Jeff Pearlman calls the kettle black

Jeff Pearlman wrote an article for CNN in which he explores the nastiness of anonymity among internet commenters.

It's a telling article that explores a very real problem on the internet--the nastiness of people when they feel they have anonymity to hide behind. His conclusion--that people who are assholes anonymously on the internet aren't necessarily assholes in real life--has some valid implications and raises the question of what the medium of internet comments does to the level and tone of discourse in America. I'm glad he wrote it.

However, let's ask this question: to what extent does Jeff Pearlman help create this problem? I recognize that every sportswriter (and politics writer and video game writer and Fire Jay Mariotti blog writer) gets a bevy of vitriolic and over-the-line nasty reader responses, no matter how unabashedly nice they are (Joe Posnanski) or how big of a mean-spirited piece of shit they are (Murray Chass).

However, Jeff Pearlman's articles and blog posts are characterized by, if not a mean-spirited vitriol of their own, at the very least a disillusionment at the negative character of athletes which manifests itself with name-calling and accusations against the character of these athletes. I wonder to what extent Jeff's history of writing articles and books and blog posts assassinating the moral character of players like Barry Bonds, Allen Iverson, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson--figures who Jeff knows have no real ability to answer his specific accusations even should they want to--help contribute to the generally negative discourse level of internet sportswriting and sportsreading. In a recent blog post (and SI companion artcicle), for instance, Jeff made a "come on, we all know he did it" post about how Jeff Bagwell--a man who may be denied the HOF over nothing but idle speculation--almost assuredly, by Jeff's mind, took steroids absent any real evidence or even real hearsay. Not a very nice article by any means, and one Bagwell has no real power to respond to.

Here are the topics of the four sports books Jeff Pearlman has written

1.) Barry Bonds is a living breathing piece of shit and also a cheater

2.) Roger Clemens is a living breathing piece of shit and also a cheater

3.) The 1986 Mets were living breathing pieces of shit, some of whom do vile things with their enormous penises, but he kind of likes them anyway.

4.) The 1990's Cowboys were living breathing pieces of shit, some of whom do vile things with their enormous penises, but he kind of likes them anyway.

Maybe (probably) Pearlman is dead on about these teams and players being living breathing pieces of shit. It's certainly likely. But to what extent does this kind of focus cultivate a combative attitude among readers and writers? Certainly the readers who send Pearlman vile hatemail aren't RIGHT to do it. Quite the opposite--calling Pearlman a Kotex might be amusing in its randomness, but it's undoubtedly an uncalled for insult that reflects a lot more about the writer of the insult than about Pearlman hiself. But is it apropos of nothing? The more you read Pearlman's sports-hate, the less you think it is. Or at least the less I think it is.

Food for thought.

In other words, Jeff, you might be pointing your finger at the right target, but in this blogger's mind, there are four fingers pointing right back at you.

Jeff Pearlman being Jeff Pearlman

It's way too early in the morning to be cogent about the latest piece of trash by Pearlman. But here are some choice quotations:

Many have argued it to be America's greatest virtue; in this country, you cannot be punished for the mere presumption of guilt.
There must be proof.
What happens, however, if proof is impossible to ascertain? More to the point, what happens if proof is impossible to ascertain because the alleged guilty (and those working on their behalf) have made it so? What if there is no such thing as proof? What if it is as tangible as Roy Hobbs and the $3 bill? What if it can never actually exist?

You're not exactly helping your case, Jeff

Until 2004, Major League Baseball did not test for performance-enhancing drugs. This wasn't because the available methods weren't accurate enough, or because the timing wasn't right, or because Bud Selig was on a lengthy vacation to Guam. No, the reason Major League Baseball did not have a testing policy was because nobody within the game wanted players to get caught.

Not exactly helping your case that steroids users are cheaters, Jeff.

Thanks in large part to the pervasive usage of steroids, growth hormones and other performance-enhancing drugs, baseballs were soaring out of stadiums in record numbers. There was the magical Sosa-McGwire home run chase of '98. There was Barry Bonds hitting 73 in 2001. There was Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi and Jeremy Giambi and, well, the list is endless.

Oh, you mean players that we have tangible evidence for steroids or non-denials from? Gotcha Jeff.

For the corporation known as Major League Baseball, power equaled a post-'97 lockout return to packed stadiums, and packed stadiums equaled money, and money equaled happy owners. For the juiced players, power equaled inflated numbers, which equaled inflated contracts.
So, until pressure came along, the owners did nothing.
The players said nothing.
The union -- specifically Donald Fehr -- fought to keep nothingness the norm.

So...no one but the fans cared that they were doing it and it wasn't against the rules so...we have a responsibility to keep them out of the hall. I mean, it makes sense--it's not like anyone is in the HOF for breaking what would later become a rule of baseball on a regular basis.

It's not like Jeff's wrong, in theory...but he sure is making his argument pretty poorly.

Simply put, if there is no chance of guilt -- if it is a literal impossibility -- what is the value of such an ideal? "People say, 'Hey, this guy never failed a drug test,' as a defense of certain players," says Howard Bryant, an ESPN.com senior writer and author of Juicing the Game. "It's an intellectually lazy argument. Generally speaking, innocent until proven guilty is true. But how can you use the never-failed-a-drug-test argument when, until relatively recently, there was nothing to fail?

Except we're not talking about a guy like Sammy Sosa, for whom "He never failed a drug test" is the ONLY possible defense. In this article, Pearlman is talking about Jeff Bagwell, the person for which the only argument that he DID take steroids is: "He played in the 90's and got bigger as his career progressed." No Mitchell Report mention. No being called to congress to testify (despite him being one of the best players in the game). No backdoor innuendo about pimples on his back or a change in hat sizes. No. Nothing but "he played in the 90's and got muscular in his career. An argument that could apply to everyone who played in the 90's. Something Jeff must have overlooked! Except...

Does this mean Jeff Bagwell used steroids? No, it doesn't. As NBC Sports' Calcaterra rightly pointed out in a recent post, "There is just as much evidence against [stars like Derek Jeter, Cal Ripken Jr., Randy Johnson, etc.] as there is against Bagwell." Again, the problem with the flawed logic of Calcaterra (one of the leaders of the leave-these-poor-guys-alone movement) and his minions is: There is no evidence. Against anyone. Because baseball made certain of it.

Oh. Never mind. Jeff hasn't overlooked this argument. He just decided to respond to it by sticking his fingers in his years and saying "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA." I don't see any flawed logic here but yours, Jeff. Basically you're trying to turn the HOF into a job interview, no matter how many correct answers a candidtate gives, no matter how good his resume is, no matter how flawlessly his references check out, you reserve the write to say, "Nah...I can just TELL he won't be a good worker [read: HOFer]."

And everyone knows, that's how a good voting process should go.

Look--I don't really care about steroids use. I know that's not the public trend on the issue and I don't necessarily think people who do care about steroids use are wrong. I have seen very strong arguments against keeping Palmeiro and McGwire--two men for whom a very strong argument could be made that steroids turned them from Dave Kingmans and Will Clarks into HOFers--out of the Hall because of their confirmed cheating. I have also seen strong arguments that slam dunk HOFers like Clemens and Bonds should be kept out of the HOF because they are cheaters and assholes.

I don't necessarily agree with those arguments, but they are solid arguments.

This is not a solid argument. This is a witch hunt. There will be several HOFers and borderline-HOFers in the upcoming years who people have accused baselessly of steroids. Bagwell, Walker, Mike Piazza. As long as people continue to think like Pearlman, the HOF vote is going to be a chance for assholes like Pearlman to use these as-far-as-we-know innocent players as a soapbox to say "Look at me and how much holier than thou I am."

That makes me sicker than steroids ever could.