We live in a text-and-information-heavy sports society,
so it's not surprising that every now and then a typo slips through.
But some missteps are more unfortunate than others, as with the mistake
on ESPN's "Monday Night Countdown" involving an assessment of Pittsburgh
quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
As you can see on the ticker at right, someone gave Big Ben the
description of "drink and drunk." It was, in
all likelihood, a
misspelling of "dink and dunk," referring to Roethlisberger's quick-hit,
short-pass style.
Unfortunately, Roethlisberger also has a bit of a history with
alcohol, including "excessive consumption," in the words of commissioner
Roger Goodell, in an incident that led to a four-game suspension in
2010.
Later in the evening, ESPN host Chris Berman apologized for the
mistake. "Earlier in the show we had a graphic error in the rundown," he
said. "We apologize for the mistake. Not sure how it happened. It won't
happen again."
Now, we won't speculate on whether this was a joke that ended up
backfiring (probably) or a case of someone not proofreading their work
(awfully coincidental). It is awfully easy to get words out in front of
an entire country without a ton of editorial oversight (like this: Go William & Mary Tribe!), so we can see how this kind of mistake could be made. We're betting there will be a bit more ticker oversight from now on.
