Help me with possessives

Since I've been editing, I find that I have trouble with when to use a team name as a possessive. Feels like I see it different ways, and I'm not sure what's right, or if it's a style thing..

Cardinals' first baseman Albert Pujols
Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols

or..

Cardinals pitchers
Cardinals' pitchers

etc.

What say you SportsJournalists.com?

 

In the two instances you show, i say no apostrophe. Look at it this way: I live in Baton Rouge and I wouldn't say LSU's first baseman John Smith, i would say LSU first baseman John Smith. So i wouldn't say Tigers' first baseman, i would say Tigers first baseman. That is how we do it at our paper. Hope that helps some.

 

Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols
Not possessive because it's a singular person.


Cardinals' pitchers

Possessive because the Cards own the GROUP of pitchers.




I'm not sure if that's right. I'm sure someone else will check in to affirm or deny.

 

No apostrophe in either case.

While we're on the subject, I've seen Red Sox' and White Sox' used in print. When did that become correct?

 

No apostrophe in the first, you need the rest of the sentence to decide on the second.

 

Agreed. How I interpret the rules:

Justin Bieber met Cardinals pitchers on a plane.

The Cardinals' pitchers have been weary since the All-Star break.

Cardinals pitchers Dick McGee and Johnny Rocket signed baseballs after the game.

 

Probably at the same time the NYT decided to go with Wisc. and Tex.

 

Just so.

 

Seconded. In the first and third cases, the word "Cardinals" is serving as an adjective that modifies "pitchers" (it describes what kind of pitchers they are, if that makes sense).

In the middle example, Cardinals is serving as a possessive noun... you could write "the pitchers of the Cardinals" in its place, and it would make sense (it'd be a awkward sentence, yeah, but technically it's still grammatically correct.)

 

Ding.
Just remember, adjectives aren't possessives - hence it's not girls' basketball, it's girls basketball.

 

So, for my idiot-proof rule, looks like it's only possessive if there's a "the" before the team?

Or, if you can swap the name for the city (St. Louis for Cardinals) then it's not possessive.

Those sound right?