Lite for All*

According to today’s front page of The Baltimore Sun, rookie pitcher Brad Bergeson recorded his first game in which he actually competed. Considering the way the Orioles have been playing of late, I’m glad to hear that. However, the last I checked, “Compete Games” was not a statistic in baseball, nor any other sport. If I had to guess as why, I would say that it’s because the very nature of sports is competitiveness. Therefore, I correctly inferred from the blurb that Bergeson had actually recorded a “complete” game.

This and many other typos have, sadly, become rampant in The Sun. I wonder if there were any proofreaders left before the last round of layoffs? It appears certain to me that there aren’t any left now. This error only proves—once again—that Spell Check is not a suitable replacement for a human.

Now perhaps such issues aren’t bothersome to the average reader. As for those who, like me, proofread or edit for a living, I can tell you that these mistakes are increasingly irksome. Case in point: in the same paper, the last blurb in the Around the Horn section on the Orioles page (Sports, page 5) states that Bergeson’s complete game was the first by an Oriole since last year. This statement appears right next to the Orioles 2009 statistics, which show that Jeremy Guthrie has a complete game as well.

So remind me again, I ask myself, why I still subscribe to The Sun? Oh, right, it’s for the coupons that were missing from my Sunday paper this week.

*Author’s Note: The Baltimore Sun’s slogan is “Light for All”. My use of the word “Lite” is meant as a pun, showing a correctly spelled, but incorrectly used word that wouldn’t be caught by Spell Check, as well as noting how the current Baltimore Sun resembles a “lite” version of what the paper used to be—both in size and staff.