Monday, August 4, 2008

ESPN's "Enterprise Unit"?

The latest report from the Dominican bonus-skimming scandal implicates the Yankees. That's interesting. More interesting is the byline/bio of the report:

Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn are reporters for ESPN's Enterprise Unit.
Fainaru-Wada can be reached at markfwespn@gmail.com. Quinn can be reached at tjquinn31@yahoo.com.

Steroids were the big story when Fainaru-Wada and Quinn were hired, and I had wondered whether they would be limited to that beat or if, alternatively, they would be general scandal reporters. Seems like the latter. I guess that's cool, but I wonder how decisions like that are made. Their cachet, as it is, comes by virtue of their being in and around the Bay Area when BALCO hit big. Do they now have a nose for scandal, or does someone just feed them the skimming stuff because they are now considered the go-to reporters for baseball's underworld?

I don't really care either way. I read a lot of hard boiled detective fiction and I have a soft spot for people who traffic in the seamy underbelly, so as far as I'm concerned, go Mark and T.J.

6 comments:

Mac said...

See, I watch a lot of SF TV, so I figure they're probably Vulcans.

Anonymous said...

"Implicates the Yankees"?? Read the article, Shyster. If Yankees employees were receiving kickbacks, they were most likely indirectly stealing from the club. You make it sound as though Yankees management sanctioned this activity.

Anonymous said...

Couldn't you really make this argument about almost any investigative journalists that stumble on a big story and become well-known?

OK, I realize that it's not all about being in the right place at the right time, but still.

Anonymous said...

UGH! I can't believe I *just* got mac's joke about Vulcans.

Please don't tell anybody, or I'll lose 3.14159265 geek points and be forced to watch "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" until my ears bleed.

Unknown said...

Or is it that since these guys are covering it, it *must* be a 'scandal'?

Unknown said...

anonymous: Yankees management may not have condoned the activity, but it's looking like clubs were pretty lax in their oversight.

That's not the worst thing in the world, but to make it sound like the poor Yankees did everything they could seems, from what we know at this point, to be a little bit off.