Fresh off their Miguel Tejada shocker, ESPN has stumbled upon another scoop, after Dallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard admitted to off-season marijuana usage on “The Michael Irvin Show,” a radio program on Dallas’ ESPN affiliate.
Howard, 28, expanded upon earlier comments he had made to the Dallas Morning News.
“I think that everybody in the media world and the sports world knows that NBA players smoke marijuana,” Howard said.“I just let him know that most of the players in the league do use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the off-season sometimes and that’s my personal choice and my personal opinion.But I don’t think that’s stopping me from doing my job.”
The NBA does have a testing and treatment program in place for marijuana, but it cannot suspend a player until his third positive test.
Howard pitched an 85mph hanging fastball, and ESPN had to run with it.But, the consistent hypocrisy regarding Black athletes and marijuana use–as seen in the Mario Manningham scandal–has been disgusting.
Why is there a persistent racial double standard for recreational drug usage?White marijuana users are free-spirited, harmless hippies (Bill Walton?).Black marijuana users are thugs and criminals.Black athletes, ungrateful and unfairly risen from their financial station, are particular targets of abuse.
Furthermore, the stigma sticks.Randy Moss tested positive for marijuana in college, and it has framed his frosty media relationship since.Brett Myers of the Philadelphia Phillies punched his wife in the face in public, but, two years later, he is the merry prankster engaging reporters in a ruse to convince a teammate he was traded to Japan.
Most NBA players use or have used marijuana at some point.The problem is not with the statement itself, but its lack of context.One could make the same statement with most staff writers at the New Yorker, with most Nobel Prize winning scientists, with most Presidential candidates, and (gasp!) with most ESPN employees.
If marijuana usage does not substantially hinder someone’s ability to run for public office or to write a Pulitzer prize-winning speech, why would it affect Josh Howard’s basketball playing ability?More importantly, why do we care?
“E:60” correspondent Tom Farrey scored a salacious scoop on Miguel Tejada.The dashing reporter tricked Tejada into interviewing under false pretenses, cleverly asked him to state his age, and then slapped him silly with his birth certificate signifying that he was two years older than MLB believed.In the words of Dan LeBatard, “bam!”
Tejada is 33 not 31.He lied in 1993, telling Oakland he was seventeen instead of nineteen because he thought it would increase his chances of the team offering him a contract.
The Government did not reveal with other Latin players in 2001, because his official documents carry his actual age rather than MLB age.
The newsworthiness is unquestionable.ESPN was surely right to run an article about this.But, was it really worth a Chris Hansen-style sting operation?
Surely, it is not as egregious as Ashton Kutcher pretending he is 30 rather than 34 (and that he has a full head of hair).
E:60 is supposed to represent the paragon of sports journalism on the network.While the story was valuable, the tactics employed were embellished overkill.Tejada neither raped nor killed.He did not screw investors out of millions.He did not steal.He was not running a drug ring nor was he patronizing a high-class escort service.He said he was two years younger to escape a poverty stricken island.
The story was neither salient nor significant.For the moral equivalent of a parking ticket, what is the purpose of orchestrating a sham interview, inducing him to lie and then confronting him about it?These methods provided neither insight nor value to the story.The only outcome was embarrassing a man who had done nothing to warrant it.The method itself became more of a story than the information gleamed.
ESPN has many incredible journalists who do fine work.E:60 is most often a respite from the riotous reign of commentary that plagues sports journalism.While I appreciate the chutzpah, save it for something worth it.
Bill James created a controversy through an off-hand comment about the Minnesota Twins in his The Bill James Gold Mine 2008.
James said the following about the Twins.
Two of the greatest home run under-producers of all time were teammates: Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti in 1984. Puckett hit no home runs (-16), Gaetti hit only 5 (-19). Suggesting the possibility that the Twins’ two World Championships may have been aided by their team being among the first to discover…well, I’d better not go there. Nor will I point out that Gaetti was bald and had acne and Puckett died young.
Bugs and Cranks assumed this passage to be deadpan. I don’t agree.
The logical inconsistencies are egregious and un-Jamesian. The year in question, 1984, comes as a blip in Gaetti’s career. It was also Puckett’s rookie year, when he was adjusting to Major League pitching.
If James had meant to out the Twins’ championship teams, he probably would have expounded upon the argument and featured it more prominently.
There is also the dramatic… pause, which seems to indicate that James was not entirely serious.
I agree with Rob Neyer. It seems to be more of a subtle joke, poking fun at conclusionist steroid czars employing statistics as weapons. Such jokes from those normally serious are sometimes lost in translation.
