“I may not be the smartest guy in the world,” sneered Fox Sports Radio’s Bruce Jacobs earlier this evening, “but I’m not the stupidest, either.” Oh yeah? Jacobs takes considerable umbrage at “that sleaze” Donald Fehr objecting to confidential testing results being made public and insists that with the advent of PED’s, Major League Baseball “is no different than pro wrestling”. Clearly, the broadcaster believes the changing physiques of modern ballplayers renders baseball’s results predetermined (last time I checked, it was easier to place a wager on a baseball game in Las Vegas than a WWE match).
Some of Jacobs’ harshest criticism, however, is reserved for the publishers of Sports Illustrated, whom he accused of sitting on today’s A-Rod story “for maximum impact”. “Do you really believe this story just landed on their desks last night?” asked Jacobs (above). “Why do we only hear about these stories right before a World Series….or right before Spring Training?”
Anyone with the slightest knowledge about the publishing industry could tell Jacobs that it makes the most sense to launch a baseball-themed tome in the spring or slightly before. However, it’s much harder to understand how SI publishing the A-Rod revelations on the first Saturday morning in February, constitutes “maximum impact”. There’s no new issue of SI on the nation’s few remaining newsstands today, and there’s way less web traffic on a Saturday compared to Monday at 9am.
MLB.com’s Seth Everett weighed in on Fox earlier in the day, opining there was something fishy about 4 independent sources all confirming Rodriguez’ test results, but the names of the other 129 violators somehow were lost in the shuffle. Everett went so far as to suggest A-Rod claim he’s a victim of extortion, which I think is a rather fantastic accusation. There’s plenty of people who’d like to expose A-Rod to ridicule without charging a penny.
There’s a lot of fishy things about this story. First, the tests themselves were supposed to be anonymous. Second, there is a story floating around that someone broke the numeric cipher attached to each sample and tied one of them to A-Rod. Third, the “anonymous source” thing doesn’t exactly give it a gold seal of credibility.
I’m not defending the guy. Heaven knows he brings most of his problems on himself, but singling him out seems to be just a bit of piling on. If it’s true that someone decoded the ID numbers on the samples, how in the hell did they get the information on just his sample and no one else’s?
I don’t know about all this. I don’t think you can trust SI to give you an accurate story on something like this. Sounds to me like they took a vague rumor and ran with it. I may be wrong, but until they start connecting names with the sources, and demonstrate that the information was obtained legally and without violating his rights in any way, I’m just going to chalk this all up to SI needing a bump in circulation and this Roberts woman needing some advance pub for her “feature story.”
If it is true, then it would certainly be a disappointment, but in light of events the past few years, not really shocking at all.
“the ‘anonymous source’ thing doesn’t exactly give it a gold seal of credibility”
very true, though some pretty big stories have been broken thanks to anonymous sources. Were it not for unnamed accusers, Nixon probably would’ve served a full 2nd term.
“how in the hell did they get the information on just his sample and no one else’s?”
A worthy question. If 130 guys tested positive in 2003, why is A-Rod’s the only name to emerge? He’s obviously the big fish and he’s contributed a Raffy/Gary Hart moment to tv history (see below) but he can’t possibly be the only prominent player to have tested positive.
“until they start connecting names with the sources, and demonstrate that the information was obtained legally and without violating his rights in any way, I’m just going to chalk this all up to SI needing a bump in circulation and this Roberts woman needing some advance pub for her ‘feature story.'”
Based on her prior work, Ms. Roberts doesn’t strike me as someone trying to make a name for herself at the expense of celebrities. Players and their union alike have every right to worry how this leak came about, but at the risk of repeating myself, if this was all about selling more copies of S.I., they wouldn’t give the story away on a Saturday morning.
Off the topic, but more Jacobs:
http://jackrabbitcafe.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-every.html