EMPTY KRONER

This is classic EiO - calling out glaring problems.

People think it's negative, but what is wrong with having expectations of professionalism in professionals?

This is why I prefer this A's site to all the others. For years he has been calling for people to mute the TV sound and listen to Bill King.

Instead of watching the wrong game with the TV talking heads who don't know anything about what they are talking about.

I dunno what Kroner's intent was, but didn't King call a ref a "muthaphukka" on the air or was this just an urban legend? If true that *might* be taking it a little "too far" with the refs.

Maybe.

Would it be safe to assume that an event 30 years ago is arbitrary?

Even so, wouldn't the phrase be objective is the referee had indeed blown a call so obvious to even blind men?

Think about it; what current national or local announcer even bothers to criticize officials unless they are a homer like Ray Fosse who won't let them go - only if they are against the A's.

Zachary, in this case, I think you're the one who owes Steve Kroner an apology. The problem isn't Kroner's. The problem is with either (a) the editing process, or (b) the web site technology they're using.

I have the actual physical newspaper, and in the paper, Barry's statement has italics. It looks like this:

-------------------
Thurmond said because King frequently ripped the officials, "Some of them hated Bill more than they hated me."

Barry, known to question a call or 2,000 in his career, said, "What's really amazing is some of them hated Bill more than they hated me."
--------------------

The italics didn't show up on SFgate.com. Why, I don't know, but I'd bet any amount that it wasn't Steve Kroner's fault.

With the italics, the sentence makes much more sense. Barry is echoing Thurmond, but saying this: hating someone more than Nate Thurmond isn't that amazing. Hating someone more than Rick Barry is.

Apologize for what, exactly Ken?

Zach doesn't need to apologize. The article was one of many written in the past few days and it is by far one of the worst that has come out.

Ken, Kroner blew it. If you are trying to take a cheap shot at Zach, well done old boy. Cheap shot successful.

The point was that it was a bad article contained several glaring errors. Errors in fact and errors in judgement. Maybe you are more forgiving of such things. But you should at least be able to follow what the point of the post was.

How many people actually get the SF Chronicle and how many read it online? I'm sure the numbers are staggering as far as how many more will read this article online rather than on printed newsheet.

Kroner covers the broadcast media and he blew it. He doesn't touch on Bill King as much as list Bill King. The man was a legend who touched the lives of millions. Kroner treats him as if he were talking about some DJ who worked in radio, 'a really long time'.

This is Bill King.

The italics have little to do with anything. The quotes don't make sense right next to each other. Kroner does not put the conversation into context. Usually, a decent writer uses parenthesis to put such things into context or states such.

As far as the mistakes in the paper vs the online version - Steve Kroner's name is attached to both. If some editor jacked it up, Kroner's name is still attached to it. Part of a journalists job is to make sure that their articles are displayed correctly.

Furhtermore, Zach clearly stated:
"...a recent tribute to Bill King by Steve Kroner needs to be pulled by the San Francisco Chronicle and an apology issued."

Ken, you owe Zach an apology.

Look. Everybody makes mistakes. You say stuff. Some of it's wrong. You're corrected. You apologize. This is the modus operandi these days on the web. It's not a big deal.

Apparently, I just made a mistake. Zachary didn't say Kroner should retract and apologize, he said that the Chronicle should. Fine. I take back that implication, and apologize for it. Sorry, Zach.

Still, Zachary is making an argument entitled "Empty Kroner", and one of Zachary's supporting arguments is fallacious. He says they're almost verbatim quotes, but they're not. One of them has italics, at least in the original form, which clearly differentiates one from the other.

That doesn't necessarily mean the whole argument is fallacious. But if he doesn't want to be hypocritical about this, if Zachary wants journalists to retract their mistakes and apologize for them, he should do the same. Get the call right, even if you got it wrong at first. If everyone does that, then it's no big deal, and we move on.

Empty Kroner is a Seinfeld reference, Ken.

Sheesh.

And the italics verus no-italics was already addressed in two forms;

one, it doesn't appear in the online version (no matter whose fault) and

two, it was a error to relay the conversation between Thurmond and Barry they had on KNBR as it was out of context and didn't make much sense - EVEN WITH THE ITALICS.

Let it go, Ken.

Puddy: Well, let's see, I've got a ten kroner, a five kroner, a twenty kroner.

No wait, that's another ten kroner. A empty kroner? How much is that?

http://www.stanthecaddy.com/the-butter-shave-script.html

BTW, I'm not trying to give Zachary a cheapshot. I apologize if it came across that way. I really like Zachary. He's a good guy.

I just think he's made an error, if not of fact then of omission, and he should correct it.

I also apologize for not watching every Seinfeld episode ever made.

And finally, I apologize for not thinking the Thurmond/Barry quote was out of context, and for thinking it made perfect sense when I read it in the paper this morning, and even for thinking it was actually funny.

one, it doesn't appear in the online version (no matter whose fault) and

No, It does matter whose fault it is. How can you say that Kroner is to blame because someone could not duplicate an article to the website?

two, it was a error to relay the conversation between Thurmond and Barry they had on KNBR as it was out of context and didn't make much sense - EVEN WITH THE ITALICS.

First of all, if you are going to correct someone, you should make sure that you, yourself, are free of errors. It's "an error;" you know, the whole "'an' before a word starting with a vowel sound" idea. Of course, no matter whose fault it is, I should blame your teachers and your parents for allowing such a mistake to occur.

Secondly, the conversation was not "out of context." Do you even know what that means?

Kroner provided the reader with a point that then led to a relevant anecdote. Nothing "out of context" there. It also made perfect sense, although I could understand how this wasn't the case for you.

Anecdote, more like Barry's hubris.

It wasn't a very good article. And if this was coming from the person who covers the broadcast part of sports it REALLY wasn't a very good article.

I enjoy the fact that nobody seems to want to argue that there is a factual error. They just want to argue about Kroner's bad writing.

If this was a tribute to Bill King, it sure didn't offer very much. I've read everything I could get my hands on about Bill King (sorry, I'm a new A's fan).

It certainly didn't do much for me to get an idea of what he was like.

Myabe that's the focus of this post, it's a bad article and there are some errors either in print or online they are still there.

There should be a correction and usually newspapers apologize when they have to publish corrections.

I think this is an interesting topic, if I might be permitted to rant a bit. Ken says he has the paper version, what about the guy in Italy who only gets the online version? What about the displace A's fan in New England?

Newspapers are slowly fading away from existence because they have revamoed their image, but not overhauled their processes.

Look at the NY Times with Judith Miller. HOow many scnadals in the field of journalism does it take to realize that the media is not longer a guy with 'PRESS' written on the side of his fedora hat.

These media outlets are owned by corportations who save money by not having fact checkers and editors that supervise.

I'll say this; if there were as many errors in the classifide/want ads in a paper as there are in the other sections of the paper, we would have no newspapers left to read. Why? Because people in the classified/want ads are responsible on what goes in and how it is read. If it's wrong they call to make a correction or demand their moeny back if some typesetter got it wrong. Why should a reporter or journalist be any different?

So-called baseball savant/traditionalist, Bruce Jenkins, has his name heading the World Series Notebook from Saturday:

"As for tonight, Garner hinted that he could include lefty-swinging Mike Lamb in the lineup against Roger Clemens, but he did say of Bagwell, "I'm excited to no end that Bagwell is with us now. He could have taken the rest of the year just to rehab, which is probably the advice he received. It turns out to be a pretty good decision."

Having Mike Lamb would be a pretty good weapon against his own pitcher, Roger Clemens. Yowza!

Nice catch Anon...but I am pretty sure there's no baseball being played right now.

The A's season was over a few weeks ago.

Wait, there were playoffs?

I'm upset that Zachary is apparently trying to have a life, and is not presenting ideas as often as my subscription suggests he should. This isn't right, and has to stop.

It's probably because he's sick of reading through some bad comments by ill informed people.

You get called negative enough by closed minded people and it can be depressing.

http://www.stanthecaddy.com/the-butter-shave-script.html

Puddy: Well, let's see, I've got a ten kroner, a five kroner, a twenty kroner.

No wait, that's another ten kroner. A fimty kroner? How much is that?

Elaine: We have to break up.