When it comes to unfortunate sports headlines, this one may be the leader in the clubhouse.
Early Sunday morning, Philly.com posted a story about the proliferation of strikeouts from the Phillies pitching staff. Unfortunately, it was published with the following headline:
https://twitter.com/TimLemkeTweets/status/726787469446885376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Eep.
We all know that the “k” is the statistical symbol for a strikeout… but whatever you do, never ever ever ever under any circumstances place three of them together alongside one another! Thankfully, the story was changed and now has the headline “Meet The Special K Phillies.”
The author of the story, Bob Vetrone Jr., admitted fault when responding to our old pal Dan Levy on Twitter:
@DanLevyThinks @phillydotcom … I did that all myself … Never made the connection … Thanks for the heads up …
— Bob Vetrone Jr. (@BoopStats) May 1, 2016
Additionally, the Philadelphia Media Network sent BillyPenn.com the following statement:
“We apologize for a headline that appeared earlier today on this blog post. The headline was changed quickly. The author’s mistake was careless, not malicious, but it is unacceptable nonetheless.”
That pretty much sums it up. You have to feel for Vetrone. All of us who work in media have made mistakes in publishing… some mistakes just get much more magnified than others. One would think an outlet the size of Philly.com would have some safeguards in place so something like this wouldn’t sneak through.
At the very least, maybe we should just switch the nomenclature for a strikeout to like a “q” or something so we don’t have to worry about this moving forward.
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