I am a former news photographer. I have had my camera grabbed, been called names, threatened and had a tiger spash the hell out of me with water.
Those things happened for the same reason that things got windy when I used to follow thunderstorms for storm damage video. I went looking for it. We used to call such incidents “newsgasms”.
To put it another way, camera folk go where they think news is going to occur. I suspect when Rogers walked out onto the field, the photographers all saw him and hit “record” in case something might happen. Rogers obliged. Here is my theory about what happened next. When a camera is held on the shoulder, if you zoom in, the video gets shaky. Therefore you zoom all the way out and walk toward the subject to get closer. Rogers probably saw the guy approaching and lost it.
I have seen the video. The guy was about 15 feet away, and during his turn towards Rogers he may have taken a step or two towards him (maybe 3 feet?). Rogers came right up to him and started pushing, shouting, etc. Then he actually grabbed the guy, and when the camera hit the ground he gave it a couple of swift kicks.
Absoluetly uncalled for. The argument that today’s palyer shouldn’t be photographed doesn’t hold water. If he only wants to throw baseballs but not take the other stuff that goes with it, he should go pitch for Midland.
How exactly was he “hounded”? This is just another example of a professional athlete acting like the big, whiny bitches they are. If someone looks at you as you walk down the office corridor are you going to knock the pda out of their hands?
Fuck this fucking prick Rogers and nearly all other professional athletes!! I’m sick to death of these petulant little girls and boys who get paid millions to play a FUCKING GAME and then act like complete dicks!!
The cameramen were exactly where they had permission form the team to be. The suspension is appropriate, expecially since as a pitcher it means really 4 or 5 starts.
Wrong. Professional sports depends a great deal on the relatively free publicity and advertising the news media gives to it. Players and teams ought to treat the media well for fear that they’ll point their cameras elsewhere, at say Tony Hawk or his ilk.
No it is his job to be a media person. It is (I bet cha) in his contract. He is supposed to be available for pre- and post-game media stuff. Without the media he would have no job.
I think the best punishment for Kenny would be as follows.
Whenever he is playing, all cameras avoid him all the time. He doesn’t wanna be filmed? Don’t film him. At all. When he’s on the mound, only film the batters. When he’s up to bat, film the crowds or something. Just keep him off the screen.
The cameramen have a union, right? The union should declare a moratorium on Rangers games. Something to the effect that they will not record the games untill Rogers makes a very public apology or something.
What makes this suspension so insulting is that it is with pay. A 20 game vacation. Bon voyage.
Also, it is important to note that every MLB player gets between $40-100k per year for marketing fees. MLB pays the players association each year for baseball cards, team publicity appearances, the rights to use pictures of you playing baseball, etc. This money is divided up evenly between all the players. They paid him to have his picture taken and he still acted like a jackass.
The media does it because the fans demand it. That doesn’t make it right. It’s the moral equivilant of the tabloid photographers chasing around movie stars for the edification of movie fans. As soon as the mass public demands camera shots of Tony Hawk, that’ll happen too.
I follow baseball for the game; the only thing the media provides me that I care about is a game recap and the box scores.
While I agree that for some sports enthusiasts – by no means a large percentage – the game exists outside of television, surely you recognize the fact that if the “media” (and by this I mean all coverage of sports: ESPN, televised broadcasts, local news people, etc.) paid no attention to sports, there wouldn’t BE any sports? At least not in any way similar to how it is now. The sports depend on the media to provide an outlet for their games; the media depend on the sports for content. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
The news guys being at the warm ups is more the moral equivilant of photographers going to a movie premier.
Put another way, if the media stopped reporting on sports, all those athletes would have to go out and get real jobs.
I’d like to have seen a suspension with some teeth in it. An athlete with known anger management problems attacks without provocation a photographer who’s just doing his job and doing it correctly and he’s to only miss 4 or 5 games and still get paid for it? I think Rogers is suppossed to make somewhere in the high 300s or low 400s over that period. His fine is 50. So he gets a rest and comes out over 300 thousand freakin’ dollars ahead and Selig calls that a punishment?
Certainly Rogers will pay some price later when another contract is offered him, obviously discounted since he’s a risk. Still, the Player’s Association appears to lead Selig and MLB around by a rather secure leash.
