Also didn’t remember that Mark Teixiera was at bat when Hughes was hurt in the 7th inning of his no-hit bid a couple of years ago.

No, I don’t remember.

I agree with your take on “investigative journalists”. “The big picture”, MLB, the Union, is the real story. Not just Arod.
I don’t think we can lay all the blame on the media. The Arod story is like a Brittany du-jour. It sells! Society has to take some responsibility for the media circus. I just feel somebody has to be buying in to it, or otherwise they wouldn’t keep hitting us over the head with it. I do my best to not patroize news or shows that sensationalize things. It feels like a losing battle. IMO

SJ – The BOSS is not a high paid contract. I would venture to guess that he is not a salaried employee but it is a licensing deal for the use of the music. Licensed on both the publishing (Bruce side) and master side (record company side). Having had an artist who had their own channel it is considered promotiopn and although there is a fee it is by no means a large fee. This is NOT the case of course when it comes to Howard, Dog and the on air talent. I would venture to guess that Dylan, Tom Petty etc who actually do on air work do get paid a very nice saary.

Doreen- I actually like the changes they made to XM175. Also in terms of the personnel on the XM side versus the Sirius side. Most of the XM staffers got shaved in the merger this includes not only the hosts but the programmers who actually programmed XM I think very interestingly and different. The merged some of the similar channels and stuck with the Sirius programing people rather than the XM people. I know a lot of the XM people and they are good poeple and had foresight into what they wanted to do, innovative ideas. But when the merger happened Mel K and his people just barrelled on through. Not to say that the Sirius people are not good just that there was a reason there were two companies they each had very different ideas into terms of programing and how to grow the concept.

The probablity that either XM or Sirius would have had to declare bankruptcy without the merger is pretty high. All you have to do is look at the financials. I bet if the FCC knew then what they know now the merger would not have been approved. Also what the bankruptcy is also doing is making Echostar show there hand and force them to either step to the plate and actually take over or back away.

Don’t look to Arod, Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston or any other athlete or celebrity to be role models for your kids.

Do your job as a parent and don’t get sucked into the mass media culture of “role models”.

Additionally, and this is for the younger people on the blog, PED’s have been in sports for 50+ years.

The greenie problem was rampant for over 40 years in the baseball. There are guys in the HOF who were hooked on greenies. They needed them to hold up over a season.

Greenies are a PED. Yet, when old warhorses like Bill Madden get on their moral soapboxes and rip today’s players, its funny how they conveinently neglect to discuss greenies from “their” era.

Mickey Mantle was hooked on greenies. Did Bill Madden keep him out of the HOF? Of course not.

Orlando Cepeda is a convicted drug dealer. He’s in the HOF. Guess who voted for him? Bill Madden and others who have gotten on their moral soapboxes in recent years over this stuff.

Nobody is condoning cheating. But, think about it for a moment.

The best coach in the NFL got caught cheating. May have won a Super Bowl as a direct result of the information he gathered by cheating. Not a crime but, that’s cheating just the same.

An All-Pro Safety from that team (Rodney Harrison) got nailed for using HGH and ADMITTED IT!

A doctor who was once employed as a team doctor of the Carolina Panthers illegally sold steroids to over half of the team that went to the Super Bowl.

Where was the national media outrage over these incidents? There was little to none. Minimal, if any suspensions, and those stories died a quick death.

Yet, baseball players get KILLED by the national media over this stuff. KILLED. Scarlet letters forever on their resumes.

Yet, I don’t see the same “scarlet letters” given to NFL players and coaches who get caught cheating.

We now have reporters going through the garbage of baseball players looking for evidence of PED use.

I don’t remember a lot of “hard hitting” reports on any NFL player using PED’s or any coach who got nailed for cheating.

Certainly not like we are seeing in baseball.

The fact is, people cheat. Deal with it. You don’t like it? Don’t watch the games.

However, if you are going to be fixated on every bit of cheating that goes on, how about making the coverage a little more balanced?

If people think the NFL doesn’t have a PED/cheating problem, they are living in fairytale land.

I’d just like to see some of our newly minted “investigative journalists” balance out their coverage a little more and take on the NFL.

If you are truly interested in getting the “story”, I would think someone would jump at the chance to do it.

There are so many venues and so much air time and print to fill that at times it seems as if they need a sensational story to draw people to their program or paper.

Look at the number of post here when something big or sensational happens. Not blaming you Pete just making a point.

I completely agree. Glanville’s story should be required readying for anybody who loves the game. From the Commissioner to the Union, to the media to the fans.

This entire sorry episode won’t go away for two reasons. One, incompetent leadership.

Selig, Fehr and Orza all, for various reasons, have failed their constituancies MISERABLY in this entire ordeal.

Their selective spin aside, they all misjudged the seriousness, and the vastness of PED use in the game. When it came to light, neither side really wanted to do much about it. Mainly because, it would hurt profits.

You want to fix it? Get new leadership because the present leadership has failed across the board on tackling this issue.

Second, the media. They won’t let it go. They are so busy trying to play “gotcha” YEARS after the fact, they won’t let the story die. Despite the fact that if you polled fans, most of them could care less about players and PED’s.

They screwed up as much as the owners and players did 10+ years ago, when it was a BIG story. They didn’t have (as Bill Raftery would say) the “onions” to take on the sport when it was getting its popularity back.

Now, they are playing catchup. Unfortunately, they are doing more harm than good and aren’t solving anything with their coverage of it. Especially, when you are digging up failed drug tests from 6 years ago. A lifetime ago when it comes to PED use.

Throw in the US Government wasting taxpayer money chasing baseball players down who did steroids, and leaking like a sieve when their cases don’t go the way they want to, and you have a full blown freak show going on.

How to stop it?

Somebody has to take a leadership role. Somebody has to be the “adult” here. Unfortunately, finding that person is very, very difficult.

Now we will be faced with the owners trying to play Union busters again. They see a possible opening because of the breakdowns with the 2003 testing program, and we will have to ready ourselves for another set of labor fights once again.

That will only galvanize the players and we will soon have another OK Corral standoff between the owners and players.

It just never seems to end.

I agree with you about MLB radio – and I never understood the changes. Sirius did not have baseball, XM did. So I don’t understand why they felt the need to revamp unless it was to cut costs. It used to be entertaining and informative; it’s lost a lot on both ends, in my opinion. And I absolutely agree with you on Steiner. Sometimes he aggravated me no end, but you learned so much about things all around both leagues.

I also listen to Broadway music a lot and in this instance, both XM and Sirius had Broadway-format stations, so I understood the need to streamline. However, again it seemed that the Sirius people took over the format. All my XM people that I had grown to enjoy were gone. And the new people are just annoying. Sure, the music is the same, but the way it is presented is different and the non-music portions stink IMO.

So, if satellite radio goes away, all I lose is the cost of the second radio for my husband’s car. I’ll save the per-month cost of subscription radio. And start bringing my cd’s back into the car. (Or break down and get an iPod touch for my birthday.)