Sunday, November 27, 2005

"You mean I wasn't drafted?"

Thanks to Kira for passing this on to me. Article here, excerpt follows:
Gov. Bill Richardson is coming clean on his draft record _ the baseball draft, that is, admitting that his claim to have been a pick of the Kansas City A's in 1966 was untrue.

For nearly four decades, Richardson, often mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate, has maintained he was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics.

The claim was included in a brief biography released when Richardson successfully ran for Congress in 1982. A White House news release in 1997 mentioned it when he was about to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And several news organizations, including The Associated Press, have reported it as fact over the years.

But an investigation by the Albuquerque Journal found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A's, who have since moved to Oakland, or any other team.

Informed by the newspaper of its findings, the governor acknowledged the error in a story in Thursday's editions.

"After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter ... I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's," he said.
If I understand Richardson correctly, he thought that he was drafted by the A's. He never talked to the A's (or any other team), yet he thought he had been drafted? Have you ever seen a pro sports draft? They always talk to the athlete before drafting him, or at the very least, call him afterwards with necessary information (i.e. when to report for practice, where to go, etc.).

That's just too funny: "I thought I had been drafted, and have been maintaining it for years with the MSM simply taking my word for it. Now that someone actually did real journalistic work and investigated the claim, it looks like I hadn't been drafted at all. Well, that's news to me...as well as to the rest of the MSM who parroted my claim. I could have sworn that hearing from nobody was prrof that I had been drafted!"