I’m sure other important things have happened in the sports world over the past few days. For instance, the Bruins and Sharks game is on Versus right now and it’s almost as exciting as last night’s Beanpot Final. Hey, the Giants are bringing back Rich Aurilia! But with a degree of predictability matched only by the CSI franchise, I’m still torturing my eyeballs by reading about the A-Rod/Peter Gammons cuddlefest.
Jeff Pearlman, former ESPN.com scribe and author of “The Bad Guys Won” and “Love Me, Hate Me : Barry Bonds And The Making Of An Antihero”, is off to a hot start with his new blog and in addition to cringing over WFAN reactions to Rodriguez’ whimpering (“I refuse to give A-Rod credit for following what is clearly the only script that™s been proven to work in these cases: Admit, narrow it to a limited number of years, express remorse, then look toward the future. Does anyone with a brain truly believe Andy Pettitte only used HGH two times?”), takes great umbrage at Gammons (above) providing A-Rod with a vehicle to run over Sports Illustrated’s Selena Roberts.
Nearly 10 years ago, shortly after I wrote the John Rocker profile for Sports Illustrated, Peter Gammons garnered an œexclusive interview with Rocker. During their on-air sit-down, Rocker teed off on me, questioning my ethics and judgment, etc ¦ etc.
Gammons just sat there.
Over the years, I™ve only known Gammons in a Hi-and-Bye capacity. We™ve spoken on the phone a couple of times, and recently he blew me off after agreeing to talk about Roger Clemens for my upcoming book. I certainly respect the man™s knowledge of baseball, and was happy when he returned from his stroke.
That said, well, gimme a break. The reason Gammons scored the interview with Rocker a decade back is the same reason he scored one with A-Rod today: He™s the Larry King of sports television. Softball questions, limited inquisitiveness, an easy time for all involved. I™m not sure if Gammons was jealous of Selena for scoring a huge story, but he had to”absolutely had to”follow up Rodriguez™s presumably ludicrous accusations with a question or two or three or 10. œAlex, are you saying Selena Roberts literally broke into your building? Alex, can I see the paper you™re referring to? Alex, you rip Selena Roberts™ reporting? But wasn™t she, ahem, correct?
I like how the part about the stroke implies there are possibly other ESPN (or all-media) personalities whom one might say, “I’m glad they are in good health, but don’t miss them being on the air.”
Good stuff. I respect Peter Gammons but I’ve always said that around the trade deadline he is usually pretty much wrong about every single ‘insider’ story about who’s being traded for whom. I think Will Carroll broke the Man-Ram trade last year which would seemingly put Gammons’ efforts to shame given how cozy the Glob is with the Sox. And his stream-of-conscious style of speaking kinda drives me crazy. Focus, Peter, focus!
His ‘stroke’ was actually an aneurysm, btw.