Before we get started, once again our friends at The Starting Five have been on this Rick Ankiel story like ESPN on Vick! Check out Dwil and his crystal ball LAST MONTH!
"So, Ankiel switched to the outfield and, against all odds, got the call back up to the Bigs. He reached out and flicked a home run on a pitch a few inches off the plate. After the game, resident baseball Einstein-Stephen Hawking-Galileo-Hans Blix (just checkin’ to see who’s awake) Tony La Russa did the croc tears thing and got choked up at the postgame podium, and every sports writer this side of Wagga Wagga, Australia is freaking the bleep out. My first thought? How the hell did Ankiel flick that pitch out of the park? HGH, steroids? He was off-balance, a bit fooled, reached out to make contact and yanked the ball over the right fiend wall about 10 rows deep. Not cool."
Okay, moving on to our most deserving target of COSELLOUT ire – ESPN. Except this time we will keep it positive… mostly anyway. Firstly, thank you Jayson Stark for the quick and immediate turnaround on yesterday’s article Exposing our Dirty Double Standards that has been the blatant hypocrisy on the Rick Ankiel Spinfest over the last 24 hours. It is still nice to see some rational heads over at ESPN. Of course, Mr. Stark calculatingly and disappointingly didn’t mention "the dirtiest double-standard of them all". A review of his past columns show Stark to be a good fair-minded journalist willing to expose hypocrisy, but always stopping just short of unapologetically calling out what you just KNOW that he is privately thinking: "Yes, race is also a factor’. This may be an effort to protect his racially-biased colleagues who he is friendly with, or more likely an effort to protect himself from an avalanche of media and "ESPN Conversation" criticism that comes with the territory of honesty on race matters. Having stated that, it is better to have his imperfect column over at ESPN than it not be written at all.
Here is the Intro:
There are certain stories in sports you wish weren’t true, weren’t real, weren’t happening. There are certain stories in sports that pull you in, magnetize your eyeballs, grab your heart and then won’t let go. Little did we know that Rick Ankiel‘s powerful story would fit both of those definitions.The defenses, the rationalizations, the leave-this-guy-alone pleas on behalf of Ankiel came rolling in Friday as Americans tried their best to wish away the nasty HGH bomb that had just been dropped on their favorite sporting fairy tale.
He wasn’t even a hitter then… It wasn’t a banned substance then… He had a doctor’s prescription… He was recovering from Tommy John surgery…He needed it to heal… He hasn’t been accused of any "wrongdoing."… The media is out to get him… It’s not like he’s Barry Bonds or something…
But at times like this — with Ankiel’s HGH blockbuster tag-teaming with a report linking Troy Glaus to steroid shipments from the same Orlando pharmacy — we often find the perception of these stories as fascinating as the stories themselves. That’s because we live in a world ablaze in double standards. And we’re never more aware of those double standards than we are when stories like these break. As Ankiel’s saga in particular so vividly demonstrates, we adjust those standards — and taper our level of outrage — depending on whose name happens to wind up in the headline.
Stark on Double standard No. 1: The likability test
So why would we root for [Ankiel] over Barry? Because America made up its mind a long time ago — long before "Game of Shadows" — that it didn’t like Barry. That simple. Didn’t want him on the All-Century Team. Didn’t want him in mucking up the history books. Didn’t want to bid up his home run balls on eBay. Didn’t like him. Period. So if you’re one of those people trying to find a rationalization for Ankiel right now, you’re also one of those people who wanted Barry’s stats obliterated from the backs of baseball cards everywhere. Hey, thanks for playing. You’ve helped us demonstrate Double Standard No. 1. Much appreciated.
Stark Double standard No. 2: The he’s "just a pitcher" myth
"Again, we want to believe. If he were somebody else, maybe we wouldn’t. We live in an age now where we don’t know what the heck to believe in sports. So we might as well choose to believe our guts, even when the voices of logic might be screaming at us to believe something else. …But here’s the problem: That still doesn’t necessarily make Rick Ankiel "innocent," regardless of whether he’s ever indicted, charged or convicted by the proper authorities, or punished by Major League Baseball. This is not an accusation based on speculation about hat sizes or acne outbreaks. It’s an accusation based on a report by respected investigative reporters, who obtained records substantiating that Ankiel ordered and received these eight shipments of HGH… Hey, it’s fine with us if you want to let any of this slide. But don’t tell us there’s no double standard in how we choose our targets of outrage."
Stark on Double standard No. 3: He’s no football star
"It may be too early to draw this conclusion. But we tried our best to measure the coverage of the Ankiel/Glaus Banned Substance Baseball Daily Double on Friday. The object was to see how it compared with the coverage last week of the two NFL figures who were snared in exactly the same net: Rodney Harrison and Wade Wilson. The first thing we noticed: Of the 438 news stories that showed up on a Google News search for Ankiel and Glaus, their names made the headline of every one of them. But when we did a Google News search for Harrison and Wilson, we were stunned to find their suspensions were actually lumped into quite a few NFL notes roundups. They weren’t even the lead story in many of them."
Stark is correct on all three counts of these double-standards. Of course, and while we expect Stark’s growth as a writer will soon provide him with the journalistic courage to boldly state the "elephant in his head", he has helped start this much needed hypocrisy discussion before the ESPN bandwagon went completely crazy on this subject.
Jayson Stark’s article is probably the best we’ll get from a mainstream sportswriter, unfortunately. Still, I’m grateful for him writing this and at least being that voice that says “you all need to stop with the excuses, and recognize the hypocrisy here”. Every person that chimes in with that is a step in the right direction, even if it’s not as big a step as we would all like….
I’ve been watching ESPN News off and on all day….am I just missing the segments on this whole controversy? I expect that out of the 10 times I’ve switched back over to channel 121, that I would have tuned in on something at least once…a statement, commentary, something, anything.
I thought this was the ultimate in sensationalist journalism when the Daily News here put it on the front page the night after Ankiel hit 2 hrs and had 7 rib eyes leading the Cards into a possible first place challenge. It seems like they had the story and sat on it for the right moment. The timing of releasing the story was VERY coincidental and it seemed to be timed to ruin what is, aside from Dave Wright’s late MVP run, my only baseball feel-good story of the year.
He wasn’t caught, he didn’t fail a test, he was prescribed something (which wasn’t a banned illegal steroid) by his doctor legitimately while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and if it was a one-year supply, it would have run out before his comeback as a hitter began.
I have no love for the Cards, especially after last October but I can look past my vitriol for Yadier F’n Molina to say that I don’t believe Ankiel should have to bear the taint from this in and of itself. Should he fail a test NOW, then all bets are off, but a legit ‘scrip rehabbing Tommy John 3 years ago which has no bearing on current circumstances? Molehills, meet mountains.
Dee Haytch,
Are you speaking about the same Daily News that had the “King of Shame” on the front cover and “Death of a Record” on the back cover when Bonds hit #756: http://stopmikelupica.com/2007/08/the_starting_five_are_on_fire.php Is it the same Daily news that Mike Lupica has ripping satan, er I mean Barry Bonds with every other article?
You are probably right that they sat on the timing, but given Daily News history, Ankiel got off light. And considering the last five years the way Bonds has been covered by ALL sports media. Ankiel and all the benefit of the doubt he has received is almost mindboggling. Daily news is actually the EXCEPTION in its negative coverage which to its credit at least strives for SOME consistency (they also broke the McGwire Operation Equine story). Make no mistake, across the sports media board Ankiel has been treated just like a molehill.
Bonds wasn’t caught, Bonds never failed a test; and he has not even received an INDICTMENT after a thorough three year federal investigation (whose allegations came at a time with no MLB steroid testing policy). Sounds very familiar to me. But a book whose narrative is based off of the words of a jilted ex-lover whose posing in Playboy next month, and that book becomes the baseball bible. The entire HGH-steroids discussion went from Mountain-to-molehill a loooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.
I could only accept super-sized benefit of the doubt on Ankiel if Bonds was previously extended that very same leeway. Your position on Bonds isn’t stated, but the jury verdict on the media is already in.