Sportsfrog.com

The Tiger Woods Thing marks the second time that TMZ has absolutely destroyed mainstream media outlets when it comes to a major off the field incident (car crash) with an athlete.

Think that the MSM is happy about that?

While TMZ isn’t infallible, they’ve got a pretty impressive string of exclusives before other gossip magazines/sites/mainstream outlets have gotten them, (Rihanna immediately comes to mind) and has definitely become more influential than Deadspin when it comes to actual news that includes athletes off of the field.

While Deadspin specializes in who’s doing and drinking with whom, something that TMZ is very good at as well when it comes to the Hollywood set, TMZ has shown legitimate newsgathering chops when it comes to both Nick Adenhart and Tiger Woods. (Was the reluctance to use TMZ information in newspaper stories more related to fears that it wasn’t factually correct, or the fact that it came from TMZ? I lean strongly towards the latter)

Of course, that has everything to do with how TMZ gets its information. It’s a well known secret that TMZ pays for scoops, and that’s a definite no-no in the mainstream media world. The money puts TMZ at an obvious advantage, because why tell your information for free when you can tell your information for pay?

And do readers actually care about how their news outlets receive their information, as long as the information is getting out as soon as possible, and to a lesser extent, factually correct?

I’m not suggesting that mainstream media outlets need to start paying sources for information, because I think that opens a giant can of worms, and at the very least, would decrease the number of free information sources available to the general public. However, given the way that TMZ has beaten down the MSM with their scoops in regards to these two stories, the celebrity gossip site has definitely asserted itself as a force to be reckoned with when athletes make news off of the playing field.

Is TMZ really changing sports coverage? Let us know in the Swamp.

(This post assumes that TMZ’s coverage of the Tiger Woods situation has been accurate. If it isn’t, I reserve every right to retract my post.)

Baseball in particular is a sport given to “frozen moments in time”. I can close my eyes and easily conjur up pitches, hits, outs, etc. from particular games I have watched and listened to over the years. I remember the feel of the carpet in the living room of the house where I lived when I was 17 because of the rug burn I got on my knees from falling to them in the excitement of being fortunate enough to see the Kirk Gibson home run live. For Phillies fans, I am sure (and looking through the Swamp, it confirms it), the passing of Harry Kalas conjurs up almost uncountable such moments from their childhoods. Like when Joe Nuxhall passed for Reds fans, a soundtrack to life has just come to an end, now reserved for the memory banks solely (with digital help on occasion). Thanks to DirecTV, I was privileged to get a piece of that experience in the last half dozen years, catching Kalas on the occasional Phillies broadcast.

Then, the Mark Fidrych news last night. I was six in his glorious 1976 season, well before highlights and coverage of out-of-town teams from where you lived became ubiquitous. Even still, Fidrych was enough of a combination of wonderful crazed eccentricity and talent that it creeped into the consciousness of a six-year-old kid in Cincinnati, cutting his teeth on baseball to the Big Red Machine.

I distinctly remember going outside the apartment I was living in at the time, with my mitt and a ball, and “playing” games with Fidrych pitching for the Reds (magically traded to the team for Bill Plummer), re-creating his mound shenanigans the whole time. He was awesome.

Between Adenhart, Kalas and Fidrych, it has been a tough week for those of us who care about baseball, and have access to the memories the game can create. To Adenhart, for his joy at his accomplishment in his only start this year, to Kalas, for the gift of 38 years of his voice and talent to an organization and community, and to Fidrych, for bringing a jolt of unbridled joy and excitement to the game bright and powerful enough to make kids across the country yearn to be him in 1976, I say thanks. It is weird but cool how sports can enrich life. People who don’t give in to the sports zealot experience will never understand that, and to them I don’t ever bother to try and explain. For those who know, though, it has been a tough week. All three will be missed.