The Hangover: ESPN Steps Out Of Their Tiny Little Universe

Devil Rays (off day)

Quick side note: You know what is great about yesterday’s off-day? At least one more day of people talking about how the Yankees are in last place tied with the Devil Rays. It is like informing a guy that his wife cheated on him with 5 guys at once. Really, it should be enough that she cheated…

Like many people, ESPN annoys the hell out of us on most days. Too much screaming, too much material that has nothing to do with sports (Who are the Sklar Brothers and why are they EVER on Sportscenter?) and way too much bias in their coverage. Seriously, ESPN didn’t even know NASCAR existed until they started broadcasting the races. Now it is wall-to-wall left-turns. Well, we are going to put aside our distaste and ask you guys to go visit their website today because they actually noticed there are baseball players that play for teams other than the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Today, ESPN.com has a poll asking readers who they believe were the top players for the month of May. It seems as if somebody actually does pay attention to Devil Rays players for their on-field accomplishments. James Shields is one of ten choices for pitcher-of-the-month. That’s nice. What is really impressive is that Shields is one of six choices for MVP for the month of May. So get your butts over there and start stuffing the virtual ballot box for James the Greater.

Carlos Pena is also mentioned as one of the candidates for “Biggest Surprise”. Anytime a guy has to be a spring training non-roster invitee for one of the worst teams in baseball and is among the league leaders in home runs…that qualifies as a “surprise”. (with thanks to Jim).

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• The Rays have trailed at some point in 19 of their 22 wins this season, which leads the majors. For some reason the team doesn’t wake up until the second half of the game. We are just spit-ballin’ here, but maybe Joe Maddon should have the team play 3-4 simulated innings before each game.
• It is no surprise that the Rays have looked into what the market would be for Elijah Dukes. It is also no surprise that no team is willing to part with any significant pieces and it is also no surprise that Jayson Stark reports that at least 20 teams would line up to sign Dukes if he is released.
• Bobby Abreu makes $15 million and can’t hit his way out of a paper bag these days. His problem? Apparently it is all Scott Kazmir’s fault. This is just like a Yankees fan. Always trying to one-up the Mets fans. It won’t work this time. Your Kid K-envy will never be as great as Mets fan’s.
• Seriously Mets fans just can’t let it go and it makes us giggle to no end. It has been three years since the trade and now Mets fans actually want you to believe their team is better because they traded Kazmir. (Excuse us for a second….) Ok, we are back. Very difficult to type while laughing…Just so we are all on the same page…because the Mets have Oliver Perez and he is pretty good, that justifies trading Scott Kazmir for a guy that won 10 games in 2+ years? Why do we get the feeling that Mets fans will continue to give us joy for years to come?

The St. Pete Times And The Tampa Tribune Would Like Rays Fans To Drink Their Kool-Aid

Late last season the Tampa Bay Devil Rays signed a sponsorship agreement with the St. Pete Times, in which the local newspaper would be designated “The official newspaper of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays”. In addition, the Times became the main sponsor of devilrays.com, the first such agreement between a Major League team and a sponsor .

While this deal is a source of revenue for the team, which ultimately decides the product on the field, in the long run it has direct negative impact on the fans. As a news organization, the St. Pete Times is supposed to be unbiased in their coverage of any news story. But now the success of the St. Pete Times is affected by the success of the Rays. If the Rays do well, more fans go to the games and the team’s website. More fans at the games means more people will be drawn to the St. Pete Times kiosks that will be found throughout the Trop and more fans on the team’s website means more traffic to the St. Pete Times website. In essence, the Times is banking on the hope that associating the newspaper with the Rays will mean more customers and more revenue for the newspaper. The problem is that it is no longer in the Times best interest to be unbiased. In fact, it is more beneficial to their business to only report positively on the Rays. This hurts the average fan that looks to the local newspaper as a source of unbiased information.

This association of the St. Pete Times with the Rays is felt elsewhere also. As a direct competitor, it is no longer in the best interest of the Tampa Tribune to support the Rays. In fact, a look at local coverage of Spring Training and you will see far more coverage of the New York Yankees in the Tribune than you will see in the Times. A rough count shows that the Tribune has run nine stories on the Yankees in the past seven days. This cannot be due solely to the Yankees having their spring training home in Tampa, as the area is considered part of the St. Pete Times market. Of course it may also be due to the sponsorship deal between the New York Yankees and The Tampa Tribune (as seen in this list of Yankees spring training promotions).

In addition to the bias in coverage and writing, there is now likely to be unbalanced access for the local papers. Is it too much to assume that the team will grant more access to the St. Pete Times from whom they have received millions of dollars? It is not unthinkable that the team would also grant special privileges to the Times such as first access to breaking news by leaking stories to the Times prior to other news sources, especially the Tribune. So while other sources may not have biased coverage, they may in fact have no coverage at all.

This is not an issue that is restricted to the Tampa Bay Rays. This has been a long-standing and more serious problem with many other professional sports clubs . Ask any White Sox fan about the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of the local baseball teams. The Tribune owns the Cubs and has a direct interest in the promotion of the team. There is even a website dedicated to this bias, The Chicago Cubune. In New York, there is considerable contention from Yankees fans concerning the lack of coverage of their beloved Bombers in the New York Times especially as compared to the Boston Red Sox. The Times would probably tell you it is because a lot of Bostonians have relocated to the Big Apple and that Yankees fans are always interested in what is happening with their arch rival. Still, many fans complain that there is actually more coverage of the Sox than the Yankees. Silly? Not when you realize that the New York Times is a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox.

This is not an issue restricted to newsprint either. Tune into Sportscenter on ESPN since they acquired the broadcast rights to NASCAR and you would suddenly think you were watching NASCARCenter. In addition, it was four days before ESPN.com ran a story on the PacMan Jones shooting in Las V
egas during the recent NBA All-Star game weekend. An oversight from the “Worldwide Leader”? Or was ESPN hesitant to report on a what would be perceived as a black eye for two leagues that they have a lot of money invested in through broadcast rights?

Is this bias real or just perceived by the fans? Does it matter? From Chicago Cubune website we would like to direct the management of the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune to two quotes:

Journalists must avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety as well as any conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict. — from the American Society of Newspaper Editors Code of Ethics

Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility, disclose unavoidable conflicts… deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage. — from the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

Is the St. Pete Times ordering its writers to only publish positive articles about the Rays or to minimize the negative articles? Is the Tampa Tribune purposefully avoiding coverage of the Rays and directing it towards the Yankees? Is there bias in their writing and their publishing? There is no way to be certain and they would never admit it, but there is a perceived bias at this point. We understand the nature of the beast. It is the natural flow of an economy. As fans we want revenue streams for the team. Ultimately it will mean a better product on the field, but can we ever trust what we read again? Now that the St. Petersburg Times is in bed with the Rays, we will still read the articles and columns, but we will now be forced to seek a balanced opinion elsewhere. This bias will likely push more fans to sites like this one or DRays Bay or Rays of Light, where we attempt to read through the B. S. and present to you a (somewhat) unbiased dissection of the news that is presented in other forums. OK, we are biased, but at least the Rays aren’t controlling our content.

St. Pete Times and Tampa Tribune, this Kool-Aid smells funny. Thanks, but no thanks.

The Hangover: Fans In Walla Walla Spared From Having To Watch Rays

• Deadspin has started their baseball previews and on day 1 they give us our beloved Rays. The first two-thirds of the post is a recap of the 2006 implosion (that sound was us banging our collective heads on the keyboard…over and over and over and over). We recommend skipping to the last five paragraphs, unless of course you are a masochist. Some interesting tidbits…
1. The author speculates that another poor performance this year could lead to Joe Maddon’s dismissal. That is probably a bit premature. The team has publicly stated that this is a second year of “evaluation”. We would be shocked if Maddon was not back with the team in 2008 no matter what the results of 2007. The team has two option years on Maddon’s contract after this season. Most teams make decisions on managers before the final year of a contract. So don’t expect a move either way on Maddon until after 2008.
2. Maddon used 140 different lineups last year. We are amazed that he actually repeated a previous lineup 22 times. Maddon has received a lot of criticism for this and sometimes it is warranted, but Maddon has stated that he would love to have a regular lineup. Again, during this evaluation period, expect more lineup shuffling, although less than 2006, and even less in 2008 as the team and the players settle into their respective roles.
3. We have covered this before, but Andrew Friedman nor anybody else from the organization has EVER said that Carl Crawford was untouchable. This rumor has run rampant since devilrays.com ran a poorly titled article. The article was originally entitled “Baldelli continues to draw interest; Crawford will stay put” despite the fact that Crawford was never mentioned in the article. In fact, the article’s title was later changed (which can still be seen HERE) most likely at the request of the Rays front office. Are you telling us that if the Twins came and offered Johan Santana and Justin Morneau, the Rays would say ‘No’? Friedman has actually stated that nobody is untouchable but that they were not actively shopping C. C…Big difference.
• A couple of days ago we ran a list of 11 questions entering the 2007 Spring Training. The St. Pete Times could only come up with nine. Pathetic.
• An interesting look at the AL pitching staffs from 2006. The Rays starters actually put up some above average numbers. But when they take into account how deep the staff worked in games, they weren’t so good after all.
• Some mathematical projections for Delmon Young in 2007. The four models are fairly consistent. Looks like we can expect about a .300 average with about 15 home runs.
• DRaysBay interviewed potential first pick David Price of Vanderbilt.
• The return of a familiar face. Shinji Mori threw about 20 pitches from a mound for the first time since his surgery.
• FoxSports has ranked all of baseball’s general managers. Andrew Friedman? #22.
• Surprise, surprise, the Rays will not be featured on ESPN’s sunday night baseball in 2007. The last time the Rays played a nationally televised game was in 2000.
• Yep. These are our fellow Rays fans.