Unlikely Words

Check out this paragraph from an article about how much the Yankees suck:

“The National League game is more an attack-mode game; our league is more stationary softball,” said Alex Rodriguez, although A.L. teams, on average, steal more bases than N.L. teams. “I’m not sure if everybody runs like that, but they ran pretty freely.”

I was struck by the rather straightforward presentation of the facts, in contradiction to the quote. If newspapers reported sports news the way they reported political news, might not it have looked more like this?

“The National League game is more an attack-mode game; our league is more stationary softball,” said Alex Rodriguez. “I’m not sure if everybody runs like that, but they ran pretty freely.” Some N.L. managers argue that A.L. teams, on average, steal more bases than N.L. teams.

I guess it’s nice to see an acknowledgment of objective reality somewhere.