ESPN hypocritical for ripping A-Rod
Posted: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 3:41 PM
Alex Rodriguez made more of an apology and more of a confession than just about everyone who’s ever been caught using performance enhancing drugs in any sport – ever. I accepted it with its flaws and holes and shortcomings and decided it’s time to move on.
Then I turned on ESPN and discovered that I am utterly, completely, entirely, wholly and in every way wrong.
Jim Rome and his guests told me that A-Rod is the lowest form of vermin on the planet, a lying, cheating weasel who is hated by the very teammates who came to his press conference to support him. His guests agreed and even knew exactly what they would do if they were A-Rod.
On “Around the Horn,” it was more of the same. A-Rod lied about everything. I was told he even lied when he said he was stupid, which is the one thing he was absolutely right about.
I was laughing so hard I almost forgot to be disgusted. This was ESPN, the network of the jocks, by the jocks and for the jocks; the network that has reinvented the act of sucking up; the channel that employs the very people it is reporting on.
It is so predictable. ESPN never criticizes anyone in any serious way until that person has been knocked to the floor and is gasping for the next breath that could be his last. After checking to make sure they don’t have a promotional arrangement with the poor fellow, the fawning anchors lace on their extra-long cleats and start kicking what’s left of the poor schmuck into an unidentifiable pulp.
The level of outrage is beyond all reason, but to be an ESPN commentator these days, you’re not allowed to have any reason to begin with. It’s all about seeing which way the mob is running and then dashing to the front and running in the same direction. It’s not leading, it’s following from the front.
And as ESPN goes, so goes the nation.
On nearly every subject, there is an accepted opinion that one must have in order to continue to be seen as an expert. Try to exercise a brain cell and put something in context and you’re either an idiot or looking for a job or both.
What makes this so very, very wrong is the way ESPN holds itself up as the arbiter of all that is right and good in sports. The truth is that ESPN has no concept of journalistic ethics. It’s a great network, a pioneer that reinvented sports television and continues to lead the industry. It’s got a lot of brilliant people working for it and a few genuine journalists. But its mission is not journalism. It’s promoting the events it reports on. It’s selling a product.
ESPN is in bed with the people it is supposed to be covering objectively. Its anchors shill for diet aids and sports products. It pays athletes to do commercials for it, then reports on the athletes.
During today’s feeding frenzy on A-Rod’s carcass, ESPN aired one of its cutesy commercials that feature superstars hanging out in the network’s Bristol, Conn., offices. The superstar was Chris Paul and the anchor was one of ESPN’s 347 identical Dan Patrick wannabes. The anchor asks Paul how many he’s going to score in the game that night. Paul says 28. The anchor tells someone on the phone “28.” We don’t know who he’s talking to, but we’re left with the impression a bet of some kind is involved.
This is supposed to be funny and maybe it would be if sports betting weren’t a crime and getting inside information from a player is another crime. The NBA just went through a scandal with a referee betting on games he was working. And now ESPN is running a commercial that seems to approve of using insider information from players to win bets.
Someone should be outraged at the idea. David Stern, the NBA commissioner, should be calling ESPN and demanding that the ad be pulled. Paul’s agent should be outraged that his client would be tricked into seeming to celebrate felonious behavior. Rome should be appalled at the message the little children are getting.
But no one objects because everyone’s too busy beating the snot out of A-Rod. And they’re doing that because that’s the proper reaction. They know that because that’s the direction the mob is running.
A couple of years ago, Shawne Merriman, a superstar NFL linebacker, got suspended four games for violating the league’s steroid policy. A-Rod’s crime was to use drugs that the league didn't test for. Merriman flat-out broke an NFL rule. But where A-Rod is getting killed, Merriman heard barely a whisper of outrage from ESPN or anyone else. He didn’t have to call a press conference and shed tears of remorse. He didn’t have to detail what he used, when he used it, how he used it and who helped him use it. The only question anyone asked was how soon he could come back and whether he’d be in good enough shape to help his team win.
This is hypocrisy, people. Baseball had no rules against steroids (yes, Bud Selig said it was wrong, but the union never agreed so it wasn't on paper), and even when it said you shouldn’t use them, it didn’t test for them. So baseball players who use them are the most evil people who ever lived, while football players are just guys playing a game?
No one on ESPN brought that up. But on one of the shows, the commentators expressed shock and outrage that A-Rod also admitted using an amphetamine-like supplement that’s since been banned by baseball. They acted as if this were proof that A-Rod lied about everything else. Not one of them said that just about everybody in the game used amphetamines for 50 years and that baseball didn’t ban them until last year.
Last year!
None of it matters. A-Rod is down now, and ESPN is going to keep right on kicking him, just to prove how ethical everyone in Bristol is. And a lot of my colleagues are going to do the same. Not because it’s right, but because that’s what we’re supposed to do.
