Quick Question

DMZ · September 25, 2008 at 11:16 am · Filed Under Mariners 

If clubhouse access allows reporters with press passes advanced insight and a perspective unavailable to the masses, why weren’t issues like the clubhouse-versus-Ichiro reported at the time, when they happened?
ZG asks the same thing in comments in Dave’s longer post below:

This really makes me mad. And by the way, if this was going on in April, how come they’re reporting it now? I would have liked to hear this back then. Why sit on a story like that?

I hadn’t thought of that — it is possible that the story was available but not reported, but then if that’s the case, and it’s running now with anonymous sourcing, what prevented it from running then?

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Comments

104 Responses to “Quick Question”

  1. scraps on September 25th, 2008 9:42 pm

    bermanator, I can give you a good reason why the anonymous complainers are more likely to be bad players: because they’re afraid to go on the record. A good player isn’t worried about his job. A good player is likely to be viewed as a leader and spokesman. Even if the good player is a horse’s ass, like Jeff Kent, if he speaks up, he’s going to be taken seriously, and he’ll still be playing tomorrow and next year.

    A bad player has to worry about his job security. A bad player will get second-guessed. Who cares what a .220 hitter or a guy with a 6-plus ERA thinks about the team’s best player?

    I’m not saying, mind you, that the anonymous source can’t be a good player. Just that it’s more likely to be a bad player.

  2. scraps on September 25th, 2008 9:49 pm

    I think it’s arguable that ownership does pay relatively more to Japanese players but are not racist (or, more accurately, nationalist). I think it’s at least as likely that it’s a smart investment decision for them. Keeping the highest profile in Japan of any American baseball team may be worth a lot more to them than the extra amount they’re paying for the contracts.

  3. msb on September 25th, 2008 11:28 pm

    Do you have an audio link to that?

    it should be this. I haven’t listened to what is linked here, as I have a feeble machine at home. we can also see how he phrases it when he gets round to that subject in the series.

    I heard something a hell of a lot different than you did. In fact, there was a whole side discussion about “Why Johjima, and not any of the Japanese players that didn’t start out on the Mariners like Nomo/Irabu/etc.”

    Mitch asked that (citing Matsusaka and Igawa) and Baker pointed out that you could only address the players that the Ms had under contract

    Did you listen to the whole thing? IMO, Baker clearly believes that the ownership would do extra to keep Johjima and Ichiro around.

    which is what I paraphrased — that Baker believes that Yamauchi wanted Joh to have a contract that would ‘take care of him’ if Yamauchi was to sell the team.

  4. pinball1973 on September 26th, 2008 1:32 am

    [metacommentary, inflammatory]

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