Fans, other media blame AJC for Griffey fiasco

Posted this on the Spring Training thread, but thought it deserved its own thread ...

Braves fans and perhaps even other media outlets are starting to blame beat writer David O'Brien and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for Griffey getting away (though the source on the original "Griffey to Atlanta" story came from columnist Terence Moore).

From O'Brien's blog:

http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2009/02/19/griffey-to-atlanta-nevermind/

Here's the link to that mlb.com story, and the relevant passage:

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090218&content_id=3846944&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

If Griffey really based his decision on the paper jumping the gun, then he's a bigger headcase than I thought ...

 

What's yer point?

 

I love it when people think the media has that much power. If Ken Griffey had really wanted to play with the Braves, no amount of leaks on the story would have stopped it. It's a nice red herring to fling because the negotiations might not have gone completely his way.

 

Griffey didn't say anything about it -- the Braves did. Nonetheless, the AJC story had nothing to do with his decision, I'm sure. Terence Moore just had a source that wasn't as good or as connected as he thought and the AJC ended up looking stupid in the process.

 

Who cares? Atlanta's better off. He would be worthless to an NL team anyway. He needs to do nothing but DH five days a week against righthanders. The only reason ATL would want him is to use his name value to sell some extra tix. In that case, fans should be furious with the team for wanting to sucker them out of some extra money, because Griff would not help them win any ball games.

 

I'd be really surprised if a guy like Griffey would base his decision on a newspaper breaking a story. And I don't really blame the guy who reported it. If you hear from a reliable source a big name like Griffey is coming to your team, you want to break that.

 

I think he got along pretty well with Hal McCoy, but that may have been because Hal was covering the Reds when Griffey Sr. was playing.

 

Wow, so now we've gone from "You're costing my kid a scholarship" to "You're costing my team a Hall of Famer who's way past his prime."

 

Or because Hal is the living definition of the word professional.

 

YOU ONLY COVER US WHEN KEN GRIFFEY IS A FREE AGENT!