Tweet & Retweet

Modern Technology…you gotta love it! It’s a much different world we live in today than when I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Heck, it’s a different world from the first 15 years that I worked in the MedIa Profession.
Since the mid 90’s things have exploded. Much for the good, but certainly some things for the bad. The ability to get information from so many sources, in such a timely fashion, is mind boggling. To have a conversation with hundreds of people at the same time on a computer is something that only several years ago was something out of a science fiction novel. Heck, Einstein might be looked at as only marginally smart in today’s world.
With all that said there is also a rush to get the news out first. Now, I’m not saying that wasn’t the case in year’s past, nor am I saying it’s a bad thing. The problem is that in our haste to beat the other guy, we often neglect to check the facts. Members of the media often skip the extra source so they can get the info out before the other guy. The problem is their one source may not be correct. Just today I watched how a North Carolina Television Station was the first to report that David Cutcliffe, the Duke Football Coach, was leaving to take the Tennessee job. Later in the day they had to retract the story because they were wrong. Forget about trying to go get the information from the horse’s mouth, get it from the guy on Twitter who goes by the alias “Def Com 5”. Everyone on the internet, especially Twitter, have become junior reporters. “My source tells me such and such”. Problem is their source is their Aunt Virginia who kind of read the information on a website that deals in speculation. Opinions mean nothing when it comes to trying to find what is fact and what is fiction.
I will continue to tweet, retweet, tweet-tweet. I will continue to read message boards and websites. I will live in the modern world. What I won’t do, no matter who tells me to do it, is put my name on something that’s not ready to go public. Getting it first is important. Getting it right is essential.

McGwire Resurfaces

Big Mac has come clean. He now admits to using steroids. Of course he said it wasn’t to get bigger, it was to help heal injuries faster, but in the process he got humungous. McGwire, along with his running mate Sammy Sosa, also helped save baseball to a certain extent. Their heroics revitalized America’s pastime. Now in my opinion, McGwire is only coming clean because he will join the Cardinals as a hitting instructor and is trying to make it easier on himself. Now when Spring Training begins he can sidestep the questions by saying he already answered them.
McGwire was reluctant to admit his use of steroids for several reasons including pure embarrassment. It’s not a shocker to anyone that he was using. He had already admitted to using Andro but this has an all together different connotation among baseball fans.
Players like Andy Pettite and Jose Canseco have admitted to using steroids, others such as Sosa, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro have denied allegations that they used.
Like it or not we just experienced the “Steroid Era” in all it’s glory. Homeruns were up, players got bigger, and even pitchers were not immuned from enhancing. It was a different time in the great game.
Now records are meant to be broken, but there’s no sport that’s more serious about their records, and statistics for that matter, than Baseball. And the fact that Big Mac set the new Homerun mark on juice is sacrilegious. Of course a few years down the road it would be Barry Bonds who rewrote the homer mark, and did so under the scrutiny of thr entire world. There is not a single person with any sense about them that doesn’t think Bonds was doing what many others in the era were doing, and that’s enhancing.
So what is my bottom line? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I despise cheating in any form, but if mostly everyone was doing it, that sort of even’s out the playing field. I still think guys like Bonds and McGwire need to be in the Hall of Fame, but I also think the entire era deserves to have a big ole asterisk associated with it.