Well, let's put the pizza on the table, er cards. Jim Van Vliet, the Sacramento Bee Sports Writer who was fired last year for falsely reporting a story for a San Francisco Giants game, instead watching the game on television not at SBC/DEL TACO/PAC BELL/CHICO's BAILBONDS Park, is back on the radar screen.

Interestingly, when scoping out locations for an earlier Elephants in Oakland Pizza Feed, we were handed the card of the manager of a Round Table Pizza in Davis, CA. The manager's name? Jim Van Vliet. The same? Dunno.

Anyway.

Van Vliet has taken it upon himself to file suit against the paper AND the union. While it is common place for a terminated employee to examine all legal recourse, when a labor union won't stick up for you - that's fairly damning, no? Unions will defend nurses who steal drugs from hospitals and doctors who are drunk on the job. Unions will even defend employees in prison who killed their co-worker.

So taking the suit on merit is going to be a longshot for a federal court.

Recently, in the Sacramento News and Review, the free weekly in town had a blurb from Van Vliet.

Mis-Bee-havin’: "Speaking of failed Bee sportswriters, Bites touched base with the ever-quotable Jim Van Vliet last week, following the news that he’s suing the Bee for wrongful termination. Van Vliet, who was let go after reporting on a game he (reportedly) watched on TV instead of at the stadium, still is reluctant to discuss the specifics of his case. But he did offer a typically candid view of his former employer. "When I started at the paper back in the late ’60s, it was a family thing, where you could come in as a copy boy and work your way up," Van Vliet told Bites. "Now, if you come in as a copy boy, you’ll be lucky to retire as a 65-year-old copy boy." Van Vliet believes his firing--for reasons he dismisses as doing "something a little stupid"--is symptomatic of larger problems at the Bee. "I’ve learned that no matter who you are," said Van Vliet of today’s workplace, "you’re just one asshole away from being homeless.""

What would we do without the free press? And by that, we mean, the press that doesn't cost a damn dime and will quote somebody correctly when they use the word "asshole".

Gary Trudeau, author for Doonesbury has been a target recently for content and censorship. Several of his strips have been pulled, even one by the Washington Post that had characters discussing how masturbation can help prevent prostate cancer and another when a charcater used the phrase, "son of a bitch" when he was alerted he had lost a leg in combat.

"It's a South Park world now, and younger readers are unlikely to be shocked or confused by anything they find in 'Doonesbury'."
-Gary Trudeau

We mention the Jim Van Vliet subject because we wrote often to the sports editor of the Bee, Armando Acuna on Van Vliet's writings and how subsequent articles by other sports writers are in question. He doesn't like us and while our main concern is with the editing style, or lack thereof, the content is just boring and tedious at the Bee, which should be your concern. There have been instances where articles appear to be too similar to other articles and quotations are too dissimilar when taken from the same source as those that appear in other media outlets. Two examples; On March 13th 2004 in the Sacramento Bee a story ran on Billy McMillon and Adam Melhuse. Part of the article:

"Minor-league vets make major move as reserves
Published on March 13, 2004, Page C1, Article 11 of 13 found, 984 words.
** A year ago, Adam Melhuse and Billy McMillon thought the same thing.
Another great spring, another trip back to the minors. Another year to prove their big-league worth on the Triple-A circuit.
Both players had high hopes before the A's shipped them to Sacramento on the final weekend of spring training.
"Billy just looked at me and said, 'I've been in the minor leagues enough,' " A's manager Ken Macha recalled."

The same day, the following article appeared in the Contra Costa Times:

"Published on March 13, 2004, Page b01, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)
A CHANCE TO PROVE THEY BELONG
Source: RICK HURD, TIMES STAFF WRITER
They were finished. Both Adam Melhuse and Billy McMillon had surpassed their 30th birthdays. Both had received only sporadic time in the majors despite playing more than 10 seasons in the minors. And both had been discarded by several organizations.Has-beens? These two were destined to be never-weres.Until their travels dropped them in the land of the A's, that is. The place where reclamation projects often turn into gold worked its wonders with Melhuse and McMillon a season"

How does that happen?

On May 13th, 2004 Derek Zumsteg had an article on Baseball Prospectus.com on keeping score.

On May 21st, 2004 Bob Sylva had an article in the Bee about keeping score.

Coincidence?

Probably. Maybe. Most likely.

But, when you've been labeled, tarnished and held in perpetual suspicion, things can get fairly ugly.

A few other instances with the Bee occurred when there were differences in direct quotes. It wasn't just the Bee, it is with all media outlets, too. But when we emailed Armundo Acuna he snapped back we were accusing his reporter(s) (particularly Kevin Yamamura of plagiarism. Which was far from the truth, we pointed out inconsistencies from a December 11th article in which the quotations from the Bee difference from MLB.com, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Contra Costa Times. Of course, the Chronicle differed from MLB.com and the Contra Costa Times. It had to do with editing more than writing and we gave Yamamura the benefit that he was being very cautious after the Jim Van Vliet thing. And after emailing Kevin he assured he was being careful with a tape recorder and taking dilligent notes.

It was more likely an example of other reporters just being a little lax in direct quoting or paraphrasing. Big deal? No. But, it could be, so why take that chance?

Such is modern 'journalism'.

So, who is at fault for Van Vliet-Gate? Why has his editor been able to skirt the issue and the reporter been shafted? If this was a lone incident, where's the slap on the wrist and support from the union? We had Van Vliet nailed months before and the Bee has always found our contempt for sports writing (how can the local paper of the A's AAA team not even discuss On-Base Percentage or print walks in the box score) - so why was this suddenly an issue?

The real key for the defense is going to be checking Jim Van Vliet's email. What? If he was sending email from a remote server at the time of a game he reported on he can't be touched. But, if he was say, sitting in his office watching the game on TV or listening to the MLB.com audio feed and sending email from the local server when he should have been in oh, say, Toronto - then you have an issue.

Another favorite activity of frequent travelers is to cash in plane tickets or down grade from first class to coach and pocket the difference in cash. The IRS nailed NBA officials few years ago with that scam. Oddly, failing to report income tax landed the officials in hot water with the federal government, but not so much with David Stern, the bizarro Bud Selig. The NBA took back all but one of the 43 referees. Maybe Stern just felt that the officals miss so many other calls on the court, what's a few more missed fouls on travelling?