Blurring The Lines

When a percentage of the Boston Red Sox was bought by the New York Times several years ago, a few people in the journalism community bristled. You see, the New York Times also owns the Boston Globe, which meant that one division of a company would be reporting on another section of the same company. The situation created quite the journalistic quandary. Unlike NESN, which is fully owned by the team and expected to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the organization, the Globe is supposed to be impartial in its baseball coverage. The fact that the team and the paper shared a common owner led some to believe that the Globe would become nothing more than another cheerleader for the Sox and that the Globe's sports section would be either unwilling or unable to report on unflattering stories surrounding the club. For the most part this hasn't been an issue and any griping about the relationship coming from places like WEEI or the Boston Herald have been dismissed as sour grapes. But, every now and again, you can see where they might have a point.

The thing is, winning is a great cover-all. When everything is going well there is no reason worry about what is happening behind the scenes or who is getting too cozy with whom. As the team had unprecedented success during the last seven years, few people had a reason to question the relationship between the Globe and the Red Sox because no one wants to be seen as the person who ruins the fun for everyone by asking how much the party is costing. They were winning, getting most of the best free agents and everything was right with the world. But, following an historic collapse and their two-time World Series manager quitting/getting fired, people have started to look around for people to blame for the current situation. Suddenly, the bias is starting to show.

Now, there is plenty of blame to go around and it should be spread among every level of the team, but in reading this article in this morning's Globe, you sure don't get that sense. Allow me to sum it up for those of you who don't feel like clicking through: some players (Lackey, Beckett, Lester) were lazy and drunk, other players (Wakefield, Youkilis) were only worried about themselves, while others (Ortiz, Varitek) just stopped trying to be leaders. Meanwhile the manager was dealing with a separation from his wife and a possible painkiller addiction and lately the General Manager has been failing more than he was getting it right. It is a lot of dirty laundry getting aired out for all to see.

Reading it I couldn't help but notice a distinct lack of mention of ownership. Other than the early throwaway line acknowledging that the owners were the ones who allowed Theo Epstein to make all these bad decisions, the only mention of upper management was how John Henry tried to make all the players happy by giving them headphones and taking them on his yacht after they were pissed about having to play a double-header. Everything else was the repeated line that the owners didn't know it how bad the clubhouse had gotten, a clear effort to shift the blame away from them and onto everyone else. Reading all these quotes about Epstein, Henry and Francona I couldn't help but notice that there wasn't a single mention of President Larry Lucchino and he is rather conspicuous by his absence.

These are the problems that comes from an inflammatory story being written mostly through anonymous sources. People start to wonder just who is giving out these quotes. The story cites "sources familiar with the Sox operation at all levels." Normally it wouldn't be a major issue, but given the Globe's tight relationship with Sox ownership and the way the article seems to give that group a pass, it makes you wonder if they had a hand in the tone of this piece. The fact that the suspicion even exists shows the people who claim the paper is a little too cozy with the organization may be on to something. (Which is too bad because it cheapens the work done by guys like Bob Hohler, whom I'm sure was just working with the resources given to him.) It just proves that sometimes there is such a thing as too much access. There have been reports in the last few months that the Times may have to sell their stake in the Red Sox to make some money. When I see articles like this come out, I have to wonder if that wouldn't be the best thing for everyone involved.