Now, first, here is the article that started the shit-storm regarding David Freese. http://elmaquino.com/2012/11/04/freese-looked-less-than-sober-at-st-louis-bar-last-night/ It comes from @elmaquino, somebody whom I have followed for some time, and vice versa on Twitter, somebody who is one of my favorite people to follow because he (an assumption, I know nothing about EM beyond the blog and the Twitter account) is always willing to discuss whatever the day's events are. Obviously his following is relatively small so it's different from some of the big guns in sports journalism, but I always appreciate somebody willing to defend what he says and willing to answer to criticism.
I will say, right off the bat, there is one thing about this article that I find objectionable: The headline. The headline offers a presumption of guilt without so much as an "allegedly" or "reports say" with what I must say is fairly flimsy evidence (the whole story is based on hearsay and pictures in which he is not holding drinks and in which his inebriated nature is debatable). But other than that, I fail to see the problem here. Besides the headline, it's just a smorgasbord of facts. Now, it's not a strong set of facts, but what it does is say "Here is the evidence of what happened". It's a few guys on Twitter saying he was drunk. The evidence, however strong the evidence is, is there. You can draw your own conclusions. The conclusion I've drawn, personally, is "David Freese went to a bar and according to a few people reporting anonymously on Twitter, possibly just seeking attention, he got drunk there." It's sort of like when people argue whether or not you should teach evolution in schools--I'm an adamant believer in evolution, but I totally support also teaching creationism because I have enough of a belief in my side of the argument that mine will win out if considered equally. But the point is, it's a story to be reported.
Just as Josh Hamilton's relapses were news-worthy last off-season, so are Freese's this year. The situation is extremely similar--both are talented, nice guys who have serious demons and who have had problems in the past. This isn't slander--both of them would be among the first to acknowledge this. And if you don't think the Josh Hamilton story is significant--people are laughing off his desire for a 7 year, $175 million contract right now. He's a few years removed from an 8.4 WAR season and has been the best hitter on the best team in the AL over the last three seasons. If it weren't for his past, it wouldn't be outrageous that someone would offer Josh Hamilton this contract (I would consider it an excessive amount regardless, but that's neither here nor there). David Freese is a similar player.
It's a valid criticism to ask why the media, of any size, would care about the relatively minor personal details of professional athletes. But why does the criticism only come when the attention is bad? Is it innocuous to obsess over if David Freese went to a bar? Maybe. In fact, probably. But if the story had been "David Freese volunteers at an animal shelter and plays with sick puppies", there would have been no firestorm. It's not a major news story--it's essentially a private citizen doing something people do every day. But because it's David Freese, it gains attention, for the positive. Just as Freese at a bar draws attention for the negative.
While I expect there would be some backlash over this had it been any Cardinals player, it's a different situation when it's David Freese. David Freese is an almost cartoonish caricature of what constitutes a home town hero. Like, I remember occasionally fantasizing in grade school about hitting the winning home run in a World Series game for, like, the Padres or something just because it was so damn implausible that a kid who grew up rooting for the Cardinals could have the storybook thing happen to him...and then it did. And unlike Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols, by far the two biggest "stars" of my lifetime in St. Louis baseball, Freese wasn't a quiet or hesitant star--he was quiet, but he also had an inherent charisma. He wasn't McGwire, the larger than life hero--he's a normal guy. Everybody growing up in St. Louis knows somebody like David Freese, or so it seems.
The fact that the local sports media protects Freese should go without saying. It's really nothing special. They've protected players forever (poor Barry Bonds had the Chronicle reporting on BALCO while he was playing and Big Mac had the P-D scoffing that this Androstindiwhateveritis couldn't possibly be the reason for his home run production so it might as well be ignored). They do it because people want to hear what they want to hear, for lack of a better term. A basic rule of the internet, and media in general, is that if you want to be noticed, be negative, but if you want to be liked, be positive. The Post-Dispatch is already noticed, so it tries to be liked, and it generally succeeds. Bernie Miklasz has written columns in the last month about 1. Why Matt Holliday is a good player, and 2. Why John Mozeliak is a good GM. It doesn't even matter that a vast, vast majority of fans agree with both of these points, and that nobody within the baseball industry is questioning either. It's feel-good. The fans want to hear about how wonderful the home team is. The same thing happened in New York in the 1950s--Mickey Mantle was living a hard-partying lifestyle that eventually led him to an early death, but people didn't want to hear this. They wanted to believe the legend. And it appears, if St. Louis is any indication, they still do, and they're willing to shoot the messenger along the way.
Frankly, I hope it turns out El Maquino totally whiffed on this story, not because I wish him ill will, but because as a Cardinals fan, I quite frankly want the David Freese story to be as damn good as it often appears. But I also hope that if this is the case, he doesn't do as Kent Brockman did on The Simpsons in the episode "Homer Defined". In this episode, he questions Mr. Burns on the safety of his nuclear power plant as a meltdown seem imminent. After (by fluke) the meltdown is averted, Kent Brockman says on air, "This reporter promises to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future." That's not what the media is for--that's what PR is for. The St. Louis Cardinals have their public relations under control and they effectively control the Post-Dispatch and Fox Sports Midwest. They don't need another arm of it. To make what is probably a way over-the-top analogy, there's a lot of G. Gordon Liddys taking shots at Woodward and Bernstein here.
It's one thing to question the details of the story. I do, and hopefully EM is self-critical and does the same and works to make sure the story is told as comprehensively as it possibly can be. It's one thing to question why it's a story--I mean, there is a presidential election in two days and there was a pretty major natural disaster a week ago; you could pretty easily argue what the value of sports journalism as a whole is. But when you question somebody's right to publish something you don't like, or when you say any publicity to the Cardinals which is anything besides glowing, adoring, giddy fanboy praise is slander or libel, I do have a problem with that. My journalistic bona fides are, to be generous, borderline--I was an editor for my high school paper's Opinions section and was, for a couple of unpleasant months, a staff writer for my college newspaper before I quit and gave up on journalism to such a degree that I became an accounting major. A major part of the reason was that, for as big of a troll as I am, I defaulted to cowardice when it came to actual reporting. I respect the hell out of those who will say something that'll scare people if it's something that needs to be said.
We all should.
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