The article recently by Damien Cox on the “questionable” hitting success of Jose Bautista this season enraged me intensely. I generally like Damien Cox’s articles, but this article was written purely to generate talking points for the FAN590. It was such a terribly written piece that the writer needs to be taken to task.
Firstly, this article’s main point was to suggest that Bautista’s success potentially could be due to drug use. Recent history has suggested that those players that had become home run leaders attributed their success to steroids. Cox makes this point but does designate any foundations on this, outside of exhibit A (Mark McGwire) and exhibit B (Barry Bonds).
The article makes no attempt to defend or point out any mechanical, psychological, or physical improvements to Bautista’s game or highlight the attributes that make a successful baseball hitter.
Merely pointing out that there exists a correlation to success in hitting and steroids, and that it maybe present in this situation, without investigating any other argument is journalistic dishonesty.
Unfortunately, Cox has either through laziness, mental inability or restrictions via his blog space was unable to fulfill the journalistic requirements to support his statement.
I personally cannot say that Bautista is taking or not taking steroids, and I am no expert to highlight the physical and mental attributes that make an excellent MLB hitter. However, just “putting it out there” type of articles in journalism as Christopher Hitchens would say “a sinister exercise in moral frivolity.”
Articles of this nature only serve to slur and create controversy, and sell newspapers.
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