I'd say the first thing the author ought to do is check his blog title. That's way too close to the Original King of Internet Baseball Writing.

I'd say the first thing the author ought to do is check his blog title. That's way to close to the Original King of Internet Baseball Writing.

I thought this was a King article at first, too.

I make three of us.

I imagine that was his intent.

I imagine that was his intent.

It might be innocent. The Royals play at Kauffman, so Kings of Kauffman is a perfectly cromulent Royals blog name.

Breaking: Joakim Soria and Luke Hochevar for Jair Jurrjens and Baba Booie Baba Booie Howard Stern's Penis and future considerations

I read the whole thing, thinking all the while that it was kind of juvenile, shady behavior for King Kaufman to engage in. It didn't occur to me that it wasn't him till I read the comments here.

Breaking: Joakim Soria and Luke Hochevar for Jair Jurrjens and Baba Booie Baba Booie Howard Stern's Penis and future considerations

Still more realistic than Danks for Lopez

It might be innocent. The Royals play at Kauffman, so Kings of Kauffman is a perfectly cromulent Royals blog name.

Also, sports teams in KC have or had names like Royals, Kings, Monarchs, Chiefs. Even the "Kings" part of the name fits in.

- - - - -

So, on TFA... I got more and more squeamish the further I read. Neither party comes out looking good. Absolutely, if you're going to act as a journalist, checking your sources matters. Simply saying the equivalent of "Is this true? Really? Are you sure? Really?" to your original source is not good enough.

OTOH, I look at the conversation like this:


Source: Hey, Jimmy Hoffa is buried in that yard. See that hole I dug? He's in there.

Journalist: There's a dog in that yard. Does he bite?

S: No. Not at all.

J: Are you sure? I'm not going in there unless that dog doesn't bite. How well do you know that dog?

S: Very well. My friend is his veterinarian. He tells me that dog doesn't even have any teeth.

J: That sounds iffy. No teeth? Really? Well, regardless, he must have some way to eat. Really, I can't go in there unless he won't bite me.

S: He's also slow. You could get in there, check it out, take a few pictures, and get back out before he even knows you're here.

J: Are you sure?

S: Oh, yeah.

(J jumps fence. Dog races over, jumps up, and clenches his sharp teeth on J's neck. J screams, falls over, and dies.)

S: Sucker! Should've asked someone else.

Danny Glover died this afternoon. Sad news.


Excuse me, does your dog bite?

No, my dog does not bite.

Nice doggy (snap). I thought you said your dog does not bite?

That is not my dog.

Danny Glover died this afternoon. Sad news.

I am unable to find another source for this claim.

ETA: The "died" part, that is, not the "sad news" part. I can confirm independently that it would indeed be sad news.

So, on TFA... I got more and more squeamish the further I read.

That was my reaction as well. The rampant spread of thinly or non-sourced rumors is a blight on news gathering, and exposing it is a worthy endeavor, but the lengths the blogger went to sell the rumor was kind of troublesome.

I am unable to find another source for this claim.

I see it quoted by some MatthewE person in this thread -- good enough for me!

Danny Glover died this afternoon. Sad news.

I am unable to find another source for this claim.

he tried to sell me on an even more absurd story--that the Tigers signed Fielder for 9/214

That was my reaction as well. The rampant spread of thinly or non-sourced rumors is a blight on news gathering, and exposing it is a worthy endeavor, but the lengths the blogger went to sell the rumor was kind of troublesome.

If the article is to be trusted it took him about three minutes to "sell" this story to the "insider".

Danny Glover died this afternoon. Sad news.

I thought it was Jon Bon Jovi?

Breaking: Joakim Soria and Luke Hochevar for Jair Jurrjens and Baba Booie Baba Booie Howard Stern's Penis and future considerations

Mariners trade Felix Hernandez for Ryan Howard and prospects Kevin Oudeis, Ben Dover and Angus Snackwraps.

Mariners trade Felix Hernandez for Ryan Howard and prospects Kevin Oudeis, Ben Dover and Angus Snackwraps.

Rob Lowe confirms this.

I got more and more squeamish the further I read.

The "victim" is a self proclaimed insider who took a stranger's words on face value. He rightly got burned for it. Why did that make you squeamish?

And then the "insider" went all John King and tried to blame other people for what he said.

Yeah, his justification was that the ruse would only work if the insider was a fraud and had no connections. That is, a real insider would have debunked the rumor with just one phone call. If that is the case (a big if) then it's a little more defensible.

I would have been a little more fine with it if he had included some detail that, upon further inspection, would have made the rumor an obvious sham, like including a 2011 draftee in the deal. Instead he tried to polish it up to make it as plausible as possbile.

I don't get the John King reference, but yeah, that's another part of this. Any pity I would have for the guy vanished when he blamed other people for his own lack of checking the claim. Some insider.

Yeah, his justification was that the ruse would only work if the insider was a fraud and had no connections.

Sort of. He was illustrating that the guy was a fraud by exposing his lack of connections. He succeeded. Somehow he's the bad guy in this and not the fraud?

During the last Republican debate King led off the debate with a question to Newt about his infidelity. Newt slammed him and instead of giving it right back to Newt it did some weak sauce stuff about how his network didn't come up with the information.

Somehow he's the bad guy in this and not the fraud?

Where do you see anyone sympathizing with the insider? We just don't think the blogger comes off very well either.

I would have been a little more fine with it if he had included some detail that, upon further inspection, would have made the rumor an obvious sham, like including a 2011 draftee in the deal. Instead he tried to polish it up to make it as plausible as possbile.

Right, but "insiders" shouldn't be reporting any rumor that is plausible, they should be reporting rumors that seem true because the source is reliable.

I mean, a rumor that is impossible, but comes from a good source (maybe the GM doesn't know the rules - this has happened before!) is better than a plausible rumor from a bad source.

Where do you see anyone sympathizing with the insider? We just don't think the blogger comes off very well either.

Nobody is sympthizing with him, I went a little too far there. As for the blogger coming off well, I just don't see anyway I can be upset with a guy who exposed a fraud in a manner in which no one got hurt. He made a really flimsy story up and it worked wonderfully. I for one enjoyed the story.

During the last Republican debate King led off the debate with a question to Newt about his infidelity. Newt slammed him and instead of giving it right back to Newt it did some weak sauce stuff about how his network didn't come up with the information.

Ah, that sounds familiar now. I didn't see it as I've already killed enough brain cells through alcohol that I don't need to watch a primary debate to rot it completely.

The "victim" is a self proclaimed insider who took a stranger's words on face value. He rightly got burned for it. Why did that make you squeamish?

The victim getting burned didn't make me squeamish. He got what he deserved.

What made me squeamish was that I thought the blogger was simply going to throw a rumor out there and see if anyone would run with it. The more I read, the more I got the impression he'd singled out this one guy and made it his mission to get him to report a fabrication. As he mentioned, after two DMs the guy has essentially proven his point. But he feeds him 6 more DMs, the last being effectively, "Publish it; you'll look awesome later." At that point he's not just throwing a rumor to see if he runs with it. He's pushing him to run with it, compelled apparently by the fact that feeding the guy seven unsourced lies wasn't good enough to get it published. It's about as objective as a survey in which the researcher tells the responder what answers to give.

(The part in the middle about the 72-hour window, and how the blogger had no idea that would encourage a quick trigger, I find to be self-serving post-hoc ########. He tries to make it seem like he couldn't have imagined it would give the "insider" the same I'll-miss-my-chance feeling the blogger expressed of himself at the end of his 6th paragraph. It makes me trust his post less, which doesn't help further on when he references - but doesn't quote - a DM he sent which he claims tried to allow the guy the opportunity to back out.)

So the experiment wasn't "will someone report a fabrication they find", which was my impression at the start, but rather "can I manipulate this particular guy into reporting a fabrication". My impression of the whole experiment, and the objectivity of the blogger, changed as I went along, and I disliked the notion of a targeted takedown being billed as a more objective experiment. Maybe I just had the wrong impression at the start, and that's my failing.

And again, to emphasize: the "insider" got what he deserved, I have no sympathy for him, and the relative subjectivity of the experiment doesn't change that.

What made me squeamish was that I thought the blogger was simply going to throw a rumor out there and see if anyone would run with it. The more I read, the more I got the impression he'd singled out this one guy and made it his mission to get him to report a fabrication.

I got the impression that perhaps he tried this with a few people and this was the guy who bit.

But even if that isn't the case, so what? The guy is obviously a fraud. Singling out frauds to expose them as frauds shouldn't make you squeamish.

So the experiment wasn't "will someone report a fabrication they find", which was my impression at the start, but rather "can I manipulate this particular guy into reporting a fabrication".

I thought it was very clear that the whole thing was "can I manipulate someone into reporting a fabrication."

Or put another way, what did this guy do that was wrong?

I can see what VI is saying. It wasn't simply I have something juicy to tell who wants it but more of a drug dealer peddling a drug to an addict. In that scenario nobody comes off looking good. I can sort of agree with that view but I think the fact that supposedly all of this went down in a matter of minutes and the two guys had never talked before makes that point ring hollow. He basically stopped a guy on the street and said try this it is good for you. Really? Oh yeah, trust me. Okay.

I agree with McCoy. This was some small time guy who rumor mongers and he baited him with toast and he bit strong and fast. Too bad.

Looking at this guy's twitter feed is a trip. "As i reported earlier #Nationals were close to deal with Fielder, now the sides have agreed on 8 year deal, #wherethehatersat?"

The "insider" got what he deserved, but it didn't look like he had many followers, so it's a bit irrelevant.

If someone had b.s.'d their way into getting 3,000 followers, exposing THAT guy could be worth someone's time....

If someone had b.s.'d their way into getting 3,000 followers, exposing THAT guy could be worth someone's time....

NFLDraftInsider. 11,000+ followers. Immediately after the draft he was regurgitating anyone and everyone's tweets about undrafted free agent signings with absolutely no filter. He reported multiple fictitious players signing.

And then of course there's the king of made up ####, Eklund.

Twitter has killed journalism. The only story I wish I had first was Stephanie Plum

The person referenced in this article is someone going by the name of Chris Sylvester. This person's Twitter bio says he's on weekly on AM 830 during the baseball season. A search with Google for "Chris Sylvester" mlb am 830 turns up nothing to support this claim (as if an AM 830 station is a universal broadcast).

As of yesterday there was a Twitter account for @MLBInsiderNews that my memory says had around 2,300 followers. That person was claiming lots of sources and having broken a number of stories (among them, Pujols to the Angesl) and on Sunday announced that Fielder went to the Nationals (which got linked in another thread here by someone who writes on The National Review site). That Twitter account is now gone, but the author of it (or someone going by the same Scott Swaim name) has reappeared today with a new account.

This Swaim account posted its first tweet an hour ago. Both Scotty Swaim and Chris Sylvester already follow each other. If I were to guess, both accounts are by the same person.

Oh man it would be hilarious if this guy pranked a prank account.

Also Lowry Seasoning Salt is a great name.

I got the impression that perhaps he tried this with a few people and this was the guy who bit.

He's pretty explicit that he tried this with one account. His use of the plurals "them" and "they" to refer to this singular account in a gender-neutral way might be what obscures it.

I can see what VI is saying. It wasn't simply I have something juicy to tell who wants it but more of a drug dealer peddling a drug to an addict. In that scenario nobody comes off looking good. I can sort of agree with that view but I think the fact that supposedly all of this went down in a matter of minutes and the two guys had never talked before makes that point ring hollow.

Another way of stating my view is that I see the blogger and the "insider" as being cut from the same cloth. They both wanted something, instantly, and let that cloud their objectivity as they pursued the path of least resistance. In terms of results, yes, this point rings hollow. The blogger outed the "insider" successfully, mostly because the "insider" had no scruples.

But the scientist in me objects to manipulation intended to encourage a desired outcome as also being unscrupulous, and as I came to that realization that's what made me increasingly squeamish. Again, this take on it could simply be my failing as a reader, that I expected something more objective than I should have at the start.