Talk:Jack Kramer

Copyvio

I reverted an addition (below the stub, cats, and language tags!) by 128.152.20.33 which appears to be a complete copy of the text here: http://www.tennisfame.org/enshrinees/jack_kramer.html
Turnstep 13:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Jack Kramer Time Cover.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 22:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

changing to "Jack Kramer (tennis)" ...

There is third "Jack Kramer" that would be good to include in Wikipedia. The second one is listed as "Jack Kramer (baseball)". Let's change THIS ONE to "Jack Kramer (tennis)" and add the third one as "Jack Kramer (gardening)".

I am not familiar with editing enough to make such a change; I hope some senior editor will help out here. Thanks. -- LC Richter —Preceding unsigned comment added by LCRichter (talk • contribs) 15:43, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Lobs

On page 296: "Riggs, of course. But Segura, Bitsy Grant and Rosewall were almost as effective. Connors is coming on strong." Hayford Peirce (talk) 20:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

That I do remember reading but again that means he thought Riggs was the best so that should be the only name listed.

Absolutely. I saw Little Pancho years ago, and he had a terrific one, but if Jyke says Bobby had a better one, you gotta go with him. So I wouldn't let this revision stand unless he comes up with a better source. Hayford Peirce (talk) 03:10, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

"father" of the professional tour?

Nonsense. The professional tour had existed for 20 years before Kramer even JOINED it as a player. See the articles about Vinnie Richards, Tilden, Vines, Budge, Perry, and Riggs. Geez, where does this nonsense come from? Also "lost by five votes" -- WHOSE votes, when, and where? The more WP gets edited, the worse it becomes. Hayford Peirce (talk) 03:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Bias

Is this a rather over the top portrait of the man - I really know nothing about him but the portrait of him in the film Battle of the Sexes is pretty negative? Should the article pick up on how he banned women from the American Tennis Organisation? Any experts out there willing to work on this? YellowFratello (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Ramanathan Krishnan

Krishnan attracted the highest offer ever attempted by Kramer in 1959, a three-year $150,000 guarantee offer, which Krishnan promptly turned down, and would again in 1960. There should be some explanation as to why Kramer was so intent on signing Krishnan to such a record-high offer. I attempted to suggest the reasons, but a certain editor has persistently removed those statements.Tennisedu (talk) 17:16, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Two points on this. Firstly, do we need an explanation on every Kramer contract and why he offered the amounts he did? No, and we don't have it for other players, so why Krishnan? And secondly, what you have added is meaningless waffle, not a statement from Kramer about why he offered Krishnan the contract. tennishistory1877 (talk) 17:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

This was an extremely unusual contract offer from Kramer to a player who peaked at world No. 6. This is not someone whom you would think would get a record contract offer from Kramer. At the same time, Kramer was offering much less to Olmedo and the following year much less to Gimeno. That requires some explanation. Krishnan's outstanding characteristics should be mentioned as a probable explanation, namely the entertaining quality of his game. Kramer was so determined to sign Krishnan that he offered him another high offer in 1960 after Krishnan defeated Gimeno, $100,000 for two years. Kramer's offers to Krishnan dwarfed the offers to Fraser, Olmedo and Gimeno. That calls for some explanation.Tennisedu (talk) 22:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

OK then, so if I agree to a short one sentence explanation of Krishnan's contract (though lets make sure this is the only one, we do not want a load of explanations of why Kramer offered contracts), then go and find a source with the reason listed, something which you have not done. And find another source for a $100,000 offer to Krishnan in 1960, which you have not done. tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:57, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

The 1960 offer to Krishnan at Wimbledon of $100,000 was mentioned by Krishnan himself in an interview about five years ago, I am checking to see if the source is still extant.Tennisedu (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Repetitive information

It is not necessary to repeat the exact same information and the exact same citations in each and every paragraph in the section on Kramer's professional career. No other editor would be so misguided as to litter the page this way. The attempt being made here to recycle and repeat information in subsequent paragraphs is stylistically repugnant and should be stopped. The incessant repeating of "world No. 1" information for each paragraph is misleading as the sources are for a period ranking and not for individual years. This does not contribute any new information with each repetition. We have discussed this issue many other times with other articles, and each time the repetitive information was grouped together in one location or was evicted from the article. There is no excuse for such redundancy, which is clearly POV editing of the worst kind.Tennisedu (talk) 00:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Please stop repeatedly inserting POV into this article. You have been warned about this many times before by myself and other editors. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 10:38, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, repeating the same information with the same sources in each year significantly degrades the article. The wording in each of the three "recent sources" is also almost identical - "Between 1946 and 1953, he was considered the No. 1 player in the world", "Between 1946 and 1953 he was considered to be the no.1 player in the world", "considered the number one player in the world from 1946 to 1953" - so I find it highly probable that that info has been pulled from the same original source, which if we could find would be preferable to use. If we can't, I'd only keep the LA Time reference as the Champion Newspapers article isn't about Kramer, and the Bleacher Report article is openly taking info from the LA Times and The Hindu (says at the bottom). Letcord (talk) 13:26, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Tennisedu changed the wording for each year so it was identical in the first place! That's fair reasoning for the Bleacher report article and I am happy to remove that if you wish, but the reason for using these modern sources is that there were very few contemporary rankings in this period 1949-52 and those that do exist only take into account the year's US Pro tournament. It is widely acknowledged that Kramer was the best pro from 1948 to 1953. Peter Underwood states in his book on the pro tour that Kramer was the "best" in these years. But Tennisedu, whose biased editing is very well documented, will look for any loophole he can to exclude remarks such as this. Always when dealing with him I look for sources with very precise terminology, even though there are others with less precise terminology that have the same meaning. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't know who added what, but was just voicing an opinion on the repetition. I think the yearly text saying "Kramer was described as 'world champion' or 'world's professional champion' throughout 19..." with contemporary citations indicates well enough that he was the top player in each year individually. I would put the text for the retrospective 1946-1953 period No. 1 ranking between the "Professional player" and "1947" headings, to avoid the repetition. Letcord (talk) 16:20, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The sources are valid for each year they are listed and each year's rankings are listed at the end of each year. This is standard practice on wikipedia tennis pages. Incidentally the date on the LA Times page is 2014, though I realise it was originally a 2009 obituary for Kramer. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 17:41, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

This whole supposed reference is being blown up way beyond justification. These are not even rankings, Tennishistory1877. You are attempting to read into the reference more than is there. I have just changed the same type of verbiage in the Robert Bedard article from "ranked" to "considered". Check the dictionary definition for these words, they are NOT the same thing. "Consider" means to "regard" or "think", while "rank" has a specific meaning in tennis, an ordered set. These sources only say that Kramer was "considered" the No. 1, not "ranked" in a tennis ranking. In fact, it appears that Kramer never was ranked world No. 1 in one of the various tennis rankings for his playing years. The USPTA and PTPA rankings were only U.S. rankings, and the only serious pro tennis singles world No. 1 ranking was the 1953 Phillipe Chatrier ranking, which put Sedgman at World No. 1. Tennishistory1877 has claimed that the 1953 Sedgman interview represents a ranking, but that was before Sedgman won his tournaments over Gonzales. Just stating that someone was considered or regarded as World No. 1 does not amount to the same thing as stating that they were actually ranked by someone as World No. 1. And the source of this "considered" is not even identified. Who is supposed to have done the "considering"? The writers do not tell us who did the considering...that means there is no real information here about contemporary rankings. We need to know who did the "considering" before we have anything like a ranking source. Otherwise the ranking is unidentified, because the writers did not do this "No. 1" evaluation, it was supposedly someone who was contemporaneous to Kramer's playing days. It means nothing to say "there was a considered ranking" and then not tell us who did the ranking. These statements should not be regarded as sourced rankings.Tennisedu (talk) 01:06, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

That is one reason I inserted the Underwood ranking, to counter your latest attempts to belittle Kramer's number one ranking in these years. We all know this period is difficult, because of the lack of contemporary rankings. I am no fan of the USPLTA and PTPA rankings (or Sedgman's 1953 ranking for that matter). My personal wish is that one of the major tennis organizations would compile a retrospective list of rankings for every year, looking at all the information available in compiling their list. The period 1947-1953 is the worst period for contemporary pro rankings that there is. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 10:50, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed that this is the worst period for rankings. But stating that a player was "considered to be No. 1" when, in fact, there was NO ranking for that player as No. 1, does not contribute any real content, it is just an empty speculation without a source. It does not contribute anything or get us any further ahead. It is not a ranking, although it would be worth at least a little if the observation "is widely considered" was made by a contemporary writer in the early fifties, as was the case for Bedard in 1960. This type of non-ranking is a pure POV statement and has no place here. It is just empty puff. You should remove it from here and from the ranking articles.Tennisedu (talk) 12:33, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

A statement such as this in a major newspaper in an obituary of Kramer is not empty puff. Empty puff is a good description of the hot air you create. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 13:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Bottom line, "considered" to be ranked is NOT "ranked". These are two different concepts, and they are not the same thing. Underwood was not giving his own opinion, but was stating that Kramer "WAS considered" No. 1. Underwood has to provide a source for his statement, otherwise it is nothing more than than POV fluff. (Or puff, whichever you prefer). It has no place here or in the ranking articles.Tennisedu (talk) 18:05, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

WP:Reliable sources do not have to state their sources for info. If the LA Times, a newspaper of record, states that Kramer was considered No. 1 during a period, then we can put it here. The addition of Underwood only strengthens the claim. Bowers has "That he was the world's best throughout that period [1948–1953], pro or amateur, is beyond question" (his own opinion), so he can added as another "recent tennis writer" as well. Letcord (talk) 22:01, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Okay, but we need to make clear that these are only RECENT tennis writers, and not contemporaneous. We do not want to give the impression that Kramer or others from this era were given No. 1 rankings by contemporary writers of the day. These recent rankings date from about fifty or more years after the fact. Underwood and Bowers fall under this category.Tennisedu (talk) 16:49, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

It is your wording that makes it look like the rankings were contemporary rankings, tennisedu, with your wording "claim that Kramer was considered". Bowers and Underwood are stating their view in the 21st century. It already says "some recent tennis writers" which clearly shows these are not contemporary rankings. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 17:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)