Jays Roundup - I Read The News Today, Oh Boy

Friday, July 16 2004 @ 05:45 AM EDT

Contributed by: Pepper Moffatt

About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh and
I saw the photograph

Welcome to the Red Eye edition of Jays Roundup.

  1. In "High-tech video gives Jays edge" Spencer Fordin looks at how improvements in video technology have changed the way the team prepares for a game.

  2. Tonight's game should be a great pitcher's duel. Of course, whenever I say that, the score ends up being in the neighbourhood of 12-10. The 8:05pm EST start in Texas features the 8-5 Roy Halladay for the Jays against the 12-3 Kenny Rogers for the Rangers. The always reliable Spencer Fordin has the game preview for this one. Any predictions on the score?

  3. It's not often that two former Jays are involved in the same transaction. But it happened yesterday as "Olerud, Borders cut by Mariners".

  4. Headlines which should go in the "Well, of course" bucket: "Injured players worry Tosca". I like the Second-half Blue Jay storylines on the bottom of Mr. Blair's article. What are some others?

  5. In "Left-hand hitters a strength for Canada" Larry Millson discusses the roster for the Canadian Olympic Baseball Team. The Toronto Star has three more articles on the Canadian team: "Bases are loaded with pride" and "Club counting on Greek security" by Doug Smith and "Golden hope for Canadian diamonds" by Richard Griffin.

  6. In what should be an ongoing story for the next month at least, Mark Zwolinski discusses the possibility of a deal for the Jays first baseman in "Jays inch closer to setting up a deal for Delgado".


Now, if you'll excuse me for a few minutes, I'd like to get on the soapbox.

Why Rumourmongering Hurts the Batter's Box



by Mike Moffatt

Rumourmongering has reared it's head a few times on the Batter's Box, and it's been causing us problems. Posting such as this fictional one have caused a great deal of discussion on the Box:

    AvalancheFan33:

    I just got off the phone with a high-ranking Jays official. It turns out they're going to trade Player X to the Orioles for Player Y. It probably won't be finalized for a couple of days, but it will happen.


Of course, we have no idea who "AvalancheFan33" is or why we should believe him. The marginal cost of making such a posting is almost zero, so we should expect to see a pretty heavy supply of such posts. But that's not entirely why it is a problem.

Problems Caused by Rumourmongering

In short, it gives us a lot more work to do. I've noticed that whenever a rumour is posted I get quite a few e-mails saying things like:
    "What have you heard about this Player X for Player Y trade. Is it true?"

    "I can't believe you guys said Player X is going to be traded to Baltimore. What a load of garbage."

    "Where can I find the press release for the X for Y trade?"


It just makes a lot of unnecessary work for the Batter's Box, as we always try to answer as many e-mails as we can. I shudder to think of all the mail a truly high profile BBox staffer like Coach gets.

It also causes the course of any discussion on the Box to change to why people are spreading rumours and what their credentials are. We'd rather focus on discussing baseball.

There's also different breeds of problems, depending on if the rumour is true or false.

The Problem If You're Wrong

It makes us look like idiots, particularly since many people will fail to distinguish between things Batter's Box staff posts and stuff readers post. We don't want to lose visitors because people feel we're unreliable.
    "Batter's Box? Aren't they the guys who said that Player X was going to get traded to Baltimore? Wow, weren't they way off!"

Anyone can start a website and publish whatever they feel like, which is great for free speech, but it also gives us a lot less credibility than other forms of media. We've worked hard on the Batter's Box to establish a reputation for giving reliable and credible information, and it'd be a shame to lose that. We don't have a wealthy corporate backer, and none of us are making money by doing this. In fact this is costing some of us a fair bit of cash. Reputation is about all we have, so it's naturally quite precious to us.

The rumourmonger, on the other hand, generally doesn't have to worry about his reputation. He almost always posts under an assumed name, and has invested very little. If the rumourmonger ends up being wrong, he can simply come back the next day and post under a new handle such as "NascarGary" or "Lefty McLefthander".

The Problems if You're Right

Somewhat counterintuitively, a rumour that ends up being correct can cause us a lot more problems than something someone just made up. Imagine the following scenario. Again, our rumourmonger posts the following:

    AvalancheFan33:

    I just got off the phone with a high-ranking Jays official. It turns out they're going to trade Player X to the Orioles for Player Y. It probably won't be finalized for a couple of days, but it will happen.


That's all well and good, but the Jays haven't told Player X yet. Unfortunately, one of Player X's friends reads the site, and calls Player X to ask if it's true. Player X says it's not, just to get a call a couple hours later from the Jays to find out that he should pack his bags to Baltimore.

This leads to all sorts of animosity. Player X is naturally outraged at the Jays as he learned about being traded from "some website". The Jays are naturally mad at us for making them look bad. The other members of the media are mad at us for leaking something they probably all knew about, but held off on reporting, out of respect to the organization. There's also the possibility that one of the BBox staffers knew about the deal, but promised not to tell.

We don't want to make enemies with the players, some of whom we've interviewed in the past, and others we'd like to interview in the future. We certainly don't want to make enemies with the front office. J.P. has been particularly good to us, even showing up at a Batter's Box sanctioned event last weekend. Lastly, we don't want to make enemies with the media. Mike Wilner has been great to us, so we don't want to step on his toes. I love reading guys like Fordin and Rutsey, so I certainly don't want make enemies out of them. Other Batter's Box writers are friends with various people covering the Jays, even ones I've been known to poke fun at, and I wouldn't want to put their friendships at risk. It's just not worth it to us, even if it means we're not the first ones with a story.

In Conclusion

We value our readers and our posters, and we want you to stick around. I'm not even suggesting that if you know something, that you shouldn't post it. All I ask is that you don't post in the form of a rumour. So instead of posting:

    AvalancheFan33:

    I just got off the phone with a high-ranking Jays official. It turns out they're going to trade Player X to the Orioles for Player Y. It probably won't be finalized for a couple of days, but it will happen.


could you please change it to something in the form of an opinion, such as:

    AvalancheFan33:

    A Player X for Player Y trade makes a lot of sense for both clubs. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in the near future.


The latter statement is a lot less controversial and causes us a lot less problems. If AvalancheFan33 ends up being right, he'll still garner all sorts of credibility, and we'll all listen a bit more careful when he has something to say in the future.

I'll get off the soapbox now. I just wanted everyone to see where I'm coming from. The thoughts in the above editorial do not necessarily reflect the views of other BBox staffers. Thank you.

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