Keith Olberman writes the “Baseball Nerd” under the MLB.blogs banner. In this entry, he takes Curt Smith to task for an error in Pull Up a Chair, his new biography of legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully.
Olberman, who makes his living being contrary, used to be a baseball book reviewer in a former life. “[O]ne glaring error can undo an entire book’s credibility,” he writes, citing one author’s geographical error in calling the river that ran by the old Polo Grounds the Hudson instead of the Harlem. Olberman notes the difficulties Peter Golenbock has had in getting some of the facts straight in several of his books.
But in this case, the snit seems to be the substitution of the word “flourish” with “flurry” as Smith recounts Scully’s broadcast of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965. Such an error, Olberman writes, “ruins the effort for me, and will make fans of the Dodgers’ icon squirm.”
Squirm? Really? Is that literally or figuratively, Mr. Olberman. So does that mean he didn’t bother reading the rest of the book? For want of a nail, the shoe was lost? For the sin of that error, the reader gave up?
What about the headline of the entry: “A ‘flurry’ of mistakes in New Scully Biography.” A flurry is a sudden burst of activity, a commotion. That is, more than one of whatever we’re talking about; judging by Olberman’s headline, there would seem to be lots of mistakes, yet he points out just one. Are there more? Could very well be.
Look, y’all know I’ve complained about errors of ommission, commission, and memory in past reviews. But the Olberman rant raises an interesting point: when is it due diligence to point out these flaws, and when is it nitpicking? For a true fan and/or expert on a given subject — the target of many a book like this, as opposed to a general audeince — maybe such a blunder would make one squirm and engender doubt as to the accuracy of the rest of the story. But I doubt a more casual reader would care that much.
Olberman writes,
No book is created under the deadline pressure of a newspaper, magazine, or even a website. It is not subject to the kind of execution mistakes of a broadcast, in which you can mean to say “the Mecca of quail club hunting” and blurt out something very different indeed. A book, especially a non-fiction book, can be edited and re-edited forever. An author can have a thousand people proof-read it (although ten is considered a veritable convention).
Not exactly true, I’m sure; many, if not most, books are subject to deadlines, and conversations with publishers have educated me that there is just not enough in the budget to engage expert fact-checkers and editors to catch all the mistakes. But I get where Olberman is coming from. I just wish he didn’t have that reputation of needing to prove himself the smartest man in the room all the time.
I am obviously conflicted here.
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How much do you think it would cost to buy a book that had been read by a thousand experienced proof readers? In any rationale human endeavor, there’s a cost – benefit analysis done.
FDR used to send typed letters with typos corrected by a pen (one such letter hangs in the Hall of Fame) because it made no sense to retype an entire letter.
Does that ruin the New Deal for Olberman?
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