Being Wrong and Social Networks

I was reading about the latest Phillies win on philly.com today. I also read about Chris Benson and the status of his recovery and if he can help the Phillies rotation sometime this season.

Then something interesting happened. Philly.com started using social networking technology to recommend other articles. At the bottom of the page, they have a section titled "People who read this also read...and bought:". People reading about Benson's shoulder recovery are purchasing tickets on TicketsNow.com, buying Advil and LCD screens. I'm not sure why that is relevant to anyone reading about Benson's recovery, so my first impression of this feature is that it is somewhat pointless but I don't really know or care much about product marketing on the internet.

However, as a sports fan, I find that the article links they provide are worse than pointless, they are often disturbing. For example, the other day I was reading about the previous night's game and then saw a link to an article about Brad Lidge needing surgery. I didn't realize until I looked at the article that it was 2 months old. There is no indication of how old the article is from the link title, so I was very annoyed that I had to open up the article to find out that it was old news. I'm used to browsing sports articles on the internet to see the latest news and do not enjoy having the new mixed in with the old, so I find this feature distracting.

That being said, I did have an amusing experience with the links provided with the Benson article. There was a link titled, "Phillies' Gordon is game, but no longer able."

The article starts out with this definitive conclusion about Tom Gordon based on his performance during opening day, in which he came into a tie game in the 9th and gave up 5 runs while getting only one out leaving him with a 135.01 ERA:

...isn't it time for somebody to step forward and admit that Tom Gordon's right shoulder is cooked?

The 19-year veteran, whose lack of stuff and command was tragically exposed in a ninth-inning, Opening Day meltdown, has pitched the past two seasons with a torn labrum. I got this e-mail yesterday from an orthopedic doctor friend who used to pitch and understands the slippery slope Gordon is trying to climb: "Why would the Phillies continue to believe that an aging reliever with a known labral injury could stay healthy for any length of time without surgery? Bad shoulders do not get healthier with age and work without getting fixed . . . What do the Phillies have to gain by keeping him on the team?"

Good question, Doc. Here's a sport obsessed with pitch counts and which coddles pitchers from cradle to outright release, yet unblinkingly permits injured pitchers to throw. What kind of hypocrisy is that? Does anybody believe that Freddy Garcia was healthy a single inning last year? Gordon is a warrior who wants the baseball. Pride in who he is and where he has been in the sport impels him to take the ball, suck it up and try to earn the $5.5 million he will be paid this season whether he wins Fireman of the Year or winds up having the labrum surgery that will effectively end his career. Flash is 40. He can't come back a year from now and make a living serving up Nerf balls . . .

Tom Gordon has since pitched 17 innings and has given up 2 earned runs for a 1.06 ERA. His season's ERA is down to 3.63 and has been a big part of the Phillies' bullpen, which has been one of the best in the league all season. I looked through Conlin's subsequent articles and did not see him mention anything about Tom Gordon.