Friday Links
Brett Lawrie's grand slam celebration is already the stuff of legend. My favourite part is Lawrie tossing his helmet, having it bounce off Encarnacion and then the two guys body slamming each other, while Lawrie whoops it up. Lind and Romero cracking up in the background and Bautista applauding the display of uber manhood add to the general awesomeness of the entire thing.
Yesterday's game was a total buzz kill and I don't even want to think about it. The Jays are in tough this weekend versus the Angels, having to face Santana, Weaver and Haren. Vernon Wells makes his return for the first time since being traded. People are probably going to boo, and, judging by their completely irritating and disrespectful commercials, Sportsnet wants Jays fans to boo Wells because he is such a horrible disappointment and suffocated all our dreams. When Carlos Delgado made his first return, people wanted to boo him because he had refused to be traded before free agency. Well, Wells let the team trade him and both sides have moved on. He gave a lot to the community (I'm pretty sure his contract had a charitable gift clause. I think he had to donate $100,000 to Jays Care, or something.) Wells was very involved in local youth baseball. And Vernon was always good natured and humorous. So, yeah, completely boo-worthy.
Some people (at least on Twitter) are tired of talking about the ESPN article, and I am a little, too. But the reaction to the reaction I still find interesting.
Some people (at least on Twitter) are tired of talking about the ESPN article, and I am a little, too. But the reaction to the reaction I still find interesting.
The Tao of Stieb had a little chat with Grantland's Chris Jones about the situation. Which is really excellent work on the Tao's part, but mostly contributed to my dissatisfaction. The Tao will probably find that sentence amusing.
Jeff Blair, a respected veteran sports journalist who is not in the ESPN community, criticized the article, saying it used "mathematics from your mother’s basement" to try and prove the outlandish claims made by the White Sox, so one can't really dismiss criticism towards the article as not liking the message or somehow not understanding the way investigative journalism works, which is something Keith Law did a few times over Twitter.
I had expressed earlier my disappointment in Keith Law's reaction to it, in the way he just deflected any sort of criticism of the numbers presented in the article. I think he knew that Nelson was taking a lot of shit on this, she's his friend and he wanted to deflect any more heat coming her way. The mainstream American press' reaction to this goes along the same lines. When Anthoplous said that the baseball community is a very small fraternity, I would say that the sports writing community is even smaller. I have no issue with the idea that some teams think the Jays are cheating nor do I think the use of unnamed sources is wrong. It's using cherry picked evidence to suggest it that it may be true that is the problem.
Also, something new I thought about. The article is basically one anecdote from anonymous sources surrounded by questionable numbers. The White Sox being the accusers isn't in the article itself, but it came from Jose Bautista when he was questioned about the incident mentioned in the piece.
Earlier in the season, Russell Martin and Joe Girardi came right out to the press and publicly said that they believed something was fishy. Like many who heard it, I dismissed it as trying to deflect attention away from struggling Yankee pitching but I am almost certain that that is what triggered this whole thing in the first place.
So, why use anonymous sources on incidents from a season ago when people are publicly saying things to the press, during a series between teams from this season?
I had expressed earlier my disappointment in Keith Law's reaction to it, in the way he just deflected any sort of criticism of the numbers presented in the article. I think he knew that Nelson was taking a lot of shit on this, she's his friend and he wanted to deflect any more heat coming her way. The mainstream American press' reaction to this goes along the same lines. When Anthoplous said that the baseball community is a very small fraternity, I would say that the sports writing community is even smaller. I have no issue with the idea that some teams think the Jays are cheating nor do I think the use of unnamed sources is wrong. It's using cherry picked evidence to suggest it that it may be true that is the problem.
Also, something new I thought about. The article is basically one anecdote from anonymous sources surrounded by questionable numbers. The White Sox being the accusers isn't in the article itself, but it came from Jose Bautista when he was questioned about the incident mentioned in the piece.
Earlier in the season, Russell Martin and Joe Girardi came right out to the press and publicly said that they believed something was fishy. Like many who heard it, I dismissed it as trying to deflect attention away from struggling Yankee pitching but I am almost certain that that is what triggered this whole thing in the first place.
So, why use anonymous sources on incidents from a season ago when people are publicly saying things to the press, during a series between teams from this season?
ESPN published a story on the White Sox reactions to the piece, but I didn't see one about the Jays. Unlike Keating and Nelson's piece, the article has comments from actual former Jays. The Sausage King has no clue and figures if it happened, it was very, very secret. He is now questioning his whole time in Toronto, wondering what it all means (that last bit was artistic license.) Maybe that's why Frasor took so long to throw his pitch. He was thinking about all the secrets being kept from him. Ozzie Guillen remains awesome.
And this idea that four separate sources came forward isn't exactly true, as it came from four pitchers in the same bullpen. Those guys do nothing but talk for about 5 innings, and I'm sure the conversation topics range from food to boobs to Jesus, but if the team gets killed in a stadium the way the White Sox get killed in the Rogers Centre, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that they throw some conspiracy theories in there, too. Jose Bautista is described as smiling coyly when accused, which has its own implications. I would describe Bautista in a lot of ways, but coy isn't one of them.
I did a little investigating on the coverage of past accusations of cheating. I had forgotten that the Yankees were doing something fishy over opening weekend this season, and unlike with the Jays story, there is photographic evidence. It's a story from NESN, which is obviously completely neutral. What I didn't find is any kind of piece from ESPN on this. It broke first through Keith Olbermann, who used to work for ESPN.
I also found an old story about the Red Sox having TVs in the Fenway bullpen during a Tampa Bay series, until Lou Pinella got the umpire to make them turn them off. But again, that article is from a Tampa area paper, not on ESPN.
Most of these stories, including the man in white story, are amusing but reading them and the coverage of this piece in general just makes me a little bitter. I, by no means, think this is a wide-spread anti- Jays, anti-Canada conspiracy. But it leaves me a little peevish.
I also found an old story about the Red Sox having TVs in the Fenway bullpen during a Tampa Bay series, until Lou Pinella got the umpire to make them turn them off. But again, that article is from a Tampa area paper, not on ESPN.
Most of these stories, including the man in white story, are amusing but reading them and the coverage of this piece in general just makes me a little bitter. I, by no means, think this is a wide-spread anti- Jays, anti-Canada conspiracy. But it leaves me a little peevish.
Most stories about this kind of sign stealing are treated like humorous soft news, while this, with a similar anecdote at it's core, was treated like hard investigative journalism. Actually, the "man in white" story is even flimsier because, unlike the Yankee employee in the stands or the bullpen TVs, it was never substantial enough to be investigated by either an umpire or MLB.
Jose Bautista has been subjected to a tremendous amount of scrutiny since breaking out. Sign stealing has now been piled on to the implications of PED use and jokes about bat corking. His numbers before the All Star break put him firmly in the lead for the AL MVP, but his success was repeatedly dismissed by American broadcasters and sports writers, who named a rotating line of Red Sox players (and one Yankee) as those who were worthier. The more these things happen, the more respect I have for Bautista in the way that he shakes off all the talk, is open to discussing his approach and in the way he leads the Jays.
Jose Bautista has been subjected to a tremendous amount of scrutiny since breaking out. Sign stealing has now been piled on to the implications of PED use and jokes about bat corking. His numbers before the All Star break put him firmly in the lead for the AL MVP, but his success was repeatedly dismissed by American broadcasters and sports writers, who named a rotating line of Red Sox players (and one Yankee) as those who were worthier. The more these things happen, the more respect I have for Bautista in the way that he shakes off all the talk, is open to discussing his approach and in the way he leads the Jays.
People, over Twitter, asked me why I said I respect Nelson as a writer. I have followed her work a little bit over the past few years, and two stories stand out for me. One was a story on Luke Scott, which not only highlighted Scott particular brand of tea bagging craziness but also made me think about race in general and, in particular, race in Latin America (read it, maybe you'll see why.) The other was her piece on Nick Adenhart and the other people who died in the car crash that claimed his life.
This cheating story is by far not her best work, but Amy K Nelson isn't a hack.