Tiger Geist

This whole “Raul Ibanez vs a blogger” thing is really bothersome.  If you’re not familiar with it, a blogger wrote this post that brings up reasons on Raul Ibanez’s hot start to 2009.  The post got picked up through many feeds; Ibanez took offense.  Now everyone is talking, and it led to this espn interview.

I think ESPN did a really poor job on this one.  First, its obvious the kid is overmatched by the other two panelists (John Gonzalez and Ken Rosenthal); he has no chance.  Its also obvious the writers had a big beef with bloggers, and seemed to attack bloggers’ ethics more then the actual article in question.  So why did ESPN let it become a ‘lets teach this kid a lesson’?  I don’t know.  What further bothers me is that ESPN’s poster boy for new media, Bill Simmons, wrote a VERY SIMILAR ARTICLE in espn the magazine’s last issue.  Simmon’s goes a step further, bringing up not only steroid speculation, but birth certificate forgery for Big Papi.  As the more talented writer, Simmons turns the article into a fan’s love of a player as they decline, where the midwestsportsfans guy just left it as speculation.  Why didn’t espn put Bill Simmons on the discussion panel for this outside the lines interview?  What type of lesson were they trying to teach?  It just wasn’t a fair fight.  Interestingly, Simmons has long been against the mainstream media himself.

So I think ESPN botched their OTL segment;  i think the writers looked foolish for bashing on some kid; i’m not sure what purpose it all served.  In an article that helped bring a lot of this to light, John Gonzalez has an interesting point about being careful for calling out players who have never tested positive.  I find it interesting that he has no problem laying it on Manny Ramirez at the end of the article, who apparently is fair game.

I do have a problem when the mainstream baseball writers seem to think its ok for league officials and the players union to run the enhancement cleaning unquestioned.  ”you can think it, but you can’t write it”.  Buster Olney has been very expressive in this area, in stating that he and other writers missed the boat in the early 90’s.  After the Manny Ramirez resurgence / contract renewal frenzy, followed by Manny’s positive test, sometimes I do wonder if the writers aren’t missing the boat again.  ”We all thought it at the time but couldn’t say it”.  Understood.  I also think the players union will ultimately have to release the results of the 2003 tests to put a lot of this to rest (though maybe not all of it), which they would never do.  So there will always be questions, fair or not.

In the end, Raul Ibanez has a point about credibility.  And as a reader / sports fan, you can figure out what’s credible and what isn’t credible.  I hope… I mean, some people still think Elvis is still alive.