The ultimate OOPS!

My cigarettes have filters on them. I don't think that guy's did.
--Tigers manager Jim Leyland

So I got my new Track & Field News in the mail yesterday. I paged through it; I barely read it anymore and the only reason I get it is for the e-mail newsletter. I saw a headline on page six about the Stanford 10k (six weeks ago--that's news?) which said it was the first track rematch between Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein since high school. Ididn't look too close and thought maybe they meant at long distances or in a standard event or something, because I knew they had raced sometime in the last 5 years.

Nope. They meant what they wrote, and they were flat-out wrong. Webb and Ritz faced off at 2 miles in last year's Prefontaine Classic. Their lead article was based on a mistake that ANYONE who covers this sport for a living shouldn't have made.

Now, this isn't the first time they've made a big goof. For example, five months ago they loused up the cover, calling Donovan Powell the 100-meter world record holder when it's actually his younger brother Asafa.

And this is the magazine of record in our sport. To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, whenever we think press coverage of track is improving, we know this too will pass.