me being curmudgeonly about sports

Okay, mostly I just wanted to use the word "curmudgeonly." Because, come on... hardly anyone uses it anymore.

But I digress... Greg Garber's latest on espn.com is a puff piece on Mike Vanderjagt, the kicker for the Indianopolis Colts. It's kinda late (since I got up early today), but just a quick skim of the article reveals two errors on Garber's part.

1) Vanderjagt came into the season as the NFL's most accurate kicker -- ever. Now his edge over Mare, who is second all-time, is statistically enormous. Vanderjagt has converted 170 of 194 career attempts (.8762), compared to Mare's 160-192 (.8216).

Yeah, Vanderjagt's accuracy is pretty damn impressive. But Mare's not second on the all-time list. David Akers (that's right, of the Philadelphia Eagles) is, with an accuracy over 83%. Does no do fact-checking over at espn?

2) And before you rip him for kicking in a dome, Vanderjagt said his percentage kicking outside is actually better than it is inside. That's nice. Do you want to actually check Vanderjagt's statistics to see if he's right? I don't, since I have better things to do than back up the claims of a guy who said some rather assholish things in the past, but you'd think that Garber, whose job it is to write about sports, could take the time to do some independent fact verification.

I'm a big fan of espn.com... they've got interesting content by writers whose personalities really come through in their pieces. But bush league stuff like this is just inexcusable. At least to a crusty 21-year-old like me.