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Mercy rule
http://www.testycopyeditors.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5753
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Author:  paulwiggins [ Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:53 am ]
Post subject:  Mercy rule

When a baseball team (who shall remain nameless to avoid embarrassment) is doing badly, should a regional paper confine coverage to agate type?

Author:  SuchASlot [ Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:10 am ]
Post subject: 

We should be fair to sports teams in the same way that we try to be fair to all of the people and organizations we cover (avoiding, for example, undue gloating or cheerleading). But concern about the team's feelings and/or reputation — above and beyond that which directly relates to fairness — shouldn't influence news judgment, if that's what you're suggesting.

Author:  paulwiggins [ Sun Nov 20, 2005 4:03 am ]
Post subject: 

Agreed. But lord it's been a bad year for a certain team.

Author:  jjmoney62 [ Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercy rule

paulwiggins wrote:
When a baseball team (who shall remain nameless to avoid embarrassment) is doing badly, should a regional paper confine coverage to agate type?


Imagine the newsprint costs the Tribune Company could have saved the past 20 years.

Enough to avoid all these layoffs from coast to coast?

Author:  Matthew Grieco [ Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mercy rule

paulwiggins wrote:
When a baseball team (who shall remain nameless to avoid embarrassment) is doing badly, should a regional paper confine coverage to agate type?


When a professional baseball team is doing badly, the appropriate response by the local press is equal parts sympathy, derision and satire.

Perhaps you could comfort fans by telling them the story of the worst professional club of all time, the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who won 20 games in a 154-game season (no team since has won fewer than 40).

Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Sun Nov 20, 2005 5:35 pm ]
Post subject: 

Ahem...

1919 Philadelphia Athletics

Author:  paulwiggins [ Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:09 am ]
Post subject: 

To be fair, none of the players is a professional, though one or two might like to be.

Author:  Matthew Grieco [ Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:42 am ]
Post subject: 

Good catch, Oed. I knew the Athletics of that era were bad, but I missed that total. Still, a good sight better than the Spiders.

Author:  Oeditpus Rex [ Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:06 pm ]
Post subject: 

Huh. On another look, that wasn't even the A's club I was thinking of. That would be the 1916 A's, who were 37-117. There was a story about them called "The Worst Team of All" in the Second Fireside Book of Baseball, and I guess I flopped the 6 when I thought it was the 1919 club.

There's a headnote on the story, though, that mentions the 1899 Cleveland club — sort of an asterisk to the story's title.

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