Some news while waiting for the Yankees to play: Alex Rodriguez may have that $300 million contract to keep him warm at night, but he’s supposedly being investigated by MLB on whether he used performance-enhancing drugs, according to today’s New York Times.
And – surprise! – Selena Roberts is the only named source saying that this investigation is happening. Good thing she doesn’t have a conflict of interest in trying to gin up an ‘A-Rod in trouble’ story in order to sell books or something.
According to the Times:
On Friday, an investigator asked Roberts if she would cooperate with baseball’s inquiry. Roberts said she would not.
“I said that as a journalist, I cover M.L.B., and cooperating with them on this would be a conflict of interest, and he said that he understood the position that I am in,” Roberts, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and a former reporter and columnist for The New York Times, said Saturday in a telephone interview.
What I find fascinating is that although this investigation allegedly started after A-Rod met with MLB March 1, we didn’t hear a peep about it until Roberts’ book release. The timing of this revelation is suspicious, to say the least.
And Roberts’ explanation is an interesting one. Usually, when a reporter refuses to reveal a source, it’s because it could put the person in danger. Not here.
Besides, isn’t it a conflict of interest, given her own logic and the fact that she covers MLB, that she admitted she knows the list of all 104 players who tested positive for steroid use, and has only revealed one name? That doesn’t seem very ethical or fair to me.
Or how about the ethics of Roberts accusing A-Rod of tipping pitches to the opposition, even though not only does she keep her sources anonymous, but she also won’t reveal Alex’s alleged co-conspirators, or even specificpossible games this
I have my doubts that anything will be done to A-Rod, though, unless somebody is willing to go on the record and say they saw him juicing. Conjecture and anonymous rumors may be suitable for Selena Roberts’ book, but the players’ union would never stand for Alex being punished without real documentation.
You don’t have to like Alex to wonder about whether Roberts is telling the truth here. To lie on national radio, as Selena did on the Dan Patrick Show, and claim that she didn’t discuss A-Rod’s personal life and extramarital affairs, when it turns out she has done just that in vivid detail, is astonishing.
Jason Whitlock, the iconoclastic sportswriter, takes down Roberts today in his Kansas City Star column (thanks to one of our readers for the tip):
The national media anti-snitching campaign is twice as pervasive and effective as anything put together by the Bloods, Crips and LAPD. For the most part, we refuse to squeal on each other.
Roberts’ book is a long-winded blog. Why it’s being treated as an unimpeachable piece of journalism can only be explained by the cushy position she’s been handed by The New York Times, ESPN and Sports Illustrated and the unchallenged institutional bias found within the elite sports media institutions.
Like the Duke lacrosse players, the elite media have decided that Alex Rodriguez is fair game for abuse. Rules of fairness do not apply.
I agree with Whitlock’s column on everything except the “long-winded blog” slam. A blogger would never be able to get away with such sloppy sourcing and logic as Roberts has!
What do you think? Leave us a comment!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
