Dropping the ball
Before getting into a new story in Editor & Publisher magazine about newspaper coverage of steroids in baseball over the years, it's worth highlighting this portion of a reply to the last posting after the L.A. Times story about the Jason Grimsley affidavit: "I'm surprised no one else posted on this subject.''
I am, too. It might be that not a lot of traffic is coming this way, but I wonder if it's that not enough people care, or if there's some sort of steroid fatigue at play, or if it's too troubling to readers that of the five new names revealed from the affidavit, three of them were very popular Orioles. Maybe someone will post about why no one is posting.
Anyway, the industry magazine Editor & Publisher, which has written on this topic before, is coming out with an article in its next issue about how newspapers let chances to expose the steroid mess in past years, get away. It interviewed "more than a dozen'' reporters and editors, most of whom took responsibility for missing the boat. Two names you'll recognize: current Sun columnist Peter Schmuck and ex-Sun baseball writers Ken Rosenthal and Buster Olney.
The excuse-making is more entertaining and enlightening, though. Check this comment: "We are supposed to be legal experts, understand labor negotiations, and [find] steroids? ... There are a lot of things that go by the news department. What should they have known about JFK's social life?"
That was from Rocky Mountain News baseball writer Tracy Ringolsby, who is a recent recipient of the Spink award by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Comments
Please, no more steroids coverage. We get it. Lots of players took steroids. Pitchers. Hitters. Big players. Small players. Everyone from the late '80s until now is under a cloud of suspicion. Unless you have hard evidence, I don't want to read about it.
Posted by: Mitch | October 4, 2006 3:26 PM
Hi,
I've commented on this before but basically most sports writers stuck their head in the ground and pretended to see no evil, hear no evil with regards to steroids in the past.
I guess they all wanted to live in a fantasy world where the McGwires, Sosas, Bonds were too good of a story to "ruin" it by writing about steroids. Also many of them tried to claim pitchers and smaller "speed" type players had no need for the steroids, HGH, etc. since they weren't big,etc.
Obviously steroids and the related drugs help all players either with regards to getting biggers or recovering from workouts/injuries to maximizing speed (Ben Johnson and co.).
Too many people and writers also judge people more on personality rather than on reality. Guys like Eddie Murray get run out of town w/o doing anything wrong off the field, yet "good" guys like Puckett, McGwire, etc. get a free ride for a long time because of their likability, yet off field Puckett certainly was nothing like he was portrayed by writers.
However with a bad guy and certainly very unlikable T. Owens, everyone piles on writing about him trying to commit suicide before they have any real facts.
As one person once told me, its hard to judge someone and their actions until you walk a mile in their shoes.
Posted by: Rich | October 4, 2006 4:58 PM
I dont think reportes should feel obligated to exose professional athletes. They are only guilty if they get caught, and if they get caught the league will announce it. No use possibly putting an innocent man under the bus for somthing unproven.
Posted by: RV | October 4, 2006 6:32 PM
What the Spink Award winner doesn't seem to know (perhaps he's too young) is that the news departments knew all about JFK's social life, but they chose not to tell. Some news editors at the time thought it was nobody else's business.
Times have changed.
Posted by: Smarlinghue | October 4, 2006 11:10 PM