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If you have so much as checked your email this week, you undoubtedly are familiar with story of Ted Williams – the homeless panhandler from Columbus, Ohio with the golden radio voice.

The quick summary for the four of you unfamiliar with the story: a reporter posted a video on YouTube that showcased Williams’ plight and his golden pipes; the video then got tweeted at a furious pace as well as posted on blog after blog after blog (including this one); Williams then appeared on an Ohio radio station and then soon thereafter got job offers from the Cleveland Cavaliers, the NFL, and many others; then he ended up on the Today Show, where his instant fame reached a critical mass, all in a span of about 48 hours.

The story of Williams is both heartwarming and tragic at the same time. Almost everyone’s first instinct was to feel overjoyed that this man who had fallen on such hard times was being given a second chance to leverage his amazing talent and begin life anew in his mid-50s. At the same time, I also noticed many people expressing the same fear I had: that if a strong support system did not immediately build around Williams to help him deal with his newfound fame and future income, there was a better than decent chance that the demons he once bowed down to could once again claim his allegiance.

In the story of Ted Williams, the chapter entitled The Homeless Man with the Golden Radio Voice is now completed. We have now progressed into The Famous, Employed Man with the Golden Radio Voice, and many of us remain interested in seeing where this story goes, rooting as we always do for the underdog, for the triumph of the human spirit, and for happiness and salvation to win out over tragedy in the end. We’ll see.

In the meantime, it has occurred to me today that one of the more intriguing angles of the Williams story is how the story is being covered. Some of you may not find much relevance in the story-about-the-story-being-the-story, but for a blogger like me who once upon a time clung hopefully to vivid dreams of one day being a journalist, I find it to be a rather fascinating angle to analyze. And it just so happens that two different angles related to this story came across my computer screen today that perfectly encapsulate the best and the worst of contemporary journalism in the viral Age of the Internet..

The first story came to my attention via a tweet by Hugh Kellenberger. Hugh reports on Indiana sports for the newspaper I grew up reading, the Herald Times. Here is the tweet:

Yet another example of just how shameful and disgusting poor journalism can be. Makes me want to vomit. http://bit.ly/fLcFju

I clicked on the link and found the video embedded below. Take a look.

(For those of you who do not watch, basically it is a story by the FOX affiliate in Indianapolis where a reporter, Tisha Lewis, goes out in search of talented homeless people in Indy. They find two women with rather pleasant singing voices and show video of them singing before awkwardly ending the package saying they hope something comes of it for the women.)

I have to admit that when I first clicked on the link Hugh provided and watched the video, I didn’t share his sentiment. My initial gut reaction was more of indifference. I thought it was a rather cheap gimmick by FOX 59 to capitalize on the Ted Williams story, but I also thought that if Williams could have his moment in the sun and make an entire world of Internet users feel good about themselves for helping him get there, what was so bad about FOX 59 offering up the potential for lightning to strike twice?

The more I thought about it, however, the more the cheap gimmick side of the argument started to win out in my own head. For me, it can really be summed up with the last statement of the article FOX 59 posted about it online:

Both sisters said they are drug free and sober. They admit, though, they need help. They said they are inspired by Williams’ success.

And the question is, why doesn’t FOX 59 offer up some help? They essentially used these two women, whose lives are in the most destitute of circumstances, to drive ratings based on the hot story of the day. To my knowledge, they didn’t offer them anything of value in return, except for the hope that someone would hear them sing and, what? Give them a record deal?

As Hugh Kellenberger pointed out with a subsequent tweet, what FOX 59 really did was offer these women what is most likely false hope. The story of Ted Williams is many things, but what it is definitely not is likely, and what it is almost certainly not is repeatable. Just because the Internet fame lottery wheel stopped on Williams does not mean everyone who needs some kind of talent is going to start scouring the streets for homeless people who can fill the void.

So FOX 59 can claim altruism when criticized for doing this piece, but are you really buying it? Perhaps if they’d given the women a free meal or helped them locate some housing, at least the piece becomes less exploitative and more of an exchange of value. As it is, the more I think about this story, the more I come to the conclusion that in the never-ending quest for ratings, FOX 59 decided that laziness and exploitation were the way to go rather than to offer up something meaningful to the people involved or the people watching.

What do you think? I am really interested to see how this poll turns out and also to see who feels strongly enough on one side or the other to leave a comment.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

On the other hand, the aftermath of the Ted Williams story has also provided what I consider to be an outstanding example of journalism, and it comes from Joanna Molloy of the New York Daily News. Rather than offer up a gimmick in response to the Williams story, Molloy did what journalists should dedicate themselves to doing, and that is answering the questions that the rest of us do not have the wherewithal. access, or time to answer for ourselves. Her story, entitled Behind golden-voiced Ted Williams is ex-wife Patricia Kirtley, the story’s real hero, does exactly that. I

know that I was not only one who began wondering, once the immediate intrigue of Williams and his voice wore off, what else there might be to his story. He mentioned drugs and alcohol in the original YouTube video, which made us all nod and say “Uh-huh” as we realized why he was homeless. But what about a family? Was there a wife? Kids? Was there some kind of tragedy in his past that sent him down the dark, dirty, and lonely road of addiction? I wasn’t exactly wondering all of these questions before I could fall asleep, but they had crossed my mind as the Williams story continued gaining steam.

Patricia Kirtley

Thanks to Molloy, many of these questions were answered, and we were able to fill in some gaps to a story that was so obviously incomplete as it rocketed to prominence anyway.

A viral video vaulted Ted Williams and his golden voice to fame, but the real hero of this story is the woman he left behind.

Patricia Kirtley raised four daughters alone after Williams split 23 years ago and dove down the rabbit hole of drugs.

Not only that, Kirtley took in the baby boy the radioman had with another woman and raised him as her own.

Oh, and by the way, she’s partially blind.

Those are the first four lines of the story, which the rest of the article colors in. The article provides meaningful context and backstory for everything we have seen from Williams so far and everything we will see as his story plays out in the future. The world has been riveted by his tale and most everyone who has tuned in has experienced at least some degree of excitement at him getting another shot; but stories like Molloy’s make this man with the memorable voice less a caricature and a vehicle for us to feel good about ourselves (we have hearts! we root for the little guy!) and more what he is…just a man. He is a man who has not taken advantage of a God-given ability, and it is not just him who has suffered for it. In his wake is a broken family and children who grew up without a father.

I am not pointing this out to chastise or rebuke Williams. What’s would be the point? I give him the benefit of the doubt that, now in his 50s, with the inevitable perspective that every passing year brings, he regrets some of his choices and wishes his life had turned out differently. Who he is at 57 is not necessarily who he was at 20 or 30 or 40, at least I would hope not. And now that he has been given a chance at redemption, hopefully that perspective can help him do something with it. What Molloy’s article does, which nothing else I’ve seen about this story has done, is let us know that the real story of Williams’ redemption will have very little to do with him repairing his forsaken career or making good on his talent. The real opportunity for redemption lies with his forgotten family. That layer of the story can now be understood and appreciated because Joanna Molloy did what journalists should do.

Ultimately, as much attention as the Ted Williams story has received, it really is of little consequence. It is already close to fading from relevance even as I sit here typing this. I know that. But with discussion of what the media does right and wrong ubiquitous these days, especially in the circles of discussion I often find myself, I thought it was worthwhile to step back and use this only-in-the-Internet-age story as a checkpoint for gauging the best and worst of what the media has to offer as we plant two feet firmly into a new decade.

Two weeks from now there will be a new Ted Williams, and two weeks later another. They won’t be homeless men with golden voices, but they will be people we do not know who flash in and out our lives in the span of 48-72 hours thanks to the Internet, the way we consume news and entertainment, and how it all has merged together. The stories will be as inconsequential to all of our lives as this one, but we will get caught up in them anyway, perhaps even to the detriment of other stories and issues of much more importance. Yet, as seen here, it will be the same media reporting on it all. Let’s hope that there are more Joanna Molloy’s than there are FOX 59′s in our future.

What we need in an age of too much information is to understand our world better – its nuances, its contexts, its backstories – not revel in its exploitation. This, to me, is what journalists are supposed to do and why the good ones are to be admired and appreciated, especially as our world gets more connected with more information available yet simultaneously becomes more fragmented and harder to understand. Joanna Molloy provided an example of journalism done right. FOX 59 did not.

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Update: After this article was posted, I received an email from Tisha Lewis, the reporter who did the FOX 59 story. Here is what her email said:

I thought you might be interested to know, since you published your blog, a follow up story on the “homeless sisters” aired tonight.

The Conrad Hotel Indianapolis has agreed to consider both homeless women for entry level positions pending the successful completion of a background check, drug screening and additional mandatory screening.

They also were provided with a 31-day bus pass and gift cards to Subway since that was the restaurant establishment they selected as being most convenient for them.

We are also connecting them with additional resources including housing organizations.

I tried to find a video of the new story on the FOX 59 website but could not locate it. If anyone has a link, let me know. I’ll keep looking too.

Assuming this is true, and I have no reason to believe it is not, then I commend FOX 59. I do not withdraw my judgments and statements above, because that was my impression of how the story was represented, but in hindsight I could have attempted to contact them for a comment, at which time I might have learned of what Ms. Lewis told me in her email, and I did not. I am glad that Ms. Lewis reached out to me though, and even more glad that the two homeless sisters in their original story were able to find some help through the FOX 59 piece. If the ends justify the means, then I cannot be too disdainful of the specific means here when they apparently have proven to have a positive end.

Ultimately, the main point of my post holds true; it just appears that my choice as a microcosm of the “bad” in journalism may not have been quite as bad as I thought.

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* – Patricia Kirtley photo credit: New York Daily News

As reported earlier today by Darren Rovell, Williams was hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers after members of their front office viewed the video in which he displayed his talents by the side of a Columbus area highway for spare change from passing motorists.

It is unclear what his role will be with the team.

Williams will likely start by coming off the bench at shooting guard or small forward.  He might also be tabbed as a possible replacement for Anthony Parker in the starting lineup.  Parker is averaging 9.2 points and and 2.7 assists this season while shooting 38% from the field in 30 minutes a game. He has also boasts a 1-23 lifetime record in one-one-one games against his younger sister, Candace Parker.

Oh, wait…apparently Williams will be working in some kind of announcing capacity for the team, despite his obvious ability to improve the Cavs’ play on the floor (and I say this having never seen him play).

All joking aside, congrats to Ted. He seems like a well-meaning guy who fell on some hard times, admittedly by his own doing, and now just wants to make good on his second chance. All of us here at MSF wish him well in doing so.

That is, until this week, when the sports world stops to celebrate the biggest and brightest stars of our national pastime.

Certainly, the All Star Game has lost some of the luster that it had when my dad was younger.  Back in those days (at least according to the legends I’ve been told) you typically saw one or maybe a couple of games per week, and most of these nationally televised games involved the Yankees.  This was before the Internet, before the MLB Network, before Baseball Tonight, before fantasy baseball, before cable, etc.  Thus, baseball fans like my then-Yankees-obsessed dad (we’ve slowly but surely split his allegiances between the Yankees and White Sox…or so he makes us think) had far, far fewer opportunities to watch and build fan relationships with the stars of their day than we do.  Sure, he was able to watch #7 on the weekends, and probably got to see a fair amount of Willie Mays and other stars in the big markets, but the All Star Game was really the only the time when you could see all of the best players in baseball in one place on one night.  That is a major part of what made the All Star game such an incredible event.

Today, all we have to do is watch the MLB Network for a half hour at night and there’s a good chance we’ll see nearly every superstar in the game take an AB.  Seriously.  (That’s why the MLB Network is awesome!)  And while this is great, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, there is no chance that the All Star Game could maintain it’s old school magic in the new school era.

CHICAGO - JULY 6, 1933: Babe Ruth crosses home plate as teammate Lou Gehrig waits to congratulate him during the first inaugural All-Star game at Comiskey Park. (Photo by National Baseball Hall of Fame Library/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

But with all that said, I still love watching it.  And I love looking back on the history of what is unequivocally the greatest All Star game of them all.  So for today’s post, that’s what I am doing.  At the bottom of the post, you’ll see a table that lists the results of every All Star Game since its inception in 1933. (It’s a big table, so I didn’t want to break up the text of this post by listing it here.)

The first cool bit of information I learned this morning (at least for a good guy who wears black like me) that I did not know previously: glorious Comiskey Park is actually the cradle of the Midsummer Classic, as it held the first MLB All Star Game in 1933 as part of the World’s Fair in Chicago. Notice how they didn’t have the first All Star Game in decrepit, puke-worthy Wrigley Field.  (Suck it bleacher bums.)

One of the common refrains we will hear tonight during the telecast, and that we’ve heard all week, is how the AL dominates the NL in the All Star Game.  The American League has not lost an All Star Game since the 1996 game in Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, going 11-0-1 in the last 12 contests.  But the AL’s reign goes back even further than that, as the Junior Circuit also won six in a row from 1988 to 1993 after a short three-game streak by the NL.  So the AL is 17-3-1 in the last 21 All Star Games.

But here’s the rub: the National League still holds the all-time advantage at 41-36-2, meaning the NL went 38-19-1 from 1933 to 1987 with the following dominant streaks of their own:

• 11 in a row (1972-1982)
• 8 in a row (1963-1970)
• 19 out of 20 (1963-1982)

For whatever reason, the last four decades of All Star Games have seen one league dominate for long periods of time. Prior to 1963, the longest winning streak by either league was four and it happened only twice: NL 1950-1953; AL 1946-1949.  Something else I did not know: from 1959-1962 there were two All Star Games played each year, a format that was attempted but obviously was quickly changed.

In summation, it will be important for self-righteous AL fans (like myself) to remember that the AL’s decade of dominance still has not erased the gargantuan lead that the NL developed during the 60s and 70s.  But if the AL can hold on and keep winning until 2013, they’ll be able to even out the all-time series.

Now that we’ve discussed the all-time records and win streaks by league in the All Star Game’s history, let’s take a look at some of the more interesting individual records and achievements in the history of the Midsummer Classic. (All stats courtesy of Baseball Almanac.)

All Star Game Individual Records: Career Hitting

• Most Career All Star Game At-Bats: Willie Mays — 75 (in 24 games)
• Highest Career All Star Game Batting Average: Derek Jeter — .474 (in 9 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Extra Base Hits: Willie Mays and Stan Musial — 8 (in 24 games for both)
• Most Career All Star Game Grand Slams: Fred Lynn — 1 (it’s the only Grand Slam in All Star Game history)
• Most Career All Star Game Hits: Willie Mays — 23 (in 24 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Home Runs: Stan Musial — 6 (in 24 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Runs: Willie Mays — 20 (in 24 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Runs Batted In: Ted Williams — 12 (in 18 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Stolen Bases: Willie Mays — 6 (in 24 games)

Sluggers Stan Musial and Ted Williams pose together before a 1950's All Star game.

All Star Game Individual Records: Single Game Hitting

• Most At Bats in a Single All Star Game: Willie Jones (NL) — 7 in 1950 (14 inning game)
• Most Doubles in a Single All Star Game: 8 players (including Paul Konerko!) tied with two
• Most Hits in a Single All Star Game: Joe Medwick (NL), Ted Williams (AL), Carl Yastrzemski (AL) tied with 4
• Most Home Runs in a Single All Star Game: 5 players (including Ted Williams) tied with two
• Most RBIs in a Single All Star Game: Al Rosen (AL) and Ted Williams (AL) tied with five
• Most Runs in a Single All Star Game: Ted Williams — 4
• Most Strikeouts in a Single All Star Game: 12 players tied with three
• Most Stolen Bases in a Single All Star Game: Four players tied with 2

So, if you’re scoring at home, Ted Williams pretty much had the greatest All Star Game ever for a hitter in 1946.  He had 4 hits, 2 home runs, scored 4 runs, drove in 5, and also set the single-game record with 10 total bases.

Another interesting note: five players have led off an All Star with a home run: Lou Boudreau, Frankie Frisch, Willie Mays, Joe Morgan, and, of course, Bo Jackson.

Now let’s turn our attention towards the hurlers.

All Star Game Individual Records: Career Pitching

• Most Career All Star Appearances: Roger Clemens — 10 (in 10 games)
• Most Career All Star Games Started: Don Drysdale, Lefty Gomez, Robin Roberts — 5
• Most Career All Star Game Hits Allowed: Whitey Ford — 19 (in 6 games)
• Most Career All Star Games Pitched in Consecutively: Ewell Blackwell and Early Wynn — 6
• Most Career All Star Game Home Runs Allowed: Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter — 4
• Most Career All Star Game Innings Pitched: Don Drysdale — 19.1 (in 8 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Strikeouts: Don Drysdale — 19 (in 8 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Wins: Lefty Gomez — 3 (in 5 games)
• Most Career All Star Game Saves: Dennis Eckersley and Mariano Rivera — 3

All Star Game Individual Records: Single Game Pitching

• Most Earned Runs Allowed in a Single All Star Game: Atlee Hammacker — 7 (1983)
• Most Earned Runs Allowed in a Single All Star Game Inning: Atlee Hammacker — 7 (3rd inning in 1983)
• Most Hits Allowed in a Single All Star Game: Tom Glavine — 9 (1992)
• Most Home Runs Allowed in a Single All Star Game: Jim Palmer — 3 (1977)
• Most Innings Pitched in a Single All Star Game: Lefty Gomez — 6 (1935)
• Most Strikeouts in a Single All Star Game: Four players tied with 6

Other Interesting All Star Game Records

• Largest All Star Game Attendance: Municipal Stadium in Cleveland — 72,086 (1981…Cleveland actually won something!)
• Smallest All Star Game Attendance: Braves Field — 25,556 (1936)
• Earliest All Star Game Date: July 6th (four times)
• Longest All Star Game: 15 innings, twice (1967 in Anaheim and 2008 in Yankee Stadium)
• Most All Star Games Managed: Casey Stengel — 10


Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron stand together for a victory portrait after the 1961 All-Star Game in San Francisco. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)

• Most All Star Game Losses by a Manager: Casey Stengel — 6
• Most All Star Game Wins by a Manager: Walt Alston — 7
• Most All Star Games Played: Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial — 24
• Most All Star Games Played on Losing Team: Brooks Robinson — 15
• Most All Star Games Played on Winning Team: Hank Aaron and Willie Mays — 17
• Oldest All Star: Satchel Paige — 47 years and 7 days old
• Youngest All Star: Dwight Gooden — 19 years, 7 months, and 24 days old

So that should be pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about individual performances for a career and in a single game in All Star history.  If you want to get more granular and look at the stats for individual All Star games, follow the link to the All Star Game index at Baseball-Reference.com.  There, you can view the box score for any game.

And finally, as promised, below is the table with the all-time list of All Star Game results and year-by-year winners.

Enjoy the game tonight everyone.  (And go AL!  The White Sox are going to need home field advantage when they shock the world and make it to the World Series…)

MLB All Star Game History: All-Time List of All Star Game Winners by Year

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* – Babe Ruth / Lou Gehrig photo found at: Legacy.com

* – Stan Musial / Ted Williams photo credit: ioffer.com

* – Roberto Clemente / Willie Mays / Hank Aaron photo credit: Achievement.org