarded as the foreunner of the womens' rights movement in the 1840s. Finney employed his wife to speak to the crowds of women; one reason was so he could try to reach more men. As for Moody and Chapman, given their times and social conditions, I suspect there were at least as many, and probably more, women in their audiences than men, except of course when Moody spoke to the YMCAs. There are quite a few studies of gender in revivalism out there in the academic literature; the data is as hard as any other data on revivals. A quick check of the Library of Congress catalog gives this book: Women of awakenings : the historic contribution of women to revival movements / Lewis and Betty Drummond. Grand Rapids, MI : Kregel Publications, c1997. There are monograph studies of revival participation; I just didn't take the time to search farther. Try your preferred index to the journal literature; the studies are there. Not that men didn't participate; they did, and most wholeheartedly. But apparently women attended in greater numbers.--Rocketj4 12:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC) Take a look also at studies of the "muscular Christianity" movement of the turn of the century-early 20th century (Sunday's time period). Much of the impetus of the movement came from the general feeling that religion had become feminized and the province of women; the movement would, it was hoped, regain religion as a male sphere.--Rocketj4 12:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem accepting that more women participated in late-nineteenth century than in early-nineteenth century revivals or that there was a lot of flabby talk about "muscular Christianity" (mostly among Social Gospelers) at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But what Barton says is that "no other evangelist can number a larger proportion of men than women on his convert rolls". I don't believe it; and so far as I know, there is no evidence to prove such a statement. I would argue (on the basis of no evidence whatsoever beyond the anecdotal) that all the major eighteenth and nineteenth-century revivalists had more male than female converts. Billy Sunday would therefore be the continuation of a trend rather than an exception to it.--John Foxe 15:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'll agree that the gender of revival converts may be arguable, but church membership, or conversions that "stuck," isn't. One citation found quickly at hand: From "One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society," Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman, New York: Harmony Books, 1993 (a statistics-based study, which is historical as well as contemporary) p. 210: "The lay and professional literature has consistently shown what ministers and parishioners have observed: that women are more likely than men to join religious organizations and participate actively." p. 211: "Participation in churches has ALWAYS BEEN [emphasis mine] lower for men in all major Protestant and Catholic denominations in America."--Rocketj4 17:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. But joining religious organizations and participating in them doesn't necessitate a conversion experience; and of course, this constant female interest in religion has no bearing on the gender ratio of conversions that occurred during meetings held by such evangelists as Whitefield and Moody.--John Foxe 19:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Softpedaling his critics?

While it's true that Sunday had bipartisan critics, surely the opinions of "wealthy society women" aren't in quite the same league (or sphere of influence) as John Reed or Upton Sinclair. Socialist (gasp!) those gentlemen may have been, but nevertheless they were serious social commentators as well as intellectuals, widely read and respected even though (equally?) widely disagreed-with. Reed and Sinclair were journalists; the afore-mentioned women were writers of letters to the editor. Not exactly comparable.--Rocketj4 00:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

See if you like this version better. An unusual number of Sunday's critics were socialists. I think they may have been truly concerned that Sunday's goods might sell better in the proletarian marketplace than theirs.--John Foxe 10:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

I thought the footnotes were getting too distracting in the text, coming as fast and furious as they were. I consolidated them to one note at the end of a paragraph, containig all reference material for that paragraph. I hope that will make the article more readable, while retaining the documentation and additional information.--Rocketj4 21:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. Some of my Wikipedia writing has previously involved more controversial topics where others have demanded that virtually every phrase be documented. But I prefer say, one note per paragraph when writing for publication.--John Foxe 22:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religious views

I've made some reversions to the religious views section. As you said earlier, they're important to me. But there's another consideration as well. Billy Sunday is hardly memorialized anywhere today: a plaque at his Iowa birthplace, a memorial church, his home in Winona Lake. So far as I know, no religious denomination or religious school has a building, scholarship, or ministry that honors him. Bob Jones University has a dorm named for his wife. My guess is that Sunday doesn't quite fit anywhere today, and that's in part because his fundamentalist doctrine was combined with a live-and-let-live attitude toward certain non-believers.--John Foxe 22:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

He is memorialized actively and well in Winona Lake; they are very proud of him there. He is still very popular throughout the Midwest. But I guess you're right about no religious memorials (unless Grace Bible College in Winona Lake has something--you could check). As to the section on his religious views: I would be surprised if he ever once said, wrote, or maybe even heard the phrase "substitutionary atonement." That isn't to say he didn't believe it. I was trying to make that section more accessible to the average Wikipedia reader, who (I'm guessing) will not be familiar with some of your language. I wasn't trying to misrepresent Sunday's beliefs--only to render them in terms more widely recognizible. I know a lot more about religious and social history than I do about theology, so perhaps you're right that Sunday doesn't fit well (theologically) anywhere today. Rest assured, though, his importance in American religious and social history is unquestionable.--Rocketj4 22:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You've noted two things that need to be checked: 1. Would Sunday's theology have been sophisticated enough for him to have mentioned or "even heard" phrases like "substitutionary atonement"? 2. What sort of memorials are there to Sunday out there? Both of these questions might be worth at least a footnote's notice. I'll see what I can find.--John Foxe 15:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I've now taken a long look at Anderson's dissertation, and I'm impressed with the relative sophistication of Sunday's theology. Here's a quotation about substitutionary atonement from his New York City campaign: "Jesus became [the sinner's] security; Jesus took his place on the cross, and God let you escape the curse of the Law by your acceptance of Jesus as your substitute. He took your place and if you turn your back on Jesus Christ you will be eternally damned." "Isaiah 43: 10," 8. I left just a citation to Anderson in the article.--John Foxe 14:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I have never questioned Sunday's belief in the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, nor that he preached that Jesus died for our sins. What I question is whether he ever used the phrase. However complex his beliefs may have been, his explication and preaching of them were not. He did not employ, nor do I think he was much exposed to, theological discussion on the level where "substitutionary atonement" was used instead of "Jesus died for you and me." He was not a seminarian, nor did he spend much time with seminary or academic theologians. I would prefer that an article for a general encyclopedia reflect that, with use of appropriate language. I continue to believe that emphasizing theological distinctions over presenting the man in the context in which he lived and preached is a POV, and consequently the article will deserve that label.--Rocketj4 17:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

One small piece of evidence for the argument that Sunday's credentials as a fundamentalist were not of great importance to him: when William Jennings Bryan invited him to participate in the Scopes trial, Sunday declined. (McLaughlin, p. 310: "Sunday took no part in the Scopes trial to help his friend Bryan. See New York Times, July 4, 1925, p. 2.) The Scopes trial was a highly visible battleground for the theological wars of the 1920s, and his absence from the fray strongly suggests that he did not identify himself as a soldier in the fundamentalist army. There seems to me no doubt that his beliefs were Fundamentalist; however, in his ministry he did not confine himself to any particular theological arena.--64.222.210.107 17:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)--Rocketj4 17:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don’t understand why, if Sunday understood, believed in, and preached substitutionary atonement, it should be inappropriate to use that term. He even says on the evangelistic platform, “God let you escape the curse of the Law by your acceptance of Jesus as your substitute.” One of the benefits of an on-line source like Wikipedia is that if a reader doesn’t know a technical phrase, the explanation is (at least, hopefully) just a click away.

As for Sunday’s non-participation in the Scopes Trial, I have a different take. Once we get past the fact that 1925 wasn’t a particularly good year for either Billy’s or Nell’s health, I think that Sunday, who posed as the aw-shucks rube, had more prescience about what was going to happen at Dayton than the better educated Bryan. In fact, it should not have been difficult to imagine what might occur if a number of university professors and New York lawyers took on a former baseball player.

You make me wonder if my attempt to explain Sunday’s religious beliefs is unclear. I thought I was making just your point: that while Sunday's theology was fundamentalist, his practice and associations weren't necessarily.--John Foxe 20:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that maybe I've gotten lost in the trees and can no longer see the forest. Nevertheless, I can't help feeling that if someone who had been to a Sunday revival read this article, that person wouldn't recognize the preacher he or she heard. If that's so, then that bothers me. But maybe I'm mistaken. If I can manage to do it, I think I'll refrain from any more commentary and defer to others out there in Wikipedia-land. Anybody else care to chime in?--Rocketj4 22:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

• The intro section needs to be expanded. It should be 3-4 paragraphs in length.
• "he was much better educated than the typical American."[2] The citation doesn't seem to fit the quote, is it correct? Also, what does it mean?
• "Sunday's professional baseball career was launched by Adrian "Cap" Anson, a Marshalltown native and future Hall-of-Famer, after he was given an enthusiastic account of Sunday's prowess by his aunt, an avid fan of the Marshalltown team." This sentence needs a lot of work on it. It is very difficult to follow whose aunt Anson or Sunday... who was the future hall of famer Anson/Sunday. I am pretty sure I know the answers, but it needs to be cleaned up.
• "Sunday struck out four times in his first game, a major league record, " Is it still a record? Or only at the time?
• "Over his career, Sunday was never a strong hitter: his average was .248 over 499 games, about the median for the 1880s." seems contradictory... wouldn't it be more acurate to say that he was an average hitter than "never a strong hitter?"
• even though he never placed better than third in the National League in stolen bases---This left we wondering how many total stolen bases he had and possibly where he ranks in all time SB's... not required, but I am left wondering.
• "bordering on engagements." quotes need to be cited.
• The stuff about his decendents needs to be cited.
• I personally don't like how the notes hide the references and external links. I'd like to see them brought to more prominence. But that's a matter of taste I guess.
• easy enough to characterize ---true, but it doesn't sound encylopedic.
• Incredible as it may seem --- POV?
• I know that you are only putting notes at the end of the paragraphs, but some of the facts need notes when mentioned.
• "including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Herbert Hoover. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. became a special friend." The period between the Hoover and John is hard to catch... it looks as if John is part of the preceding list. Can you break it up somehow?
• "but it is a mystery when the Sundays had time to enjoy it." sounds like OR... needs to be cited or eliminated.

Overall this is a very good article... the most important thing is to increase the introduction. you have a 37KB article, but only one sentence in the introduction. Get that to 3-4 paragraphs, fix the sentence with Anson, get rid of some of the POV/OR statements and I'll pass this as a GA... the others bullets are up to debate.Balloonman 03:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll answer for the baseball portion, since I'm primarily responsible for that section. I hope the sentence about Cap Anson is clearer now. As for the four strikeouts in Sunday's first game, I believe it is still a major league record. But it's a dubious record, since it's only for a player's first game and the record was shared by several other players--so I just deleted the statement. I changed the sentence about his hitting stats; hope it's clearer now. The stolen bases number is a little problematic. Stolen bases weren't recorded until 1887, and even then there wasn't an immediate consensus on the criteria for what constituted a steal. Sunday's best number in a season (1890) was 84; the all-time record for stolen bases in a single season is 138. His standing all-time is insignificant, That having been said, however, it's really not all that useful to compare players from different eras with just the numbers, since conditions in the 1880s were vastly different from, say, post WWII. For 19th century players, it seems to me to be most useful to compare players to their peers; hence my notation that Sunday never ranked higher than 3rd in the league. For the record, once SBs began being recorded, Sunday stole 34 bases in 1887, 71 in 1888 (3rd in NL), 47 in 1888 (8th in NL), and 84 in 1890 (3rd in NL). He lost parts of some seasons due to injuries, and I have no doubt that he could have been the league leader in one of those seasons if he hadn't gotten hurt. But that's the way it goes. Anyway, I hope I've answered your questions and given more clarity to the baseball section in the article.--Rocketj4 21:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)