It's called working a corner and keeping America's streets safe for children.

[jason_whitlock]

http://sports.aol.com/whitlock/_a/lauding-rogers-shameful-after-ripping/20061024163709990001

 

[Oz]

Jason, you're slipping. Usually you allow for someone else to post your work and boost the ego.

 

[jason_whitlock]

Oz, you know I have no shame when it comes to self-promotion.

 

[spaceman]

you sure know how to stir up some ****, JW

 

[poindexter]

Re: It's called working a corner and keeping America's streets safe for children

Jason, you're slipping. Usually you allow for someone else to post your work and boost the ego.

You assume that anyone would have found him at aol.com.


Anyways, I love that column. Whitlock's fall 2006 modus operandi is to set his sites squarely on his colleagues, and I think it's vastly entertaining... not unlike a prime time soap, or pro wrestling all those years ago. Keep up the bashing.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

The Cardinals, A's and Yankees do not appear outraged, from what I've read, which I think is a whole lot stranger than a Detroit columnist not peeing on his readers' picnic. It's not as if the rival Detroit News was after Rogers' blood, either:

Listen, folks. Is the smudge suspicious? It is. But there's no concrete evidence of anything, and it's preposterous to suggest it explains Rogers' brilliance.

Pitchers use whatever they can to grip the ball during cold weather. If Rogers pushed accepted practices too far, then La Russa should have raised a bigger ruckus. And if it wasn't worthy of such a stir, it shouldn't be overblown after the fact, casting unfair aspersions on Rogers and his unbelievable tale.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061024/SPORTS08/610240403/1004/SPORTS

I think at some point, Jason, you're going to have to concede that people are going after Bonds mostly because they do not like him. Same reason why people here often go after Albom with as much venom as they do -- a more likable columnist might not get a pass here, but the piling on wouldn't happen so often.

 

[jason_whitlock]

Jason, you're slipping. Usually you allow for someone else to post your work and boost the ego.

You assume that anyone would have found him at aol.com.


Anyways, I love that column. Whitlock's fall 2006 modus operandi is to set his sites squarely on his colleagues, and I think it's vastly entertaining... not unlike a prime time soap, or pro wrestling all those years ago. Keep up the bashing.

poindexter, blasting the media has been part of my shtick throughout my career. goes back a good 12 -13 years.... i covered the fab five michigan team and ripped albom's fictional book about the team in print. albom knows how i do business.

 

[BillyT]

Re: It's called working a corner and keeping America's streets safe for children

Albom -- the most celebrated sports writer in the history of newspapers

How do I put this nicely?

Red Smith!

And I could follow with Grantland Rice, Peter Gammons and more than a few others.

Starting with Red Smith!

Albom is best known as a best-selling author, not a sports writer.

Red Smith!

 

[BillyT]

Re: It's called working a corner and keeping America's streets safe for children

The race card?

Playing the race card?

Red Smith wouldn't have done that.

Wow. That's ludicrous.

 

[BYH]

Clown.

 

[slappy4428]

Actually, my favorite line was "I wish I was making this up," since Albom has pirated and abused the phrase stolen from Dave Barry, "I am not making this up" for years.
And of course, the Dwarf would say it was something TV made up. Meet me in St. Looie was "no big deal."
Of course, if Cris Carpenter had **** on the heel of his hand, the Dwarf would be bitching about it until his next book comes out.

 

[Colonel Forbin]

Re: It's called working a corner and keeping America's streets safe for children

Randomly read an Entertainment Weekly article on Albom today, and it struck me how quickly he brushed off his newspaper transgressions. He basically said it was a mistake, he did it, you shouldn't, move on. Just no remorse. But at this point, he's more Dan Brown than Dan Wetzel, so I don't know why I was surprised at all.

I also enjoyed the "I wish I was making this up" line...it reminded me of a comedy act I saw, though I can't remember who - Lewis Black, maybe.

(I wonder, though, about your 10 rules for rolling. They're hardly rules, but who am I to argue with Big Sexy)

 

[jason_whitlock]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/sports/baseball/25bbmediacnd.html?hp&ex=1161748800&en=a1c7c7ed9610f641&ei=5059&partner=AOL

new york times beat me to this topic, i guess. damn...

 

[slappy4428]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/sports/baseball/25bbmediacnd.html?hp&ex=1161748800&en=a1c7c7ed9610f641&ei=5059&partner=AOL

new york times beat me to this topic, i guess. damn...

Damn. When you're getting beaten up by Squeaky, it's time to admit you screwed up...

 

[jgmacg]

Re: It's called working a corner and keeping America's streets safe for children

Here's an honest question for XXL Sexy. Not trying to be a smartaleck, but genuinely curious on the occasion of this column you posted. I ask because this column returns us yet again to the Barry Bonds issue.

Mr. XXL has two important themes, which recur again and again in his work.

The first is that Barry Bonds is only doing what the culture around him, baseball, calls upon him to do. He is not morally or ethically liable for his behavior - in fact he is powerless to change it - because that culture virtually insists a player cheat. All players cheat (Rogers, et al.) in the culture, therefore Mr. Bonds, helpless, is simply a prisoner and a product of the culture he inhabits.

The second recurrent theme in the Whitlock canon is this: As per Dr. Cosby, et al., all young black American men must be held responsible for their own outcomes. They must take responsibility for the decisions they make. They must act upon the world, rather than allowing the world to act upon them. They must rise above the failings of the culture they inhabit (including hiphop's denigration of women, and glorification of violence; drugs; the disregard for education; the abdication of personal responsibility in the face of fatherhood, etc.). Young African-American men must, in other words, transcend the culture they inhabit and take control of their own moral future by making the decision to rise above the corrupt state of moral relativism that the culture insists upon.

How can you reconcile these two arguments?

Barry Bonds, not held to account because he's merely a pawn in a corrupt system?

Or the mandatory moral and ethical self-determination of the individual, who must rise above his surroundings - or fails the Whitlock litmus test by not doing so?

Which is it XXL?

I don't think you can have it both ways.

 

[spnited]

My passion for serving as a self-appointed sports media watchdog has put me at odds with many of my sports-writing brethren who believe in a code of silence or anonymous message-board posting.

I like things out in the open. There’s no one in the sports media I truly dislike personally. I just have a strong distaste for hypocrisy, bojangling and hidden agendas, and I like writing about those issues.


Holy crap. That is the most self-serving pile of **** I've ever read...but I should expect it from an egomaniacal blowhard.

 

[Oz]

Oz, you know I have no shame when it comes to self-promotion.

Good point.

And I liked how they had a poll run with the column -- Who do you consider a cheater? The options are Barry Bonds (36 percent), Kenny Rogers (7 percent), both (46 percent) or neither (11 percent). Saw those results coming, huh?

 

[Double Down]

Here's an honest question for XXL Sexy. Not trying to be a smartaleck, but genuinely curious on the occasion of this column you posted. I ask because this column returns us yet again to the Barry Bonds issue.

Mr. XXL has two important themes, which recur again and again in his work.

The first is that Barry Bonds is only doing what the culture around him, baseball, calls upon him to do. He is not morally or ethically liable for his behavior - in fact he is powerless to change it - because that culture virtually insists a player cheat. All players cheat (Rogers, et al.) in the culture, therefore Mr. Bonds, helpless, is simply a prisoner and a product of the culture he inhabits.

The second recurrent theme in the Whitlock canon is this: As per Dr. Cosby, et al., all young black American men must be held responsible for their own outcomes. They must take responsibility for the decisions they make. They must act upon the world, rather than allowing the world to act upon them. They must rise above the failings of the culture they inhabit (including hiphop's denigration of women, and glorification of violence; drugs; the disregard for education; the abdication of personal responsibility in the face of fatherhood, etc.). Young African-American men must, in other words, transcend the culture they inhabit and take control of their own moral future by making the decision to rise above the corrupt state of moral relativism that the culture insists upon.

How can you reconcile these two arguments?

Barry Bonds, not held to account because he's merely a pawn in a corrupt system?

Or the mandatory moral and ethical self-determination of the individual, who must rise above his surroundings - or fails the Whitlock litmus test by not doing so?

Which is it XXL?

I don't think you can have it both ways.

An excellent post, and one that I suspect will be either ignored or at best brushed off with a one-line retort by Whitlock.

Still, a good column by Jason.

 

[RokSki]

Oh, WELL played JW. Well played. You got in so many excellent jabs in there, that was fun to read. From the "anonymous message board posters" down to the "oral cheating" (gosh, that wouldn't have anything to do with ESPN's new Page 2 hire, would it? Thought not!) Best thing you've written in a while, and that's not a backhanded compliment. Just a very nice synthesis of a lot of disparate elements. Really liked how you brought it back to Bonds, and the Albom / Lupica "Axis of Goodness" posse. Best thing I've read in awhile. Wiley gives props from the Pearly Gates.

Jgmacg, good question. Good to see someone bringing up some good debating points. I'm not going to speak for JW, but what his column seems to say is Albom, too, can't have it both ways. If Bonds is cheating, so is Rogers. Not either / or. Even baseball purists like Olbermann accept and acknowledge the cheating in baseball. So why's Bonds all the sudden the (convenient, dark) Antichrist?

Love the column JW. Love the question and the thought behind it, JG

 

[RokSki]

Randomly read an Entertainment Weekly article on Albom today, and it struck me how quickly he brushed off his newspaper transgressions. He basically said it was a mistake, he did it, you shouldn't, move on. Just no remorse. But at this point, he's more Dan Brown than Dan Wetzel, so I don't know why I was surprised at all.

Yeah, what a gem that Albom is, eh Colonel? And Rogers = Moses? When does his drivel stop? Someone needs to make a "Random Albom column generator" like they did for Simmons. Same stuff again and again. Overwrought, touchy - feely bunk.