Blind sided by his own story
In general, I believe sports journalism is more objective than it was 60 years. There are things that make me wonder, though. Like this.
Mythology is something sports reporters used to write back in the Dark Ages of the profession.
You know, 100 years ago when the supposedly objective journalists were riding the same trains as the team they covered, their copy describing not the players as they actually existed but the clean-living, hard-working boys of virtue that their bosses thought would have the highest customer appeal.
It’s hard to say when exactly this changed. There was no textbook explaining the evolution, no college class to take if I was a journalism major, which I wasn’t. But it’s generally understood that the publication of “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton in 1970 was a transformative event because the Major League pitcher dared to say that Mickey Mantle suffered from hangovers. Of course, Bouton, who had pitched part of the preceding season with the Seattle Pilots, wrote much more than that. He wrote about players using amphetamines and carousing and the crass nature of how these men talked in the clubhouse. It’s an absolutely fantastic book and in many ways it set a template for how sports journalism the way I learned the trade: You should write how people are, not just how they want to be seen. Be skeptical. Of everything. Most players will ascribe their success to hard work and virtue, and they may truly believe that, but the truth is often more complicated.
In general, I believe the profession of sports writering is more objective than it was 60 years and certainly moreso than 100 years. There are times that I wonder, however.
This is one of those times. On Monday, ESPN reported on Michael Oher’s civil lawsuit against the Tuohys. If those names don’t mean anything to you, maybe this will: They’re the central characters in “The Blind Side,” a best-selling book by Michael Lewis that was published in 2006 and subsequently made into a movie for which Sandra Bullock was awarded an Oscar. It’s hard to overstate the significance of this story in sports journalism. It became its own economy.
At the core of Oher’s suit is the contention that he thought the Tuohys had adopted him as one of their children when really they had him sign a conservatorship, which provided legal control over his affairs. More specifically, Oher contends the Tuohys and their two children benefited financially from the movie in ways he did not. The following paragraph from the ESPN story is absolutely stunning.
