The Times Does Sports

Decades ago, when we were college roommates, Paul told me that the New York Times was a vastly overrated newspaper. He considered the Washington Post, his home town paper, to be far superior, in part because the Times sports section was pathetic. Both Paul and I would probably offer different commentary on both papers today, but he was right about the Times sports section, and it hasn’t gotten much better, as evidenced by two corrections that both appeared today. First, from the world of baseball:

An article on Wednesday about the Mets’ 4-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds misidentified, in some copies, the position of Wally Pipp, the Yankee usurped by Lou Gehrig who was cited by Mets Manager Terry Collins when discussing catcher Travis d’Arnaud’s injury. Pipp was a first baseman, not an outfielder.

The mind boggles: a New York sportswriter didn’t know that Wally Pipp and Lou Gehrig–one of the most famous Yankees of them all–were first basemen?

Next, a pro football correction:

Because of an editing error, an obituary on Thursday about the longtime Jets offensive lineman Winston Hill misstated the name of the all-star pro football team to which he was named eight times. It is the All-Pro team, not the All-Star team.

Who ever heard of the NFL All-Star Team? Or the annual All-Star Bowl in Hawaii?

Paul was right, many years ago, about the Times’s sports coverage. The unfortunate reality is that the paper’s news coverage isn’t much better.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses