June 24th, 2006 → 2:49 pm @ Seth Mnookin
This is the kind of effort that puts Nora Krug to shame. In a generally positive 213-word write-up in this week’s Publishers Weekly (“Part Money Ball, part Ball Four. … The soap opera that is the Boston Red Sox is in full bloom in Mnookin’s tale…and like a true soap opera, this one is filled with heroes and villains. … There is enough inside stuff here to send the average Red Sox fan into baseball ecstasy”), the unbylined reviewer manages to make three mistakes, flubbing the title of Michael Lewis’s classic (it’s Moneyball), screwing up the title of my first book (it’s Hard News, not Hard Times), and turning Dan Shaughnessy into a leprechaun (O’Shaughnessy). (At that rate, I would have made 1,127 mistakes in my first book.) Remind me again why people don’t have faith in the media? (You need a PW subscription to view the review online.)
Post Categories: Ball Four & Dan Shaughnessy & Feeding the Monster reviews & Moneyball & Nora Krug & Publishers Weekly
June 23rd, 2006 → 12:15 pm @ Seth Mnookin
…namely that this is a man completely undeserving of respect. (It’s a good thing they don’t care about baseball in LA.) From today’s LA Times:
“Lowe (6-3) was pitching one day earlier than expected because Brett Tomko fouled a ball off his left foot during batting practice Wednesday. After the eighth inning, Manager Grady Little shook Lowe’s hand in the dugout as if to say his outing was over.
Lowe’s reaction? ‘I told him, ‘I’m not coming out,’ ‘ he said.
With one out in the ninth, Little tried again, visiting the mound after Richie Sexson singled. According to catcher Russell Martin, Little said to Lowe, ‘I’m giving you one more chance,’ and Lowe answered, ‘All right.'”
Post Categories: 2003 Playoffs & Baseball & Derek Lowe & Grady Little & Los Angeles Dodgers & Red Sox
June 22nd, 2006 → 4:54 pm @ Seth Mnookin
In an article in today’s Globe, Paxton Crawford explains why he doesn’t want to discuss his first-person account, printed in ESPN The Magazine, detailing steroid, HGH, and speed use while playing with the Red Sox in 2000 and 2001. (The article is available online, but only if you’re a subscriber to ESPN Insider.) “I thought it was a one-time story deal, bro,” Crawford tells the Globe‘s Gordon Edes. “If any other reporter called, I was not interested.”
Paxton’s use of the word “deal” is intriguing. Was he saying that he got paid for the ESPN piece?* Perhaps, and as far as journalistic ethics goes, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that: the subject of first-person “as told to’s” are not infrequently paid for their efforts. Or maybe, after a taste of the limelight, he wanted the world’s attention focused back on him, even if it was only for a moment and even if it was because he was telling the world he was a cheat.
There’s powerful incentive for both current and past major leaguers to stay silent about what they’ve seen or know; breaking omerta results in a lifetime banishment from the only fraternity many of them have ever known. (Off the top of my head, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, and Jeremy Giambi are the only players or former players who’ve publicly admitted knowingly using steroids without being caught.) But Crawford’s story raises the specter of any number of fringe former major leaguers deciding they have nothing to lose (and perhaps some spending cash to gain) by coming clean.
There’s a fear within baseball that these trickling revelations will start a witchhunt, and indeed, there’s a guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude that’s begun to attach itself to anyone who’s had a breakout year or one or two seasons that seem statistically aberrant. But the only reason anyone’s interested in Paxton Crawford’s story is that pretty much everyone–fans, the media, the feds, Congress–knows the current testing program, while better than nothing, is embarrassingly porous. If there’s only the slimmest of chances juicers will be caught, the thinking goes, perhaps the fear of a future unmasking at the hands of some dude who spent a day in the bigs will keep folks from shooting up the latest designer steroid. One obvious way to deal with this would be for MLB and the players union to actually implement a real testing program–one that can’t be beaten by anyone who knows how to read.
Right now, that doesn’t seem likely, mainly because the power-drunk players union refuses to allow blood testing (or actual random testing, or storing of samples) because any of those steps would be an “invasion of privacy.” That’s a load of crap. Playing professional baseball is not a right afforded to citizens under the Constitution; it’s a privilege. Workplaces implement all sorts of policies–regarding drug testing or dress codes or proper language or decorum–that aren’t (and can’t be) mandated by the government. Unless the players union takes off its blinders and starts to see the big picture, a lot of its members are going to find themselves in a world of hurt.
* EDIT: Amy K. Nelson, a veteran reporter for ESPN and the writer who worked with Paxton on the story in ESPN The Magazine, wrote to say Paxton was not paid for sharing his story. I did not contact Nelson prior to posting this item. Even though I didn’t see anything wrong with the possibility of someone being paid to collaborate on an “as told to” story, I should have made an effort to contact Nelson and ESPN.
Post Categories: Amy K. Nelson & Baseball & Daisuke Matsuzaka & ESPN The Magazine & Murray Chass & Paxton Crawford & Players Union & Red Sox & Sports Reporters & Steroids
June 22nd, 2006 → 9:03 am @ Seth Mnookin
This is the first in an occasional series of Sneak Peeks from Feeding the Monster. In the section below, which takes place on December 20, 2001, the Red Sox limited partners debate whether to sell the team to Cablevision head Charles Dolan or to the group led by John Henry and Tom Werner.
Finally, the partners were worried, as John Harrington had been, about wrapping up the process in time for the new Red Sox owners to be approved by baseball’s other owners at their annual meeting in mid-January. Any deals could put the deal on hold for another year. After going back and forth for about an hour, the partners agreed. While Dolan might ultimately be able to win approval, the uncertain economic outlook for the country meant that any snags in the sale could be disastrous, and since Dolan’s bid and Henry’s bid were identical, it wasn’t worth the risk. The partners chose the Henry-Werner group.
As the limited partners were meeting in Fenway, John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino were ensconced in a suite on the 29th floor of the swanky Sheraton in Boston’s Back Bay. All of them were exhausted. As Henry thought through all that had happened in the previous year, he felt a vague sense of vertigo. He’d gone from being convinced he’d be successful in his efforts to build a new ballpark in Miami to being told the Marlins would likely be contracted and he’d take over the Angels to thinking he would simply buy the Angels outright to this last-minute bid to buy the Red Sox. As the hours ticked by, Henry, Werner, and Lucchino restlessly waited for a phone call. Noon passed, then one o’clock. Werner began to grow concerned…
What worried the limited partners about Charles Dolan’s bid? What else were they discussing that day in Fenway Park? The answers to these questions and many more exclusive details about the sale of the Red Sox are in Feeding the Monster, out July 11 from Simon & Schuster.
Post Categories: Baseball & Charles Dolan & Feeding the Monster Sneak Peeks & John Harrington & John Henry & Larry Lucchino & Tom Werner
June 21st, 2006 → 5:39 pm @ Seth Mnookin
After White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti a “piece of shit” and a “fucking fag,” Guillen justified his use of the homophobic slur to Greg Couch this way: “I don’t have anything against those people. In my country, you can call someone something like that and it is not the same as it is in this country.”
It’s true: apparently the rules for how to behave in polite society are different in Venezuala. Like the time Guillen’s friend Ugueth Urbina was charged with attempted murder after purportedly attacking some of his farmhands with a machete and dousing them with gasoline. Guillen explained that incident by saying, “Ugie’s reputation is he overreacts a little, not only in the United States, but also in Venezuela.”
Post Categories: homophobia & Ozzie Guillen & Sports Reporters & Ugueth Urbina
June 21st, 2006 → 5:11 pm @ Seth Mnookin
It was only a matter of time. Admissions or accusations of steroid use now plague almost every major league clubhouse, and today they officially reached the Red Sox, when ESPN The Magazine published an article in which former Sox pitcher Paxton Crawford talks about using steroids, human growth hormone, and speed while with the Sox in 2000 and 2001. (The article is available online, but only if you’re a subscriber to ESPN Insider.)
Crawford says he was introduced to steroids while in the Sox’s minor league system in 1999. “Shoot, why not?” he says he remembers thinking. “I’m just a country boy; I didn’t even think twice. It seemed like everybody else was doing it, so it wasn’t a big deal, right?” When he made the big league team in 2001, he says a teammate—and there are a number of players who were members of the Red Sox in 2001 that remain with the team today—introduced him to HGH.
Over the past half-decade, there have been widely varying estimates of how many major league players have juiced, ranging from Ken Caminiti’s 50 percent to Jose Canseco’s 85 percent. (It’s worth noting that the oft-mocked Canseco appears to have been more honest than many of the players called to testify before Congress last March, including Mark McGuire, whom the Washington Post called “a shrunken, lonely, evasive figure.”) After spending a year around Major League Baseball, neither figure would surprise me. (I want to make clear that I never heard a single player admit or acknowledge using, I never saw anyone use, I never saw the presence of steroids, and I never heard any member of the Red Sox management or ownership talk about knowledge of a player on the team using.) In the days and months ahead, there’ll be more and more players who either come clean or are outed as being users—sluggers, sure, but also marginal pitchers like Crawford looking to reduce their recovery time and gain a few miles on their fastball and slap-hitting singles hitters looking for improved reaction time.
In Boston, where baseball is more a religion than a pastime, the effects of these revelations would be absolutely devastating. Take a look at what’s happened to the Diamondbacks following the Jason Grimsley affidavit and think for a second about how much less suffocating Phoenix is than Boston. Recall the round-the-clock coverage of Theo Epstein’s interregnum last winter. And now imagine the feeding frenzy that would occur if a hero of the 2004 World Series team is revealed to be a user. It could take months, if not years, to deal with the fallout.
Post Categories: Jason Grimsley & Paxton Crawford & Red Sox & Red Sox Nation & Steroids & Theo Epstein
June 21st, 2006 → 9:34 am @ Seth Mnookin
June 28, Fenway Park: Josh Beckett versus Pedro Martinez. I’m taking odds on how many times they show the two pitchers’ respective records versus the Yankees in the playoffs.
Martinez: 1-2, 4.72 ERA
Beckett: 1-1, 1.10 ERA, plus a complete game shutout on three days rest to clinch the ’03 Series.
Post Categories: Josh Beckett & Mets & Pedro Martinez & Red Sox & Yankees
