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battlekow's been relentless this week, much appreciated...

Haudricourt's blurb about Seth Lintz truly cracks me up. He writes below --

The Brewers' other second-round pick, prep right-hander Seth Lintz of Lewisburg, Tenn., told his hometown newspaper that he received $900,000 to turn down his scholarship to Kentucky.

Below is the copy and paste article and photo I took from an obscure google search as soon as it went online last Tuesday:

Lintz will sign with Milwaukee Brewers
Anthony S. Puca, Marshall (TN) Tribune Staff Writer

Marshall County High School's Seth Lintz will become the latest in a long line of Tiger baseball players to sign a major league baseball contract after being drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the second round of the MLB draft.

Lintz, selected fifty third overall, won 23 games in his last two years and sported an 11-1 record with an earned run average of 1.33 in his senior season. He will sign on the dotted line Friday for $900,000 and a provision for a fully paid college education at the institution of his choice.

More, including colbyjack's Brewerfan.net Scouting Report, can be found here

Seth Lintz is off to Phoenix to begin his quest to reach the major leagues after signing with the Milwaukee Brewers this week.
Tribune photo by Louis J. Scheuchenzuber



Late Tuesday evening, Adam McCalvy wrote the following -- Adam has acknowledged that he enjoys getting these off-the-beaten-path links from sites such as ours:

According to the Marshall County (Tenn.) Tribune, second-round pick Seth Lintz, a prep right-hander, will sign later this week for $900,000 and a college education on the Brewers' tab.

Now also on Tuesday morning, I sent Haudricourt a note. I rarely email him, in fact, I can't remember the last time I reached out to him on anything, but with the new JS blog in place, and I've also enjoyed his archived twice-every-weekday radio stints, I figured he'd appreciate the heads up on Lintz. So I sent him this note:

Just posted on our minor league forum (about Lintz).

I'm sure the Brewers are thrilled that the kid let the numbers slip out to his hometown paper, considering there are so many other high picks to sign.

Jim G.
www.brewerfan.net

So earlier this (Saturday) afternoon, Haudricourt emails me this -- now keep in mind this is four days after we posted the article, and four days after MLB.com's McCalvy acknowledged the article.

The only problem with putting something on your website like that without fact checking it is that it might not be true. The Brewers deny that they've reached a deal with Lintz.

And now, just a few hours later, Haudricourt, copied for emphasis from earlier in this post, writes:

The Brewers' other second-round pick, prep right-hander Seth Lintz of Lewisburg, Tenn., told his hometown newspaper that he received $900,000 to turn down his scholarship to Kentucky.

Gee, Tom, how is that any different from what we did, except that it's 108 hours after we posted it?

I'm not paid to do this. I enjoy following the Brewers, both at the big league level and at their minor league system. If I see something that I find useful, I figure it's an extra two minutes to post it online for others to learn as well. I don't need to fact-check a direct quote from another reputable news organization -- it wasn't as if I linked to or copied from a political blog, now was it, Tom?

And for the record, earlier this morning, before I heard from Tom today, I emailed Anthony S. Puca of the Marshall County Tribune. I did so because in his original article he stated "read the entire story in Wednesday's edition of the Tribune." Now it looks like that newspaper may not place all the articles from its sports section online each day, so I emailed Mr. Puca this morning asking if a follow-up ran, and if it did, could he please email me the contents, because I had been checking back to that newspaper's site all week. I did not hear back from him today.

So I'm confused. What "facts" did Haudricourt check before writing that tonight? He tells me the Brewers deny reaching a deal with Lintz, but that's apparently only for me to know and not all his readers, because he conveniently didn't get that into his column on time.

Just for old times sake -- from Baseball America, December 3, 2003, in the middle of a perfectly good chat when he could have oh-so-very-easily just ignored this question yet chose to include it, and well, yes, the rest is history:

Q:	Jim from Columbia, MO asks: How can you have any credibility on these choices when you are a beat writer for the team?
A:	Tom Haudricourt: What kind of question is that? You're questioning my credibility? I've covered the Brewers for all but two years since 1985. Who knows their system better than me? I talk with the BA guys all the time to make sure we're on the same page. Jim Callis and I talked extensively about how to rank the top prospects this year, who should be No. 1, etc. I have written for BA for many, many years and consider myself a pretty good authority on their farm system. I think the editors at BA agree or they wouldn't ask me to do the prospect lists. If you don't think I can be a harsh critic or discerning writer, just ask the Brewers. Sorry you have such a low opinion of beat writers. And besides, I'm just as much a national writer as a beat writer, sharing duties with Drew Olson. If you know somebody in the baseball writing profession who knows the Brewers and their system better than Drew and myself, I'd like to know who it is.

By the way, I'm not the Jim from Colombia, MO, but I wish I was.

The thing that amazes me is that Tom apparently fact-checked with the Brewers tonight on the Lintz signing, but only after he included the blurb in his column. So I learn of the denial via his email but none of his readers do. And he's taking us to task? Classic.

He must have had a very unique Journalism 101 class to employ that tactic.

This seems silly, but I'm going to post this anyway. Keep in mind we didn't update our draft forum with an official "bolding" on Seth Lintz, as we were all waiting, including you reading, for the follow-up on Lintz' supposed Friday signing, right?

Tom's reply to me, and my counter-reply. Since Tom isn't a reader, as he makes clear here, he won't be bothered by the posting:

Perhaps you shouldn't have written this e-mail before reading my updated Sunday column this morning in our printed product, in which I did include the Brewers' denial for the readers of the JS. That's why I don't just throw something onto my website from the Podunk News without checking with the club first. And I'd rather be 100 hours behind the "news" if that news is wrong. The one time I even acknowledged a blog this year -- Badger Blog's supposed scoop that Yost would be fired -- I learned the dangers of doing so. All you did is "repeat" what was written in the kid's hometown newspaper? Unless you also wrote that you couldn't confirm it, your readers take things like that for gospel. As soon as I got confirmation Saturday that the Lintz signing was false, I updated my column for the Sunday paper. It's not my fault that the folks at JS online take my early column -- which is submitted Friday morning -- and put it on the web site without ever using the final updated version that appears in the paper Sunday morning. Unlike you, I have a printed product, also. I made sure I got it right there after getting new information. Did you disavow your "scoop" online as being false? I wouldn't know.

Perhaps you shouldn't have included the blurb in your Friday submission to your bosses if you weren't going to confirm it until Saturday, then. Hopefully you'll be following up with your editor allowing you the freedom to edit the online submission as well in the future.

You're a paid professional. I'm just a guy who tries to balance being a good husband, dad, and having a (non-journalistic) career with a passion for the Brewers' organization that distracts me from life's other pressures and provides me with some joy, despite their generation's worth of failures.

We're not a "news site", we don't make any monetary gains from the site nor is that our goal -- heck, I'm just a guy who provides links to Brewer news from across the web to our readers. We rarely, if ever, use the word "scoop" when presenting as such, and didn't in this case. We call our daily minor league recaps "Link Reports" for a reason.

And for the record, earlier this week, before I heard back from you, I emailed Anthony S. Puca of the Marshall County Tribune. I did so because in his original article he stated "read the entire story in Wednesday's edition of the Tribune." Now it looks like that newspaper may not place all the articles from its sports section online each day, so I emailed Mr. Puca asking if a follow-up ran, and if it did, could he please email me the contents, because I had been checking back to that newspaper's site all week. I have been awaiting his reply.

As for not knowing whether we disavowed ourselves, that's your choice in not visiting our site. I can't blame you for not thinking our site worthy of review. You're obviously up on the minor leaguers -- if you're getting your daily info on the farmhands from elsewhere, kudos. I'm just not sure who makes it more convenient to get the info, including all the audio interviews, media reports including quotes from staff and players, than we do. Check us out some time.

Jim

***

And by he way, it just dawned on me, but doesn't Tom have a blog where he could have posted a correction to his weekly column? I'm off for the remainder of Father's Day, guys, enjoy your day -- go Brewers, go Huntsville, go Tiger Woods, and if I may say so, go Celtics!