I can only assume that when he says Jerrod Morris is not Rick Rielly he means that Morris is familiar with the basic facts about which he is writing, because that is the most basic difference. “Balls that hit the foul poles should be foul balls” - I mean come on! A five year could explain that one to Mr. Rielly.

Well, yeah, he’s technically right, but he’s leaving off approximately a crapton of pertinent info, all of which would essentially destroy any case Ibanez might make. It’s almost impossible for a “public figure” like Ibanez to win a lawsuit for defamation. It IS impossible for him to win a suit where the writer out-and-out acknowledges that all he’s doing was speculating. NY Times v. Sullivan and all that. Morris, or any of us, would basically have to say, “Raul Ibanez is on steroids,” in a way that led one to believe s/he actually knew it to be true.

You’d think that a veteran newspaper guy would be *more* up on this than Baker seems to be, actually.

the-daily-something.blogspot.com

dude, seriously….get a friggin life. If all you have time for in life is to sit back and nitpick others with your condescenfding tone…...repeatedly….then you are a huge failure.

Instead of criticizing others, why dont you try writing about BASEBALL? Novel concept, I understand….but I see the header, which says “The Hardball Times”, and I get confused when I scroll down and see the TMZ quality work.

Capper—last I checked it was a free country. There are lots of great things being written at THT. If you don’t like my contributions, there are many others.

Nothing is more laughably spineless than blaming the poor reception of one’s work on the headline writer.

what does being a douchebag have to do with free speech and a “free country”?

Look, I said it with your last piece, and I’ll say it again…..if you dont like someone, or their articles, disregard it. If people stop drawing attention to stuff thats crap, then it doesnt get page views, followers, etc….its called being the bigger man….something I’m thinking is pretty novel to you.

I am really tired of the “free speech” crap used whenever someone gets called out for crap journalism like this…...maybe Bakers stuff isn’t great…..so what? Who elected you as content Czar?

Look, my point is…..write about the game….enough with the calling other writers on the carpet over your values and views…...remember, thats a slippery slope you are climbing, and someday you might end up on the receiving end of crap journalism like this.

Michael, we all know you spank it to your little Dave Cameron shrine…..

“It’s starting to look like Baker may have lost the clubhouse’s trust after his stories last season, meaning he HAS to write stuff such as the blogger-evisceration piece to keep his job.”

Good solid rumor mongering there…..

“@Capper - The guys at THT knew quite well what Craig wrote about and how he wrote it before they invited him to be part of the website. If that’s “failure,” may I be just as pathetic in my pursuits”

If thats what you aspire to, you have achieved your goal of being pathetic…...I’m sure you could get a gig over at TMZ or the Weekly World news.

Just to clear up some inaccuracies, Craig:

1. Nobody suggested/implied/intonated that the entire 2003 Seattle Mariners team was on steroids. Any more than any blog writer such as yourself has suggested that all of MLB is on PEDs when they note that some players have tested positive have there may be others yet unnamed. What I suggested was that some 2003 Mariners may have been on steroids, which is very likely given that one has already been susepnded for it, Ryan Franklin, and his 2004 Mariners teammate, Ron Villone, was named in the Mitchell Report. So, given that at least one player from that 2003 team has been suspended and two from the 2004 team that collapsed have been linked by an independant investigation, you’re hardly violating any ethical grounds by suggesting—without naming—that there may have been others.

No different from you suggesting that, after today’s news about Sammy Sosa, there may be other MLB players who used. Quite different from picking a player like Raul Ibanez, never implicated in steroids and saying in a headline that “steroid speculation” is “perhaps” (the default implication also being “perhaps not”) unfair simply because it’s “raising eyebrows” of fans in no position to know one way or the other.

I hope you can see the difference now. But then again, I don’t know you at all.

2. Your speculation about me somehow losing clubhouse access because of the Ichiro stories is also false. My access is as good as it’s always been, despite constant criticism of the team’s underperforming players. The one way you gain and keep your access in this business is to be a straight-shooter and write the truth as best you can determine it, no matter how uncomfortable it may make things for you in the short-term. And if you do lose some players, there are always others on a 25-man team. I find the whole “access’’ thing vastly overplayed by some fans, but that’s just me. 

You may be unaware, but I have technically been “off duty’’ since last Thursday, when Larry Stone took over the NL part of the Mariners’ road trip as scheduled months ago. You may not know this, but writers do tend to break up long trips, especially in this era of doing double-duty on blogs. Larry LaRue was still on the road when he interviewed Ichiro and covered the trip through Colorado before his time off. It was his turn to do today’s off-day story, whereas Stone did ours. The Mariners Blog is extra work that we do—even on most days off—and I thought that Ichiro would make a nice blog topic (even without quotes) given his sudden spike in numbers. The fact that LaRue picked today to address Ichiro in an off-day story is irrelevant. When I wrote a Russell Branyan story about his special vision training six weeks ago, it wasn’t our excolusive because Branyan was snubbing LaRue. We’d just picked different topics for that off-day’s story, as independant-thinking reporters tend to do.

Life’s really not always a conspiracy. You can be a funny writer when you stick to things you know. If in doubt, just write and ask beforehand. I’m usually very receptive to bloggers asking me questions in good faith. I’m just not in the habit of telling people things they want to hear just so it will play well to an audience. Some call that “condescention’’ but I call it “honesty”. If I think a guy’s wrong, I won’t write that he’s right just because some people might feel condescended to when disagreed with. I call it as I see it. I may be wrong at times, but at least this way, you never have to guess about me and any hidden agendas. Take care.

Geoff,

Thank you for coming over here and commenting.  A couple of respones:

1. Just to be clear, it wasn’t my speculation that you have lost clubhouse access because of the Ichiro stories.  That was a commenter above.  For what it’s worth, I agree with you overall about he value of access.

2. I’m trying to understand what you’re saying about the 2003 Mariners, but I can’t see how observing that (a) Ryan Franklin and Ron Villone had been implicated; gets you to (b) others on the Mariners may have done steroids in any different a way than Morris’ observation that (a) Ibanez has had a relatively unusual late-career power and performance spike leads to (b) he may have done steroids.  Each takes a fact (F&V on PEDs; Ibanez’s power) and extrapolates a to an unknown (other Mariners may be on PEDs; Ibanez may be on PEDs) while allowing for the possibility that it’s not true (“may”).

And to be clear—my issue with your February piece isn’t its content as such, just as I don’t have any issue with what Morris said. It’s that I perceive the statements as being held to different standards, with the basis for those standards being a fiction: that you, as a result of your paper’s editorial lawyer and your training have somehow earned the right to do something different than Morris.

As I said: I agree with you that one had better be correct when one gets into heavy stuff like this. I simply believe that everyone, blogger or columnist, professional or amateur, has to hew to the same standard.

A few things.

1) Geoff, this is why blogs work.  We can now ACTUALLY ENTER INTO A DISCOURSE - w/ the writer, w/ other readers.  There is actually a CONVERSATION, not just a lecture by someone who thinks he’s fantastic because he went to journalism school. 

2) Shyster, I find it HILARIOUS that I nominated whoever started the Sammy Sosa rumors for the GBR Awards last week.  I guess it was Reilly.  And I guess he was right.  What that means to me is this . . . perhaps many of these rumors have started or have been started by MSM members PRECISELY because they are true, except in the MSM member’s undying sense of cowardly loyalty to the player or misguided sense of fraternal bond to the player’s world, the MSM member just leaks a “rumor.”  That way, he doesn’t officially call anyone out, and can maintain is (often incorrect) “buddy” status with those players.  Except now, b/c of blogs, even greater distance b/w players and media over the last 10-20 years, that wall is even higher, so that these leaks become stories b/c the MSM member says to him/herself, “Screw it, I hate that SOB, so what if I never get access to him again!  He’s coming out of the PED closet!  Sucker!”

3) Um, Geoff, the post about Ibanez isn’t libel.  I won’t bring up the legal aspects of it, but he ALSO purposely didn’t say “Raul did HgH.”  He speculated.  That alone, an OPINION, is what is protected and anyone, rightly or wrongly, inane or not, can spout off his/her opinion.  We wouldn’t have the OP/ED page if one couldn’t . . .

Ibanez wasn’t on the Mariners squad in 2003, but he was in 2004. Since their were 18 players who appeared for the Mariners in both seasons, there obviously was a little continuity in the clubhouse.

It’s asinine to assume that the Mariners all stopped using during the off season. Since he implicates all Mariners in 2003, should Baker be pointing fingers at all the Mariners in 2004, to include Ibanez?

Could it be that Baker is mad because he got scooped on something by a blogger that he failed to mention himself at the time?

Not suggesting any of them were doing anything, but it’s silly to think there was a day when everyone was dirty and the next day everyone was clean.

If the Mariners were all dirty, and Baker implicated them all, how does he justify leaving out Ibanez?