On the Matter of Sports and Opinion

Baseball has always been my favorite sport, and with the season approaching, I feel that it is fitting to blog about “the literate man’s game.” First off though, I will share a personal story; baseball opened my eyes to the frenetic and occasionally disturbing world of editing. Last spring I read the book The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn, which chronicles his years as a Brooklyn Dodgers beat writer for the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune. Before reading the book I naively assumed that writers simply wrote what they wanted, with the editors then serving as glorified proofreaders. The Boys of Summer exposed me to the 1950s version of the generally brutal but often beneficial editing process which, from what we have learned in class, seems very much the same even 50 years later.

Back in the here and now, the big story rippling through the baseball world is megastar Alex Rodriguez’s confession to using steroids while playing for the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003. As A-Rod is currently the game’s highest paid player and possibly biggest star, the consequences of his actions as broken by Sports Illustrated will have effects for many years, right up to the date of his eligibility for the Hall of Fame. With this in mind, Joe Posnanski of the same magazine wrote an opinion story arguing for the removal of the character clause in the Baseball Hall of Fame ballots and fair evaluation of the players based on their abilities and the time they played (noting that A-Rod’s numbers came against equally drugged pitchers).

Overall, Posnanski does a good job of targeting this column at his core audience- baseball fans. His references in the story, though not thoroughly explained, are well known to most fans, and the points he raises arguing for removing the character clause of Hall of Fame ballots make sense and are well-supported, even to the most virulent steroids-hater. Particularly effective, in my opinion, is his use of Buck O’Neil’s quote about the avowed racist but talented ballplayer Enos Slaughter: “Could he play or couldn’t he play? That’s all that matters.”

There are a few off notes in his article, however. As I said earlier, this article is an opinion; Posnanski expects his readers to be well-versed in the vagaries of our national pastime. However, his opening reference with the character clause (“You probably know…”) takes too much liberty with the assumption of reader education. I consider myself a knowledgeable baseball fan, yet I was unaware of the inclusion of this clause in the balloting. Furthermore, I feel like his fictionalized 1930s sportswriter conversation is unnecessary; although the article is written fairly informally with a touch of humor, I feel that that information could have been better disseminated to the reader through some other style. That said, I again reiterate that Posnanski does a good job in making and supporting his case.