Murray Chass and the Selena Roberts Smackdown

We, along with numberous other sites, have given Murray Chass an earful when he dismisses modern day statistics.  They're simply not his thing and that's fine.  But good reporting?  That's right in Murray's wheelhouse:

Will Rogers, it is said, never met a man he didn’t like. Selena Roberts never met an anonymous source she didn’t quote. Roberts has written a book about Alex Rodriguez, and it is a journalistic abomination. That phrase probably won’t appear in any advertisement for the book, but it should to alert prospective readers what they would be getting.

In general, Roberts makes far too many serious allegations about Rodriguez to hide them behind anonymous quotes. Rodriguez deserves more, but more importantly readers deserve more. There is far too much in this attack book for Roberts to expect readers to take it on faith that her anonymous sources are real and they can be trusted. The use of anonymous sources has come under increasing criticism from readers of all types of publications. Having used them frequently in my decades as a reporter and columnist, I am aware of the problems they pose. Reporters have to establish their credibility with their use of unidentified sources for readers to accept them. Roberts and I were once colleagues at The New York Times, and I can’t say she established that credibility. She also didn’t strike me as being a top-flight reporter. As a result, I don’t feel I can trust her book full of anonymous sources. Even if every single A-Rod transgression she reports is accurate, it’s too easy for her to write one former teammate said this and another player said that. Had she written these same reports for the Times, very little would have made it into the paper. I’m not familiar with Sports Illustrated’s standards, but I hope they’re higher than the Roberts book offers. Actually, if you remove the quotes and other information that Roberts attributes to anonymous sources in the 246-page book, it might be left with 46 pages.

Ouch. Chass also calls into question just how much Roberts knows or even understands about baseball:

I should also disclose that after Roberts became a columnist for the Times I found her baseball columns to be shallow and superficial, and she demonstrates her lack of baseball knowledge in the book. Writing about Rodriguez’s $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers, which he signed in December 2000, Roberts writes that the contract “compelled owners to adopt a luxury tax that would help small-market teams compete in the otherwise lopsided free-agent market.” One problem with that statement. The owners already had their luxury tax and had had it for four years. They negotiated it with the union in the bargaining that followed the 1994-95 strike, and the agreement took effect Jan. 1, 1997.

Roberts makes numerous allegations against Alex Rodriguez and Chass picks apart the flimsy support she provides for a few of them.  One of the best examples:

Getting closer to Rodriguez’s high school team, Roberts writes, “A former Westminster player says Alex used steroids in high school and that Coach Hofman knew about it. Another Westminster graduate says Hofman’s son, David, who played on the football team with Alex, told him that he witnessed Alex’s use of steroids.” So let’s see if we have this sourcing right. The baseball coach’s son, who played football with Alex, told another graduate of their high school that Rodriguez used steroids. However, the one person Roberts quotes by name in this part of her tale, Rich Hofman, A-Rod’s high school baseball coach, “denies any knowledge of Alex’s use of steroids in high school.”

I was really on the fence about whether I should put any of my dollars into Selena Roberts' pocket and purchase this book.  I was fairly certain I needed to when the steroid news first broke this past winter as it seemed like essential reading.  Now that it's here, it has become obvious that Roberts has crafted a controversial book around Rodriguez without regard for journalistic integrity.  She stumbled upon A-Rod's steroid use and now she's trying to cash in on it.**

**Chass notes that Roberts never addresses how she came upon the knowledge of A-Rod's steroid use in Texas.  From Chass:

Had she told how she secured the information - I suspect it came from a Federal agent of some sort - that part of the story would have been the most significant part of her book with an identified source. Who would that be? Roberts, of course.

That's not to say that everything in this book is completely false.  I doubt it's all true, but A-Rod wasn't exactly convincing when he spoke up to Peter Gammons or at his spring training press conference.  It is probably reasonable to think that where there is some smoke, there's fire.  Or at least, someone smoking a cigarette. But that's the problem here.  A-Rod's career, much like many of the suspected steroid users from the late 1990s to early 2000 seasons, will now and forever be clouded in what we do not know.  There will never be full disclosure as to what happened in every clubhouse, every gym and training room, every doctor's office.  It's impossible.  In theory, we should only judge that era based on the facts at our disposal.  And yet, our own morbid curiosity leads us down the path of greater suspicion. That condition only worsens when a person like Selena Roberts, a reporter supposedly beholden to a credibility standard that warrants the mass publication and marketing of a book, can print such broad allegations against a major sports figure in our society without any tangible evidence.  It justifies our own thoughts and suspicions regardless of what circumstantial evidence we may use to draw our conclusions. I'm a skeptic at heart, in case you haven't figured that out already.  I tend to judge these situations from two perspectives: the simplest of answers and the most selfish of motivations.  It's the overriding philosophy behind Jason's It Is About the Money, Stupid blog and it's absolutely correct.  A-Rod and Selena Roberts have shoved both hands deep into the cookie jar, only it's not Chips Ahoy they seek, but the proverbial golden ring. A-Rod isn't stupid, or at least as stupid as people have been portraying him.  Nor is he naive.  He was fully aware that what he was doing was wrong, but the reward of fortune and glory outweighed the risks. Ditto Selena Roberts.  She knows that's she's written a book that, on the absurd chance people took it seriously, could have completely destroyed A-Rod's career.  Armed with that knowledge, she still went forward and presented arguments with little to no evidence to support them.  I don't think it was a coincidence that her publisher released very few copies of the book before her big press junket the day of the book's release.  No doubt, the people at Harper didn't want to have Roberts' credability be called into question the day their big book was released. The difference is, A-Rod is gambling with his own life.  Roberts has decided to risk her own reputation by ruining someone else's.  That, to me, is pathetic. (H/T to Ian for sending me the link)