Wilbon at Wrigley: Yes or no?

Running threads suck. Like a newspaper with no headlines.

 

Could not agree more.

As for Wilbon, he shouldn't have done it, but there have been much more blatant cases of journalists compromising their objectivity. I'd call this a misdemeanor, not a felony.

 

I'm with Mizzou, Stitch. That's pretty dumb -- a throwaway line, but dumb nonetheless.

 

The Cubs couldn't find some sitcom star who was passing through town?

 

Actually, I have no problem with it whatsoever because of what Michael Wilbon is in 2008.

MW is now much more of a sports personality than a columnist. He is a brand and a legitimate sporting celebrity. MW has also had the good sense to realize that his bread is buttered the thickest at ESPN than at the Post.

Of the thousands of people who DO cover sports on a national or semi-national level, some major scandal involving the Cubs will probably not slip through their hands, leaving MW as the one who decides whether to run with it or not.

It is not as if a major league baseball writer (of any team) sang TMOTTBG at Wrigley.

 

We'll chastise a guy and call him a "dirty-old man" for writing about a female sideline lackey (notice, I did not say reporter) in a locker room, but for some reason, some of us shrug our shoulders when Wilbon throws out the first pitch, sings the 7th-inning stretch and caps it with, "Let's get those runs back."

"Let's"? Let us? Um, Mike. You're a journalist.

I like the guy (both as a person and writer) but he probably should have steered clear of this (no matter how tempting it would be to say yes.)

But hey, that's just me. You may feel different. But that's what makes the world move, right?

 

Good God, people. You write about sports.

I'd probably have more of a problem with this if Wilbon wasn't the hardest working national columnist I can think of. There's no way you can find me another national guy who can comment intelligently on as many sports and as many leagues as Wilbon can.

 

Singnapore,

The reasons you give, which are true on all accounts, is actually why I have a problem with it. (Not that me having a problem with it matters). If this were some hack, I wouldn't have looked twice.

 

Granny beat me to this one.

200 pages ripping Erin Andrews for not acting like a journalist, while one of the top sports journos in the biz is singing at the ballpark. What would Jerome Holtzman say.

 

Different rules for the people at the top I suppose. And I made the crack about Wilbon because what he's doing is devaluing his career in journalism. If he wants to be a talking head, fine, but don't call yourself a serious journalist if you pull community-rag homerism crap.

How many viewers of PTI know that he's a newspaper writer. What percentage of viewers check out his columns? If it's above 25 percent, I would be shocked.

 

I think the rip-jobs of Andrews (thick-headed and jealous though they may have been; hell, they were thick-headed and jealous) had more to do with the supposed lascivious nature of her back-and-forth with the Cubs players.

Sure, the idiots may have tried to pass it off as some sort of journalistic issue, but let's be real here. We know why it made these dolts uneasy.

You can't criticize Wilbon on one end while criticizing the overzealous nature of the mouth-breathers that went off on Andrews.

 

Do you know how haughty that sounded?