Supporting JRod: Rosenthal and Gonzalez Misguided in Their Criticisms

June 10, 2009 By 10 Comments

Any sports fan with a TV probably watched JRod on Outside the Lines earlier today and his dominant stand against the biggest turds: John Gonzalez and Ken Rosenthal. The entire interview consisted of a one-sided argument against my brother’s punctual points and objective speculation, which is justified in this day and age.

Jerod was thrown into the lion’s den and asked to defend his own while being assaulted by Gonzalez and Rosenthal. First of all, the entire interview was one-sided as they only scolded Jerod and his actions.

In the most considerate way imaginable, Jerod did what he does quite well; He searched through facts, made careful and well-assimilated conclusions, and wrote to the general sports fan public about an arguable statement.

Did Jerod ever say “Ibanez is on steroids”? No. He handled everything in the most respectful and non-subjective way possible.

Scroll down in the comments section of the article Jerod posted today and you will find this comment:

Philly Fan said:

I am a Philadelphia Phillies fan. I thank you for your articulation and class in handling this whole situation.

Let me preface this by saying I have no suspicions of Raul Ibanez. I have watched him play all season, and he’s just a flat-out fantastic hitter. One of the best I’ve seen in a few years, and it’s a shame I didn’t get to see more of him before this year.

You have had the unfortunate displeasure of being the first guy to tackle this issue that everyone’s had in the back of their mind. Everyone around the Philly area’s been saying, “He’s clean, I’m sure, but everyone’s gonna bring it up since he’s doing so well.” We knew it was coming. You were just the first.

I am not a fan of Gonzalez’s work at the Inquirer. He seems like the Howard Eskin of the Philadelphia print industry: for lack of a better term, a “shit-stirrer.” His attempt is to be tongue-in-cheek, but he rather seems to just come off more like someone saying something to get a rise out of people most of the time.

My guess is that Ibanez got the spin-doctored version of this story from Gonzo or someone who read Gonzo, which is unfortunate. He doesn’t have the time to check back and read your specific article and understand the context, and I think that is the fault of the Philly media.

I had heard everything about this article of yours, and felt the need to read it myself. It was actually a much better article than I anticipated based on the reports, and your conclusion, to me, seemed to be more in line with, “There’s a lot of good explanations aside from PEDs” than with “he’s probably doing them.”

I don’t know how much this matters to you, but I just wanted to say that I find no fault with you or Ibanez, simply fault with the middlemen in the Philly media who poorly reported on this.

Wow. Gonzalez what is your response to that? One of your own called you out as being a “shit-stirrer”. The man that should be attacked wasn’t. He just sat there like the ignorant, ill-informed writer he is. Rosenthal attacked based on the fact he has nothing to say except constant questions about his sources. IT’S A BLOG no one has a source when they talk about speculation and thoughts from one fan’s perspective.

Have anything to say? Post it here. I will gladly refute any of your simple, barbaric, and tacky comments. This is because 80% of you idiots haven’t even fully read the article you’re leaving comments in, let alone the articles written in response to Ibanez by Jerod and John Gonzalez. Foolish. Ignorance is the stepping stone of too many naïve accusations and scoldings, just like the fools who are attacking JRod on this website.

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Filed Under: Featured Column, MLB, Sports Writers and Reporters Tagged With: John Gonzalez, Ken Rosenthal, Raul Ibanez
  • http://www.sports2debate.com Sports2Debate

    Love the attention this has brought to blogging, especially such a great blog in MSF.

    …And big media made themselves look bad.

  • cmulder

    I frankly think this is yet another example of a dying industry (the newspaper media) reacting to the fact that they no longer have a monopoly on information such that they can spoonfeed the masses with the information THEY want you to hear. It’s far worse in politics where a decidedly biased media’s influence has been eroded with the advent of the internet and blogs. I saw nothing unfair and nothing to criticize in Jerod’s column. Gonzalez is the one that should be criticized. Perhaps he’s angling for an exclusive interview with Ibanez???

  • Think Blue Crew

    I really applaud the way the Jerrod composed himself on OTL today. Rosenthal looked like his mama just shat in her pants and sat on his lap the entire ‘debate’. Gonzalez was a little better, but still misguided in his pre-judgments of Jerrod’s article and speculation.

    If Ken Rosenthal was on a debate club, it would have been just as hilarious to watch.

    That being said, I think all of this, specifically, will eventually pass, but the power of blogs will only continue to rise. I think that’s good for both fans to voice their analysis and opinions alike, and for mainstream media to get their act together and start being better writers and analysts.

  • Jordan

    Jerod said it best. “Fans ARE THE HEART of sports”. What a great way for us to be able to speak our thoughts through blogging. What a baby Ibanez is!!!!!!!!! Like the fans have no reason to question him or any other baseball player. We question NOW anything that looks too good to be true. We were put in this position by the players. Fans didn’t just wake up on day and say, “hey I wonder if some of these players take steroids” I loved the story that Jerod wrote. This guy can write. Sad thing is that I don’t think half of the people talking about this actually read the article. You havd Gonzales taking bits and pieces of it and writing his OWN article, you have reporters TELLING Ibanes that some blogger is accusing him of taking steroids, and thus you have a media frenzi. Wow this got out of hand fast. I suggest people READ THE STORY. I hope Raul Ibanez one day reads the story. I have to say that I have lost ALOT of respect for the media. How they twisted things around and made it look like Jerod’s story was something that it was not. Gonzales should have to answer for what he wrote, and I hope he realizes how taking things out of context can really screw up a great story

  • Stephen

    I have been fortunate to watch Raul in Seattle for a number of years. He is one of the most upstanding people you would ever want to meet. Moving from a pitching friendly park like Safeco field to hitter friendly Citizens Bank Park it is no suprise to me that Raul is performing so well. I don’t take offense to speculation that players might be using PEDs but I do take offense to the singling out of Raul and the comments of the obviously misguided Jordan calling Raul a baby for being mad that someone is trashing his reputation. I have no idea what Jordan does for a living but I’m sure he would not want his years of hard work and undeniable character brought into question by speculation by anyone who did not have proof purely based on the actions of others. This is no Barry Bonds or Mark McGuire. Freedom of speech is a great thing but people need to be held accountable for their accusations should they prove to be wrong. Unfortunately that is what is wrong with blogs. Free to say whatever they want with no repercussions.

  • KVB

    This is TV and if everyone agreed that JRod was objective and actually made zero quotes of real steroid accusations…well it would be bad TV. Everyone has to realize it is not Jerod against the world (or newspaper writers who think they are all that is legit in the world) it is just how a debate segment is and always will be produced even if it seems to be ganging up against one angle. It happens on ESPN, Fox news, MSNBC, CNBC…this list goes on.

    Jerod was obviously brought on to defend himself and clear the muddiness after the Gonzalez article and Ibanez quotes. I still don’t see the reason to have and hear Rosenthal talk in the debate, except that he is the token turd from Fox with his own uninformed ax to grind. It seemed to me he had an agenda in the debate and to reason with Jerods perspective was not going to be one of them.

    The part that made the least sense to me and had the least integrity to me, was something one of them said about you can’t go out and write and make public thoughts and ideas you may have with your friends at a bar. Really? Aren’t all writings just thoughts and ideas put together into a column to form a coherent thought or story? No matter if your opinions come from talking to friends or if they came from someone like Peter Gammons, it is still writing thoughts using one’s own brain.

  • Jason

    All I know is that I can’t stand the hypocrisy of two major newspaper writers whining about unfounded/unsubstantiated claims (that weren’t even made) as they go on national television and make comments based on unfounded/unsubstantiated claims (their “opinions/views” about an article they either completely distorted or didn’t read altogether based on their statements).

  • Jordan

    @Stephen, NO ONE is trashing Ibanez. He better toughen up becasue if JUST THE MENTION of his name with PED’s can set him off like this, WOW he is in store for a rough time. Athletes have been talked about for generations. Part of the game. If you make the big bucks you better have thick skin, especially in a field where lie after lie has caused the regular fan like me to question alot of things I would not question in another sport.

  • Jordan

    @Jason, I totally agree with you man

  • http://www.ejwcreations.com EJWasson

    In reality here, what we are seeing is the further destruction of mainstream media in this Country. Here, the mighty media picked on Jerod and bloggers as a whole. They have to discredit what WE do…what WE write. Why? Because though all of us have “real jobs” and only wish we still lived in our Mother’s basement (think of the savings), their “real job” is in a dying industry that gets smaller and smaller each day. Twitter, Facebook, the internet…all these things are eventual death for newspapers. I remember having to buy a newspaper to get coupons…and advertisements for local merchants. Today, they send those same ads via the mail at their own expense. Why? Because their ads do not have the distribution channel they once did. Therefore, the media turns to name calling and discrediting this genre of information sharing. They are right when it comes to the accountable nature of blogging, the policing isn’t there…and people could say almost anything they wanted. The real reason this blew up as it did, is a lack of trust in the system…a lack of trust in MLB…and a lack of trust some baseball fans feel due to the players who have gone “outside the lines”.