I'm tired of the Ron Washington cocaine talk swamping all the baseball talk, so I'm doing a separate post this morning for the stuff related to that...
Tracy Ringolsby says Washington's managerial career is over, and accuses the Rangers of a "cover up." Craig Calcaterra counters by pointing out that abiding by MLB's confidentiality rules isn't really a "cover up."
Jennifer Floyd Engel says Washington should have been fired.
Tim Cowlishaw says that Ron Washington should have resigned, because the Rangers franchise is tainted by past drug use (such as the "tainted" MVP Awards Juan Gonzalez, Pudge Rodriguez and Alex Rodriguez won), and the team needs to "clean up its act."
Over at the DMN blog, it is suggested that Bill Simmons was out of line for making jokes about Ron Washington's drug use during a chat session yesterday. I'm not offended by Simmons making jokes about Washington admitting to testing positive for coke...I am offended, though, that his jokes and comments were so lame.
Jon Heyman -- the person who chose to break this story -- praises the Rangers for not firing Washington.
Which is interesting. I've been thinking the past few days about this, and about the decision to run with this story. The drug testing process is supposed to be confidential. Of course, so was the PED testing that led to the list of 100+ names of players who tested dirty, and there's been no qualms about outing at least a few of those folks.
But as far as this goes...one of the things that really bothers me about this is why the story ran. Washington tested dirty, acknowledged his use, has complied with the treatment required by MLB, has stayed clean...what does outing him now really accomplish? Is it advancing any sort of "news"? Not really. At least the PED stuff impacted players' on-the-field performance, supposedly.
This, though? This is, despite the high-minded moralizing from certain quarters, simply a gossip piece, a news item designed to titillate.
I am sure I'll be accused of not looking at this rationally because it is the Rangers' manager, that if this were Brad Mills or Don Wakamatsu or someone, I wouldn't have an issue with it. But I don't think that's the case. And I really have to question not just the wisdom, but the propriety, of Heyman and SI opting to go public with this info.