Bravo for Al Leiter. Oops for AP

Kind of neat that Al Leiter went 16+ years between starts as a New York Yankee. Even neater that he handily won a game for the Yankees Sunday night against the arch rival Red Sox by dominating one of the best line-ups in baseball, all within days of being left on the trash heap by his former team, the Florida Marlins.

But that's not what this post is about.

Could someone please explain this line from the AP report of the game by Jimmy Golen?

Leiter went 16 years, 82 days since his last Yankees start, on April 26, 1989. It's the longest gap for them since Babe Ruth went 9 years, 107 days -- playing the outfield -- between starts for the team, according to Elias.

Last I checked, 16 years is longer than 9 years. I assume Golen meant to write something like this:

Leiter went 16 years, 82 days since his last Yankees start, on April 26, 1989. It's the longest gap ever for the Yankees, surpassing Babe Ruth who went 9 years, 107 days -- playing the outfield -- between starts for the team, according to Elias.

What's also odd is that the ESPN television announcers made the same mistake. So perhaps the fault lies with Elias which provided that statistic. But the AP editors should have picked it up.

As of this posting, Google shows some 87 outlets that have run with the AP error.