What a Difference a Word Makes

Now before I write this article, I would like to make one thing clear. I respect ESPN as the most trustworthy sports news network out there. I get tweets sent to my phone from about 20 ESPN-related feeds. So I am not trying to put down ESPN when I say they have to be careful about what they put on their site.

I recently read an article (and by recently I mean about 20 minutes ago)about Jose Canseco hitting a homer in his first at-bat since joining the Laredo Broncos of United League Baseball. The author of the article is unknown because it only says it's by the Associated Press, but it is safe to say that it was not done by anyone working for ESPN. The article itself was OK. I'm no professional writer, but I'd go with decent as a grade for the article. The title of the article and the lack of detail about the league as a result of the title is what bothers me. The title of the article is this: "Canseco homers for minor league team." Similarly the link title to the article on espn.com read: "Canseco homers in 1st at-bat of minors debut." There is one major problem to both these titles--Jose Canseco does not play for a minor league team. Minor League Baseball is directly associated to Major League Baseball and its 30 teams. The team he joined, the Laredo Broncos, are apart of the independent, Texas-only United League Baseball, which only has 6 teams and plays only 80 regular season games by the way.

I know what you're currently thinking--"Well if it's only a 6 team league based solely in Texas then doesn't that make it minor league compared to the MLB?" Yes it does, but the term minor league has been taken by the MLB and used for it's very vast and complex system of grooming young players into the majors. So with the term minor league taken that is why the term independent league is so important. When you say minor league, fans would, or should at least, think of the league just below the majors that every player must go through before making it big time. MLB and MiLB are related, affiliated, connected, etc. This does not mean people can't start other baseball leagues for the players that love the sport but just aren't good enough to play in the majors though. These other leagues are called independent leagues. They are not affiliated with or connected to the MLB or MiLB. Jose Canseco plays for an independent league, meaning he is not linked to Major or Minor League Baseball.

So to ESPN, the AP, and all other media please be careful of your wording. I know you don't care about the wording and all you want to do is find something to report on and get it out to the people as fast as possible, but sometimes the wording really does matter. In this situation you could have many fans thinking that Jose Canseco was trying to make a comeback in the majors when that is far from the case. And if you are reporting directly to the people, then you really must know what a difference a word makes.