Classics should not be updated without prominent notice

[The Second Stone]

Today's column is supposedly dated from 1974. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/270/where-does-the-baseball-term-bullpen-come-from

Yet refers to Fernando Valenzuela as a pitcher of prowess. Alas, Fernando did not become famous until the early 1980s, when his pitching career began. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Valenzuela

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Moved from About This Message Board to Comments on Cecil's Columns.

[Loopus]

It would be nice if at least the date of the last edit were given. It would be valuable for the reader to know about how up-to-date the column is.

[Martini Enfield]

Personally, I'd like to see some of the older and clearly outdated columns either taken out of circulation entirely, or completely re-visted with new information, and prominently marked as such.

[TubaDiva]

Some of the Classics were updated when the various Straight Dope books were originally published.. At that time the fact that the column was updated for the book was not mentioned.

A few of the Classics were likewise updated when The Straight Dope was featured on AOL and during the short-lived "Straight Dope on A&E" tv series. It wasn't always made clear that the original column had been updated.

We're much better about this nowadays and usually an indication that the column has been updated with more recent information is listed prominently in the original Classic.