Investigative reporter. That's how The Times describes the author of the article below. That should be instructive to the baseball writers. While I am tempted to quote much of this article on cycling I will quote only one thing but recommend that you read the entire article for disturbingly similar dynamics between two very different sports: cycling and baseball.
Looking Upstream in Doping Cases
By CLAUDIO GATTI
Published: January 15, 2013 New York Times
In 1997, the team’s lead rider, Jan Ullrich, became the first German to win the Tour de France. Less than two years later, in June 1999, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel published an article suggesting Ullrich and his team had engaged in systematic doping.
“We had just finished the Tour of Germany and were driving to Switzerland for the Swiss Tour when the article hit the newsstands,” Jaksche said. “I was in a car with Ullrich and the press officer that Telekom assigned to us, and I remember him telling us how to handle the press. They did not want to find out if Der Spiegel’s accusations were true or false. They never made any attempt to verify the allegations. In fact, they must have assumed they were right, because the only countermeasure they took was to make sure that none of us would say anything compromising.
“It was omertà all the way. The reason? With Ullrich’s success in the Tour, a relatively small amount of money had produced a huge marketing return. For them, it was an extraordinarily successful business model and they didn’t want to change it or, worse, ruin it.”
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There is plenty there but let me emphasize that a noted German publication, Der Spiegel, had made specific accusations. This was in June 1999, one year after St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire had broken the season home run (HR) record and two years before San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds had broken McGwire's record. What, American baseball writers had not heard? Our only interest in European cycling was when our own Texas born Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France race seven times from 1999 to 2005.
Last night on PBS and this morning on CBS Charlie Rose conducted interviews with writers who cover cycling. He asked the question that is rarely asked here about baseball players using performance enhancing stuff: why didn't the media do more? There were two basic reasons:
1. Fear that Armstrong would directly try to intimidate them but more fundamentally that they would be denied interviews.
2. Fear of being sued for libel, which I think is nonsense as I cannot imagine that any of the cyclists, particularly Armstrong, would want to be deposed in a civil suit.
So where are our blood and guts U.S. baseball writers and other media people? The writers voted four MVP awards to Bonds (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004) and four Cy Young awards to Roger Clemens (1997, 1998, 2001, 2004) AFTER the writers now imply that both players were using performance enhancers. However, many of those same writers will not vote for Bonds or Clemens for the Hall of Fame.
Why is it OK to vote for MVP or CY but not Hall of Fame? And if the voter now knows, not to a legal certainty but to his/her own personal satisfaction, that a players was "guilty", why didn't that voter know it just a few years before for the annual awards?
The industry prosperity that rewards the players and owners also rewards the media, including the writers. Why bite the hand that feeds you? Unless that particular hand is no longer feeding and was dirty as well as personally nasty to you. With the Major Baseball League (MBL) turning on its former star players in order to enhance its current image, why would the writers want to alienate the MBL? To get along, you go along. No baseball, no baseball writers.
Pontificating now by lazy, incompetent baseball writers is especially hypocritical.
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