The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Unsourced since 2009, mostly a dictionary definition DrowssapSMM 02:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Withdraw: article has been significantly improved. DrowssapSMM 16:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, LizRead!Talk! 02:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:AFDNOTCLEANUP, the references shared above, and the depth of the concept in general. I am surprised the article has zero references. It really needs to be filled out. - BeFriendlyGoodSir (talk) 06:11, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, LizRead!Talk! 02:17, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Verifiability is a non-negotiable policy, and 15 years is long enough. The Heymann criterion should be to add two reliable sources within the next seven days after this second relist. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:21, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Let'srun (talk) 16:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Seems more in place in a dictionary. AA (talk) 23:56, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It seems rather interesting and odd that none of the delete !voters above have addressed (or even mentioned) the sourcing provided in this discussion long before they arrived, so I don't see how they could carry much, if any, weight. They look like drive-by editors casting personal opinions who didn't bother to read this discussion, review the sources, or consider important matters like WP:NEXIST and WP:ARTN. Meanwhile, in addition to the sources previously presented, I also found thesetwo books which offer extensive in-depth secondary analysis of the sweet spot concept, further strengthening the case to keep the article. Left guide (talk) 02:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Meets WP:GNG with the multiple sources of significant coverage (for multiple sports even) identified by user Left guide above. WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP (but adding sources to the article can only mitigate false impressions).—Bagumba (talk) 02:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Final relist. What do those editors arguing Delete think about the sources brought up in this discussion? Could any of those advocating Keep add them to the article? If this subject is mentioned elsewhere, then why isn't anyone arguing for a Merge or Redirect as an ATD? This is a juggling act. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, LizRead!Talk! 05:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The above sourcing covers just baseball and cricket. For tennis, there's this article from a university engineering department magazine which offers a rather large section dedicated to the sweet spot concept; at the very bottom it also cites as one of its references H. Brody, ”The Physics of Tennis II: The ‘sweet spot’.” American Journal of Physics, vol. 49, pp. 816, 1981., which is a peer-reviewed scientific journal offering dedicated coverage of this concept. Then there's this book published by a university press; chaper 2 is titled The Sweet Spots of a Tennis Racket and spans 16 pages (23-38). Left guide (talk) 05:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Sourcing is adequate. This is more than dictionary definition and I see lots of room for expansion. BusterD (talk) 13:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: We've been given lots of sources about the baseball sweet spot, the cricket sweet spot, the tennis sweet spot, etc. What we're lacking are sources about the sweet spot in sports generally. Are there good sources discussing the concept as it applies to all sports. So while the concept relates to many sports, I'm still not convinced that we need an article on it. As I noted above the concept can be covered for specific sports, either within an existing article or even as separate article if there's enough content to justify it. Nigej (talk) 10:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Due to the difficulty of explaining this relationship (and the comparative ease of merely listing articles to which the title relates), editors often create disambiguation pages for such titles, even though there is an unambiguous meaning that can be discerned from the relationship between the listed topics.
You raise some very good points to consider. I'd argue there's enough sourcing to justify separate articles on the sweet spots for baseball, cricket, and tennis if a split is a palpable resolution. However, there is also plenty of generalized interconnected coverage of this concept across all sports, tying them together; some examples:
On page 719 of this book, it says: If we compare baseball and tennis with cricket, baseball bats are made up of solid wood or hollow aluminum barrels and tennis rackets are made up of composites. All the batsmen know that there is a special spot on a cricket bat where the shots feel very smooth. It sometimes feels so good that there is almost no sensation at all that the bat hit the ball. It is the same with a tennis racquet or a baseball bat. These areas have been given various names such as sweet zone, sweet spot, etc. A sweet spot is a position that is identified by the batsmen at the best location of the bat with which the ball comes in contact and gives the maximum exit velocity.
There's also page 202 of this book which demonstrates and explains a mathematical physics equation needed to find the sweet spot; included in its commentary is This is the ideal point at which to hit a ball with a bat (sometimes called a 'sweet spot' in sporting applications — cricket, tennis, baseball, etc.)
Then page 365 of this book is unfortunately sandwiched between two pages not visible to me on preview mode, but from that page alone it says Considerable work has been done on the physical interpretation of the 'sweet spot' and its location on the cricket bat using the research on baseball bats as the basis. It is possible to establish such correlations as the mechanics of swinging the bat is similar for both games. The length and weight of the cricket bat and baseball bat are also similar…Based primarily on extensive research on tennis racquets and baseball bats, today it is widely accepted that there are other impact locations on the bat that are capable of producing the greatest post impact ball velocity. That page alone also cites about ten other sources inline which can be referred to.
In this book, Chapter 4.5 titled "Angular impulse and the centre of percussion" begins with Have you ever wondered why a cricket bat, a baseball bat or a tennis racquet has a sweet spot? This is the point on the bat where the ball seems to be hit most cleanly, without producing much vibration in the handle followed by a demonstration and explanation of the mathematical physics equations required to calculate the position of the sweet spot.
These sources show a great deal of analysis on the sweet spot concept in a manner that cohesively ties all the sports together. These are mere snippets (as in there is a lot more about sweet spots than just what is quoted) so as not to needlessly overwhelm this discussion, but please read and go the sources to see the full depth and breadth of coverage for yourself if you still have any doubts or questions. Left guide (talk) 15:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the article has been improved dramatically since its nomination and Left guide's research clearly shows there is extensive sourcing on the concept which can be used to improve the article further. Hatman31 (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Good sourcing and I can see future improvements in place. Can't see this being merged to something. 🍪CookieMonster 04:41, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.