Andrea Canales, I'm Calling You Out

In our world of soccer fandom, I'm nobody, she's somebody; but she has a blog like many of us.

In blogs, you write down stuff that you normally might not post or issue else where... for instance scroll down and see how I felt about the Wynalda interview.

In this post, however, she takes us to task for publishing 'off the record' comments. Saying it was not something a professional would do.
- I'm hoping she will allow me to use her view in my rants on political figures and the media. For there's many instances of 'Pro's' doing just that.

She makes good points on what should be 'journalism 101'.. and she makes good points on how this hurt Wynalda.

I'm not going to address any of the issues on how the interview happened, but here is what frosts me;

She assumes, without attempting the least bit to follow up, that just juicy parts of the interview were simply transcribed and posted with no thought of consequences and no attempt to verify the veracity of the facts.

Thus she has NO idea what went on behind the scenes.. the presumption is that we didnt care.

She doesnt see my email inbox on it. She doesnt think about whether or not I attempted to email Wynalda to get his views.

I suggest anyone reading this just TRY to find a way to email Eric or anyone else who's on the announcing staff of ESPN.. if it's not a program email link, it's hard as hell to find it, and when you do, you see that it will pass through some intern's mailbox.

She evidently didnt bother to read the interview within context of the setting that was carefully crafted in the Head and lede, let alone the intro of the interview itself.

And she certainly must not have looked at the tone of the site, and the best way to do that - other than reading OTHER articles- is to look at the site forum. There's no real ranting and raving on there, if you discount the 'politics threads', that is. We have many Brit Fulham Fans commenting on that messageboard who say the others are too 'pedestrian' for them to frequent.

So just WHO is making comments on a 'soccer-blog' without addressing all the elements?

But the MAIN thing that frosts me is she was still commenting on it. If it was 'un-pro' then ignore it and let it die.

Or is the 'uncoolness' of the interview posting just too juicy to pass up?

She's not alone; witness Rome making sure that his fans could find the site by pronouncing it phonetically, note SportCenter listing the site address for more than enough time to make sure the viewers could memorize or jot it down.


I smell fish.

Beers with Jim Rome

This week I had a role in a minor sport brouhaha. I was the editor of an interview by a soccer fan with Eric Wynalda, a Hall of Fame soccer player and current ESPN Soccer Analyst, which was posted on a website I admin.

And, despite some misgivings, I left in a graphic reference by Wynalda to Jim Rome. One which, in context of the interview, was fueled by passions felt by all of us each time Rome makes a disparaging reference to our favorite sport. To wit, Wynalda spoke for all of us little guys.... and I felt it displayed the passion he had for the sport and how he felt about promoting it.

The references and threats, of course, were not literal. I'm sure that Wynalda wouldn't do physical harm to Rome any more than anyone else disagreeing with his views. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Wynalda would extend himself to prevent Rome from coming to harm.

But inactions ALSO have consequences. If I had removed that part, then the interview would have stood well enough on its own. We would have gotten a fair number of hits, though nothing like the huge number we got once word spread around the net and Rome mentioned it on his show.

The author, not a writer but a regular fan, would have objected and he would likely have posted it elsewhere, but I would have been off the hook as would the site owners.

That of course is no excuse. And I accept my responsibility for the guarded nature in which Wynalda will treat any ordinary guy wanting to talk to him in the future.
And the fact that he had to issue the boilerplate apology, not only on Rome's show but on Sportscenter.

The upshot of this, of course, is that Rome wasn't harmed in the least, only Wynalda was. Rome might even get his ratings hiked a fraction of a point And I can safely say, from the vantage point of years, that Rome might have spoken on a passionate subject in much the same way.

And that is what really bothers me; Wynalda's passion and rantings are real... and what he really think, while most viewers believe Rome's are just show biz.

Somehow, within this incident, that just doesnt seem right.