SPORTS MEDIA AND THE HALL OF FAME: WHO TRULY BELONGS?

ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, everyone’s favorite storyteller, won a place in Cooperstown for career excellence, but worthier hard-core journalists never will gain acclaim because they break “negative” stories

     When I was 27 — this is not a Sinatra song, promise — I won a column-writing award in Ohio. The piece was about Stanley Wilson, a running back returning to the Cincinnati Bengals after his battles with substance abuse. It was poignant but not executed especially well, even if my paragraphs were cast on a plaque, and soon after, Wilson relapsed and went missing before Super Bowl XXIII.

     Since then, I’ve crafted thousands of better columns. But they didn’t win contests because many didn’t involve a triumph of the human spirit. Or, as I kept hearing Saturday out of Cooperstown, the “joy” of sports. That word was used often in describing Tim Kurkjian’s passion for baseball, which always has oozed from his work as a writer and TV commentator. But with due respect to Kurkjian and other poets honored by various Halls of Fame, fairy tales in sports were swallowed long ago by the unceasing everyday dramas of a $600-billion industry — scandals, money, trade demands, money, personal conduct issues, money, racism, money, workplace harassment, money, drugs, money, legalized gambling, money, fixes, money, relocation, money, realignment, money … money, money and, let’s not forget, money.

     The best columnists and commentators of the last three decades are those who’ve had to set aside, more frequently than preferred, a zeal for sports to cover the entirety and gnarly evolution of sports. That means — in my case, for one — making a bubbling pot of enemies within the sports and media hierarchies, which no longer are separate amid the financial compromises between church and state. In a perfect world, backlash would be rewarded with a purple heart, a badge of honor and an acceptance of consequences as fallout from a professional job well done. But nothing about journalism is remotely close to perfect anymore, and much of the retaliation can involve vicious lies and sick subterfuge, as I know.

     Fierce independence in media is the enemy of sports. “Storytelling” is what we’re supposed to be doing instead, which sounds like a euphemism for public relations and an extension of the league office.

     To be clear: There’s still nothing that gives me a rush like a great game or event and spending hours writing and talking about it. And when an athlete returns from hell, such as Tiger Woods, the prose flows easily as fingers meet the keyboard. Yet as a child of the Watergate era who took up the trade in the spirit of journalism — and not as a fanboy who never grew up — I’ve realized my responsibility is to address the ongoing sports mill as it keeps churning, ills and all. An editor made me a columnist at 25. I’ve taken the assignment seriously ever since, collateral damage be damned.

     By making enemies in sports, while the likes of Kurkjian were making friends, you lose out on making a Hall of Fame. This is how it should it be, of course, because if your head is in the right place and you’re trying to be truthful to readers, viewers and listeners, a sports-related Hall is the last place a real journalist wants to be. Imagine the White House, after each administration, nominating its favored reporters for a Hall of Fame. Sports shouldn’t be involved in the practice. This is particularly important when the industry has mushroomed into the biggest economic force in American entertainment, with more billions leading to more sleazebags and more scandals. Halls of Fame are the domains of people you’re supposed to be covering with a razor’s edge, and if they aren’t directly operated by Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA and other leagues, the relationships with the museums are cooperative and, in fact, very close. Journalism has zilch in common with what sports leagues desire from their Halls. Kurkjian, meanwhile, is a fine storyteller at ESPN, and let’s use his 2022 Career Excellence Award as a way of drawing a distinction.

     Sports leagues and franchises love storytellers, obedient beat writers, and columnists who act like obedient beat writers.

     They hate journalists, investigative reporters and real columnists.

     So when considering the greater good of an America where tens of millions of people invest money, time, energy and gambling whims into sports, which media people truly belong in any legitimate Hall of Fame? Tim Kurkjian? Or Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, who broke the BALCO scandal that exposed Barry Bonds as a steroids cheat and taints his reign as the all-time home run leader? The best sports columnist of the moment, Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post, won’t be honored by any sports Hall after years of pulsating pieces attacking commissioners, team owners and sports officials across the globe. Not that she cares. Just know that she’s far more essential to the complete sports mechanism than anyone spinning yarns on TV.

     Or, closer to home over the weekend, wouldn’t Michael S. Schmidt be more honor-worthy? He’s the New York Times reporter who broke the news that David Ortiz — the beloved Big Papi — was among 104 MLB players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. From that point on, the era’s biggest stars/steroids cheats — Bonds and Roger Clemens — were blackballed from Hall induction by voting writers who decided they’d violated the character/integrity clause. They were right … until they flip-flopped this year. Ortiz won election with a suspicious push from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, who knows of his immense popularity in New England and his importance to baseball as a Latino ambassador and Fox Sports studio analyst. Manfred all but pardoned Ortiz when he said the test results, part of a survey, never were vetted. Why not vet them, then? Seems MLB never wanted to know the truth, which was consistent with its complicit pooh-poohing of steroids until Congress finally objected.

     A double-standard? Different rules for different people? A crock of b.s.? All of the above, I say, a sentiment shared by numerous Hall of Famers — including Reggie Jackson and Goose Gossage — who weren’t happy with Ortiz’s induction and considered boycotting Sunday’s induction ceremony. It’s the real story that will hang over central New York until voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America — I was one of them, before realizing years ago that the process was a sham — locate some sort of collective equilibrium and realize this: You can’t let Ortiz in the Hall without also opening the gates to Bonds, Clemens and even Pete Rose, whose lifetime gambling ban seems less sensible every time Manfred cuts a lucrative deal with another sportsbook company.

     I know who would get my votes for any Hall of Fame involving media members. Not Kurkjian, though he’s roundly regarded as a swell guy without a mean bone in his body. Ideally, Cooperstown would include separate media wings: hard-ass reporters over here, with storytellers and broadcast-booth housemen over there. But I’m dreaming, because baseball needs Roger Angell (genius) and Hawk Harrelson (doofus) and refuses to acknowledge BALCO ever happened. I’m opting for those who’ve risked their careers and well-being to keep a sport honest.

     It isn’t to say we can’t celebrate the careers of sports legends, as we all do routinely. But the true Hall of Famers in sports journalism are the ones active in exposing wrongdoing even if someone calls them — gasp! — a killjoy, a Debbie Downer, a terrible person or, worse, a “f—ing fag.” When Kurkjian is honored with considerable pomp and circumstance (and I don’t mean to pick on Tim as much as what he represents), my concern is that young media aspirants will think he’s the industry ideal. There’s certainly a place in the business for Kurkjian, Jayson Stark and Peter Gammons, the bards who’ve promoted the sport. I loved reading Gammons and his voluminous Sunday notes column while growing up. But you soon realize, upon entering the business, that they’re too entrenched with the people they’re supposed to be scrutinizing. That goes for media people involved in all sports and on all platforms, those who write and do TV and radio; the next time you hear ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt criticize someone in power will be the first time. They know considerably more than they report, never a good thing, because the most influential sports figures realize they’ll be protected in exchange for information. It’s a trade-off no real columnist or commentator should make, but today, more than ever, it’s the common modus operandi among media sellouts who value access and easier paychecks over truth, rabble-rousing and point of view.

      Know how many media people make comfortable lives for themselves — and win spots in Halls of Fame — by sucking up to people? Chances are, their media bosses are connected to powerful people in sports, by nature of business relationships both local and national, and protect their salaries by not crossing lines. So everyone wins ... while fans lose. The best writers and commentators, conversely, thrive on being uncomfortable, even when attacked by their brethren. In general, most media shops prefer their front-facing personalities follow the script: Don’t piss off billionaires with clout. You think Tim Cowlishaw, in Dallas, ever would go after Jerry Jones for his private missteps? Nah, Jerry might make an urgent call to ESPN and run Cowlishaw off his occasional network appearances. This is where media people become part of sports and forget their original job purpose: Serve the consumers who read, watch and listen.

     ESPN and Fox Sports don’t want their people crossing those delicate business lines. It’s more important they have experts they can herald as “Hall of Famer (fill in the blank).” On Kurkjian’s level, he’s the conversationalist loved by everyone, the quintessential Hall of Famer in Bristol’s eyes. The more vital voice in ESPN’s stable is Don Van Natta Jr., whose revealing enterprise story on Manfred somehow eluded the corporate gatekeepers and was published last month. The BBWAA will say it selected Kurkjian, but trust me here: Award-winners don’t get in if Manfred doesn’t want them in. And it’s sure fine with their media bosses, who need as many “Why We Love Sports” romantics as possible to remind fans why they keep paying attention and feeding the sports monster.

     In my mind, no one was more important at the Ortiz induction love-in than Dan Shaughnessy. The veteran Boston Globe columnist is the bard of the Fenway Park press box — but he also understood his journalistic duty while covering Big Papi. When he detected the steroids stench, Shaughnessy asked him about it in 2013.

     “I wanted to kill this guy,” Ortiz said.

     Enduring considerable heat from New England lunatics, Shaughnessy carried on and refused to put Ortiz on his Hall ballot. He isn’t a popular guy, but wisely (and surprisingly), the BBWAA gave him the Career Excellence Award six years ago. Now that Ortiz is in the Hall, will there be a Shaughnessy recount?

     He’d laugh it off. His work is done. Those wanting Cooperstown to validate media careers shouldn’t be in the business anyway. Unfortunately, too many do. Just follow the formula — live baseball, love baseball, rarely criticize baseball — and you’ll soon have your own place in immortality.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.