"Editor, reporters to investigate erroneous Mitch Albom column"

Why are newspapers allowing columns about sports games to be filed -- and printed -- before the game is actually played? I understand the whole thing about deadlines and embargoes and such, but come on!

Albom said he wrote the column before the game took place, as if the events already had happened, based on what the players had told him they planned to do. The paper said the players' plans changed after they were interviewed.

The column had to be filed Friday afternoon -- a day before the game -- but appeared in the paper Sunday, Albom said. The paper said the section in which the column appeared was printed before the game.

It's just sports, I know. But how can a writer write about a game ahead of time? And why is the column printed before the event? The situation deserves some investigation.