Read Your Own Paper (And Try To Retain A Little Bit)

I had a great relationship with the sports writers and the sports editor at the Rocky Mountain News. They were generally good-natured, and even better, they responded to my comments, questions and corrections.

Not so with the Denver Post, which I've been reading since "The Rocky" went under. (Growing up, it was always referred to as "The News." Guessing that was some marketer's idea of a hip rebranding...)

I don't know if they've always been this bad, but the Post folks seem to screw up a lot, and they don't seem to care. Or, maybe they're getting so many complaints, they don't have time to answer all of them. Yeah, I sometimes get a little snarky with them, but for cryin' out loud! It's their jobs to get it right.

In any event, I fired off this missive last week in response to an error about the Pittsburgh Pirates in a Dave Krieger column. I sent it to Dave and cc'd sports@denverpost.com. Not surprisingly, I didn't hear back. As evidence that they don't care, as of today, they have not corrected the online version of the column.

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Page 5C

"...they had little choice but to trade Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson, Adam LaRoche and Nate McLouth in July..."

Nate McLouth was traded on June 3. It was in all the papers. Even the Denver Post.

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©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

Old Timer

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in town to play the Rockies. Both the Rockies radio and TV teams have claimed that Pirate Lastings Milledge wears number 85 "because that was the year he was born."

That would make him 1,924 years old.

The baseball media in Denver is about as bush league and clueless as it gets.


©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

Seeing The Cycle

I saw Rockie's shortstop Troy Tulowitzki get credit for hitting for the cycle last night. The triple was a bit specious: Alfonso Soriano bobbled the ball in the left field corner before gaining control and firing it in, and if the throw would have been caught at 3rd base, Tulo would have been out by ten feet. But it was scored as a triple and it's a cycle.

I was watching ESPN's Sports Center when I got home, and they said that only two men in MLB history had turned an unassisted triple play and hit for the cycle: John Valentin and Troy Tulowitzki.

I'm guessing I'm the only person on the planet who was in attendance when Valentin turned his triple play and Tulo hit for his cycle.

How special does that make me? (Uh... That's a rhetorical question!)

©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

Media Rants

I'm continually finding factual errors in the media, both sports and news, and I always find myself compelled to fire off a note to correct the offenders. It occurred to me that this blog would be a good place to keep track, so I'm introducing a new feature: Media Rants.

Here's the one from today. I might dredge up some previous ones, too.

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(The Denver Post)

From today's paper, Cub-Level Seats, Page 15A:

"Take away the Yankees and Red Sox, who've made one regular-season stop apiece in Coors Field's 15-year history..."

Wrong! The Yankees played regular-season games in Coors Field on June 18, 19 & 20, 2002; then again on June 19, 20 & 21, 2007.

As Casey Stengel would have said, "You can look it up."

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There was another factual error that I didn't bother pointing out to the Post:

"...Rockies fans appeared to more than hold their own, accounting for perhaps two-thirds of the crowd, every one of whom went wild when Chris Iannetta hit the only home run of the game..."

Uh... I was there. I did not go "wild." I saw many others that did not go "wild" as well.

dtd©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor