Wikipedia Got Me! Just Ask Ed Sprague

Remember years ago when, if doing research, we'd go to the library, utilize our deep knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System, and then waste hours not finding what we wanted, finally sucking it up and asking Mrs. Walter, the 89-year old librarian, for help?  And then, of course, she either told you to challenge yourself and find whatever it is you wanted on your own?  Or she tried to help and was so challenged on her own that you began to not only waste more time and feel more stress but also feel conflicted because you began to feel bad for Mrs. Walter, who was 89 years old, after all, and probably should have hung up her uniform 20 years before?  Yeah, I remember that too.  Which is why Wikipedia is so great.  Want something?  It's there.

But it's not always right.

I've heard or read the caveats about using Wikipedia.  It's a "user-generated" online encyclopedia.  We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, add what we feel is relevant to Wikipedia subjects.  I've never added anything, but I believe there is some sort of filter there that's supposed to keep the facts in and the untruths out.

The filter doesn't always work.

Remember a couple of years ago, when the "comedian" Sinbad was allegedly dead?  He wasn't, but we can blame Wikipedia.  I am pasting, from Sinbad's Wikipedia entry, the brief story of what happened:

"On March 10, 2007, Sinbad's managers began receiving phone calls of condolence, after people began hearing unsubstantiated rumors of Sinbad's death.^[20] Hundreds contacted his managers and production studio, including Lionel Richie.^[20] This rumor spread to Wikipedia on March 14, 2007, when his biography was edited by an anonymous user to include the claim of his death. The incorrect information was soon removed, but a fan spreading the initial rumor included a link to the old (and incorrect) revision of the article.^[21][22]

Sinbad joked the situation off, commenting that, "I wish that people would've called me back like this when I was alive. I gotta die more often. Seriously, my death is gonna be my comeback."^[20]

This is apparently the second time Sinbad was the subject of such a rumor.^[20] He says such situations are harder on family and friends, who are led to believe it as truth, than on himself.^[20] He believes such situations will become more commonplace with increased use of the Internet.^[23] Sinbad has been an Internet user since 1990; he was the moderator for an Apple Computer forum as of 1995^[update].^[3]

On the person who originated the rumor, Sinbad comments:

Yesterday, I got burned using Wikipedia.  I was interviewing former Toronto Blue Jays 3rd baseman and 2-time World Series winner Ed Sprague.  Everything was going swimmingly, until I asked him this:  "Tell me about the production company you and your wife worked with."

Silence.

"You know, uh, what's it called?"  I furiously looked through my notes for the name of this company I'd read about on Wikipedia.  "Um, you know, the one from Canada.  It involved your former teammate, Kelly Gruber?"

Silence.

In my mind, I was crawling into a very small, yet deep, hole.  It was dark and scary in there.  Just where I belonged at that moment.

"It was called...Ah!  Rocco's Jobbers!"

Ed then responded.  "I don't know what you're talking about."

When you interview someone, man or woman, it's like a courtship.  You court them with flattery and reasons why they should talk to you.  They respond and you continue selling yourself on why they should spend this time, one-on-one, with you.  And they agree.  But you're not done, because you need to tow a fine line during the interview of keeping them interested and not sounding like a guy who knows the person you're speaking with - or in our metaphor/analogy, the person you're trying to have be your steady boyfriend/girlfriend - is out of your league.  Many people I speak with are out of my league, in terms of interviewing them.  I'm not Barbara Walters or Katie Couric or Brian Williams.  My self-taught interview skills sort of stink.  It's one thing to be interviewed by someone.  It's another thing to be on the other side.  I'm usually on the other side now.  And it's not as easy as it looks.

So here I am, interviewing a respectable man who sounds very literate, who is being very nice to me and taking the time out of his busy day (he's the head baseball coach at the University of the Pacific) to have someone, albeit someone of my high-fallutin' stature, interview him, and I sandbag myself with a question that had no merit.  With a question that had no factual basis behind it other than I'd seen it on Wikipedia.

So, to set the record straight for my friend, Ed Sprague Jr. (for those of you who remember Ed, and you should, his dad, Ed Sprague (we'll call him Senior), played 8 years in the majors as well - late-60s, early-70s), Ed Sprague Jr.'s Wikipedia entry is not entirely true.  He and his wife, Kristen, never had anything to do with a production company called Rocco's Jobbers.

If someone out there would be kind enough to go ahead and tell Wikipedia to change that, I think it would make Ed very happy.  Why don't I change it myself?  Like I know how.  If this were the 80s, I'd still be in my library, just about now asking Mrs. Walter to help me, fully knowing she'd fall asleep halfway through my question.  No, this is a job for you.  Just don't refer to it as Rocco's Job.