ESPN, Ortiz, and Steroids

Sorry for the long layoff again folks - Kyra is on a ballpark roadtrip in America's heartland while I am getting ready for trips to Vegas and the Jersey shore. But today we are proud to publish the first post by guest contributor Rob Warfield. Mr. Warfield is well known around the Central Jersey and Philadelphia region as a walking encyclopedia and his sports knowledge is second to none. We hope you enjoy his work on the blog as much as we do.

You may not have heard, but David Ortiz tested positive for steroids back in 2003. Since I arrived back from a London vacation last week, it’s been hard to watch ESPN for more than 30 minutes without some discussion of this fact. I have to admit, this revelation was not the least bit surprising to me: the obvious disparity in Ortiz’s physical figure from his Minnesota days to his large and in charge Red Sox glory years and subsequent jump in stats once arriving in Boston are cause for enough suspicion in the steroids era. That the positive test came the year he joined the Sox is surely not a coincidence. But regardless of these tell-tale side effects of cheating and doping, there is a greater point to be made here: I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if anybody was caught juicing.

It’s on this point where I think ESPN has dropped the ball. With the exception of Bill Simmons (I can’t believe I just wrote that) and Howard Bryant, ESPN has really misjudged the fans’ reactions here. I heard Mitch Albom open up the Sports Reporters on Sunday arguing that the fans “don’t care” anymore when players are caught. Steve Phillips, parlaying his miserable GM record into an equally miserable analyst’s job, happily relayed Jim Leyland’s assertion that fans “don’t care” during tonight’s Red Sox/Tigers broadcast. Shocking that he would use a game in which Papi’s team was playing to notify us. Can’t say I’ve heard Simmons’ or Bryant’s positions espoused on Baseball Tonight yet (Note: Simmons wrote in his July 17 mailbag that he would only be shocked to learn that Jeter and Griffey took PEDs. I agree, though I might add Greg Maddux to that list).

However, some people clearly do care. ESPN certainly cares, because they’re still discussing this in detail eleven full days after the original New York Times story went to print. It was also so important that Albom had to address it while opening the second episode of the Sports Reporters to air since the NYT piece. Fans care, because Ortiz was booed all weekend. Granted he was playing at Yankee Stadium, but I’m sure he’d receive the same treatment in Philadelphia, for instance.

If ESPN wants to cover a story like this for eleven days, they should actually get to the bottom of the story. Maybe I haven’t been watching enough, but I have yet to hear ESPN discuss Ortiz’ own hypocrisy on this issue; the NYT article quotes Ortiz as saying that he would “ban [those who test positive] for the whole year.” The assuredness of that statement wasn’t there this week, as Ortiz took nine full days to call a press conference to talk about how “careless” he was when buying vitamins back in the day. Regardless of these discrepancies and the obvious hypocrisy, ESPN is still more than happy to give Ortiz a platform after-the-fact (we also saw this in Gammons’ A-Rod interview). By now we’ve all been reassured by every episode of SportsCenter and every ESPN baseball telecast of the past couple days that it’s entirely plausible for some bad vitamins to result in a positive test. Last night’s ticker prominently displayed that a BALCO scientist confirmed this. Sweet irony. The hypocrisy is laughable.

It’s a shame that the network that currently holds a monopoly on sports coverage has no journalistic integrity whatsoever. There is no consistency to speak of here. Simply put, it’s disappointing, but this is what I’ve come to expect from ESPN. They’re more interested in making friends than exploring anything in detail.

I look forward to contributing to this blog in the weeks and months to come.

-RW

SI's Frank Deford speaks about ESPN

He's in the Sportswriter HoF so he probably has something valuable to say. Here's an excerpt from his short article pointing out the biggest problem with ESPN:

"A couple of weeks ago, ESPN initially refused to report the news that was everywhere else headlined — that Pittsburgh's Super Bowl quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had been accused of sexual assault. The network's excuses were too noble by half, because there's a double standard, and ESPN is known to cozy up to the very superstars it purports to cover.

Just suppose that CNN regularly had cutesy commercials for CNN starring Nancy Pelosi, John McCain and Rahm Emanuel. Well, that's the equivalent of what ESPN regularly does with top sports personalities. The practice is, simply, a journalistic disgrace, and, because ESPN is so powerful, it diminishes the integrity of all sports journalism."

Now we here at ESPNfail did not cover the Roethlisberger issue because it was in the past when we started writing and we try to stay as current as possible. However, while we're on the subject, we might as well say something. It took about 48 hours for ESPN to report the story that Ben Roethlisberger was accused of raping someone. Why was that? They had issued a 'do not report' memo to all their employees. They claimed this was because the matter was a civil complaint, which they don't cover out of fairness to the athlete. however it was picked up by the Associated Press. It was clearly a story, and it was clearly a story ESPN had reasons for not covering.

Why was this? Speculation said from sites like Deadspin that it might have something to do with the fact that ABC is a sister network of ESPN. Big Ben is set to appear on ABC's upcoming reality show Shaq Vs. where he competes against other athletes in their sports. It would not surprise me at all that they did not want this story to come out because it might hurt ratings on this show.

Even more scary though, is when Deford says that "ESPN is known to cozy up to the very superstars it purports to cover." This is hitting the nail on the head. ESPN wants to have all the

access to these athletes so they ask puffball questions like when Jim Rome asks a typical guest "Peyton, you won the MVP last year and had your best statistical season yet, how awesome is it to be you?" (I paraphrase). Jim Rome can be saved for his own post though. ESPN is grooming plenty of these guys to be future talking heads on their shows. I definitely wouldn't bet against Brett Favre appearing on NFL Live in the next couple of years. How are we supposed to trust a network that clearly doesn't ask the tough question? It seems to me Deford is saying we can't, but that ESPN has such a stranglehold on the industry that we have no alternative but to obey their false idols. We are not worthy!

KZ

ESPN controls employees' thoughts

Please read this article on Deadspin that contains the memo that ESPN passed around to all its employees regarding their use of twitter amongst other social media. Here's an exerpt:

"If you are an ESPN talent, reporter, writer, producer, editor or other editorial decision maker or a public-facing ESPN employee, you are reminded that when you participate in public blogs or discussion activities, you are representing ESPN just as you would in any other public forum or medium, and you should exercise discretion, thoughtfulness and respect for your colleagues, business associates and our fans. All posted content is subject to review in accordance with, ESPN's employee policies and editorial guidelines."

So basically, you aren't allowed to live outside the ESPN all-controlling universe if you work for ESPN. I'm sure LeBron James is applauding this policy of thought control.

This sounds familiar

GM Thompson won't rule out Vick

At this point, only quotes are necessary.

"Asked whether Green Bay might be interested in the scandal-tainted quarterback, general manager Ted Thompson didn't rule it out Tuesday.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the Packers are in hot pursuit of Vick.

'What is the answer that we give to questions like this? We're always looking to improve our team,' [GM Ted] Thompson said. 'We look at all options at all times. I wouldn't care to speculate in terms of the odds or the percentages [of signing Vick] or anything like that.'

But they've at least discussed Vick internally?

'We look at everything,' Thompson said."

Like I said, GMs and coaches are always "looking to make the team better" or "working with the players they have on the roster." Thanks for the headline ESPN.

DD

Weekend Update: We have no idea if Michael Vick is joining the Patriots

Sorry for the quiet weekend everyone but I couldn't sleep last night after I saw this article posted on ESPN.com Friday. Let's ignore the fact that this was the top story for a few hours.

The first two sentences truly sum up this fail:

"New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick won't rule out the chance the team will sign quarterback Michael Vick."

However,

"He's not saying it's a possibility, either."

OK, so if Belichick didn't say yes or no, then this is not a news story. In other words, there is nothing to report. Most coaches use quotes such as, "We're coaching the players that we have on the field right now, so that's who is here. So, anybody who isn't here, is there potential that they could be here? Yeah, there probably is. But right now they're not" when asked about potential signings. I think we've been hit by ESPN's perfect storm of Patriots' love, Michael Vick supercoverage, and trying to make a headline out of nothing.

The incredible factcheckers in Bristol then reported that Michael Vick had a workout in Foxboro. Those rumors were quickly proved false. Now, according to this morning's news, it looks like Cleo Lemon was that shifty QB trying out Friday.

Any intelligent sports fan asks the question "why would arguably the best team in the NFL with the best quarterback in the league take a chance on the man recently voted the most hated in sports?" We see this crap on ESPN and sigh because some less-aware sports fans actually think Michael Vick may sign with the Pats.

Fail thee well ESPN.

DD