ESPN's Grantland still lacks a forum for comments and corrections, so we are providing this space to help the site's audience share its thoughts—criticism, praise, or otherwise. Comments below reflect the opinions of Grantland readers and are not necessarily the views of Deadspin. Readers who have additional corrections or comments for Grantland can send them to [email protected], subject line "Dear Grantland."
Chad E.:
The [Grantland Rice] quote at the top of the page...is: "For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game."
In the actual quote, the order of "mark" and "write" is reversed.
Ed. note: In Charles Fountain's Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice, the poem "Alumnus Football" is reprinted in full. The penultimate stanza:
"Keep coming back—and though the world may romp against your spine—
Let every game's end find you still upon the battling line;
For when the one Great Scorer comes to write against your name,
He marks—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game."
Phil Nevin:
this appeared as [Editor in Chief Bill Simmons's] footnote #1 on his NBA Finals Game 6 retro diary.
Cousin Sal and I had Dallas in 6 at +450. As I mentioned last week, we're 0-344 in hedging situations. We thought about hedging at halftime … and didn't. That's right, you now live in a world in which Brian Cardinal played a key role on an NBA title team and Cousin Sal and I successfully hedged a bet.
when you don't hedge a bet, you haven't successfully hedged a bet, Mr. Gambling. at best, he "successfully judged a potential hedging situation", which does not mean that you hedged a bet.
Anonymous:
Simmons misspells Zach Randolph here, not corrected.
"Precisely who was hitting the next home run off the Cubs didn't and doesn't matter. I still don't know who it was. But it put the score at 8-0."
There was not a home run that made the game in question 8-0. There was a home run that made it 6-0, a home run that made it 7-0, and a home run that made it 9-0. This error has also not been corrected.
Alec:
In a footnote (sidenote?) to his The Killing column, Bill Simmons references a non-existent Mariner's player named Gary Halman. They do have a Greg Halman, however. He also identifies Halman as the Mariner's #5 hitter. He is in a platoon, and often does not bat 5th (although he has at times)
Craig:
In Bill Simmons's "Hackery in the First Degree", in footnote 2, he identified Mariners' outfielder Greg Halman as "Gary Halman".
It is since corrected [without acknowledgement].
Mark:
You, Grantland, claimed that Tracy Jordan's film 30 Years to Life was available on Netflix Instant. It's not. It's DVD only. I'm crushed.
Anonymous:
From another Chris Jones attempt at parachute journalism in the AL East, a footnote:
"Lackey has the second-highest annual salary on the Red Sox roster, trailing only Josh Beckett, and is the eighth-best-paid starting pitcher in all of baseball."
As someone who actually covers a baseball team, this jumped out right away as bullshit. (If Grantland is the National's spiritual successor, maybe they should've hired some real reporters, not just writers.)
If we're talking annual salary, that would imply average annual value (AAV) - after all, that's what Jones uses to determine Lackey is the eighth highest paid pitcher in baseball, right? That fact can be verified here.
What Jones might have meant to say is that THIS YEAR, Lackey is making the second most money on the team. True, but entirely misleading, and it's not what he wrote.
If we're going by "annual salary" — as Jones writes — Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford (uh, how do you overlook those two??) blow Lackey out of the water, in addition to Josh Beckett, giving Lackey the fourth highest annual salary on the team.
Taylor:
The 1988 preseason game that [Jimmy] Kimmel refers to between the [Seahawks] and the Cardinals was played in Seattle, not Phoenix.
John:
In his Father's Day piece, Kimmel writes:
Have I mentioned that my Dad looks just like Wolf Blitzer? He does. So much so that, after the Republican national convention in Tempe in 2004, Tom Brokaw and his colleagues spotted "Wolf" on the street and invited him to join them for dinner. (Unfortunately, my father got nervous, making this the one comp he turned down).
The 2004 Republican National Convention was in New York City.
David:
In writing about Rory McIlroy's US Open victory, Bill Barnwell says that Ernie Els "won his first major at 28."
Els had already won two majors before he was 28. His 1994 US Open victory at Oakmont came at age of 24; his 1997 US Open victory at Congressional came when he was 27.
Rob:
"Or take the no. 2 seed, Vera Zvonerava, last year's runner-up."
The player in question spells her last name Zvonareva.
Stella:
Noted Bruins fans Bill Simmons: "Dick Clark was the game-show host version of the Yankees or Canadians for me."
Yup, those would be the Montreal Canadiens.
Sean:
Don't know if this counts as an error or not, but in the ninth footnote in today's Simmons article, he writes "It's like buying $50 million of free advertising." I would think that if you're buying something, it doesn't really count as free.
Nitpicking, sure, but I've been trying to wrap my head around the comment for at least three minutes, and have yet to find a way that it i makes sense.
Schoolly:
"Kasmir" (sic) in Klosterman on Zeppelin today, which would also be wrong re Angels pitcher.
Joe:
In her column on female raunch movies, Molly Lambert writes, "But then everybody from Anchorman got cast in other movies except for Christina Applegate. Studio executives saw it and said, ‘Hey, get me the guy who plays the guy who eats the candle.' " In a sidenote, she writes, "This isn't actually fair. He was already a star on The Office by this point. I love lamp."
Anchorman was released in 2004. The American version of The Office, starring Steve Carell, "guy who plays the guy who eats the candle," debuted in 2005. The error has not yet been corrected.
Brad:
Simmons draft diary: "The most shocking part: Charlotte landed the ninth pick just for downgrading from Jackson to Maggette (not even that much of a downgrade)"
Correction: The ninth pick was Charlotte's own. In the trade, it landed the No. 7 pick from Sacramento.
Dave:
In Bill Simmons' Draft Diary column that went up today, he said that Blake and Taylor Griffin are twins. Blake was born in 1989. Taylor was born in 1986. Thank you.
Scott:
Simmons's column "Painting The NBA Trade Picture" ... lists Milwaukee as receiving $1.30 in assets, while showing them receiving Tyreke Evans (25 cents), Jason Thompson (dime), no. 7 pick (25 cents), and $7.2M in cap space (20 cents). That total adds up to $0.80.
Ryan:
In the "Grantland's NBA Draft Lottery Preview" article from today, the team breakdown of the Suns mentions the fact that Alando Tucker won D-League performer of the week in 2007 and never suited up for the Suns again. This is false. Tucker was recalled at least twice after winning the award, plus Tucker's Wikipedia page states that he was only honorable mention player of the week.
Sam:
The article "Dirk's Deutschland" by Nicholas Kulish was somewhat spoiled by a poor editorial decision. The story of German basketball is backgrounded by the decisive Game 5 of this year's finals, but before the article reaches the end of the game, the text is interrupted by a photo — of the winning team cutting down the net during their post-game celebration. The author later spends several paragraphs of game recap trying to build drama around a conclusion that the reader already knows. Seems like a rookie mistake by the photo editor/intern.
Matt:
All in all, I like Grantland so far.
Ed. note: Matt also proposed a correction, but research indicated that Grantland had not made an error.
Joshua:
Am I wrong, or does Grantland's Guide to the Top Prospects in the NBA Draft have a poor understanding of the word "erstwhile"? the "erstwhile" Jeremy Lin and the "erstwhile" Tskitishvili (complete with digression about how Skita is the most erstwhile player in the NBA). Isn't the usage there implying that Jeremy Lin is no longer Jeremy Lin, or that Skita no longer is Skita?
Brian:
The Pistons did not win the 2003 title, as reported in today's NBA draft piece, written by the entire Grantland staff. Everyone knows that the Spurs beat the Nets in 2003, while the Pistons beat the Lakers the next season, which would be the 2004 title.
Michael:
"The Detroit Pistons won, and won often, in the past decade, churning through eight consecutive 50-win seasons and trouncing the Lakers for the 2003 title."
Just waiting for them to change it to 2004 without noting the correction. Grantland is at war with Eurasia. Grantland has always been at war with Eurasia.
Ed. note: The text has been corrected without acknowledgement.
Jon:
In their hilariously overly laudatory oral history of the National, the crucial exchange early on between Mulvoy and Deford repeatedly cites "Dick Monroe", when his actual name is Dick Munro.
Scott:
In the ill-conceived story Rock VORP, the name of George Santayana is misspelled Santanaya.
Nader:
In the same article as the "Patrick Beverley" screw-up, Simmons says that Halftime Pizza "used to" play old-time fight videos. Obviously he hasn't bothered to step foot in there near gametime, as they still do play the same videos.
Jon:
It seems like I catch typos/mistakes big and small in almost every article, something that doesn't seem to happen on espn.com. Who is editing this site? It just seems oddly unprofessional. I just read the column on Treme — the character Janette's name was spelled "Jenette" and "Jeanette." It's a "who cares" thing to point out — but it's just sloppy and lazy....
Another example is the last paragraph of Simmons's movie star column:
Look, I like Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, James Franco and Jesse Eisenberg. I really like Paul Rudd. None of them are not movie stars … at least not yet. And neither is Ryan Reynolds. But you knew that already.
"None of them are NOT movie stars" — such a strange typo to still be sitting there in the column long after it was posted. If they would even just post a contact email they could at least correct it.
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