As you may recall, last week, we ran a mention of a GQ magazine story. But after calling up the story from the mag's web site, I found what appeared to be a pretty serious factual error.
In naming Philly fans the worst, write Adam Winer included the famous incident of America's first hand transplant recipient throwing out an honorary first pitch and being booed for dribbling it up to home plate.
The only problem with Winer's story is that it didn't happen. A quick Google search produced a video of the event. It happened on the first day of the 1999 season. Phillie fan and recent hand-transplant recipient, Matt Scott, was invited to throw out the first pitch. He hit the catcher's glove dead on and was cheered accordingly.
I posted about it here.
I sent emails to GQ and Adam Winer last week to see if they could reconcile what was in Winer's piece and what the video showed. I didn't hear back from them.
But today I discovered on GQ's Web Site the Winer's piece has been rewritten to exclude the phony story.
Before the piece began:
Over the years, Philadelphia fans have booed Santa Claus, their own star players, and most absurdly, the recipient of America's very first hand transplant, whose crime was dribbling in a ceremonial first pitch—thrown with his freshly transplanted hand. Boooo!Now it reads:
Over the years, Philadelphia fans have booed Santa Claus as well as their own star players. They've even booed a guy who just helped the city win a friggin' World Series title—while he was getting his ring. Boooo!Nice whitewash, eh?
I contacted GQ's parent company Conde Nast this morning and talked to Stefanie Adlerstein in their publicity department. I emailed her some questions and she said she would get back to me.
Stay tuned.
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