Interesting if True

Nothing against Henry, as I like to read his columns, but I've found that journalist's interpretation of what someone says to vary a lot.  I remember when the Giants used to post the press conferences on their website (just last season, they stopped this offseason...) so I would stay up at night and transcribe, word for word, exactly what was said by Sabean and then post my thoughts on each interesting nugget of info.  

Well, the next day, when I read the various accounts of that press conference by the various newspapers in the Bay Area, it would be like that old child's game of telling a story to a child at one end of the line and have that story repeated down the line, resulting in various versions of what was said, all very similar but with key differences.

I found that to be true this offseason as well without the replay feature.  I pulled up all the writers' report on the call, and, from what I recall, only one writer noted a piece of info that I thought was interesting, and each had a different version of the press conference, all sounding about the same, but one would emphasis one thing while another would totally drop another thing.  

One I can recall in some detail was the first press conference after Colletti had took the Dodgers GM job, where Sabean discussed how he's hoping Colletti show up for Sabean's wedding, even though he'll be busy, because he's going to pull this huge prank on him.  One writer made it sound like a threat, by cutting out parts of it, another put in the whole thing so that you could see Sabean was in a friendly and joking mood.

This happened many a time to Bonds as well, which I've documented numerous times in my blog.  I'm sure the journalists work hard at what they do and are generally honest as well, but they are human and not everyone would be as anal as me to sit down and listen and transcribe the whole call, they jot down a few key notes and are forced by the deadline to take a few shortcuts, I'm sure.  And some are human and just assume the worse of Bonds and just mail it in with their article.  

While I understand why they do what they do, it doesn't make it right.  I wish whatever needs to change in their work process, whether a later deadline or stricter guidelines on interpreting a press conference or greater vigilence towards reporting what's happening vs. opining on the situation or just better processes all the way around, so that we, the news consumer, can trust that we are getting the unvarnished facts, and not just their interpretation of the facts.  

Oh and you're right, Schulman's version is probably the right version, his quote seemed more complete than the one that Draper had in his piece, I think Draper dropped a word here or there - there, a perfect example of what I was talking about, how there's different versions of the same interview session.  

The team should just provide a voice recognition system to transcribe the interview into computer format and distribute to the reporters right afterward with an e-mail.  Then the reporter would get exactly what was said (there will be a slight delay as the team should proof-read the text to make sure it translated right.) and the team and player can stop worrying as much about being misquoted, the team will be releasing the official transcript of it, it will be harder to misquote that.  

So if it's a 5th OF, I definitely want Linden in there, he won't learn that much more in the minors and I think, from all the stuff I've read about him, I think his ego and confidence is fragile and could take a hit if he is sent down.  Plus he's younger than Ellison.  

However, I worry that he will regress on the bench because I was hoping he could do a Feliz can be able to come in and start in 2007 in RF.  If I had my druthers (well if I had it, we wouldn't have this discussion probably as Vlad will be in RF :^) I would rather give him another year to prove himself in AAA and be fully prepared for a fulltime role in 2007.  But with him up, while he'll be a better bench player overall, since he seems to be fragile mentally, I'm not sure if he wouldn't regress on the bench, particularly since Finley will probably get the vast majority of the ABs in the OF not taken by the three starters.