Friday, September 7, 2007

Everyone Makes Mistakes (The AP Does So Often)

We could spend days agonizing over things such as five team errors and the Future of the Team accounting for three errors and four strikeouts, but why? Why dwell on that when the headliner of the 2007 draft class, Ross Detwiler, made a flawless Major League debut? Why dwell on the negatives when everyone makes the occasional blunder? To point, look at this nonsense from the Associated Press story regarding this very game:

"Shortstop Felipe Lopez had the other miscue, throwing one into the Braves dugout after field a routine grounder."

Now, we at the DCO are not above making a grammatical or spelling error now and then, but we: A. Do not (at least in theory) have a battery of editors at our disposal to catch such things. B. Do know the difference between "field" the noun and "fielding" the verb (yes, sometimes "field" can be a verb, but most certainly not in this context). Also, "Braves" would be better served as the plural possessive "Braves'" (a little muddled with the quotation marks, but you get the point).

Thus, the AP is declared unfit to detail the Nationals' error-prone night, as they are unable to avoid errors even as they write about an error. The irony is astounding. Shakespeare-worthy, even. They have the unfair advantage, however, of being able to correct their botch after the fact. Poor Ryan Zimmerman does not have such a luxury. If only we had videotape of the AP drone who wrote this story making his/her mistake. Now that would be Sportscenter-worthy.

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