SMG interviews Gordon Edes

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

SMG interviews Gordon Edes

http://www.sportsmediaguide.com/interviews/gordon-edes/

Q. How would you grade yourself on your coverage of the Steroid Era? In retrospect, would you have done it differently?
A. I failed badly, out of naivete and ignorance more than anything else. I didn’t raise the issue enough, and certainly didn’t press it with my bosses. One of the biggest stories I missed was giving light treatment to the fact that the owners and players were willing to shelve drug testing as an issue in exchange for labor peace in the 2002 CBA.

How would I have done things differently? I don’t think beat reporters should have been acting as private detectives on a nightly basis—their primary responsibility was to tell the reader who won and lost and why—but in my On Ball role I certainly could have pounded away at the issue.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

SMG interviews Gordon Edes

http://www.sportsmediaguide.com/interviews/gordon-edes/

Q. How would you grade yourself on your coverage of the Steroid Era? In retrospect, would you have done it differently?
A. I failed badly, out of naivete and ignorance more than anything else. I didn’t raise the issue enough, and certainly didn’t press it with my bosses. One of the biggest stories I missed was giving light treatment to the fact that the owners and players were willing to shelve drug testing as an issue in exchange for labor peace in the 2002 CBA.

How would I have done things differently? I don’t think beat reporters should have been acting as private detectives on a nightly basis—their primary responsibility was to tell the reader who won and lost and why—but in my On Ball role I certainly could have pounded away at the issue.

How 'BOUT that, Mikey?

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Gordo....

Best baseball writer I have ever worked with.

 

[BYH]

That Papelbon pickoff story is one of the best deadline things I've read in a long, long time.

 

[Beaker]

That Papelbon pickoff story is one of the best deadline things I've read in a long, long time.

Agreed. That was an incredible piece.

 

[henryhenry]

didn't know the Globe jerked Edes around on his baseball column.


what's with this Globe SE anyway? why would he jerk around somebody as valuable as Edes?

 

[goalmouth]

I have no truck with Edes as a writer. But I am sick of hearing reporters having to answer for not covering the steroid era.

"If you had a chance to do it all over again, would you have killed Bin Laden during your interview?"

Oy.

 

[Bullwinkle]

That Papelbon pickoff story is one of the best deadline things I've read in a long, long time.

Anybody have a link? I remember hearing about it last year -- wasn't it Holliday he picked off? -- but never got around to actually reading it.

 

[Joe Williams]

I have no truck with Edes as a writer. But I am sick of hearing reporters having to answer for not covering the steroid era.

"If you had a chance to do it all over again, would you have killed Bin Laden during your interview?"

Oy.

Asking isn't necessarily blaming, although Edes does answer with a mea culpa. I find it interesting to know what the major national baseball journalists were thinking during the worst of the steroids era. I agree with Edes that it would have been difficult if not impossible for a team's beat writers to aggressively pursue it -- that could easily cut off needed sources for day-to-day coverage -- but the national writers might have dug deeper and pushed harder.

I still remember Tom Boswell getting razzed or ripped by a lot of seamheads for his speculation about Canseco in the A's hey days, late '80s.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Minus the power of subpoena, I don't know exactly where digging deeper and pushing harder takes you as far as getting something solid enough to publish.

Ballplayers don't give up their peers. They gossip about them, but when it comes time to commit for the record, do they have anything to say? And do they actually <b>know?</b> I can have evidence that someone is taking steroids, but maybe there's a friendly doctor who's writing a prescription. Players have all sorts of injuries that could require steroids as part of the rehab. There's also a doctor-patient confidentiality issue.

Then there's the matter of HGH, which isn't even included in the current testing.

I have great respect for Gordon, but I think he's misguided in thinking he "missed" this story.

 

[BYH]

Ballplayers don't give up their peers. They gossip about them, but when it comes time to commit for the record, do they have anything to say?

Yes.

"I have no idea about steroids. I've never seen anyone do them."

 

[BYH]

That Papelbon pickoff story is one of the best deadline things I've read in a long, long time.

Anybody have a link? I remember hearing about it last year -- wasn't it Holliday he picked off? -- but never got around to actually reading it.

Here you go:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/10/26/roaring_and_soaring/

 

[Bullwinkle]

That Papelbon pickoff story is one of the best deadline things I've read in a long, long time.

Anybody have a link? I remember hearing about it last year -- wasn't it Holliday he picked off? -- but never got around to actually reading it.

Here you go:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2007/10/26/roaring_and_soaring/

Thanks BYH!!

 

[SF_Express]

I have no truck with Edes as a writer. But I am sick of hearing reporters having to answer for not covering the steroid era.

"If you had a chance to do it all over again, would you have killed Bin Laden during your interview?"

Oy.

I've said it so many times, I just didn't have the energy anymore.

 

[BigJim5190]

I love Gordo's stuff and I think the Globe will find replacing him with Tony Mazz isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

Was I the only one who read that story (great stuff) and said, "Who's Mills?" because he wasn't identified?

Who amongst us hasn't made that annoying deadline mistake?

 

[silentbob]

I've always thought that the people bashing baseball writers for not uncovering the steroids story are people who have never covered baseball.

There's a reason the biggest source on this topic is Jose Canseco, a guy's who's been out of the game for years.