Own it.

Journalists are supposed to attempt to eliminate biases. The Sports Department of the Daily News are certainly not journalists, but I think they sometimes wish they were. That's why they recoil so viciously to suggestions that they have singled out ARod with particular vitriol. 

Bill Madden did the same thing while stumbling through an appearance on Mike Francesa's radio show.

In the midst of another column devoted almost entirely to ARod-bashing, Lupica drops this cherry-picked defense of himself and his newspaper:

"He’s being picked on? You think Barry Bonds didn’t think the same way? Or Roger Clemens? This newspaper’s I-Team wrote a book about Clemens and broke the story about Melky Cabrera setting up a phony website to cover his own track of baseball drugs. Look at the safe that got dropped on Mark McGwire after he admitted steroids use.

Suddenly, though, in the baseball summer hijacked by Alex Rodriguez, there is the idea that no one has ever been pulled out of line the way he has.

Come on."

No one has ever been pulled out of line the way ARod has.

This newspaper's I-Team seems disinterested in every steroid cheat other than ARod. Jordany Valdespin and Francisco Cervelli got one paragraph each and I still haven't seen any mention of Miguel Tejada.

Sure, you broke the story about Melky's phony website and then never once questioned why Selig didn't throw Melky out of baseball forever for interfering with MLB's investigation.  Instead, Melky signs a $12 million contract and the Blue Jays become pre-season favorites to go to the World Series.

Look, you're giving the public what it wants.  The public despises ARod (and Clemens and Bonds) and the public despised them before the steroid revelations.  The public is mostly disinterested in minor leaguers or bench players who get 50-game suspensions.

Don't pretend you're not singling out ARod.  Don't pretend you're interested in Legal Justice or Journalism.  You're a tabloid rag that puts cartoon caricaturues on its back page.  At least you should own that.




"It is worth pointing out all over again that the same people who like to bang Bud Selig around for not doing enough about steroids in the old days now want to bang him around for doing too much.

You sort of can’t have it both ways."

Lupica's inability to understand nuance is quite remarkable.

Selig is not doing too much about steroids.  Selig has never done too much about steroids. 

Selig has essentially done nothing for twenty years ... and then he suddenly wants to atone for all his shortcomings by focusing on one guy.