* McCarthy books yields interesting comments

One of the things I forgot to mention in my comment the other day. FWIW, it seems to me not just McCarthy’s book but editorial standards for the non-fiction genre overall are slipping. McCarthy’s book is full of errors that should have been caught by an 19-year-old college intern. By his own admission (scroll to last interview section), details were omitted based on rather arbitrary reasoning.

A couple of months ago, I took “Moneyball” to task for using a surprisingly low-brow emotional hook, purposely designed to bias readers into the appropriate mindset for the rest of the book. Unfortunately, this literary version of “Liar’s Poker” seems to have worked quite well, based on a few of the heated reactions posted at BBTF.

Knowing my assessment of Lewis’ beloved book was decidedly in the über-minority, I prepared by doing some extra homework. I re-read “October 1964” by David Halberstam, my long-held standard for baseball non-fiction. The amount of careful detail provided for even throwaway sections is mind-boggling. More importantly, Halberstam didn’t employ details as a component of psychological propaganda and/or to target a particular “nemesis.”

It seems to me, at any rate, the many Deadspin writers and comment-board flame wars we see today are symptoms of a consumer tolerance for shock-jock tactics and loose standards of accountability. I suppose you could blame “the media,” however, at some point, we readers and commenters must to take responsibility for doing some independent and critical thinking.

I still laugh out loud over the take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt “true tales” such as those written by Mike Shannon and Dan Gutman. I own them. H*ll, I’ll even retell them. (Shannon’s story about an encounter between Flea Clifton and Walter “Big Train” Johnson” is one of my faves.) That said, I don’t feel compelled to vigorously defend their veracity as validation for why I like them.

BTW Ron, only at your place have I bothered to post my $0.02 on this hot topic. Not that my presence is so great and powerful that I need to allot my public opinions sparingly with the minions. :-* More simply, this isn’t the kind of issue I normally follow or pipe up about until the trendiness factor has died down; it’s just too d*mn much work sifting through the snark to get into discussions of substance. In this case, though I thought I’d share how much I appreciate knowing of a few places left in the blogosphere where I can read thoughtful posts and constructive discussions.

Ever yours in peace, hope and free speech. . .AYT