Fall Class oh no Wait

There's no bigger stage in the baseball world than the World Series, and we saw a couple of really good games this year. Yes, this truly is a great ga... oh wait, there's a rumbling out of New York City... Joe Torre ripped his pants? No, wait, ARod opted out of his contract. Let's talk about it during the World Series! I link to SI.com because they were credited for breaking the story, which had it's coattails grabbed onto by FOX and ESPN.

Yes, it's a classless act by Scott Boras. What do you expect?

Easy solution for FOX and ESPN: Launch into your gigantic spiral of New York City coverage AFTER the game is over. In 2004, I would have loved to have been in that bar after my team lost to see some other news than Jimmy Fallon celebrating in my ballpark. Any distraction would have been welcome. Boston fans were out rioting last night anyways, so the rest of the country- - the 80% of America that despises New England - - could have waited to see what Scott Boras leaked after the game, the celebration, the presentation of corporate prizes, the interivews, and Jeanine Zelasko's 20 pounds of make up. You can blame ARod and Boras all you want, but some of the blame needs to be put on FOX and ESPN. SI.com broke the story online, and then ESPN and FOX talked about it. The channels lost the ability to claim they broke the story, so they should have waited until after the Rockies and Red Sox were done playing. But instead, I had to endure Joe Buck (who I like... it's a St. Louis thing) speculating where ARod won't be appreciated next year.

Really, I can only shake my head when I read what Buster Olney wrote:

The way this played out could not have been more apropos, because A-Rod needs to be bigger than the game; he needs to be more important than the Red Sox or the Rockies or any other team, or any other player. He is one of the greatest players in history at compiling statistics, the greatest ever at compiling wealth, and his next employer will have to buy into that. The World Series can't matter as much as A-Rod.

I know it wasn't Buster who was on TV talking about it, but give me a break. Who made this story bigger than the World Series? ARod, or those who talked about it during the game? "Reporting" this during the game's grandest spectacle isn't about journalism, so why bring it up?

[note: I came in late during the game when it was brought up, as I had to ask my parents to pick up more Doritos at the store. It seemed to me that FOX tried to legitimize the discussion of the story by having Ken Rosenthal and Joe Buck talk about it. I would have mentioned this, but I wasn't watching when it was initially mentioned on FOX and I would hate to have anonymous commenters flame away for incorrect information on this humble blog.]