Who Watches The Watchmen?

Granted, I do not internalize as much "hard news" as I should and the veritable triviality of sports sometimes shocks my system, but shouldn't beat writers still be impartial?  And if they're not shouldn't they be classified as PR men rather than journalists?  Directly, I'm referring to Anthony Castrovince, the "official" Indians blogger.  I hate to dog the kid, as he's a fellow Bobcat, but the man has totally lost touch with reality.  When I started reading Anthony's stuff over 2 years ago, he seemed insightful and witty, someone devoted to delivering Tribe news to Tribe fans.  As blogging became so prevalent in our society (see this page), I was hesitant to accept the facts and opinions therein as anything more than the quips of one lucky enough to be close to the team.  Yet, Anthony's work was more than that.  Castrovince provided a humor and perspective that made me feel like one of us had finally snuck inside the henhouse.  It was almost as if I had my ear to the door of the Indians front office or was lounging pre-game in the locker room.  I was grateful for it.

That began to change over this past season as Castrovince took on additional responsibilities from MLB.com, sliding into a more professional role.  He became more distant and his answers in the mailbag became more like press releases than an honest discourse.  The proverbial straw came in the form of a recent response to a question about Jared Goedert.  The reader asked Anthony's opinion on Goedert's chances of being added to the 40-man roster before the Rule 5 deadline.  In a reply that seemed eerily similar to a dozen others that I've read, Castrovince stated that the knock on Goedert was, and always has been, his defense at third.  Fine.  Whatever.  It was relayed as the reason Goedert never got a shot last summer.  This would all be cool... If I believed that Anthony Castrovince had spent any reasonable amount of time watching Jared Goedert man the hot corner.  As the "beat reporter" Anthony travels with the team, so, outside of a a few spring innings and a blue moon, Castrovince has not invested the time to qualify his answer.  I've watched Goedert play during a dozen games for Columbus and have absolutely nothing bad to say about his glove, especially compared to presumptive Tribe starter Jayson Nix. 

Castrovince is regurgitating rhetoric from the suits and it's worthless.  I don't begrudge Anthony the opportunity to further his career, but he could at least be familiar enough with the players to be able to write intelligently about them without betraying his obvious ignorance and driving me to such irritation.  Aaaaah!!!  He should be able to present something less vague, some tidbit more compelling than "uh... his de... fense is... uh... weak.  that's it.  yep, weak.  no more questions."  Yeah, yeah, I'm jealous of his job.  So what?  I'd do it better.

I do dig the shot of Goedert that I co-opted from the inbox page.

Cheers.