To be fair, I read right past it, too

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I'm reading the Letters in this week's SI (Cole Hamels on cover) and I find one that references a great pre-Super Bowl story on the Cardinals' history and their supposed curse from pilfering an NFL title from the Pottsville Maroons. Really enjoyed the story, and remember being impressed that the writer tracked down a living member of the team.

They quoted him as a 94-year-old, and I didn't even do the math. Letter points out in this week's issue that he would have been 10 years old in 1925. Editor's Note explains that he watched the game as a 10-year-old and never played for the team. "SI regrets the error."

Again, I read right past it myself, impressed, but isn't this what the fact-checkers are there for? I'd always heard SI's fact-checkers were super-diligent, but I suppose they could be part of the cutbacks as well ...

 

Was the guy's name George O'Leary?

 

It's happening everywhere, sadly. The vaunted New Yorker referenced something called the "Cain Mutiny" a few weeks back.

 

That's a pretty big mistake.

 

Archive photo of 1925 Pottsville Maroons:

 

fact checkers became a myth at SI around 2006

the number of mistakes in the mag & on the web site the past couple years - many of them major - is staggering

 

While we're at it, the Pottsville version of the story itself could use some fact-checking. The Maroons were warned by NFL president Joe Carr that if they played the Notre Dame All-Stars in Philadelphia -- home territory of the Frankfort Yellow Jackets -- they'd forfeit their franchise to the league.
"Three different notices forbidding the Pottsville club to play were given and the management elected to play regardless," Carr told an owners' meeting in February 1926.

Dr. J.G. Striegel was notified that his team was out of the league on Dec. 12, 1925, eight days before the end of the season. No franchise, no championship. Too bad for them.

http://www.profootballresearchers.org/Articles/Pottsville_Maroons.pdf

 

for all we know, you are a fact-checker at SI.

 

This really, really made me laugh.

 

You're sick.

 

That's horrifying.

But no doubt yet another case of "young and works cheap" vs "experience/institutional memory".

 

Frankford Yellow Jackets

just sayin'

dig the layout