Story on fan who caught A-Rod's 500th - too much?

Newsday didn't necessarily catch up with the guy who caught A-Rod's 500th home run Saturday afternoon, but they pretty much snuck in and sucked away his life story from his MySpace and Facebook accounts.

Some people say they like to use the information since it's public, others are not fans. Personally, in this story, I think they went too far - especially when they said he declined requests to be interviewed and turned off his phone.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spball0806,0,1154598.story

 

Doesn't this violate his right to privacy? I'm guessing a judge won't rule him a public figure just for catching a baseball.

 

I'm OK with everything until they start quoting from his MySpace page. Say he grew up in NJ. Say he attends Rutgers. Say he turned off his cell phone. Talk about the media relations interaction. Don't need to go into the "Sonny the Progressive" or "I'm very opinionated" stuff.

 

Puke.

This has nothing to do with the guy, it's about the reporters who saw a worthless MySpace page before it went private, patting themselves on the back.

Who cares? Nothing in that information is pertinent to the story of A-Rod's HR ball.

 

The MySpace shit is just that. Nonsensical fluff to pad out the story.

 

I think they went overboard, but still the Internet is free domain, so they can look it up all they want.

 

If I had that ball, I would take all the autographed memorbilia they're offering, then I'd demand to take a round of batting practice and shag BP fly balls before a game.

That would kick ass.

 

Yeah, but that's part of the issue I have with it - the page is apparently private now because he didn't want the attention. It seems more like "Hooray! We saw it before he knew! Let's show off to the rest of the people!" which, at that point, is more unfair than anything.

 

The right to privacy doesn't extend to information you disclose about yourself on the internet in a public forum.

Plus the information they printed wasn't exactly earthshaking. There might be a better argument if, say, they discovered the guy was a Klansman, or wanted for murder in 12 states.

 

Wasn't aware of that. Thank you.

 

True. But again, by making it all private so soon - shouldn't that be a hint that he doesn't want it to be shared? Granted, it's nothing of substance, really, but that action alone seems to be saying "stay away, leave me alone" on the same public front.

 

Probably not the ultimate criteria for reporting.

But again, the reporting here was about the reporters. Dopey.