On Velvet Ropes

Here's a question I'd like to hear: how would everyone handle reporting this so they weren't fat shaming?

Because it's clearly obvious the Twins are concerned about his weight in the long run -- and I think they're right to be.

I'm a bit late to the party here but would like to share several random thoughts...

• In my opinion, Souhan's blog post contained better reporting than his original article. The blog post actually contains some specifics, such as that "a Twins official I've known for a long time told me that Sano's weight was 290". I'm dumbfounded as to why he left specifics like that out of his article. While I still would have found it a stupid article, at least it wouldn't sound as much like he was just making stuff up to fit his narrative. Another example... in the article he says "Pablo Sandoval comes to mind", where in the blog post he says "They mentioned Kent Hrbek's early retirement, Pablo Sandoval's career decline..." Again, better reporting in the blog post than the article, of course then he has to go on and take a potshot at Perkins.
• Souhan's portrayal of "untethered bloggers" strikes me as ignorant, petty, and vindictive. He refers to them as "Jabba the Stat, sitting in his basement, wearing his Kimono, eating his Cinnabon." Seriously Souhan? Just like his criticisms of players, he takes a lazy approach to criticizing bloggers. Rather than actually taking some blog content and critiquing it, he resorts to name-calling and insults. Of course, if he would actually read some of Gleemans' stuff, for example, he might have to admit that Gleemen is just as good a writer, if not better, than he is.
• Does Jim Souhan actually know any of these "trolls, liars, plagiarists, and frauds," to use his words? Actually, I don't have to ask, he himself says that he doesn't know them, and claims it's because they are cowards because they won't take the step to show up in the clubhouse. Well Jim, in order to back up your claim of them being trolls, liars, and plagarists, I dare you to show up at the next Twins Daily pub crawl. You might be surprised at how reasonable and sane they actually are.
• Finally, I did think it was cool that he called out Seth Stohs and Brandon Warne as guys blogging in a way that requires a bit more accountability. It shows me that Souhan at least has the sense not to lump all bloggers in to one bucket, even if I disagree with the bucket he lumped the rest of them in to.

Here's a question I'd like to hear: how would everyone handle reporting this so they weren't fat shaming?

 

Because it's clearly obvious the Twins are concerned about his weight in the long run -- and I think they're right to be.

I'd have waited until the offseason, talked to people about what happened during the season, I would talk to people about the fitness and diet regimen for the offseason going forward, and maybe even talk to Sano about what he's doing going forward and what he's done in the past.  I think that would make the whole topic relevant, and would not make it seem like I just decided it's a good time to pick on a young athlete who's probably really frustrated that he can't play right now.  This is not breaking news that had to be published before someone else scooped the story.

Here's a question I'd like to hear: how would everyone handle reporting this so they weren't fat shaming?

 

Because it's clearly obvious the Twins are concerned about his weight in the long run -- and I think they're right to be.

2 Things...

1. I would use real quotes and real data coming from real people, even if those people are anonymous. Souhan actually did some of this in the blog post. I think the conditioning of a professional athlete is absolutely fair game for a newspaper article, but not when the article is written in a way that communicates you are accusing Sano of simply eating a bunch of junk and getting too fat. Instead, you can write an article that communicates that Twins officials are concerned about his conditioning, and include real reasons why they are concerned, with real examples of how weight and conditioning can impede what Sano is trying to do as a pro.
2. I would talk in specifics about things that are measurable, avoiding generalities that can be construed as personal attacks. Even interpersonal things can be approached from a specific and measurable angle. 

They should come out publicly, rather than hide behind a columnist. Or, they should handle it internally. That would be a good start.

 

Also, as Souhan said, he's an opinionist, not a reporter. So, when I read his stuff (rarely anymore), I assume it's his opinion, not reporting. He himself said he's not a reporter. So, what am I to believe, that it's his opinion, or the team's (or some members of the team)?

 

I'm certainly not arguing they shouldn't be concerned, but Souhan is trying to have it both ways, in terms of being a reporter or not. And the team is trying to shame him in the paper (if they weren't trying to publicly shame him, it would handled in private, the only reason you try this path is to get him to feel embarrassed). So, just be honest about your fat shaming (that's a loaded phrase....). 

I guess my question is this: have they said it to Sano multiple times and now someone in the organization leaked it? 

 

2 Things...

 

1. I would use real quotes and real data coming from real people, even if those people are anonymous. Souhan actually did some of this in the blog post. I think the conditioning of a professional athlete is absolutely fair game for a newspaper article, but not when the article is written in a way that communicates you are accusing Sano of simply eating a bunch of junk and getting too fat. Instead, you can write an article that communicates that Twins officials are concerned about his conditioning, and include real reasons why they are concerned, with real examples of how weight and conditioning can impede what Sano is trying to do as a pro.
2. I would talk in specifics about things that are measurable, avoiding generalities that can be construed as personal attacks. Even interpersonal things can be approached from a specific and measurable angle. 

 

Agree. My initial feeling was that there was a good article in there someplace in the first one -- but it was sullied by the need to have #takes. 

I'd have waited until the offseason, talked to people about what happened during the season, I would talk to people about the fitness and diet regimen for the offseason going forward, and maybe even talk to Sano about what he's doing going forward and what he's done in the past.  I think that would make the whole topic relevant, and would not make it seem like I just decided it's a good time to pick on a young athlete who's probably really frustrated that he can't play right now.  This is not breaking news that had to be published before someone else scooped the story.

To be fair, we don't know his motivation for publishing it or when he filed it, exactly. 

To be fair, we don't know his motivation for publishing it or when he filed it, exactly. 

True, but we do know that it wasn't breaking news that had to be published before someone else scooped the story . . . right?

It's plausible the timing of Souhan's original column is due to when he got the info from a "Twins official," no?

If said Twins official is/was concerned about weight affecting rehab, then the timing makes sense.

Yup, this is entirely plausible and reasonable, but Souhan didn't say a single thing in his article to indicate that this was the case. You're giving him too much credit imo. Souhan could have written a real article about the effects of weight and conditioning on injury recovery and what that means for Sano, but he chose not to.

It's plausible the timing of Souhan's original column is due to when he got the info from a "Twins official," no?

If said Twins official is/was concerned about weight affecting rehab, then the timing makes sense.

So was there some sort of diet emergency here, where they had to get the story out to the public before the offseason?

If it helps, I promise not to feed him.

No idea. Probably, I'd guess. But how would I know?

 

But then just say it in public, if in private isn't working, and they think going public will. 

Like it or not, this is how a team says it publicly. They aren't going to send a "Miguel Sano is overweight" press release.

Seth, I like to think of myself as an educated person. I have 2 college degrees and 7 years of college. I have written most of my life. I enjoy reading. I have had 7 of my poems published. I won the Southern Prize for Literature in 1995 for my poem, "The Flak Jacket". Two of my closest friends are professors of creative writing...one at Appalachian State University (Pirates' fan) and one at Harvard (Red Sox fan). My son (Cardinals fan) is a minister, but he has a journalism degree from UNC and wrote sports for the university paper, The Daily Tar Heel. We all enjoy communicating about the writer's craft and we frequently share well written articles about baseball and life. Seth, I chose to read your writing daily. I appreciate your writing skills, but more than that, I like your personality, which is displayed in your writing. I quit reading Souhan several years ago because he always wrote with an ax to grind...his writing contained little happiness and joy. I believe Souhan feels it is his duty to criticize. For some reason, he feels he could better do the jobs of those whom he criticizes. Point of proof is his article criticizing sports writers who are not employed by Sports Illustrated or one of the soon to be extinct, daily newspapers. I guess if one watches baseball so he can criticize and be an arm chair quarterback, then one appreciates Souhan. That ain't me. I appreciate the timeless beauty of the game, the humanness of the players and the coming of spring when I read that the truck in snowy Minneapolis is being loaded with baseball bats, uniforms and catchers' masks, ready for its annual journey south to Ft. Myers.  Seth, you understand that same type of beauty, the humanness of a minor leaguer struggling to keep playing, the "art"  of writing. You write faithfully, beautifully and with feeling, while Souhan criticizes the manner in which the equipment was loaded onto the truck. 

I haven't re-read Souhan's article....but wasn't there a reference to Sano's weight fluctuating during the season?  I'm no kinesiologist, but I think there is a pretty low limit on the amount of 'good weight' that can be added in a short time frame.  So if Sano was at 260 in spring training, but is pushing 290 now, it's almost guaranteed that the gain is mostly 'bad weight'.  I'm kind of surprised no nutritional/fitness trainers have hopped in to discuss this (or maybe I missed it). I read the original article more as a warning long-term.  

I mentioned this in previous discussion, but in watching the rare video I could find when doing a massive Twitter and social media search since last September, Sano was absolutely a newbie to power lifting. Within the first year of power lifting, it is not surprising to have someone have physical reactions of 15-30 pound gains in a 3-6 month span due to their first experience doing the new lifting with a different stress, like going to school, moving to a new community, or, quite possibly in Sano's case, moving to in-season programming rather than off-season.

Of course, I'm not assuming 100% of the weight is "good", but I took multiple games from spring and tried to get a screen shot of each spring training, a game in May, and a game in August. There wasn't notable difference in his waist. There was, however, notable difference in his chest and thighs.

Agree. My initial feeling was that there was a good article in there someplace in the first one -- but it was sullied by the need to have #takes. 

That's where the biggest issue that I had with the first article was. There are thousands of athletes we can research now who have played for decades in much more violent sports at higher weights than Sano. So is it just the weight number? If so, is that saying something about the ignorance of the Twins staff seeing only the scale and not anything else?

Or has Sano slipped on his workout regime? He came to spring with plenty of words published about how hard he'd worked over the offseason to get his body into the type of physical shape that he'd need to in order to handle third base, multiple articles specifically mentioning his work in flexibility and plyometrics along with his strength training that was hoped to help his agility at the hot corner. What's changed with his in season program?

The biggest issue I had was that when I started researching this online, I found all kinds of articles with plenty of quotes from Sano about his weight and his size and his need to be in top condition to handle playing third. If he's willing to be quotable on this topic, why on earth was he not part of this article?

Also from the article:

"The injury was caused by a foul ball. His recovery might be affected by the amount of man that shin must support."

If Souhan is to be reprimanded for fat-shaming, is Gleeman calling him a *feces* head on his podcast somehow any better?

Simple.  Just like with football:   The Twins' FO instead of tossing nuggets to Souhan, if they have concerns about Sano's weight, they should talk to their employee and give him a weight limit.  And report that fact to the media. Or not.

How are the Twins going to enforce a weight limit on a minimum wage worker?

This is not clealy obvious to me, at all. Buxton might be more valuable than Sano, and do you really think Pohlad is going to authorize signing both of those guys to long term deals?

They still own his rights for what, three more years? I guess there's really no other reason to leak the info. I'm not sure what your conclusion would be, then.

Because it's clearly obvious the Twins are concerned about his weight in the long run -- and I think they're right to be.

This is the only post I've seen in multiple threads that brings up fat shaming. That isn't the reason the article is drawing criticism.  

I have the same issues with the piece as a majority of other posters do: it's a hot take article filled with unsupported claims, and it was published at a convenient time in order to elicit a specific reaction.