Sometimes it's hard to shake the feeling that the MLB playoffs are specifically designed to eternally reproduce the most annoying conversations in sports. Every year we get Is Clayton Kershaw actually bad? and Does the regular season even matter anymore?? and Playoff expansion ruined my life??????? We got all of those again this year, with the added bonus of an even worse topic of debate entering the discourse, that being: Is it in fact a crime against journalism and human decency for a reporter to report things?
This all started with Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia talking some objectively mild shit about Bryce Harper after Game 2 of the NLDS. Arcia shouted, "Atta boy, Harper!" several times in reference to the fact that Harper ended Game 2 by getting thrown out on the base paths. Arcia did this in a room full of reporters, voice recorders, and video cameras. Fox Sports reporter Jake Mintz included what Arcia said in his game story, as did the Washington Post's Chelsea Janes, though she did not identify Arcia by name because she didn't see who was doing the shouting. By now we all know that none of this worked out very well for Arcia and the Braves.
It was lame but not necessarily surprising when the Braves were sour about this after their loss in Game 3. Arcia indicated that he didn't believe the things he said out loud in the clubhouse during media availability should be considered on the record, and Travis d'Arnaud said some dumb stuff about how the "sanctuary" of the clubhouse had been breached. What was more surprising, and thus much more lame, was how many other players and media members were willing to side with Arcia and d'Arnaud. The Braves received particularly vociferous support from MLB Network contributor Alanna Rizzo, who was previously a member of the broadcast teams for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies and has spent a lot of time in MLB clubhouses. She went on High Heat on Thursday and lit into Mintz, calling him a "jackoff" and an "idiot," for doing his job.
"I am so irritated with all of these people, these bloggers, or podcasters, not even reporters, not even journalists, going into the clubhouse," said Rizzo. "You're ruining it for the rest of us. The guys that come in in the postseason, and don't have any clue of the pulse of the team, it's making it worse for the people that are there every single day.
"The clubhouse is a sacred space. I've been in clubhouses for the last 16, 17 years, and I remember I would go in there, get my job done, and get out. That is their space. So for this idiot to go in there and take something out of context, just to give himself a name, is ridiculous. And I completely understand what Travis d'Arnaud is saying."
The clubhouse may be a "sacred space" for players much of the time, but not during open media availability. The difference between a closed clubhouse and an open clubhouse does not exist in some gray area, nor is it up for interpretation. The amount of time that reporters are allowed in the clubhouse and the access that they have to players are both governed by specific clauses in MLB's collective bargaining agreement, which is ratified by the players. It's certainly possible that not every player understands how media availability works and wrongly assumes that everything they say in the clubhouse is off the record unless explicitly stated otherwise, but that's not correct and any misconception is not anyone in the media's fault.
The weirdest thing about this controversy is that Mintz's reporting didn't cause any material harm to anyone. You could see how players and media members might be upset if he had reported some embarrassing personal detail about Arcia that was being talked about in the locker room, but all he did was accurately portray Arcia's thoughts and feelings. That's his job as a reporter: to paint a picture for readers and give them insight into how the Braves were feeling after their Game 2 victory. If Arcia and the Braves feel that Mintz's portrayal was an unflattering one, their real problem was that it was accurate.
Update (1:41 p.m.): Rizzo went back on the air today and apologized to Mintz.
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![The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution. Webb’s new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion (The Hunter), in the western side of the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1300 light-years away. The nebula formed from a collapsing interstellar cloud of material, and glows because it is illuminated by a nearby hot star. The gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the jutting pillar is made of thick clumps of material that is harder to erode. Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead has about five million years left before it too disintegrates. Webb’s new view focuses on the illuminated edge of the top of the nebula’s distinctive dust and gas structure. The Horsehead Nebula is a well-known photon-dominated region, or PDR. In such a region ultraviolet light from young, massive stars creates a mostly neutral, warm area of gas and dust between the fully ionised gas surrounding the massive stars and the clouds in which they are born. This ultraviolet radiation strongly influences the gas chemistry of these regions and acts as the most important source of heat. These regions occur where interstellar gas is dense enough to remain neutral, but not dense enough to prevent the penetration of far-ultraviolet light from massive stars. The light emitted from such PDRs provides a unique tool to study the physical and chemical processes that drive the evolution of interstellar matter in our galaxy, and throughout the Universe from the early era of vigorous star formation to the present day. Owing to its proximity and its nearly edge-on geometry, the Horsehead Nebula is an ideal target for astronomers to study the physical structures of PDRs and the evolution of the chemical characteristics of the gas and dust within their respective environments, and the transition regions between them. It is considered one of the best objects in the sky to study how radiation interacts with interstellar matter. This image was captured with Webb’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) instrument. [Image description: At the bottom of the image a small portion of the Horsehead Nebula is seen close-in, as a curved wall of thick, smoky gas and dust. Above the nebula various distant stars and galaxies can be seen up to the top of the image. One star is very bright and large, with six long diffraction spikes that cross the image. The background fades from a dark red colour above the nebula to black.]](https://lede-admin.defector.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2024/04/STScI-01HV4CG0EACM1MC07E10X19KNX.jpg?resize=2880%2C1920)
