So, I went and read your original post. Pretty fair. You probably don’t know this, not watching the Phils daily (not busting on you, you don’t live here), but a couple of guys who have come to the Phils since they opened Citizen’s Bank and got Manuel have had a remarked improvement. Brad Lidge for instance, and I don’t think Werth was really ever known for his defense before he got here. I hope you can see why we got a bit upset.

I see your reasoning, so I can’t bash you, nor do I hold any animosity against you. You had the bad luck of picking a very popular athlete in Philly, a city known for being nuts about sports. I also hope that Raul never tests positive for PEDs, for I would be very disappointed. Anyway, don’t let this whole foofaraw get you down, it’ll pass, and you can say you made national headlines!

Take care,

Bryan
Crazy Philly Fan

1) Mr. Ibanez play baseball in the MLB. He is paid well to perform at his job. MLB is watched by millions of fans. Part of the job you have to accept as a MLB player is constant attention, whether that be praise or scrutiny, from fans. The “information tunnel” fans use are the multiple outlets of media. If you can not handle the scrutiny, you should quit playing MLB and get a normal job like everyone else!!! This will allow you to hide from any mass judgment laid down upon you. What’s the saying…..”If you can’t stand the heat, get the hell out the kitchen”.

2) Steroids is the hot topic that consumes most of MLB right now. There have been multiple players that have been questioned about steroid use multiple times. This is not going to stop until we go a decent period of time without someone testing positive or admitting use. Believing that you shouldn’t and/or won’t get questioned about performance enhancing drugs as a MLB player in our present time is naive.

3) The blog JRod posted was basically a breakdown trying to explain why Raul Ibanez’s overall numbers for 2009 are bigger than his career averages. Not at one point does he claim Mr. Ibanez is a steroid user. All he was doing was covering all possibilities of the boost in Mr. Ibanez’s numbers. The only reason this mushroomed is because John Gonzales turned a “fantasy baseball case study” into a “worthless blogger taking shots at a MLB player”. If he wouldn’t have written the article, Mr. Ibanez would have probably never found out about it and everything that stemmed from it would be a moot point right now.

To me it’s a basic concept. You get paid handsomely as a MLB player compared to the “Average Joe’s salary”. This even includes the minimum salary players. People are going to talk about performance enhancing drugs in MLB because they have scarred the game. Bitching and moaning about a blog posted that included your name and steroids in it is ludicrous. That’s like myself getting angry over the mailman telling a neighbor of mine he doesn’t like how my mailbox works.

Raul Ibanez, concentrate on maintaining your current numbers. And if you can’t live with that, kick it to the clinic and get tested yourself. Than post the results on your web page with the caption. “Now What!”.

John Gonzales, are you really that hard up for stories. You resorted to taking a bloggers fantasy baseball findings and turning them into a “you have to be more responsible when reporting” piece. He’s a blogger for God sakes.

Ken Rosenthal, I hope the interview on “Outside the Lines” doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass. I hope that those comments you stated weren’t hypocritical. You better have given as much hell to Selena Roberts as you did to JRod. Didn’t she write an article divulging information in records that were sealed by a court of law? Just want to make sure your shelling out the ethics/morality beat down fairly and to all that deserve it.

I am embarrassed by my so-called colleagues and their feigned outrage over this story.

Personally, I hate unsubstantiated rumor mongering, but unfortunately (thanks to the lack of action by the MLB and the news media), speculating about PED use in baseball is here for a while.

I would just like my colleagues in the sainted, anointed “mainstream” media to remember these bright spots in our profession:

– Jayson Blair, an unqualified New York Times reporter faking stories left and right with management too scared to fire him.
— A Boston Globe reporter faking a story then winning a Pulitzer.
– Dan Rather getting fooled by a Microsoft Word doc allegedly written in 1972
– The aforementioned NYT intimating that presidential candidate John McCain was having an affair with a staffer.
– A San Fran Giants beat reporter watching games at home and then filing stories pretending he was at Pac Bell.

And that’s just off the top of my head. The non-blogging media has their fair share of unsubstantiated rumor mongering. Just do a search of your local paper and see how many times “a top staffer/aide/official who spoke to us anonymously” pops up.

Instead of beating you up for a reasonable, interesting post that adds to the discussion, Ken Rosenthal and the rest should look in the mirror. I truly think this backlash is more out of frustration that the Internet is “stealing” jobs that were once part of their own little fiefdom.

Keep it up.

Had the opportunity to see the OTL section. You handled yourself well. Guys like Rosenthal are one of the biggest problems. Lecturing you about being a “professional” when it’s clowns like him who carried the water for baseball for years instead of investigating steroids, is ridiculous. Your point about not seeing the article in total was understated but excellent. Keep up the good work.

Didn’t see the original article until I happened on Joe’s piece on SI.com. Iimmediately read your piece after completing his. I will say this first of all. While I am not a diehard Ibanez fan, I’ve always liked him for exactly what you and Joe describe him as being: a really good ball player who leaves it all on the field; my idea of a true professional ballplayer.

Your article was actually very thought provoking and quite good. I did not in any way take out of it an attempt to smear a ball player. On the contrary, it was more of an indictment of major league baseball for perpetrating this fraud of the past decade on us fans, that we must be forced to speculate on one of the “good guys” when he’s playing lights out. It’s unfortunate but it’s the state of major league baseball, circa 2009.

Don’t stop your writing. It is very good. I’ve never read a blog or heard of yours before today but you have gained a reader, and a supporter. Keep up the good work. And like you, I’m rooting for Raul, one of the good guys, who plays the game the right way. I will be incredibly saddened if he turns up to be anything other than what he appears. We need more of the good guys out there to get us to believe again. Like you said, if Mr. Ibanez wants to be upset about something, look at Rodriguez, Clemons, Giambi, Palmeiro, McGuire, Bonds, Sheffield, Ramirez, Tejada, Boone, et al., and blame them.

I take my position as a fan and with other fans like me.

Wait, firstly let me say I’m a FORMER FAN of Baseball.

Ok, here goes — The FANS are the one’s who’ve paid the price for all the cheating in baseball. How??Why?? Because they’re stealing the FANS MONEY! How can you root for your team when they’re not playing fair? When they’re lying to YOU? Even the one’s that got caught never completely owned up to the obvious..they lie and MINIMIZE their cheatin’ ways.

Not once has Major League Baseball OR the MAJOR LEAGUE OWNERS OR the lying cheating Players EVER PAID the fans back for cheating. Sure, they’ll lie and cheat and STEAL your money but they won’t offer to pay ANYTHING back! No contrition, no “I’m sorry I cheated YOU” no offer of discounted seats. Actually, the more they cheat the more they smile and STEAL more from you. How about those $2500 seats at new stadiums? They jacked up the price just to see who’s another sucker again.

How come I don’t get a refund for being DEFRAUDED?

No matter how you slice it all these liars and thieves will continute to do so until the people paying their salaries (FANS) FIGHT BACK. That’s what I’m doing. I’m not going to give any more of my money to these A-holes. My son and I find plenty to do during these months and our lives are much better for it. Going to the movies (an absolute BARGAIN compared to 3 grueling hours at a “Major Fraud” ballpark. Going to the park, throwing the frisbee, fishing at the lake, miniature golf, amusement parks etc.

Baseball, you want more of my money? I burned all my cheap memorbeglia and not one more dime goes to the MLB. No Fantasy league stuff, No autographed baseballs, no cheesy baseball cards, No Baseball on MY T.V. I think you’re hearing me–N A D A. You’ve fooled me TEN THOUSAND TIMES! I got robbed on this deal I tell you.

My son (another EX-FAN of baseball) said it best the other day–”I’d rather be around people I can trust instead of wasting my time with any crooked baseball stuff”.

Man I hate what baseball has done to their fans but I love this kid!

Two, without the media amplifying your post to a wider audience, only the core group of readers sees it and nothing more comes of it.

Which ties into three, this was a MSM manufactured controversy. They probably squealed with glee when the keywords aligned. PED mention? Check. Player rebuttal? Check. Mainstream media vs. bloggers? Check. They knew this would be a hot story to ride for a few days in the middle of the week and jumped all over it.

Hopefully when it all blows over you’ll find some benefit of being used by them and will have a higher readership anyway. Like you said, anyone who looked at this fairly will see it for what it is.

How can we re-gain our trust in MLB players if there is a witch-hunt (although started by the mainstream media) whenever a player performs better than expected? Yes MLB screwed up by allowing McGwire/Sosa/Bonds but I don’t think that means there should be speculation a player is on steorids for every player who does better than expected. I guess Jamie Moyer was on steroids last year when he won 16 games and had a 3.67 ERA at age 45 and is now off the roids this season or stopped cheating… In the 1920s was every baseball team who lost the world series accused on throwing it just because the White Sox did in 1919? Was every manager accused of gambling after Pete Rose did? I don’t think so, even though it would certainly have been “fair game”. It’s time to let it go when it comes to steroid speculation of certain players and instead go after Bud Selig, the player’s union, and MLB’s mishandling of steroids and other issues. The 90s and into the 00s were the steroids decade. We will never be sure who was, and who wasn’t using them so it’s time to move on. Yes trust have been eroded, but get over it and move forward to make sure this is prevented from happening again instead of whining about it. There probably will still be a few players who get caught for some sort of steroids but that is just the way life is, it isn’t fair. And anybody who is a baseball fan should know the game isn’t fair. Strikezones are different depending on each umpire and every stadium has different dimensions. This is completely different from football, hockey, and basketball, which have strict regulations on comparable things.