da bears wrote:A journalist is supposed to find facts and then print a story that is informative to readers, not gather numbers in order to tarnish accomplishments of someone. That's called libel as far as I'm concerned. I can't go into my job and just make some shit up to give to my boss, why should these idiots?
The only numbers he cites are those that help the case that Ibanez is clean. Did you even read the post?
Judging by ESPN's handling, I'd say the job of journalists is to gang up on people they disagree with and use dishonest tricks like not seeing that your prey has proper makeup for a tv appearance. Or going by Rosenthal's example, perhaps the job of journalists is to go on tv without reading the blog post you're discussing. Or maybe the job of journalists is to take a post saying, It's possible, and turn it into a raging accusatory hatchet job damning Ibanez to baseball infamy, as per Gonzalez. What responsible, level-headed journalism.
Rosenthal wrote a piece a while back about how "white" the Red Sox have become, with the basic message being, I'm not saying they're racist, but I can certainly see how someone would think that. And now he's going on the air and being sanctimonious about a piece that says, I'm not saying Ibanez's using, but I can certainly see how someone could think that. Hack.
This is just another instance of the old journalists seeing an opening to attack all those vile, vile bloggers. And they acquited themselves pretty much the same as always. Now that they feel a little safer, I anxiously await the next enlightening piece of true-blue journalism on Juan Pierre's Awesome Gumption And Bunting Mastery And Why It's Better Than Home Runs.
Something to think about: Why would a 37 year old who just signed a 3 year $30 million start using PEDs now? Why didn't he start using them when they were much more commonly used and not tested? Like when he was a 26 year old minor leaguer? The guy didn't become an everyday starter until he was 31.
BigL531 wrote:Something to think about: Why would a 37 year old who just signed a 3 year $30 million start using PEDs now? Why didn't he start using them when they were much more commonly used and not tested? Like when he was a 26 year old minor leaguer? The guy didn't become an everyday starter until he was 31.
Not that I believe this is the case in this instance, but some players feel a responsibility to their team/organization to perform when they sign a free agent deal.
And now, given all that we know about steroid use in baseball over the past fifteen years, it is considered ridiculous and out of bounds to openly ask if a dramatic improvement in on the field results at age 37 is somehow related to a change in his off the field...um, preparation?
Yes it is ridiculous to single out Ibanez. Maybe we should look at Theriot, Hill, Gonzalez, Bay, Cruz, Branyan, Varitek etc who all have more HR than most people expected at this point. This is just a reporter trying to make a splash by singling out a player for no good reason.
And really, did you read the original Ibanez article? It was a response to someone in his fantasy league accusing Ibanez of doing it, all Morris was trying to do was figure things out by analyzing the numbers. He doesn't flat out say he's using them like the Philly.com accuses him of doing, but just that he can't rule them out in this day and age of baseball.
I think the fact that the MSM picked up on a blog piece and published it is the bad journalism in this case.
WickedSmaat wrote:I think the fact that the MSM picked up on a blog piece and published it is the bad journalism in this case.
I think that this move towards reporting on just about any blog (and CNN's "iReport") is terrible journalism... because it's not journalism. It's just outsourcing, and just like when we outsource our manufacturing, there's a greater likelihood of defects.
TornHammy wrote: Posts: 5 Joined: 11 Aug 2007 Home Cafe: Baseball
You should post more.
+1
JTWood wrote it better than I ever could, I hope he contributes more to the cafe in the future.
Overall that original blog was a reasonable look at exploring a statistically very rare event represented by Ibanez's play this year.
The disturbing part was John Gonzalez's column in the Inquirer and followup by ESPN that took much of the original blog out of context. They presented their view as "right" and the blogger as almost a "dangerous" journalist. I would argue that Gonzalez was generating his own news in a way that was perhaps far worse than anything the blogger did.
There are a few things with the New York Yankees that never change. That's pride, tradition, and most of all, we have the greatest fans in the world. -Derek Jeter, 9/21/08 -- last words from old Yankee Stadium
Again, the simplest example is he has always been able to hit mistake pitching and is a professional hitter. And he did get a weird confluence of crappy pitching as well as hitter's park factors. Would he average 20 per year if he wasn't in safeco? HE would probably have gotten five more in another park.
It's absurd that people are discounting that he has had the benefit of the 4 most notorious launching pads yet: CBP, Coors, New Yankee and Great American. He has hit home runs off of exactly three good pitchers, the rest were bad. This is not some big puzzle people, he is hot, is hitting in easier parks and against worse competition for the moment.
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by jackie hayes » Thu Jun 11, 2009 5:46 pm 
