Sports media move at a blistering pace

Column originally publishd Dec. 18, 2007

Many Cubs fans breathed sighs of relief last week when the biggest name in Wrigleyville was Kosuke Fukudome, the first Japanese player to sign a Cubs contract.
The flip side would have been one of the team's present stars being named in the Mitchell report, the extensive yet incomplete investigation into use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs by Major League Baseball players.

Several former all-stars and MVP award winners were named, along with a few players with Hall of Fame credentials. And while a few high-priced lawyers already are considering libel lawsuits, the court of public opinion is populated with Average Joes who don't intend to sift through more than 300 pages of a document written by a former U.S. senator, who also has been a federal prosecutor.

I admit to being interested in seeing the names of people somehow linked to steroid use. Reading excerpts online I was able to learn the hand-me-down stories of who injected whom in the rear end, with what and how often, who paid for such things with personal checks and other such details.

It was interesting, sure, but it also felt a little dirty — kind of like reading someone's unsubstantiated report to the police in the Drew Peterson missing wife case. Here's a man the police haven't formally charged because they don't have enough evidence, but that never seems to matter as we play judge and jury while watching the evening news.

In addition to rushing to judgment, the sports media is rushing to create context, which is absurd. Major League Baseball can trace its lineage more than a century. This report covers players from the past decade or so. It was on the street for 20 minutes and sports Web sites had their experts posting commentary telling us how the document will change the way history views baseball.

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