Results tagged ‘ BBWAA ’
Pedro Gomez embodies the intellectual dishonesty of the anti-PEDs bloc of the Hall of Fame electorate
by Craig Calcaterra @ Hardball Talk
No two ways around it. Pedro Gomez of ESPN is just another douche bag who knows very little about the sport, is lazy as all get out (failing to research even the most basic of things) and has the backbone of a jellyfish.
Hell, I put him right up there with the @TreyHickman‘s of the world:
ESPN’s Pedro Gomez had some back and forth on Twitter last night about the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose came up, but so too did PED users — or rumored users — like Jeff Bagwell.
Here’s Gomez’s tweet in response to someone who thinks it is unfair for Gomez and his “500 friends,” as Gomez later referred to the Hall of Fame electorate, to keep Bagwell out:
This is screwy for two reasons. First, because of the McCarthyite “Look! He never denied doing that awful thing we keep saying he did!” jazz, which has no place in mature discourse. I’m sure I can think of all kinds of things Pedro Gomez might have done and start tweeting about them all day. If Gomez doesn’t deny them, does it make it true? Is that how we roll in the sporting press, gentlemen?
But it’s screwy for a much more basic reason: Bagwell has repeatedly denied that he took steroids. Most recently to Gomez’s own ESPN colleague, Jerry Crasnick:
Jeff Bagwell first denied using performance-enhancing drugs during a 2004 interview with the Houston Chronicle. The passage of time hasn’t altered his words or softened his emotions on the topic. Bagwell, to this day, asserts that he never touched steroids or other illegal performance-enhancers…
… ”I never used [steroids], and I’ll tell you exactly why: If I could hit between 30 and 40 home runs every year and drive in 120 runs, why did I need to do anything else? I was pretty happy with what I was doing, and that’s the God’s honest truth. All of a sudden guys were starting to hit 60 or 70 home runs and people were like, ‘Dude, if you took [PEDs], you could do it too.’ And I was like, ‘I’m good where I’m at. I just want to do what I can do.’
You can choose not to believe Jeff Bagwell here — players who have used PEDs have obviously said such things before — but you cannot say that he has not denied using steroids. No, in order to hold the stance that Gomez holds on Bagwell, he has to call Bagwell a liar.
But he’s apparently too cowardly or too ignorant to do that. He’d prefer to play this cutesy, oblique, intellectually dishonest game, smearing a man while trying desperately to not get his hands dirty. It’s pathetic.
UPDATE: Gomez has responded:
So, I presume now that either (a) Gomez will change his Hall of Fame vote and support Bagwell’s induction; or (b) what Bagwell said, and whether or not he actually did PEDs is a wholly irrelevant concern for Gomez, and he was just being disingenuous about it all.
Of course, given that he has basically taken his ball and stormed home, we probably shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for a reply.
Spink Award winner Bill Conlin accused of sexually abusing children
From Matthew Pouliot at Hardball Talk comes this bit of news:
Four people, three women and a man, accused longtime Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin of molesting them as children in the 1970s, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Nancy Phillips reported Tuesday.
Conlin, who is honored in the Baseball Hall of Fame after receiving the 2011 J.G. Taylor Spink award, retired from his post at the Daily News earlier in the day after news of the upcoming article was leaked.
Phillips’ report tells of children, one of them Conlin’s niece, being touched inappropriately by Conlin. According to the account, Conlin was confronted by his brother-in-law after one such incident, cried and claimed he only touched his niece’s leg. None of the alleged acts were ever reported to police at the time, and the statute of limitations has long since run out, meaning Conlin will not be charged with crimes unless additional accusers with more recent allegations come forward.
Conlin declined comment for the article. His lawyer, George Bochetto, did make a statement: “Mr. Conlin is obviously floored by these accusations, which supposedly happened 40 years ago. He has engaged me to do everything possible to bring the facts forward to vindicate his name.”
Conlin wrote for the Daily News for 47 years. He was on the Phillies beat from 1966-87 and served as a columnist afterwards. He’s also made hundreds of appearances on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters through the years.
This story is becoming all too familiar lately. On a side note, the guy has always been a Grade A clown to me. As a side note to the side note, I wonder if this will force him to finally give up that recipe for the 11 secret herbs & spices.
But because this story involves The Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) it doesn’t end here!
The BBWAA‘s initial response to all of this was just way off the friggin’ mark. They didn’t choose the standard “let’s wait and see how this plays out in court before passing judgement” tact, nor did they issue the typical “no comment” press release. Nope, they went with the “so what? this has nothing do with the fact he’s a good (debatable!) sports writer” approach.
Pouliot followed up his original piece with this spot on evaluation of the BBWAA response:
One would think the BBWAA would be feeling a bit embarrassed right now after having bestowed its highest honor on Bill Conlin a year before he was accused of child molestation and opted to resign from the Philadelphia Daily News.
But then, this is the BBWAA we’re talking about. Here’s the official release on its website from secretary/treasurer Jack O’Connell:
“Bill Conlin has been a member in good standing of the BBWAA since 1966. The allegations have no bearing on his winning the 2011 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which was in recognition of his notable career as a baseball writer.”
Sure, why the hell not? The organization had the poor taste to choose the buffoon in the first place. And, yes, Bill Conlin, regardless of these disgusting allegations against him, is a known buffoon. He may be a truly horrible person as well, but apparently the BBWAA — America’s moral authority on steroids – doesn’t have a problem with truly horrible people.
And finally, after all of this someone over at BBWAA got around to doing what they should have done in the first place, via Craig Calcaterra at Hardball Talk:
Yesterday’s official statement by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Bill Conlin was a dud. So they’ve tried again. This time an actual writer — BBWAA president Bill Shaikin — puts his name to it:
“We were shocked and saddened to learn of the allegations involving Bill Conlin and we extend our sympathies to everyone involved. This is a matter far more serious than baseball and, at this point, a matter best left to the proper authorities.”
– Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times
BBWAA President
Dec. 21, 2011
Now, now BBWAA was that really so hard? -_-
