As the 24-48 hour sports news cycle chews up and spits out the Raul Ibanez story that I’ve unexpectly found myself at the center of this week, the debate is now shifting to far more important topics that whether speculating about individual players being on steroids is valid or how bloggers and the mainstream media will ever co-exist.

And the most important question was recently posed by a commenter over at Awful Announcing in their take on the current steroids speculation debate, in reference to the picture above (courtesy of Awful Announcing):

shacky316 said…
Who is the freaky one on the left???

I’m going to assume that I was in the process of talking at the point where that screenshot was taken, because I don’t remember hawking a loogie at the camera at any point during the interview.

Either way, I’d like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Daulerio over Deadspin for shining a bright light on my most sensitive of insecurities: that rather then being your garden variety white guy from the Midwest, I appear to be bordering on a skin pigmentation of clear during the OTL interview. While making many relevant and important points about the OTL interview, Daulerio makes perhaps his most relevant when he says:

Jerod Morris has to go outside. Seriously, son, you’re making us all look bad if you don’t spray tan yourself before you go on national television to get yelled at.

I also have to say that I personally found their screenshot of the OTL interview to be far more amusing, for a number of reasons. Poor John Gonzalez does not appear to be as intense as me or in quite the state of ecstacy as our dear friend Ken Rosenthal.

I would like to personally thank my friends over at Cleveland Frowns for chalking up my “freaky” appearance to the obvious lack of makeup that was offered to me before the interview in their post earlier today. However, the truth is that I probably wouldn’t have worn any anyway, and would have been better served by getting a haircut sometime in the last three months and, as Daulerio suggests, emerging from beneath my laptop to behold the glory of the sun every once in a while.

I guess if I’d known that I’d end up on ESPN I would have been more proactive about these issues. But the truth is that I probably would have procrastinated about doing anything about them to analyze a White Sox draft pick or have some unnecessary fun with Photoshop.

And I mean really, when you’re just a blogger who is living in the glorious age of the MLB Network, Gamecast, and Hot Clicks, who needs the sun?

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.

It became easier to understand once I realized that Rosenthal had not even read the post before appearing on television to discuss its significance (now that’s what I call journalistic integrity).

Rosenthal admits and agrees that, “all players today must face this kind of scrutiny because of all that has happened in the past.” Apparently, he meant all players except for Raul Ibanez.

The fact of the matter is, ALL players; even players who are NOT performing unusually or particularly well; should be scrutinized for two reasons:

1) Several of them have already been caught cheating.

2) The Collective Bargaining Agreement protects players from being blood-tested.

So Ken Rosenthal feels that JRod’s post (which I believe he neglected to take the time to read) was “wrong” and “unfair”. He went on to illogically back up this point by saying that this never would have happened 10 years ago. Nice logic, Kenny.

Next, Rosenthal interrupts Jerod with some more of his brilliant logic. While JRod is explaining that his article carefully separates accusation and speculation, Ken chimes in with, “then how did we get here? How is Raul Ibanez responding to this yesterday?”

Those questions are so stupid and illogical, that I dont know where to begin. It is my estimation, that “we got here” because mainstream media is forced to sensationalize stories to stay afloat. That, and the fact that neither Ibanez NOR Rosenthal took the time to read and digest Jerod’s post. Gonzalez may or may not have misunderstood Jerod’s article; but he mis-characterized it nonetheless. Ibanez was NOT responding to Jerod’s blog, as Ken Rosenthal mistakenly points out. Ibanez was responding to the SPIN that Gonzalez put on JRod’s blog. Spinning things to suit one’s argument is very easy. Check this shit out:

JOHN GONZALEZ ACCUSES RAUL IBANEZ OF BEING “PAINFULLY OUT OF TOUCH”

(Ibanez referred to the blogger as a 42 year old living in his mom’s basement —> Gonzalez said on TV that “people who think bloggers are irrelevant and living in their parent’s basement are painfully out of touch” —> Gonzales thinks Ibanez is out of touch.)

When prompted to explain the “simple standard of decency” that Ken Rosenthal thinks all bloggers & journalists should adhere to, he spews out the following rule of thumb: “Would you want this written about yourself?”

Brilliant. Apparently, journalists are only supposed to report good news and present positive opinions and editorials. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bob Woodward.

I think i figured out why these guys were so pissed. Newspapers are dying. Bloggers and blog sites are growing exponentially. It is ten times harder for John Gonzalez to get people to read his column than it would have been say… 10 years ago?

Here’s an example. Television used to be monopolized by ABC, NBC, and CBS. If you were on TV, you had a HUGE audience, no matter what. Now that TV viewers have the option of hundreds of channels, dish networks, and the Internet, it has become increasingly difficult to grab the attention of a large market share.

Similarly, the emergence of the blogosphere has quickly taken away the audience and influence of old-world “journalists” like Ken Rosenthal. The Internet has slowly turned sports journalism into a meritocracy, where information is sought out by the people, and not force-fed to them by the few. People now have options when it comes to where they will get their sports news and info, and that scares the shit out of the “boys club” that is old-school mainstream media. Ken Rosenthal is a whiny bitch who needs to spend more time honing his craft, and less time trying to eliminate the competition that can only make him better. I can call him a bitch for two reasons:

1) The 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution

2) I’m pretty sure he doesent read articles all the way to the end.