July 12, 2005
Justice on Rogers
Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle pens the only non-boiler plate article on Kenny Rogers at media day I've seen this morning.
His decision to accept a spot on the American League All-Star team for tonight's game may be an indication that he simply doesn't understand. By showing up here, he made himself The Story. Whether he pitches or not, he's the one guy every eye will be on.
Rogers said several times on Monday that he never craved attention. His actions say otherwise.
Rogers keeps saying that he's there because the players voted for him. But when did the players vote? The incident happened June 29. The All-Star reserves were announced July 3rd. I would have thought that most ballots were cast before the incident. If the incident occurred earlier, I wonder how that would have effected the voting?
Given the rocky relationships many players have with the media, Rogers might have gotten MORE player votes after he trashed those cameras. Not too many players are going to make the same comments as David Wells did. But I bet there are more than a few who quietly agreed with Boomer.
By the way, I'm not agreeing with what Wells said myself. Rogers' actions were indefensible. He deserved a long suspension and got it. He will pay a large civil settlement and probably get some community service time for misdemeanor assault, and he deserves that.
I have to wonder, though, if the constant media harping on the incident isn't backfiring. It's starting to sound like special interest pleading on behalf of, you guessed it, the media.
And Justice's comment that Rogers has made himself the center of attention is silly. Rogers barely appeared on last night's HR derby, and Berman and Morgan found many other things to talk (and yell and make fools of themselves) about. To the extent that Rogers is the object of attention, it's media people themselves who are creating that attention.
ahhh just giv'em a good spanking and get it over with. He's still playing ball... so much for a suspension... and I bet he gets out of the fine too.
He might "get out" of the suspension and fine, but that poor, severely injured (oppurtunistic?)cameraman is going to ding him for around 750K.
Punishment enough I think. jc
opprotunistic perhaps, but this was not like the poparizzi stalking him night and day along the streets...this was on the ball field. Think Rogers should just stick out for his suspension.
The fine was reported to be $50,000, and he receives a $50,000 bonus for being selected to the All Star team - so showing up makes it a wash.
Most or all of the suspension will be upheld, as with Donnelly.
Yeah, I also have to laugh about the poor, severely injured cameraman. He should be docked style points for that truly pathetic stretcher act. But he'll collect Rogers' real fine - low-to-middle six figures probably.
My guess is 250-500 hours of community service for Rogers on the misdemeanor assault charge.
