There has been little to write about recently other than which player went where, why and what the impact will be. Been there. Done that. This has been most likely the topic of many fellow BBA’ers.
But a recent incident reported by ESPN stirred enough of a reaction to post this. Accept for live events, I gave up watching ESPN years ago. It went from showing informative and somewhat irreverent Sports Centers to hype-central. I swear they must get a kickback from the NFL since it seems like nearly half their programming is NFL-related. With ESPN it’s hype-city.
Their baseball coverage has been borderline good with Tim Kurkjian and Buster Olney being the best of a mediocre crop of reporters. The MLB Network in much better. (Watch anything that Bob Costas does).
Besides the hype, the thing that has really gotten me keyed up is their reporting on players who have had misfortunes. They go non-stop with columns, quotes and worst of all conjecture.
This happened earlier when they broke the Ryan Braun story all but announcing him guilty without knowing all of the facts. If Braun is exonerated or even receives a reduced suspension, he should seek defamation of character.
Now comes the story of Josh Hamilton being seen in a bar with a drink. We all know about Hamilton’s brave fight against addiction, how he is willing to talk about it, how he has someone travel with him during the season so he doesn’t give in to temptation. We admire what must be an awful situation and how disciplined he’s been.
One slip-up and it becomes a feature story. Is this news? Of course it is, but ESPN carries it too far. Already there’s been a column posted by Jean-Jacques Taylor saying that the Rangers should not consider re-signing him because of his relapse. Relapse? It’s not like he was found roaming the streets incoherent in an alcoholic stupor. He had a drink. Know one knows why. That’s for his doctor and the ballclub to determine. Why doesn’t Taylor think the Rangers’ should have dismissed manager Ron Washington when he admitted taking marijuana earlier in his career?
Perhaps he is still despondent over the ball-throwing incident last season in which a fan unfortunately fell to his death trying to retrieve it. Something like that is sure to make a dent in an already fragile makeup.
We don’t know why Hamilton had a drink. That’s all he did, have a drink, and it’s not anyone’s business to try to probe why. Not even ESPN. They would presumably respond that it is their “duty” to report incidents like this, and, of course, it is. But report it and get over it. Follow-up when something has been decided. But no, they have to keep hammering away at an athlete’s character without all of the facts and without consideration of the impact it has on his friends, family and fans.
How many more athletes must ESPN tarnish before people say enough is enough?
Going Yard 