Why Matt Drudge Shouldn't Be Allowed To "Write" About Sports

Last night, at about 11 p.m., we started receiving emails about a supposed interview the Drudge Report had linked, stating that Barry Bonds had claimed not only would he pass Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, but also Japanese slugger Sadaharu Oh. That's the headline right there. We followed the link to WTF-TV.com, which featured Bonds saying, "Hank Aaron? [expletive] that guy. I can outhit him, and besides, I'm not even worried about him. I'm not worried about the American record, they're going to 'star' me anyway. I'm going for the best in the world."

The bullshit detectors went off immediately, because of the Oh claim, but mostly because of the Aaron rip. It took us about two minutes and three clicks to get to the bottom of the "mystery." The site is a fake, and a self-professed not very good one.

Little pranks such as these are what we call our "carpet pulls" - they're set-ups that let us know exactly what stories are being flat-out stolen and reported as true news and where the theft is starting.

Now, we've possibly fallen prey to something like this ourselves in the past — we're thinking a fake MySpace profile or two — but this one was pretty jaw-dropping obvious. Not that hard to fool Drudge, we guess. At least he doesn't link to blogs or anything. Much more reliable that way.

Disclaimer [WTF-TV] Bonds: "I Won't Stop Until I Beat Oh" [WTF-TV] Tracking The Roethlisberger Pictures [Deadspin]

(UPDATE: SI.com's Scorecard picked this up and has Bonds' "quote" on their Web site. So much for the unimpeachable ethics and search for truth of old media.)