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Mariners Blog
June 10, 2009

 
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Sadly, Ibanez must defend his success


Posted at 12:01 am by By Kirby Arnold

In this age of so-called social networking and community journalism, it's easier than ever for a person to begin their own blog, twitter their own tweet or air their own video.

I'm all for the public's right to know and the public's right to an opinion, and the online world we live in offers a forum for everything. There are some great sites that provide avenues for thoughtful discussion, but there are places where rude, crude, thoughtless behavior is allowed and encouraged.

What's frightening is that baseless theories and thoughtless ideas can spread quickly among people either gullible enough to believe this stuff or naive enough to give it attention. A rumor at the neighborhood bar this morning can spread to the next coast by noon.

Early this month, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa sued the Twitter folks when someone started a TonyLaRussa account and put out messages making it look as if he were writing them.

This week, one of the most model citizens I've ever met in baseball, former Mariner Raul Ibanez, found himself defending accusations that began on a blog. Ibanez is having a great season with the Philadelphia Phillies, leading the National League in RBI, and those of us who've seen first-hand his work ethic over the years aren't surprised he's playing this well at age 37.

But on that Midwest-based blog, the notion was raised that Ibanez could never do this naturally at his age, that he's benefitting from more than his natural swing and a ballpark conducive to strong offenisve numbers.

A Philly newspaper columnist responded to the blog, and the story gained such legs that Ibanez responded tersely. Here's what he said today in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

I love the internet. I love the ability it gives us to provide information as it happens. I enjoy the opportunity, through this blog, to toss out an opinion or two of my own. But I'm also bound to the same standards for the material here as I am for what I write in the daily newspaper. If I'm going to write that someone has been on the juice, there'd better be a positive test to prove it. No assumptions allowed.

Everybody has the ability to broadcast whatever they want and watch their message spread. It's the world we live in now.

In this case, it's so wrong.
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