The Meddler, Part 2: Heyman lets Torii Hunter slander Lew Ford

By The Common Man

Yesterday, as you'll recall from TCM's post this morning, Jon Heyman said some things that were basically untrue.  Today, he opened his laptop again and relayed information that was patently, blatantly false in his post contending the Twins were consistently intimidated by the Yankees in their playoff losses.  Take it away, Jon:

Ex-Twins star Torii Hunter said some Twins players were beaten before they started, which finally confirms what has long been suspected: that the Twins are intimidated by the Yankees....  Hunter recalled one 2004 ALDS game the Twins lost where they had a runner on third with one out, down a run against the great Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, and Twins manager called on a young righty hitters to bat against Rivera, and Hunter recalled that hitter turning down the pinch-hit assignment. "You need a righty hitter against Rivera with his cutter,'' Hunter recalled. But according to Hunter, Ford shook his head no. So Gardenhoire used another kid, Jason Kubel, a lefthanded hitter, who Hunter recalled getting jammed. "Kubel wasn't afraid, but he's a lefty hitter,'' Hunter said.

That's a really compelling story, undone only by the small problem that it never happened.  At least not like Torii Hunter said it did.  Kubel never pinch hit against Rivera in 2004 (his first year in the Majors), and Lew Ford started three of the four games, and in the one he didn't start, Rivera faced six batters, and none of them were (or should have been) pinch hit for.

Certified Public Accountancy

By The Common Man

Last night, as Jason Wojciechowski pointed out, Albert Pujols made an incredibly poor defensive play that wound up costing the Cardinals what turned out to be the winning run. Misjudging a poor throw from John Jay, Pujols reacted late and allowed the ball to bounce off his glove rather than cutting the ball off cleanly and holding Elvis Andrus at first base.

After the game, as we learned this morning, Pujols was nowhere to be found in the locker room. Similarly, Yadier Molina, Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman were absent as well. Jeff Passan complained that Pujols’ decision to leave early showed “zero leadership” (which seems unfair, he could have led the other veterans out). Jon Paul Morosi similarly wrote, “The lack of accountability was inexcusable from a man who is frequently described as a good teammate — and will soon want to be paid like the greatest player in the game.”

Yet Another Slugger Linked to PEDs...By Random Trolling Columnist With Zero Evidence

By The Common Man

In the wake of Jeff Miller’s reeking post about Jim Thome and his baseless accusation that Thome used steroids (TCM won’t link to the actual article, which is a classic attempt to troll the internet. Instead, read Matthew Pouliot’s takedown on HardballTalk), The Common Man wants to skip his usual rant about the dangers of idiots with media credentials, who seem to think that their journalism degree gives them license to essentially slander another person with the charge of PED use. And he’s skip the lecture about the hypocrisy of the mainstream sports media, who refuse to call out one of their own for such disgusting, unfounded allegations, despite the fact that the mainstream media would (rightfully) pillory an unaffiliated blogger who made similar claims. Instead, The Common Man wants to tell you a story.

I Will Not Respect David Tyree's Convictions

By Bill

This is not a baseball post. If legal and political issues tangentially connected to sports are not your thing, feel free to move along right now.

Jemele Hill is a columnist for ESPN.com, with which we are, of course, affiliated. From everything I’ve seen (which isn’t a ton, I have to admit, not really being a fan of any of the lesser, non-baseball sports), she does a fine job. None of what follows is meant as a personal attack on Hill (or a professional one, apart from the one piece that is the subject of this post), or a criticism of ESPN itself.

She posted a column today, though -- well, yesterday, but the date on it is June 22 for some reason, so I’ll pretend it was today to make this seem more current -- that discussed former NFL wide receiver David Tyree and his controversial public stance against gay marriage. And putting aside how you feel about that subject (though I suspect a lot of my feelings will come through here), the whole premise and virtually every word of the piece struck me as deeply, deeply flawed, and I feel I have to say something about it.

John Harper's Hypocrisy

By The Common Man

As Craig reminds us this morning, in 2009, Jerod Morris wrote an article on fantasy baseball that pondered a fast start by Raul Ibanez, and went through a few of the possible causes for that start. After running through various explanations, Morris wrote,

“It’s time for me to begrudgingly acknowledge the elephant in the room: any aging hitter who puts up numbers this much better than his career averages is going to immediately generate suspicion that the numbers are not natural, that perhaps he is under the influence of some sort of performance enhancer. And since I was not able to draw any absolute parallels between his prodigously improved HR rate and his new ballpark’s hitter-friendliness, it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility that “other” performance enhancers could be part of the equation.

Sorry Raul Ibanez and Major League Baseball, that’s just the era that we are in — testing or no testing.”

Morris was excoriated by the mainstream press.  Somehow, his article got picked up by the Philadelphia Inquirer, who called it a “cheap shot,” and took it to Raul Ibanez. Ibanez vehemently denied using PEDs. Geoff Baker (a writer TCM has come to respect though he still believes Baker to be ridiculously pompous and out to lunch in this particular article), wrote about the differences between “basement bloggers” and “real journalists.” And various ESPN talents weighed in on the controversy.

Fast forward to 2011, and John Harper of the New York Daily News, a “real journalist” by Baker’s (and any others’) definition, speculates on the causes for Jose Bautista’s increase in offense and writes,

“Let's hope he's clean.

Sorry, but even in this drug-testing era, it's impossible not to be suspicious when someone suddenly starts hitting the ball to the moon in his late 20s. Unfortunately, steroids forever hardened us to the romance of a late-bloomer like Bautista, especially when baseball still has no test for human growth hormone.”

With apologies to A-Rod, John Sterling is history's greatest monster

By The Common Man
The Common Man was driving in to work this morning and came across a SportsCenter on the radio that included Yankees announcer John Sterling. Sterling is a hack and an embarrassment who substitutes catch phrases for description and is not just complicit in, but an active force driving the decline of modern baseball announcing. The Common Man dares anyone to listen to him for an entire game and not want to put a slug in their radio.He is smug and unilluminating, and has a pun available for every Yankee player (for Marcus Thames’ go-ahead single last night, he told listeners that “good Thames are here again” while every homerun from Mark Texeira is a “Tex Message”).He has been criticized, not just for being a bad announcer, but an inaccurate one.And according to River Avenue Blues, he’s just as obnoxious in real life, “John Sterling is, for better or worse, a member of the Yanks’ extended family, but he comes across, according to many in the industry who have met him in various capacities, as thinking that his histrionics are responsible for the team’s success….Maybe that’s why I personally have never warmed up to Sterling. The game is about the guys on the field; it’s not about him. But on the radio and at the White House too, it’s always about him.” Awful Announcing has reports that he lacks table manners. Look, the Yankee Universe boasts some of the most intelligent and reasoned fans out there. It also boasts a bunch of morons. If you like John Sterling, you belong in the latter camp. The New York Yankees can, and should, do better.

News News, Failing the Written, and Bad Hampster

The newspaper industry has been hemmoraging money in recent years, and even the most world-renouned periodicals are strapped. The New York Times is taking out a new mortgage on its building and getting into bed with shady Mexican bajillionaires. The Wall Street Journal has become a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Papers everywhere are laying off reporters and cutting back on staff, and are relying even more heavily on wire services like the AP (ignoring the fact that AP's content is also available online, where the papers are getting their butts handed to them) at the expense of local coverage (in which local papers have a distinct advantage).

As newspapers get pwned by the internet, videos like this 1981 San Francisco news report are especially ironic, as they highlight the role that newspapers themselves have played in their own demise:




--But even as the newspaper industry sags and turns to them, the AP is having to slash its prices to compete with CNN's new wire service, and is looking for new sources of revenue. And like any great Scrooge, they're looking to profit from removing hope and joy from people's lives. For instance, CNN is reporting that the AP is claiming ownership over the iconic Hope campaign portrait of President Obama. AP's director of media relations, Paul Colford, announced “The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission. AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to [Los Angeles street artist Shepard] Fairey's attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution." The painting has generated significant revenue since its creation, but Fairley claims to have received none of it, as he donated the image to the campaign.

The Common Man isn't smart enough to know whether Fairley's image violated copyright law or not. If the image was significantly altered, or Fairley's work was only based on the photo (and isn't a copy of the photo), it may fall under the doctrine of fair use. It will be interesting to see whether AP is successful in its negotiation, particularly since it does not appear that they will be able to get anything out of the original artist (blood from a stone, and all that). Someone with a law degree should chime in on this.

--But it's not as thought the AP is a bad thing. Without the AP, for instance, The Common Man wouldn't know about Cha, the 68-year old South Korean woman who has failed her written driving exam 771 times, spending more than $3000 in application fees over the past two years. The exam requires a score of 60 to pass, but the highest Cha has gotten is 50, but she keeps plugging along, returning day after day, week after week, and month after month to take the test again and hopefully get the chance to take her road test. Look, The Common Man admires perserverance, and thinks it a noble trait that should be lauded. But Cha, dear, sometimes it's simply best to let things slide. At this point, it's fair to conclude that God never wanted you to drive a car, and move on. The Common Man's advice is to become the best damn bicyclist you can be. You haven't come particularly close to passing and, frankly, if you can't pass the written The Common Man fears what may happen if you ever do get behind the wheel.



--And finally, while The Common Man despises racial profiling in all of its manifestations, he doesn't mind discriminating on the basis of species. So, if you find yourself in trouble with John Law in the future, just tell them the hampster did it:

Plumbing New Depths

Seriously, what does The Common Man have to do to get Joe the Plumber to go away. Whatever it is, The Common Man will do it. Can he give some kind of donation? Blood perhaps (The Common Man gives blood quickly and efficiently, pumping out a pint in under eight minutes, and is unafraid of needles)? A kidney? Can The Common Man bribe someone? He'd plant a salacious and discrediting story about Joe, but a) it seems the man is addicted to attention and will regard that as a positive development and b) then The Common Man will have to endure multiple news cycles during which breathless anchors wonder why Joe the Plumber likes to hire prostitutes, have them dress in bakers' hats and aprons, and smack him with rolling pins. And frankly, The Common Man can't take it. Especially not after the Vikings' miserable performance on Sunday (it takes a while to get over a 4th quarter like that).


The Common Man made it clear before that he thought Joe was a raging moron, whose time in the spotlight needed to end (really, for the whole country's sake). But now, some desperate for attention media outlet, Pajamas Media, is sending Wurzelbacher to Israel to report (and undoubtedly solve) the fighting in the Gaza Strip. With his trademark eloquence, Joe has weighed in on the crisis, telling CNN, "It's tragic, I mean it really is. I don't say that in any little way. It's very tragic, but at the same time what are the Israeli people supposed to do.”

Sure, it's dangerous work going over there (covering the war from the Israeli side of the border, where there is no actual fighting going on), but Joe is heroically braving the 1/1,000,000 chance a bomb (thankfully) lands on his bald pate, saying "Being a Christian I'm pretty well protected by God I believe. That's not saying he's going to stop a mortar for me, but you gotta take the chance." Well, all The Common Man can say is God bless you, Joe. Get as close to the fighting as you want.

Meanwhile, as Joe clings to his flagging fame by his fingernails, opportunistic politicians and media organizations will continue to attempt to Pretty Woman (or Pygmalion, if you snobs prefer) him up, making a Congressional bid likelier and likelier. The Common Man figures that election officials won't let Joe go by "the Plumber" on the ballot, so it's only a matter of time before he changes his surname.


When three of the four most visible Republicans are George Bush, Sarah Palin, and Joe the Plumber, what does that say about that political party? If this were a baseball team, how long would it realistically take to rebuild?

Hello...Newman

Since this past Easter, The Common Man has officially been Catholic (as opposed to a virtually Catholic, which is a little like being "near-beer" in that you get the same beer-belly of guilt but none of the benefits of consumption, such as beer buzz, the feeling of invincibility, and the miraculous ability to eat an entire pizza and a plate of cheese-fries at 3 AM). And he's proud to be Catholic. But before he became Catholic, stories like this kept The Common Man and the Church at arm's length from one another.

According to the Associated Press, a Greenville, SC priest, Jay Scott Newman, sent a letter around to his parishioners, telling them that they must do penance before receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama. Newman, obviously forgetting Kang's short-lived campaign slogan "Abortions for all!" (which he and his campaign team quickly changed to "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!") claims that Obama is "the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president." He went on to say,

Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.

What The Common Man has learned, however, is that while Newman is being terribly narrow-minded and dead wrong about the tenor of an Obama administration and the relative merits of an Obama presidency versus a McCain one (certainly a vote for John McCain would have violated one or several Catholic tenets), he is an outlier within the church. Already, his own diocese has contradicted the priest, saying "Father Newman's statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic Church's teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are repudiated." Indeed, whenever a priest goes off the reservation and says something ridiculous, it seems as though it gets picked up in the mainstream press. Meanwhile, obscure protestant bigots around the country are allowed to say what they will without media attention.

The Common Man doesn't know where the fascination with Catholocism and the Catholic priesthood has come from, and why the media's obsession with the laity is largely focused on Catholics. Perhaps it has roots in a 19th and early 20th Century anti-immigrant backlash that mythologized the Pope and popularized the idea that Catholics were somehow subserviant to the whims of the pontiff, like the orders of a Catholic George III. Or maybe it's that Catholics, for all their success in this country, are still a minority (though a growing and not a very marginalized one). Or maybe it's the Latin. Or the incense. Or the pretty robes. It doesn't matter. The Common Man doesn't necessarily need the media's hyper-focus on Catholocism to be rectified (because all powerful organizations should be watched and questioned), but wishes that others were subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Meanwhile, American bishops have indeed been active in drumming up support for the anti-abortion movement. Last Tuesday, according to the AP, "the nation's Catholic bishops vowed...to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights." The Common Man hopes they do, and that their efforts bring about some kind of consensus between them and Barack Obama. Indeed, while reasonable people can and do disagree on the issue of abortion, surely all can agree that it would be better for everyone involved if there were fewer of them. And perhaps by working together, instead of throwing around heated rhetoric, these disparate groups can come together to promote more comprehensive and useful sexual education and to better educate parents on how to keep their children from having unplanned pregnancies. Anyway, that's what the Obama-supporting The Common Man is going to pray for before he takes Communion on Sunday.

Finance and Freak Outs

The Common Man, like most of you, has been following the economic news in the wake of the recovery plan passed by Congress, signed by President Bush, and enacted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. And like most of you, he's incredibly curious (and hopeful) to see whether it will work. After all, The Common Man would like to not have to ride the rails, eating beans from a can, grifting his way across the nation. Frankly, his grifting skills are in steep decline and he doesn't like beans all that much. Trains are cool though.

As he's checked back to CNN.com, he's been incredibly amused to follow the headlines associated with the bailout. Indeed, when stocks fell on Monday, CNN.com reported that investors had no confidence in the bailout plan. But on Tuesday, when the Dow rallied in the morning, the headline suggested something like the international economic relief plan had made investors confident in the solvency of their system. Indeed, whenever the stock market rises and falls, financial journalists seem to switch their narrative. If the market is up, the measures proposed by the FED are working; if the market is down, they aren't. Sometimes the narrative shifts a couple of times a day, as though everyone on Wall Street loses their shit at exactly the same time. (Currently, CNN.com is talking about a "Wall Street Whipsaw: Stocks turn mixed as investors consider recession talk, lower oil prices.")

Meanwhile, regular Americans are watching this rollercoaster and are getting nauseous and nervous. The volatility, not just of the market, but of the narrative makes it difficult to know who to trust and what exactly is happening. It's like re-reading a comic strip, but finding that the panels keep changing, and it's never how you remember it. It's disorienting and is promoting panic, and The Common Man can't help but think it's counterproductive.

Is it possible to separate the narrative of the Dow's rise and fall from the narrative of the economic recovery plan at this point? The Common Man doesn't know. The two are so intrinsically tied in America's mind right now that it will be incredibly difficult to parsel them out. Yet, The Common Man thinks that's absolutely necessary, to give the recovery plan the time it needs to work without constant speculation about whether it's working or not. Give the damn thing a couple of months, dammit before you pronounce, once and for all, how things are going. In the mean time, tell Americans how best to protect their assets and reassure them that, probably, things will eventually be ok again. Stop promoting the provoking the greatest fears of Americans who believe that a new depression is likely.

If recent history has taught The Common Man anything, its that you can't judge the effectiveness of a policy by the first few days after it's implemented. The Iraq War went great for a few weeks and everyone in Washington seemed to love No Child Left Behind when it was initially passed. Be calm, be reasoned, and let the recovery plan do it's job why don't you. Leave the editorializing for later. That goes for the media as well as for the individual.