We don’t normally do many posts on local sports here at blogHOUSTON.
Still, we are interested in how local media covers sports, and the Chronicle frequently comes up short in that area as in others.
For example, a few days ago, the newspaper was running claims that Carlos Beltran had been offered a six year, $96 million deal. Charlie Palillo fairly well demolished that claim, which was based on an anonymous source, on his program on KBME-790; Drayton McLane denied the claim later. Still, the Chronicle continues to refer to an “industry source” who keeps citing large offers. It doesn’t get much more anonymous than that, although intelligent readers can guess that Scott Boras and/or his people are quite likely the “industry source” (and they have good reason to spread the notion of a large offer to boost the bidding for their client).
Curiously, the Chronicle sports pages chose to bury the recent news regarding baseball’s luxury tax and revenue sharing policies, under which high spending teams must fork over a penalty of sorts to the rest of the league. Perhaps that’s because for quite some time, the newspaper has uncritically repeated Drayton McLane’s assertions that he’s been losing money hand over fist, and more recently (when record attendance made that assertion untenable even on the Chron sports pages), that he barely broke even this last season. The assertions are never characterized as assertions by the Chronicle, despite the fact that they can’t be verified because the owner will not open his books.
And finally, there’s a fine blog post from Tom Kirkendall on The Mismanagement of the Houston Rockets. Read that thing carefully. It’s better analytically and critically than anything that is ever printed on the Chronicle sports pages. Indeed, contrast it with today’s column from “stud” sports columnist Richard Justice, who seems to argue, in all seriousness, that Billy Gillispie has Texas A&M on its way to basketball prominence. A&M? Basketball? Err, okay Richard. If they win half their games, even AFTER loading their nonconference schedule with the equivalent of junior high teams, it will be quite a surprise. But that’s not the sort of analysis you find on the Chron pages, where local coaches and owners are just swell and always credible, and local teams are always just on the cusp of greatness. So, we turn to blogs and message boards for heartier fare.
We need more sports blogs in this town. For that matter, we (blogHOUSTON) need a sports blogger. Because the newspaper just isn’t adequate.
