Manfred insisting that he can surpass Goodell at something.

Is Ken going to stop carrying so much water for the owners now?

This probably isn’t going to improve Manfred’s coverage anywhere other than the MLB Network.

Manfred insisting that he can surpass Goodell at something.

I was on Goodell's introductory conference call to the media when he got the Commish gig.
apparently the holdover VPs concluded that he couldn't be trusted to be "on message."

so as each question concluded, the PR guys very quickly blurted out talking points and catch phrases.

which would have worked better if everyone on the call couldn't hear the entire charade.

on Meadowlands Super Bowl morning 2014, Goodell, Giants owner John Mara, and Jets owner Woody Johnson held a celebratory press conference/victory lap in Manhattan. the Fortune 500 CEOs all had been wined, dined, feted, given special access to Broadway shows, top restaurants, star strippers - whatever they desired - and the feedback was laudatory.

a skeptical press wondered why they couldn't wait til, you know, after the game to see how it went.

Seattle crushed Denver, and the NFL so terrified ticketholders about Carmageddon (even though the same number of people go to every NFL game there when the Giants or Jets aren't terrible) that instead of the usual 10,000 (out of 80,000) using mass transit, about 35,000 did. great if you were driving - it felt sort of apocalyptic - but not so much if you had to wait a couple of hours to get a train back to Manhattan.

but the swellest swells no doubt had limos awaiting them, and they cruised away without a care in the world.

long way around to saying - Manfred has more work to do to reach such rarefied air, although he does seem to add to his case each year.

A little pushback on the purveyors of the cancel culture. Good to see. Rosenthal has been poking at a lot of MLB people at the Athletic trying to be Mr Woke.

Stick to baseball!

I see we already have a candidate for most Orwellian comment of 2022.

I've always like Rosenthal and he's pretty enthusiastic about baseball so #5 and I share different opinions on this one.

There are not too many things worse then when an organisation fires someone who is trying to be genuine with their opinion even though it may be somewhat critical of their policies. MLB would look a lot better keeping him on and consider what he has to say...no? If MLB disagrees with him, then they politely offer a reason why they did things a certain way and ask Ken to work on something else. It's really not that hard when everyone acts like adults.

A little pushback on the purveyors of the cancel culture. Good to see. Rosenthal has been poking at a lot of MLB people at the Athletic trying to be Mr Woke.

Isn't Rosenthal the person who got cancelled in this case?

Rosenthal's obvious cheerleading of woke social politics in baseball has been embarrassing, which makes him a perfect fit at the Capitol of woke social politics in sports, The Athletic. Isn't it funny how none of these media figures are never on the conservative spectrum? Who gives a damn about Manfred's ego, but MLB Network is better off tonight.

Isn't it funny how none of these media figures are never on the conservative spectrum?

Clay Travis started a whole website for Trumpist takes on sports.

. Isn't it funny how none of these media figures are never on the conservative spectrum?

The schools are so much better in blue states.

What are the examples of Rosenthal being "woke" exactly? The article says Rosenthal was fired for his article saying that Manfred needed to cut a deal on the 2020 shortened season.

Wasn't Rosenthal one of the people insisting that the All Star game needed to be moved out of Atlanta? He's one of those "woke" guys that thinks black people should have easy access to voting.

The schools are so much better in blue states.

[citation needed]

MLB Network has cut ties with insider Ken Rosenthal that is believed to be the end result of acrimony ... after Rosenthal criticized commissioner Rob Manfred

/quietly withdraws job application at MLB Network

All I know is that this event, like all other events, proves some political opinion that I have.

More seriously, is this in the least bit surprising or scandalous to anyone? If you're writing blurbs for the inside of the lid of Snapple bottles, and one of your fun facts is that the president of Snapple is an idiot, you're not going to last long.

Covering MLB for MLB.com may look and feel similar to doing so for an independent news source, but it's not the same thing.

17. Exactly right

I don’t think MLB can really separate his writings elsewhere from his position at MLB. Bashing people at the Athletic while still holding a role at MLB implies they are ok with what he says elsewhere. I’m surprised they haven’t told Fox to exit him as well.

In answer to the above rosenthal has had many articles criticizing the league, LaRussa, the Astros scandal, diversity, labor agreement issues, issues between players and Mgmt and women reporters, Georgia voting laws, etc. I have noticed that in the last 3-5 months he seems to have stopped a lot of this and gone back to basic baseball reporting (which he is very good at).

There’s a role for what he was doing. My own view is that if you want someone to muckrake, create a role for a reporter to do that but don’t mix beat writing with it. I just want to read about baseball from baseball writers. Sheryl ring does a lot of this kind of stuff and is good at it.

I’m surprised they haven’t told Fox to exit him as well.

They can push for it, but they can't expect Fox to fire someone on their say so. That's different than shitcanning someone from the house organ.

If you're writing blurbs for the inside of the lid of Snapple bottles, and one of your fun facts is that the president of Snapple is an idiot, you're not going to last long.

Random tie-in about Bob Gamgort, the Snapple overlord:

"After leaving Kraft Foods, Bob Gamgort followed a dream. He worked for Major League Baseball Properties. The Company assists with owner, franchising and merchandising or Major League Baseball Properties. This job was more of a hobby than a job for Gamgort as he was involved with his favorite Chicago Baseball team."

They can push for it, but they can't expect Fox to fire someone on their say so. That's different than shitcanning someone from the house organ.

How true is that? Isn't there a blurb "the announcers of this broadcasts are approved by Major League Baseball and its participants" or something like that? (there used to be). Obviously that doesn't extend to news reports and website columns but presumably that means they can keep Fox from having him on the sideline or as part of the official pre and post game shows. I think.

Separately; yeah, this all seems likely and it is in keeping with the Manfred approach but at the same time the headline is a lot more certain than the article which doesn't have any sort of smoking gun. Rosenthal strikes me as the type who wouldn't want to make waves though and is going to take the high road out the door.

The framing of this story is wack, when you consider that:
* Rosenthal's contract with MLB had already expired, as the story points out
* The "acrimony" that the Post makes central to this story happened 18 months ago
* MLB Network was more than happy to put Rosenthal on the air between the end of August 2020 and this past Christmas
* MLB is girding itself for a long labor stoppage, so nobody's going to be watching MLB Network for a while anyway

It seems likely to me that MLB decided (a) it didn't need Rosenthal reporting on things that Manfred et al. don't want reported, and (b) there's no point in paying a lot of money to renew his contract when no one's going to be watching anyway.

The schools are so much better in blue states.


[citation needed]

There are lots of imperfect ways to rank states but they basically all come up with New England and the mid Atlantic (counting Virginia as Mid Atlantic) being the best with Minnesota getting in the mix. They differ in exactly which states they rank as worst—I think Arizona ranks worst relative to what it should be and Mississippi fights for worst in a straight rating of performance.

All the methods are flawed but it’s interesting that if you do it by pure academic performance, by performance relative to other social measures, by safety, by parent satisfaction, you almost always get the same states on top.

Edweek

WalletHub

If you look for measures of K-16 rather than K-12 you get some others that push up the list including Utah for offering good low cost public universities that are well attended.

This is what he wrote On Twitter

Can confirm MLB Network has decided not to bring me back. I’m grateful for the more than 12 years I spent there, and my enduring friendships with on-air personalities, producers and staff. I always strove to maintain my journalistic integrity, and my work reflects that.

Nothing else is changing for me professionally. I am proud to remain part of the great teams at The Athletic and Fox Sports.

Sorry messed up something....

Well, yes someone shouldn't surprised that they get fired from a company organ for criticizing the boss. The mistake there was a professional reporter taking a contract from the business he continued to cover for other, nominally independent news organizations. A conflict of interest was inevitable. Eventually he'd get information or cover a situation unflattering to the league that he'd be ethically obliged to cover for the actual journalistic enterprises. He must have known this, which makes me suspect that MLB Network was misrepresenting the level of insulation it would provide from the league at the time Rosenthal was hired.

Or he just likes money and doesn't care about ethics. Whichever.

Wasn't Rosenthal one of the people insisting that the All Star game needed to be moved out of Atlanta? He's one of those "woke" guys that thinks black people should have easy access to voting.

Okay, I just checked this, because Rosenthal is basically MLB's Woj, the guy who is clued in to transactions like signings and trades. I.e., not really an opinion guy. But, you are right, he did write a column supporting a move out of Atlanta.

I really hope your second sentence is tongue-in-cheek. It should be easy for ANYONE who is a legal voter to cast their vote.

"It should be easy for ANYONE who is a legal voter to cast their vote.

Said the woke commie. Now, if you'll excuse the usual pointy-hood-wearing suspects from this thread, they have a Jan. 6 insurrection party to plan. Less than a day to go!

Yes, my comment was sarcastic, I would have hoped that it was obvious but I guess we do live in strange times.

Annnnnd then they moved the all star game to Colorado, which has similar minimal requirements to the ones that Rosenthal didn't like, which made the whole thing look like dumb virtue signalling.

Now that we have "woke" can we retire "SJW"? Wonder what the next one will be...

The only thing I ever noticed about Rosenthal were those dorky bowties, but then I only saw him interrupting the action in the middle of ballgames. Sideline reporters are a complete waste anyway.