I'm Still Writing Goat on my Checks

Special thanks to my dad for that awful joke.

This is buried amid some typical balloon juice about Sammy Sosa and Jose Vidro's knee.

In fact, [intergalactic trophy hunter Royce] Clayton, 35, has already had a lengthy conversation with manager Frank Robinson early this week. Clayton said it was the best talk he has had with a manager in years, and Robinson, according to Clayton, has encouraged him to compete for the starting job with the Nationals.

I would be shocked if this turns out to be true. Jim Bowden has $12 million and his reputation invested in Cristian Guzman, and he's going to play until it is absolutely clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that he can't do it. Which is to say, until Tom Boswell admits it. It would be pretty sweet for this Predator do what that first one did to Carl Weathers, though.

Will Carroll is using Oprah's mauling of best-selling author/complete butthole James Frey to tell us how virtuous he is.

For me, it's interesting in that fact-checking has always been a big part of my career.

If there's not beverage all over your monitor, you're either not enjoying a beverage or there's something very wrong with you.

I'm not a trained journalist, instead learning on the fly and occasionally suffering for it. I make mistakes, no doubt -- Washington Grays, anyone? -- but always make an effort to both admit those mistakes and to be as transparent as possible about how that mistake was made.

One paragraph and he's completely contradicted himself. Will was quite forthcoming about why he got the Grays wrong: he had a source, the guy at the hat factory. He went with this one guy's story and was completely, typically dead wrong. Where's the fact-checking in that journalistic process?

And while I'm at it, let me dredge up this Carroll Classic:

I have two jobs - generate content and generate interest. It's best when I can do both, but doing one or the other has some value as well.

In other words, "I make stuff up to get people talking about me." That's not exactly fair -- he misleads more than he invents. Saying Matt Lawton is "a name we're going to care about" is only vaguely dishonest. Similarly, saying "fact-checking has always been a big part of my career" is absolutely true in that working with Carroll and expecting to get anything that checks out here in the real world requires a tremendous amount of fact-checking, as Will admits. He's just not going to do any of it.

My "Dr. X" excerpt from "The Juice" not only made it past the test of my publisher and attorneys, but before Sports Illustrated ran the piece, I talked to no less than three people who closely checked the story. It was a hard process, due to the protected identity of my source, but I understood their job and, in the end, truth is truth.

It's interesting that Will defends the suspicious "Dr. X" portion of the book while ignoring the dubious and quite possibly fictional career of "John Albertson," a marginal big-leaguer who experimented with the roids. Basil, a fair-minded guy (except when it comes to the filioque clause) who does not share my vendetta, thinks the whole thing is made up. Care to reassure us on the rigorous fact-checking there, Will?

I used to think that Will's co-blogger Scott Long abandoned his worshipful attitude toward his patron only when he felt the White Sox were being disrespected. No longer! Will's comments on the James Frey schadenfreude-fest have prompted Scott to hail as a masterpiece a book he's never read but has only heard. And that he picked out because it had a pretty cover.

In late 2004, I picked up an audiobook at my library by an author named James Frey. Generally, I don't pick up a book from just looking at the front cover, but the artwork was interesting. . .

A Million Little Pieces is the most dynamic book I've ever heard.

I'm generally disinclined to pay attention to literary criticism from a guy who put's apostrophe's at the end of all word's that end in "s" anyway, but at least read the damn book before you start pontificating on the importance of authenticity in literature.

Above: another literary classic recently enjoyed by Scott Long. "Of all the Bronte sisters' oeuvre, nothing surpasses the artwork of Jane Eyre."

Further reading: James Frey parodies have become a genre unto themselves. My favorites can be found here and here. Scott Long, meanwhile, recommends Melville.