Analyzing the Familiar Elements of the White Sox Trade for Jake Peavy: Chicago, “The Biggest Balls in the Game,” & the Number 23

I hadn’t really planned on posting anything today. I am leaving for vacation on August 8th and using this weekend to get ahead on work stuff, but I haven’t written anything yet about the White Sox trading for Jake Peavy and the story behind how the whole thing happened is just awesome.

Here’s a quick teaser. The analysis of and story behind the White Sox trade for Jake Peavy involves the following elements:

• Chicago
• “The biggest balls in the game.”
• The number 23
• Ken Rosenthal
• Potentially the best pitching rotation in the AL over the next three years, and one that makes my favorite team a darkhorse candidate to make some real noise in October should they find a way to squeeze into the playoffs.

Okay, time to tie all of these parts together.

First off, kudos to MLB Trade Rumors for absolutely hitting another grand slam the past few weeks with their coverage of the trade deadline. No one, and I mean no one, brings together all of the lightning-fast stories from every corner of the country like Tim and the good folks at MLBTR. If you are a baseball fan and don’t have them bookmarked, shame on you.

When I logged on today and decided to check out what the reaction was to the White Sox dealing four solid pitching prospects for a former Cy Young Award winner who is currently on the DL and has been criticized (even by me) for having pitcher-friendly-home-park-inflated numbers, MLBTR is the first place I went. And sure enough, they had found two great articles that told the remarkable story about how Kenny Williams made the Peavy trade happen at the 11:59th hour.

Before we go any further, here are links to those stories, along with compelling excerpts from each:

ChiSox pull off last-second gamble with Peavy deal — (Ken Rosenthal, FoxSports)

If it’s not my all-time favorite trade, it’s close.

It might not be a good trade, though I suspect it is. But for sheer audacity and shock value, how can anyone not like what White Sox general manager Ken Williams pulled off Friday?

“Unreal,” one general manager said of the Jake Peavy trade. “No question, it’s a very high-risk move. You’ve got to have great intestinal fortitude to do it.”

Another exec was even more blunt in describing his admiration for Williams.

“Biggest balls in the game,” he said.

…

“Literally with two minutes left, I’m on the phone with Axelrod and I’m on the phone with Kevin Towers and Rick Hahn is on the phone with Major League Baseball because it had to be in,” Williams said.

“I really didn’t think it was going to all come together in the end. I was prepared for it to not meet the deadline. It all came together with 23 seconds on the clock.”

How times change: Peavy trade comes out of nowhere — (Scott Miller, CBSSports.com)

Instead, there was ultra-aggressive, ultra-stealth White Sox GM Kenny Williams ringing Towers late Friday morning San Diego time asking about the chances of reprising that deal the two men put in place back in May before Peavy used his no-trade clause to scotch it.

That phone call led to, by far the wildest, craziest, most interesting trade of the summer.

…

Peavy was sound asleep napping with his middle son, Wyatt, 5, when he said he was awakened with a phone call just 40 minutes before the trade deadline, proposing the same thing he shot down in May.

I know that I excerpted a decent chunk out of each story, but don’t be fooled that the excerpts alone capture the whirlwind fury of the story behind the most surprising trade of the 2009 trade deadline. Go read both stories. Each provides an insightful, behind-the-scenes look at the how these trades came to fruition. 

Yes, that’s right…despite our past differences, I am strongly recommending that you go read Ken Rosenthal. He may consider me ridiculous and unprofessional, and I may have had some choice words for him privately to friends and co-workers (though I think I’ve kept it pretty clean and respectful publicly), but Rosenthal is unquestionably one of the best baseball writers out there. His account of the Peavy trade, in my opinion, is a quintessential example of why.

And now, let’s deconstruct the details.

Ken Williams, who has emerged over the past few years as one of the most proactive, respected, and forward-thinking GMs in the game, targeted Peavy long ago as a guy he wanted in Chicago. To Williams’ credit, he kept persevering until it got done. He also reportedly made a deal happen in 90 minutes when everyone, including me, had finally been lulled into thinking that the White Sox would not be major players this year at the deadline.

I think I speak for all White Sox fans and baseball observers when I say that I’ll never fall asleep on Kenny again until 4:00 has officially struck on deadline day.

Amazingly, there were four significant hurdles that had to be overcome in the 90 minutes left from when Kenny first contacted the Padres yesterday or the trade never could have come to fruition:

1. Kenny had to get Jerry Riensdorf’s approval to take on the rest of Peavy’s $8 million salary this season, and the $52 million that is owed to him to through 2012. Despite the statements we’ve heard about attendance at U.S. Cellular Field being down and the team potentially needing to hold steady or even cut payroll, Reinsdorf signed off on the deal. (Not sure what this means for a potential Jermaine Dye extension, the John Danks contract talks, and even a potential renegotiation for Mark Buehrle, but that is all to be dealt with later.)
2. Jake Peavy had to waive his no-trade clause, which he had refused to do when the trade was originally consummated between the two teams back in May. Peavy waived it, in large part I would assume, because the White Sox are contenders and built to remain contenders for the foreseeable future, while the Padres are not.
3. Just to talk to Peavy about waiving his no-trade clause, they had to get ahold of him. And as you read above in the excerpt from the Miller article, Peavy was napping with his son when they called him 40 minutes before the deadline. What if his ringer had been off? If Peavy doesn’t return the phone call, the trade does not get done and Clayton Richard starts against the Yankees last night. Crazy.
4. Not only did the White Sox, the Padres, and Peavy have to get all of the details ironed out between them, the two teams had to officially call in the trade to the MLB office. According to Ken Rosenthal’s story, they got the call in with 23 seconds to spare. Again…crazy. Can you imagine if the line was busy or Ken Williams’ cell phone was momentarily out of service? (And, on a side note, how ironic that would have been considering the name of the White Sox ballpark!?)

All of these details and many more combined to make the White Sox acquisition of Jake Peavy one of the more unlikely and exciting trades in the history of the MLB trade deadline. From the details, it appears as if karma and fate was on the side of the White Sox in getting this done. Not since Michael Jordan was roaming the Windy City have Chicago, a city icon (and that is what Ken Williams is becoming) being described as having “the biggest balls in the game”, the number 23, and last-second heroics come together in such exciting fashion. 

Now for some analysis. 

Part of the reason I wanted 24 hours to digest the trade before posting anything about it is that my opinions have been all over the map since talk of the trade originated in May. Initially, I was pumped and went so far as to create a petition for White Sox fans to sign in an effort to show Jake Peavy some South Side love. But after the trade didn’t happen, Peavy got hurt and I took a more thorough look as his career stats and splits. In so doing, I became convinced that the trade not happening was a blessing in disguise for the White Sox. So when word of the trade broke yesterday, my reservations won out and I was not as excited as a lot of other Sox fans seemed to be.

With 24 hours of perspective, reflection, and more information, I still have some reservations…but overall I am very happy with the trade and think the positives outweigh the risks and potential negatives. Furthermore, I love the fact that Ken Williams didn’t just make a deal simply to make one. He has a very specific plan for how Jake Peavy fits into the team’s plans for success this year and over the next three seasons.

Unlike many GMs, Ken Williams always thinks big and thinks in terms of championships. With the Tigers bolstering their pitching staff by adding Washburn, and the Red Sox, Yankees, and Angels also having excellent front-end starters and solid depth, Williams knew the Sox needed one more really good arm to add to the trio of Mark Buehrle-Gavin Floyd-John Danks. If the White Sox can hang in the race, Peavy is saying that he will be back by the end of August; and because his injury is an ankle problem, not anything to do with his arm, there is no reason to think he won’t be his usual nasty self pretty quickly upon returning. He’ll also be fresh, which could be a huge boost not only to help the White Sox get into the playoffs, but to be better positioned to make some legit noise once there.

Additionally, if the White Sox can get something done with John Danks, they could very well have a four-man rotation of Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavy, Gavin Floyd, and John Danks signed through 2011. In an era in which starting pitching depth is usually one of the most important factors for success, you would be hard-pressed to find another organization that would not trade their rotation straight up for the rotation that the White Sox could have locked in together through 2011 (when Buehrle’s current contract ends).

Considering the young offensive talent we have in Carlos Quentin, Gordon Beckham, Chris Getz, and Alexei Ramirez, plus hopefully another couple of productive seasons from JD and Paulie, the White Sox appear poised to compete for AL Central crowns and AL pennants for at least the next 2-3 years, while also giving themselves a more realistic chance at doing serious October damage this year…if they can make it.

So, while I’m concerned that Jake Peavy’s overall numbers will drop by coming to the tougher league and pitching in a tougher park, and while I wonder what the ripple effect will be of his hefty contract, and while I think that we dealt at least two guys — Poreda and Richard — who are going to be at least solid big league starters…I throw my full support and endorsement behind this deal.

When you have a GM that you absolutely would not trade for any other GM in the game, it would be foolish not to trust him. 

Well done Kenny. Time will tell if your vision of the future effect of the Peavy deal ultimately comes to fruition, but you have certainly earned the benefit of the doubt and the benefit of fan confidence in your moves. A lot of fans would kill to have a GM who swings for a double every now and then; White Sox fans should feel pretty lucky and excited that our guy never hesitates to swing for the fences.

As my KVB so aptly put in his text message after the deal was announced yesterday: “You can put it on the board…PEAVY!”

**********

Here are some other reactions from out friends in the South Side blogosphere:

• Peavy (question mark, exclamation point) — (Tremendous Upside Potential)
• White Sox acquire Peavy — (Sox Machine)
• Peavy deal makes White Sox contenders in 2009 and beyond — (South Side Sox)
• Not a joke: Peavy to the White Sox — (White Sox Mix)

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

* – Ken Williams photo credit: Upper Deck Blog

The Curious Case of Journalists Perpetuating “Pathetic” and “Ridiculous” Steroid Speculation

I don’t really know the best way to introduce the source material that I am about to comment on, so I’ll just copy/paste an excerpt and let it speak for itself before adding my own thoughts:

From a recent article by Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Times:

Thanks to Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, etc., fans outside St. Louis must wonder, ‘Do we celebrate Albert Pujols or suspect him?’ . . .

Pujols has batted four times with the bases loaded this season and three times has hit grand slams. . . .

In his only other at-bat with the bases loaded, the St. Louis Cardinals slugger delivered only a two-run single. . . .

Sadly, it makes you wonder. . . .

Now, being from the Midwest and never having lived in LA, I was unfamiliar with Jerry Crowe’s work before seeing this article. However, I have to assume that he has proper journalistic training and some level of understanding for the “professional ethics” and “standards of decency” that were trotted out time and again over the past couple of weeks since I wrote about Raul Ibanez.

Geoff Baker and Ken Rosenthal know what I’m talking about.

I honestly don’t even know what to say. It’s not like this article by Crowe is an isolated example of some mainstream sportswriter going rogue and speculating about specific players using steroids. As was chronicled in the myriad posts written about the Raul Ibanez “controversy”, there are countless examples of media members making claims very similar to what Crowe has written above and similar to the article I wrote that touched off such a fire storm.

And I am not highlighting Crowe’s article because I disagree with him or think he is wrong to speculate. Albert Pujols is in my own personal group of players (along with Raul Ibanez, Derek Jeter, and a few others) that I believe in the most, but no one would truly surprise me anymore. I don’t think that Albert Pujols is on steroids, and his statistical consistency as well as what I’ve read about his high level character are two reasons why; yet, I certainly can understand why people would speculate, and the thought has definitely crossed my mind that it’s a reasonable possibility.

So I have no problem with what Crowe wrote. That’s not the point.

What I just find to be hilariously ironic, especially after another viewing of the Outside the Lines video a couple of nights ago, is how righteous and arrogant Ken Rosenthal was and how many of his peers came across the same way in their responses to what I wrote. Believe me, I’m glad they did because it helped to drive traffic to our site and give us a brief little brush with “fame” and exposure, but their larger points about how the blogosphere is ruining sports writing just seem more and more laughable with each post I read like Crowe’s above.

For some reason, bloggers took a tremendous amount of external criticism in the aftermath of Raul Ibanez’s comments about my post. And, come to think of it, I wonder if Albert Pujols is going to publicly scream at Jerry Crowe for his “pathetic” speculation. Perhaps not, since I assume Crowe wrote it from the LA Times offices and not from the dark nether regions of his mother’s basement.

But the truth of it all is this:

1. Bloggers didn’t create the steroid problem in baseball, baseball did. So getting angry at me or anyone else who writes about it honestly and genuinely is terribly misguided. That’s like having a water pipe burst or break at your house because the plumbers did a shoddy installation job and getting mad at the cable guy for talking about how wet your floor is.
2. Bloggers certainly didn’t create steroid speculation on our own. Journalists have done it for years (it just came far too late, I’m afraid). As I said above, I don’t have a problem with it. I just have a problem with people accusing the honest, hard-working, passionate sports fans who blog of being “unprofessional” and “unethical” and “attention whores” and “lacking standards of decency” and the multitudes of other trite criticisms we hear, when the “journalistic standards” (whatever that term even means) to which we are ostensibly being held (although most of us never claimed to be setting out to uphold them) are not even being upheld by their own peers.

There are fair criticisms and critiques from professional writers that we should listen to because they can make our content better, but I just hope that if Ken Rosenthal or Geoff Baker reads Jerry Crowe’s column that they roll their eyes, think it’s ridiculous, and write 5,000 word articles lambasting Crowe for his lack of integrity. (And I wonder if Crowe reached out to Pujols before “hitting publish.” He has “access.” Sadly, it makes you wonder…)

It just makes the last couple of weeks look like a disingenuous charade from a group of people who feel threatened by bloggers and the uncertain future of their industry. And it makes all of the righteous indignation seem like nothing more than a bunch of verbose and ironic nonsense.

Tom Fornelli, the author of FoulBalls.net and a writer for FanHouse, said it best as you can read in the excerpt below. And since his article is the one that alerted me to this story, and is the reason I am writing about it, I will both mention him by name and link to his article. (You see, journalists, in the blogosphere we have our own code of ethics and integrity and *gasp* actually follow it!).

It does make me wonder. It makes me wonder what exactly the difference is between what Jerod Morris did on a blog and Jerry Crowe did in the Los Angeles Times. Frankly the only difference I see — aside from the fact Morris did actual statistical analysis and Crowe just threw his opinion out there — is that Crowe speculated about a specific player’s steroid use in a major newspaper that I’m sure has a far greater reach than MidwestSportsFans.com, yet for some reason I doubt there will be as much of a reaction to it.

I guess responsibility only applies to those without press passes.

I have nothing else to say about this story.

By the way, for a funny little anecdote about Sammy Sosa and his obsession with the Sammy Sosa Gun Show, here is another great post by Fornelli at FanHouse. Has a player ever fallen from beloved and respected to resented and laughed at more precipitously than Sammy Sosa? It would be sad if every problem Sosa has faced was not brought on by his own selfishness, personal choices, and the ineptitude of the union and league that he was a part of.

And if you still want more MLB content to read, the good folks over at Sparty and Friends put together a nice piece regarding MLB contraction.

**********

My apologies again for the lack of activity this week. Work has been extremely busy and my two best friends from college are in town so my time at night to write has been limited, but it sure has been great catching up. We ate dinner at Fogo de Chao last night. Ridiculously expensive and ridiculously worth it. See if they have one in your city and go right now. It’s amazing.

And on the very bright side, my previously ill dog is almost fully recovered from surgery and will be completely back bouncing around like his old self in about a week. Thanks again to everyone who sent emails and tweets with kind and supportive words. They were all very much appreciated.

Have a great day everyone.

The Anchor’s Desk: The More Legitimate Blogs Become, the More Responsibility They Need to Assume

A Web log, also known as a blog, can be written by anyone. You can blog about your feelings, your cat, or whether you think it’s fair to suspect Raul Ibanez of using steroids, which is what JRod famously did last week.

Blogs have taken off, and now we’ve got a problem. The lines have blurred.

What happens when bloggers get together and create a site like Midwest Sports Fans, updating it with news, and making it look and feel like a news site? Are they now journalists with the same standards?

With mainstream media being consumed on the web more and more each day, it’s tougher to discern what’s journalism and what’s “just some guy writing.”

If you go on a newspapers’ website to get the news, it looks like a website, has a banner on top, and some columns and news items. If you go to a blog site, like Midwest Sports Fans, it may look pretty darn similar, with the basic web design, sponsor links, and columns. The difference is that the columns on this site don’t have the same journalistic standards.

This has become a pretty slippery slope.

As sites like Midwest Sports Fans explode in popularity, they become more legitimate-looking. Therefore, such sites’ readers treat then more as “news” as opposed to “wanderings of the mind.” Does this mean higher ethics and journalistic standards need to be exercised?

In the case of Raul Ibanez I think it does.

When you have Raul Ibanez reacting to it, and Jerod Morris (JRod) appearing on ESPN, you know your site has arrived. There is a responsibility to balance your right to blog with journalistic principles of fairness.

Here’s an analogy: If you tell a group of four friends that you suspect Mr. Smith is gay (and why), you’d feel okay, because you’re just telling a few people. But would you stand in a crowded opera house of 1,000 people and announce that with a megaphone? Probably not. You’d have to feel a little funny about that.

That’s the difference between writing something in a chat room or e-mail, versus placing it on a huge blog site like MWSF.

When talking about journalistic standards, the lines are blurry of course. Newspaper writers who blog for their own papers’ websites have let their standards slip. A decade ago, you would never print rumors or hunches unless you could confirm them. Nowadays, for some reason, the same legitimate journalists will post just about everything, thinking its okay because it’s “just on their blog.”

They put something on the web and then say…“but I haven’t been able to confirm it.” Then can you really say it at all?

However, I still know they would not go as far as to drag a stand-up guy like Ibanez into the steroid discussion, out of the blue. I’m a journalist, and I wouldn’t have. Mainstream media members have their reputations and relationships to maintain.

The subject of who has to stick to journalistic ethics and standards boils down to how you present yourself. If Jerod wondered about Ibanez’s possible steroid use in a chat room, it wouldn’t matter. But since MWSF has a huge following, Jerod (JRod) has turned himself into a quasi-journalist and needs to be careful. He told me on Friday that he doesn’t regret writing about his Ibanez-steroid theory (and naming him), he only regrets he wasn’t more careful with the tone and the title of the story. In other words, bloggers should have the right to say what’s on their mind, but he does sense that there is a level of responsibility that comes with it.

Remember bloggers, you’re not just talking to your friends anymore. You’re sharing this stuff with 50,000 people or more, larger than some newspapers’ entire circulation.

Jerod wrote a piece, basically saying it’s sad that in this day and age we have to suspect aging sluggers of steroid use. He speculated that Ibanez could very well be using.

If a member of the mainstream media wrote that piece, the author would not be ethically able to name Ibanez as an example, unless he was getting Ibanez’s reaction on the topic of “the blanket of suspicion.” There was an SI article on the same topic, using Albert Pujols as the focus. The reason that article was okay was that Pujols was discussing how sad it is that there are doubts. Plus the article wasn’t done in a way to ignite speculation.

JRod said he would have asked Ibanez about the topic, but bloggers don’t have the same access to the players as regular media. I believe that makes it not okay to name names.

When JRod was on Outside the Lines (picture courtesy of Awful Announcing), Ken Rosenthal blasted him for not showing any decency and writing whatever he wanted. John Gonzalez of the Philly Inquirer took more of a middle ground, saying bloggers are the “wild west of journalism,” and they have to be careful. I agree with John to a point. People can blog about whatever, but when blog sites start to look like news organizations, there have to be some standards.

JRod did not come out and say Ibanez is using…he just said there is reason to doubt him in this day and age. That doesn’t sound terrible, but because JRod’s following is so huge, it certainly created a huge backlash, including from Ibanez himself.

MWSF has the burden of popularity. It has become legitimate. It has become a place people come to for insight and information. It is very easy for someone who is reading online material to forget they are on a blog site as opposed to mainstream media website.

At the end of the day, it’s up to each blogger to realize they have a level of responsibility to fact-check and not spread rumor. JRod found out the hard way that your tone and the way you present facts can do a lot of damage. While he says he doesn’t regret naming Ibanez, he says it has made him think about being careful. I also credit Jrod for reaching out to Ibanez after the story broke in Philadelphia and trying to explain himself.

That’s the type of responsibility, accountability, and decency that needs to be on everyone’s mind next time they blog.

———-

Scott Reister is a featured contributor to Midwest Sports Fans, as well as Dallas Sports Fans.

He is a Sports Anchor for the NBC affiliate in the Tri-Cities and Spokane, WA. To learn more about Scott, visit the Scott Reister bio page on Midwest Sports Fans or check out the Local Sports page on KNDU.com.

To contact Scott: sreister@hotmail.com

The Debate Shifts: Who Is the Freaky Guy on the Left?

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?

Supporting JRod: Rosenthal and Gonzalez Misguided in Their Criticisms

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.

Mainstream Sports Media Scared Stiff and Not Sure of Next Move

After viewing and reviewing today’s episode of Outside the Lines, I could not help but begin to wonder why Ken Rosenthal and John Gonzalez were feigning such outrage towards Jerod’s post regarding Raul Ibanez.

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.