Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Credibilty Gap

I truly do wonder where baseball writers come up with this stuff. The entire article is complete bunk – trading ARod is not only a foolish, half-baked idea concocted by the toxic dimwits on ESPN, but something that the Yankees are simply not interested in doing – but one little sentence stands out in particular:

“Aramis Ramirez...would be welcomed with open arms in New York.”

Where did Phil Rogers come up with that? Did he poll New Yorkers? What makes Rogers so sure that Yankee fans would warm up to a player with a career .329 OBP who personifies mediocrity in every sense of the word? And please, spare us the notion that including Jacque Jones in this deal would make it “one-stop shopping” for Yankee GM Brian Cashman. In case Rogers hadn’t realized, Melky Cabrera’s OPS is .074 lower than Jones’. I’ll stick with the 21 year old kid, thank you very much.

There is very little in the way of rational, independent thought in sports media, as evidenced by the fact that this story has picked up so much traction in the national press that writers and TV talking heads seem incapable of putting on the brakes and thinking about how outlandish and ludicrous their claims are. What these writers don’t realize is that their credibility is at stake. Phil Rogers is just one more in a long line of sports reporters that can no longer be trusted to provide informative and well-thought arguments to the sports table.

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