I've never been a fan of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers or the CFL. However, with the ongoing battle of words between the Bomber's front office and media, this seemed like an obvious issue to tackle (bad pun, I know).
It seems to me more than ever that journalists are becoming armchair coaches behind their keyboard. As an aspiring journalist, I agree that sports organizations are fair game and should have the right to be criticized - but there is a limit to everything.
Currently in Washington DC, the Nationals (Major League Baseball team) are get ripped apart by local and national media.
You see, the Nationals are having one of their best years in team history. And they are being led by one of the best youngsters in the MLB - think the Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin equivalent in baseball.
He is Stephen Strasburg - and widely considered a generational talent. Last year, Strasburg injured his arm and underwent Tommy John surgery. Coming into this season, doctors advised that the team would have keep him limited to a number of innings pitched.
All was fine until the Nationals decided to move from mediocrity to an elite team in baseball. The problem? Well, Strasburg has reached his maximum innings pitched and had to be shutdown.
This is where everything went horribly wrong.
According to many journalists, this was simply a dumb move by the Nationals. It started a large wave of opinion based articles that began roasting the Nationals front office. One of the leaders in this witch hunt has been Jon Morosi.
Led me first say I love Morosi's writing and work with the MLB; however, I cannot stand his stance on the Strasburg situation. Yes, he has a right to write what he pleases, but after the fourth or fifth story which contains the same argument and name calling, he's crossed the line.
Here is one of his articles on the situation.
With numerous doctors in the sports industry stating that it was best for Strasburg to be shutdown for obvious health reasons, this did not stop the media from continuing to voice their opinions - after all, they must know more than these industry respected doctors.
This brings me back to the Bomber's mess here in Winnipeg. Today, Gary Lawless put out an opinion piece absolutely destroying the Bombers. While I do agree with some of his column, I think he crossed the line as a journalist.
That is the line between doing a job and reporting on a team - and deciding to act like a pissed off fan who needs to take a calmer look at the situation.
As a pretty big sports fan, this looks like a piece of writing I'd do after watching one of my teams lose a heartbreaking game. It's too emotional and radical for my liking and I think he crosses a boundary as a writer. However, I know a lot of Bomber fans enjoy the piece, so maybe I'm off base?
It seems that more and more sports writers are going in this direction, though. Another example is Steven Simmons, who regularly puts out long ranting articles about the Toronto Maple Leafs. He also engages in Twitter battles with front office officials (Brian Burke and Ron Wilson for example).
I'm not asking for fluffy writing where writers are portraying teams as a perfect and incapable of producing mistakes. What I hate seeing is the same old column where the writers are acting as armchair coaches. It's annoying and after awhile, a point is crossed where the column looks no different from one of my blog posts.
If there is a journalist that has the most balance, I would have to say it's The Globe and Mail's sportswriter, James Mirtle. He has found that perfect balance between angry fan and newspaper writer. So now, I leave you with one of my favourite pieces from Mirtle. I hope you got something out of this long rant.
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