How far are we going to creep into places we don’t belong?
How much smarmy sewage are we going to let seep into sports coverage?
Yankees shortstop Alex Rodriguez may or may not have visited a strip club, according to the New York Post and what it calls its “spies.”
And this is news how, exactly?
If you start reporting every time an athlete visits a strip club, you aren’t going to have any room in your newspaper for the box scores.
And once you open the Pandora’s box, how big a leap is it to reporting when athletes cheat on their wives? And, while we’re making moral judgments, should we start tattling on those who watch pornography, read Playboy or drink beer?
The wives of professional athletes have it hard enough already. The mixture of groupies, travel and fame make trust an especially rare commodity. But now professional journalists are going to make marriage even harder with gossipy whispers and allegations that aren’t newsworthy even if they are true?
It’s one thing to report about paternity suits, domestic disputes and alimony issues– things of public record. It’s another thing to report this type of thing.
Besides, strip clubs are legal. Rodriguez shouldn’t be in a strip club if he doesn’t want it reported? Fine. But athletes have been going to strip clubs since the beginning of nudity without having to worry about this becoming a matter of public record.
I’m not saying we should go back to the days of Babe Ruth, covering up debauchery to help an athlete build a pristine and mythical image. Nor should Yankees writers be complicit in a lie the way they were in creating Joe DiMaggio’s gentlemanly image while he allegedly mistreated Marilyn Monroe in private.
But there’s a pretty big difference between an alcohol problem and domestic abuse and a night out with the guys.