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Kindred: How he and others missed/ignored the real McGwire story

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by 21, Jan 14, 2010.

  1. Dave Kindred

    Dave Kindred Member

    To Bubbler's question -- why the navel-gazing? -- I've always believed a columnist needs to own up to his mistakes. I count my willful suspension of skepticism in '98 as a mistake. McGwire's confession gave me a news peg for owning up.
     
  2. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    That's where the luck comes in. That's element #3. You have to have something break your way, be it a source coming forward, somebody in a mood to talk, a document... there has to be some luck involved. Maybe there were people who chased this in '98, but the breaks just weren't going their way.

    But I wholeheartedly dispute that to break open a story, you have to have court papers. Or subpoena this or that (sorry Bubbler).

    Think of all the great investigative stories throughout history that were broken without law enforcement. I.E., the story was broken even when the courts and law enforcement weren't involved. Hell, many of them have been about the ills of law enforcement.

    We as journalists can't sit around and wait for the authorities and the courts to do our jobs for us.

    That said, there's nothing quite like a court document or a police report to add legitimacy to your story... but it's not the only thing.
     
  3. AD

    AD Active Member

    nightengale's story ran in the l.a. times in july, 1995 -- told of gms and players confirming league-wide steroid-use. 700-plus word story. it was all but ignored...and, as 21 points out, it was done without law enforcement or court papers. just a guy -- a very good reporter, btw -- keeping his eyes open, asking the right questions, and writing what he found without gauging how the public or his peers might react.
     
  4. Dave Kindred

    Dave Kindred Member

    (Here's Nightengale's story. Good dugout talk. No users named. Never did a follow.)
    ****


    Anabolic steroids, the performance drugs of the 1980s in football, track, weightlifting and some other sports, apparently have become the performance drugs of the '90s in major league baseball.
    "We all know there's steroid use, and it's definitely become more prevalent," said Randy Smith, general manager of the San Diego Padres. "The ballplayers all know the dangers of it. We preach it every year.



    "But because there's so much money to be made these days, guys are willing to pay the price now and will pay the piper later.
    "I can understand it's a difficult choice for some players. They know it can take five years off their lives, but then they say, 'OK, so I die when I'm 75 instead of 80.' "

    Just how prevalent is steroid use?

    "I think 10% to 20%," Smith said. "No one has any hard-core proof, but there's a lot of guys you suspect."

    Said one American League general manager, "I wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to 30%, although most people will say it's about 5% to 10%. We had one team in our league a few years ago that the entire lineup may have been on it.

    "Come on, you just don't put on 50 pounds of muscle overnight, and hit balls out of stadiums. I'm seeing guys now who were washed up five years ago, and now they've got bat speed they've never had before. It's insane.

    "You can usually pick them out, because eventually they start to get back problems."

    There is no testing for steroid use in baseball. No baseball player has ever been suspended for steroid use, and even if a player were caught using steroids, baseball demands no penalty and offers no rehabilitation.

    "I'd love to see testing myself," said Chicago White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas, one of baseball's big men at 6 feet 5 and 268 pounds. "If it can be done in every other sport, why not ours? At least it would get rid of the suspicions."

    Added Thomas, who said he gained 35 pounds during the off-season, "I went in to see my doctor this winter, and he even asked me, 'Hey, are you on steroids?' It's a question people are going to ask, especially (of) the big power hitters, unless something is done about it."

    Said Padre all-star right fielder Tony Gwynn, "It's like the big secret we're not supposed to talk about, but believe me, we wonder just like the rest of people. I'm standing out there in the outfield when a guy comes up, and I'm thinking, 'Hey, I wonder if this guy is on steroids.'

    "I think we all have our suspicions who's on the stuff, but unless someone comes out and admits to it, who'll ever know for sure?"

    Bud Selig, acting commissioner, said the topic was last addressed by owners in a private meeting a year or 18 months ago. The conclusion was that no one had any evidence that steroid use should be a concern.

    "If baseball has a problem, I must say candidly that we were not aware of it," Selig said. "It certainly hasn't been talked about much. But should we concern ourselves as an industry? I don't know. Maybe it's time to bring it up again."

    Said Kevin Malone, the Montreal Expos' general manager, "I'd like to see some measures taken. The game of baseball is supposed to be about purity and fairness, but if individuals are going around and getting an unfair advantage because of steroid use, we should do something about it.

    "You hear the rumors that usage is way up, and it would be nice to know if those are accurate."

    The Major League Players Assn., which prohibits random drug testing for any non-drug offender at the major league level, said steroid testing would violate individual rights. Without the consent of the players, there won't be steroid testing soon.

    "We've got guys out there willing to risk their lives just for a piece of glory," Dodger relief pitcher Todd Worrell said. "But the problem is baseball's inability to set a policy and stand by the policy. If they set a policy, and stood up to it, it'd be different.

    "But right now, there's no policy and nobody out there to enforce it.

    "And until we do, we'll continue to have (steroid) problems, finger-pointing and controversy."
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    My two favorite parts of that story are Selig's, "We don't see any reason to be doing anything," quote and the throwaway at the end about the MLBPA opposing testing.

    In a way, it's informative to reread that. I remember the story, but hadn't thought about it in a while. The attitude it conveys convinces me of something: steroid use obviously had a stigma attached to it, but not to the degree it later became stigmatized. It wasn't until the home run records began falling that it blew up to what it is now and became the mother of all evils.
     
  6. Dave Kindred

    Dave Kindred Member

    LOL....

    Two ads at the top of this page are selling HGH. Another pushes "bodybuilding supplements" that give you 21 pounds of muscles in 30 days.

    I once did an O.J.-gets-away-with-it column on which the Google bot placed ads for knives.
     
  7. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    Thanks for posting. Another example of how good Nightengale is. If I'm not mistaken, his departure there was hastened by his "Mike Piazza says Dodgers don't get along because there's many language/diversity-related cliques" story.

    Nightengale often wrote what no one else would. When you're at a paper that at the time was one of the flagships of U.S. journalism, that should be the mandate.
     
  8. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Agree - columnist who own up to their mistakes have much greater credibility with their readers.

    It's something you would never see Lupica do.
     
  9. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    Not meant as a slam at Boom, but some trains never run late.
     
  10. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member

    Well, hell. It's tough to resist -- since it's been true, merely forever.
     
  11. Lava Man

    Lava Man New Member

    Apologies if this was noted elsewhere, but I'm curious what Dave and others (particularly Jeff Pearlman) would make of this angry screed:

    http://deadspin.com/5446141/five-offensively-stupid-reactions-to-mark-mcgwires-steroid-admission
     
  12. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Nice Charles Haley reference in that Deadspin link.
     
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