Saturday, September 12, 2009

Today's Rant to the Denver Post

From today's paper, Page 4C:
Mariners vs. Rangers • SEATTLE >> Ppd., rain

If you knew anything about Major League Baseball, you'd know that Safeco Field in Seattle has a retractable roof that prevents rain outs.

If you read your own paper (Page 5C), you'd see that today's game between the two teams is in Texas. As was last night's rain out.

Just because something comes from The Associated Press doesn't mean that it's right. How about a little baseball awareness and critical thinking?

dtd

©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Call Me Scoop

I was watching the Dodgers game last night, and Vin Scully said that LA had just acquired Jim Thome from the White Sox. I was also sitting at my computer, so I started looking for more info.

The Denver Post's Troy Renck had a story about the Rockies acquiring Jose Contreras that also mentioned that the Dodgers got Jon Garland. No mention of Thome.

At 10:47, I posted this comment on the story: The Dodgers also acquired Jim Thome.

So, I scooped the Denver Post on this fairly big story with local ramifications -- on their own site!

When I got up this morning, I checked the page again. The story had been updated (last at 01:06:56 AM MDT) with the Thome information.

Hey, Denver Post! If it was my job to be your national baseball correspondent, I bet I could do a much better job than your incumbent. I'm available -- let's talk.

©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

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.

dtd

©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

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

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Saturday, August 8, 2009

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."

dtd


=====================================
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

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Monday, June 29, 2009

Thanks To Me?

I'm watching the Red Sox play the Orioles on MLB Extra Innings. They've only got the home feed, so I have to watch Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN). Jim Palmer and Gary Thorne are their announcers, and I generally like both of them.

Several times in the early innings, Jim Palmer referred to Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester having dealt with leukemia.

So, I went to the MASN web site and filled out a "contact us" form as follows:
Please tell Jim Palmer that Jon Lester had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, not leukemia.

Within ten minutes of my note, Jim Palmer made the correction on the air. Wonder if it was because of my note.

©2009 Douglas T. Dinsmoor

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