This is the Age of the Internet

As I've said, I wouldn't vote for Jack Morris for the Hall of Fame, but I won't be upset if he gets in. I don't get that excited over it. That doesn't stop some journalists, though:

For years, Morris’ Detroit Tigers were in the AL East with the Yankees and, counting his many postseasons, I got to see him 30-40 times and never once was he not the best pitcher on the mound that day.

The author is Bill Madden of the New York Daily News. He joined the paper in 1978, so he was presumably in attendance at some of these games in which Morris started against the Yankees and was, he claims, the best pitcher on the mound that day (stats for each team's starter shown):

Date    Pitcher        IP  H ER BB  K
9/8/79  Ron Guidry    7.1  5  3  2 10
        Jack Morris   3.0  6  4  3  1
8/16/81 Dave Righetti 6.0  4  1  3  7 
        Jack Morris   4.2  4  4  5  0
4/14/83 Dave Righetti 6.2  7  3  1  7
        Jack Morris   7.0  8  5  5  4
5/17/83 Jay Howell    5.2  1  1  3  4
        Jack Morris   5.0  6  5  2  1
9/25/85 Joe Niekro    5.0  4  1  4  2
        Jack Morris   5.0 10  7  3  4
4/20/87 Rick Rhoden   6.2  5  1  4  5
        Jack Morris   7.1 10  8  7  2
6/21/88 Al Leiter     3.1  3  0  3  4
        Jack Morris   1.2  5  5  3  2
9/10/88 Rick Rhoden   9.0  7  4  0  3
        Jack Morris   6.1 11  6  3  7
9/29/89 Eric Plunk    8.0  3  0  4 10
        Jack Morris   8.0 11  4  3  7

Now, did I cherry-pick those starts? Of course I did. (But so do people who base Morris's candidacy on Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.) Overall, Morris was decent against the Yankees, with a 17-12 W-L record. But:

• His ERA was 4.30 and his WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) was 1.38 against the Yankees. Much has been made of Morris's career ERA 3.90, which would be the highest in the Hall. His career WHIP was 1.30. His ERA and WHIP against the Yankees were worse than his middling career averages.
• Morris's prime years were 1979 to 1992. During that time, the Yankees had a winning percentage of .524. That works out to an average record of 85-77. That, as it happens, was the Yankees record in 2013. Do you think "juggernaut" when you think of the 2013 Yankees? They were an okay team, but not playoff-bound. It's not like Morris was 17-12 against the Joe Torre Yankees. 

More to the point: Why do people say things like "Never once was he not the best pitcher on the mound that day" when it can obviously be refuted? Did Madden do the cursory check that I did of the Baseball Reference game logs? If not, didn't he realize that some schlub like me would? I'm not picking on him; this is something I see all the time: people saying things that can easily be proven wrong. I'm not sure who it was who said "this is the age of the Internet, we can fact-check your ass," but it was a while ago, and not enough people have taken heed.