This was the headline the Post-Dispatch chose for the game story about Thursday night's assault on the San Diego Padres: "Pujols: 'It did bother me.'" The headline for the same story on Stltoday.com was "Pujols: 'It's tough. It's real tough.'"
Let's look past the pronoun 'it,' lonely without any antecedent to claim for its own in either headline. Instead, let us ask ourselves whether the lede of this story should be El Hombre's reaction to his line drive hitting Padre pitcher Chris Young.
In the story's third paragraph, we learn that
And we have to wait until the sixth paragraph to discover
Umm, I'm all for the hometown paper covering the hometown team from a hometown angle, but is Albert's losing the will-to-play-on really more important than the extent of Young's injuries? This is not to say that Pujols' reaction isn't important--it absolutely is. But the headline's job is to identify the story's core. I mean, hitting someone with a line drive might indeed be tough, but not, I suspect, nearly as tough as being hit by a line drive.
Let's look past the pronoun 'it,' lonely without any antecedent to claim for its own in either headline. Instead, let us ask ourselves whether the lede of this story should be El Hombre's reaction to his line drive hitting Padre pitcher Chris Young.
In the story's third paragraph, we learn that
The gruesome aftermath traumatized Pujols, who admitted having little desire for the remaining innings of his team's 11-3 win.
And we have to wait until the sixth paragraph to discover
Young suffered a fractured and lacerated nose but never lost consciousness. He was assisted from the field and taken by ambulance to a local hospital where he remained overnight.
Umm, I'm all for the hometown paper covering the hometown team from a hometown angle, but is Albert's losing the will-to-play-on really more important than the extent of Young's injuries? This is not to say that Pujols' reaction isn't important--it absolutely is. But the headline's job is to identify the story's core. I mean, hitting someone with a line drive might indeed be tough, but not, I suspect, nearly as tough as being hit by a line drive.
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