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Gelfand: Journalists shouldn't be deciding athletes' performance bonuses
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Fifteen years ago, the New York Times was the first newspaper -- and so far the only paper -- to order its sports department to stick to sportswriting and avoid voting in the league's popularity contests.
As its baseball reporter Murray Chass wrote at the time: "Reporters have no business serving as the guardians of a private or public establishment. We should be covering the news created by the Hall of Fame elections, not creating the news itself."
The Times had ordered a nonvoting policy for its newsroom that covered everything from sports to Broadway. At the time, Chass was appealing to his fellow writers in the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) not to vote in Hall of Fame elections. His resolution was soundly defeated.
His advocacy was recalled a few weeks ago when the BBWAA voted not to participate in voting for such awards as Most Valuable Player, which can translate into contractual bonuses for players. (That excludes the Hall of Fame voting, because the candidates are inactive.)
The agreement would have gone into effect in 2013, when the present player agreement expires. But the very next day, after an outcry from Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, the board of the baseball writers group tabled its membership's resolution in order to "address the concerns of those on all sides regarding bonus clauses in players' contracts tied to the ... awards.''
Included is the Cy Young Award for pitching, earned in 2004 and 2006 by Johan Santana of the Minnesota Twins, whose contract, the media reported, called for a $10,000 bonus.
The players union was said to be outraged by the agreement. It evidently believes the writers are conspiring to deny its members rewards for excellence. The union presumably is unaware of the writers' only function: to report the news.
The "get even" reaction, reports Star Tribune baseball writer LaVelle E. Neal III, was strong hints from the Players Association that it would push to severely limit reporters' clubhouse access to players -- or encourage the players not speak to the media at all.
Neal also said that Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has reported on his website that he has a million-dollar clause in his contract even if he gets only a single Cy Young vote.
Participating in the MVP vote also has been known to jeopardize a reporter's ability to communicate with players. Reporter Neal discovered that in 1999 when he was denigrated by a national e-mail campaign for failing to vote for Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez as the American League MVP.
Neal's boss, assistant managing editor for sports Glen Crevier, said at the time that it could be difficult for Neal "if he needs to interview Martinez next summer and the player refuses to speak to him."
The next season Crevier assigned Neal to interview Martinez for a story, and Martinez was pleased to give the interview, Neal noted.
The players union may be able to delay congressional action in pursuing the impact of steroids and human growth hormones on baseball, but team owners have too much at stake in free newspaper coverage to reasonably jeopardize reporters' access to players.
And if the baseball writers had followed Chass' advice years ago to simply report the news and not participate in making it, they wouldn't look so silly today.
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