Comments on: The star columnist looks back at the story he — and everyone else — missed . . .

By: Jonathan Jenrette

Jonathan Jenrette — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:57:49 +0000

It only goes to show where there’s will there’s a way. Keep on trying. – Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister and now wish to withdraw that statement. – Mark Twain 1835 – 1910

By: walter

walter — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:29:07 +0000

“What McGwire did through the ’90s, no one else did. And they were all playing by the same rules.”

Really? Everyone was using steroids? Do you think there was any top performer in baseball during the Steroid Era who was _not_ using steroids?

That would be pretty grim.

By: Wenalway

Wenalway — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:01:59 +0000

Charles can’t take the heat of the criticism. He seems unskilled in the art of the sportswriter response, though, which generally falls into one of the following categories:

“Other editors don’t follow sports.”

“Parents just want their kids to get good coverage and scholarships.”

“NO ONE else knows anything about what we do.”

It’s a convenient way for the group to justify doing things the same way. One of the best comments I ever heard about a sportswriter: “He doesn’t have 20 years of experience. He has one year of experience 20 times.”

By: charles pierce

charles pierce — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:23:40 +0000

Dave –
Please do not engage this pest more than is necessary.

By: Wenalway

Wenalway — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:25:00 +0000

Glad I could be of help on that issue. You know, newspapers should have people to review things like that before they’re published.

Wait, they did. Then they loaded them down with meaningless tasks or cut them altogether. My bad.

By: Dave Kindred

Dave Kindred — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:48:22 +0000

Wenalway, I gave you a my-bad on the “hundreds.” Published reports had the A-Rod-and-others list at 104 names.

By: Wenalway

Wenalway — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:33:00 +0000

I appreciate and admire your recall ability, but claiming I am “omitting” things by not copying over an entire board of posts is another of the shift-the-focus tactics sportswriters often use when they are pinned on an issue.

There haven’t been hundreds of major league players continuing to test positive for PEDs, as you claimed. I assume your original reference was to the list of names from which Alex Rodriguez and a few others have been pulled. That’s hardly hundreds continuing to test positive. We shouldn’t have to play these types of guessing games, though, about your intention, which is precisely my point about the coverage of this issue.

If news reporters played as loose with the facts as sportswriters have with this issue — and before we get lost on that island, yes, some news writers do — the pummeling would be fast and blunt. Why not just stick with the hard facts and build on them? Your inherent need to puff up any number of details without providing any sort of context and background smacks hard of sensationalism.

By: Dave Kindred

Dave Kindred — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:05:08 +0000

Over a hundred players in the bigs — not hundreds, yes — but Canseco, right more often than wrong, has estimated 50-80 percent of all players.
I have not been “all over the map” on the subject of steroid reporting. I have always said newspapers were behind the story — with an explanation that Wenalway omits. BTW, he quotes me not from anything I wrote for publication but from a posting to a message board, Sportsjournalists.com. Here’s my thinking that he omitted: “I ask again, if a $20-million, 20-month, MLB-blessed, FBI-supported, federal prosectuor-assisted, senatorial level-staffed investigation can be given access to executives, managers, players, doctors, and journalists and yet turn up nothing but the public record and the uncorroborated accusations of two — two! — lowlifes seeking reduced sentences, how in hell was any newspaper’s sports department supposed to report on steroid use?”
As for Eckstein, I never used his name, not even on the message board, except in second reference to a note on the list of users from the poster “Buck Weaver.” His note went, “If David Eckstein is on the list, Jesus will weep.” And I replied, “I hear there are tears at the corners of his eyes.”

By: Wenalway

Wenalway — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:41:39 +0000

Anyone who has been following Dave Kindred’s thoughts on this subject knows he has been all over the map.

From the end of 2007:

“Anyway, I’d prefer less self-flaggelation. It seems to me that the San Francisco Chronicle’s reporting on BALCO was the steroid story’s equivalent of the Washington Post’s reporting on a burglary at the Watergate apartment complex. Both grew from police stories, both led to federal investigations, both reached congress, both changed the cultures in which the crimes grew. That’s work to be proud of.”

He also brought up David Eckstein’s name in relation to the Mitchell report before it was released. Eckstein’s name was not in the report.

I’d encourage people to do their homework a little better in the future, especially when statements like this are made: “(H)undreds of players have continued to test positive for PEDs. Great players use them …”

I’m sure that Mr. Kindred, of course, meant to make a more factual statement, such as “Dozens of career minor-leaguers have received 50-game suspensions in connection with PED use.” But that’s too boring, I guess. It’s far more flashy to paint everyone with the same brush, just as Mr. Kindred and others have been doing for more than a decade.

By: charles pierce

charles pierce — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:00:12 +0000

As I always say before wading into this morass again, this is somebody else’s drug frenzy, not mine, but I don’t see any real journalistic mal-, or non-feasance in not accusing someone of a crime — possession of a controlled substance — without conclusive evidence that they, you know, possessed it. Or, at the same time, reporting that someone was doing something that was perfectly within the rules of the game at the time. If something is not forbidden, it is allowed. In 1998, Andro was not forbidden in baseball, so therefore, it was allowed.
How, exactly, would the drug warriors have written the column back in 1998? “Mark McGwire, whose possession of a legal substance not banned by his sport and conspicuous body-type and obvious professional improvement leads one to the conclusion that he is breaking federal law, hit two home runs last night…”
Don’t think so.