BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Monday, April 25, 2005
I'VE FINALLY MADE UP MY
MIND. Not to beat this to death, but since I've finally decided
what I think about the Bob
Ryan column on Nomar
Garciaparra and his possible steroid use, I see no reason to keep it
to myself.
1. It wasn't unethical. I
don't really have a problem with a columnist writing about something
that people have been talking about for years. It's inconceivable
that anyone believes Garciaparra is (or was) a steroid user strictly
as a consequence of reading Ryan's Friday column. The mainstream
media's gatekeeper role is long gone, and it makes no sense for a
paper like the Globe to pretend that if it doesn't cover
something, people won't know about it. But -
2. It was useless. If a
mainstream news organization is going to travel down speculative
paths it might have avoided pre-Internet and pre-talk radio, it at
least needs to add some value. Ryan's column was nothing more than what
you might hear on sports radio. Obviously a columnist can't take the
time to poke into a subject the way an investigative reporter would.
But it strikes me that if you're going to speculate about
Garciaparra's devastating injury, there are two obvious questions you
might want to ask:
- Did Garciaparra stumble
out of the batter's box in such an awkward way that anyone might
have suffered the same type of injury, with the tendon pulling
away from the bone?
- Was Garciaparra's injury of
the sort that is known to be associated with steroid
use?
Media Log reader E.K. offers some
excellent ideas for a follow-up:
Rather than throwing out
steroid claims which will never be proven, I'd rather see
reporters check out the Athletes Performance Center in Arizona,
where Nomar works out all winter. He, Schilling, and Arizona
Diamondbacks Matt Kata and Robby Hammack also work out there and
all have had some pretty unusual and serious injuries in the last
couple of years (you can Google those last two to get the
specifics). Maybe they're just doing the wrong exercises to be
good baseball players. I'm sure David Wells would agree.
Finally, this
is just hateful.
posted at 10:45 AM |
4 comments
|
link
4 Comments:
Everything on BDD is hateful.
Dan, you're being way too easy on Bob Ryan. A couple of points:
- I'm not a physician, and neither are you or Ryan. But we know Nomar has had groin problems before. A tight groin muscle may have accounted for the batting slump he was in - very hard to open up the hips to swing with that kind of pain. If that's the case, the muscle may have already been so tight that simply digging out of the batter's box was enough to snap it.
- Ryan is a fat jealous old geezer. As someone else pointed out, lots of people at the right age and with good genes would add plenty of muscle mass if they were to undergo the kind of grueling weight training regimen Nomar did following his rookie season. I didn't start lifting weights until my mid-30s. I easily added 15 pounds of muscle in a few months, and have added about another 10 or so since. At my most fanatical, I'm sure my workouts are laughable compared to Nomar's, and he was at a more advantageous age when he decided to bulk up. Join a health club and start eating lots of chicken, fish, and fresh vegetables. You'll be amazed at what you can do without banned substances.
Steve
What is BDD?
BostonDirtDogs.com -- now owned by the Boston Globe
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
