The San Francisco Chronicle’s Ron Kroichick quotes Rickey Henderson’s agent as saying the player has not formally retired, thus contradicting yesterday’s report that Henderson had finished his playing career.

Bristol-bashing Will Leitch, who oughta consider employing an ombudsman of his own (I don’t mind doing it for free, but the workload keeps getting heavier) writes

So we spent most of the day yesterday wondering why ESPN was reporting that our beloved Rickey Henderson had retired, even though not a single other media outlet had picked it up and it wasn™t on ESPN.com.

Much as I love Will’s continued useage of the Royal “we”, I’m wondering what the Baltimore Sun needs to do in order to qualify as “a single other media outlet.”

That ESPN goofed and others (including CSTB) repeated the story as fact is impossible to defend. And who better to call this mistake to our attention than a guy who thinks endless (insert name of famous athlete) Drunk In Public stories from anonymous tipsters are the height of investigative reporting?