Media member sells Kyle Rudolph's gloves on eBay

We all have conflicts of interest. We all have biases that we have to set aside.

How many sports writers had a favorite team growing up, only to eventually cover a rival? How many news writers have politics that lean one way but become dedicated reporters covering someone with completely opposite views?

It helps to have a good editor to keep you in check, to challenge statements or word choice in your stories. But there's an internal integrity, too, to just do good work and present the story as is. Here's what happened and what it means.

Of course, a line still exists. Political reporters shouldn't donate to candidates, unless it's a family member (and then they should recuse themselves of all reporting on said family member). Sports reporters shouldn't cheer for or accept extravagant favors from teams they cover.

Anything beyond that though is just being human and having natural likes and dislikes. Those conflicts don't matter unless you allow them to.

 

I never had a radio gig to add to my sports writing duties. But I did think about it. One of my personal issues was reading the commercials. I felt that by reading this commercial, I was endorsing the product. That bothered me. And I always thought about it when I hear the radio guys hyping Chevys or Doritos.

 

I've never understood how that works - the reads are called "billboards" right? Does every host who reads the I own gold get free gold in the mail? Or a free mattress? It's one thing if you mention your name or actually endorse the thing - I'd be pissed if a read implied a personal endorsement and all the money went to the radio station.

 

Nothing wrong with hyping Doritos. Best chips ever.

 

I'm waiting for the read "Like a lot of guys, I have problems in the bedroom from time to time..." or "Dudes, I'm losing my hair - I look like I'm a middle aged accountant and I'm only 24 - thank goodness for Dr. Joe's Hair Solutions."

 

I was lurking wondering where the Norm MacLean references would come. Then I read this and holy shit that took me back. It also reminded me I wasted A LOT of time here back in the day and yelled a lot and acted like an ass and at least now I go two years in between log-ins? But yes, this is absolutely a Norm MacLean thing except he would have just kept the swag.

I'll echo everyone here and say it's surprising this goober hasn't been found yet, but I would bet you anything it's just some foof no one's heard of (until he or she gets busted). The ratio of goobers in the press box has been growing as the legitimate media outlets have been shrinking. You wouldn't believe how many people are out there schlepping around the country on their own dime "covering" sports for glorified BLOGGGGGGSSSSSS. Teams and leagues used to do a pretty good job of regulating the onliners but that dam broke long ago.

I'd sell all my old media guides if I could get off my ass and organize them.

Also what's up bitches?

 

Fetch me a beer, etc.

We just moved into a different office. I'd estimate we had well over a thousand media guides from the 1990s and early 2000s for non-local teams. (I kept the ones from local teams that aren't replaceable or can be found online.) The maintenance people were like, "you sure you want to get rid of those?" I told them that if they wanted to sell them, be my guest.

Media guides are like baseball cards. In theory, there's a value attached to them if you find a market for each individual guide, but in reality? There's not much of a market at all unless you're REALLY diligent about selling them ... and who the hell has time for that? It's not as if you're going to hop on eBay and suddenly clear a grand or two. It's more like a drip and a drab here and there.

And I see ZERO ethical issues selling old media guides. It would be different if they could still have a useful purpose, or, if you were selling them at the expense of an entity that wanted to preserve them for a historical purpose. In that case? Selling them would be wrong.

But in most cases, especially in the case I illustrated above, it's a choice between someone taking a punt on selling a media guide or the media guide ending up in the trash. No harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned.

As for the jag off who violated every locker room media code known to man? Fuck him. That's a completely different thing, not the least of which, it was a breach of trust regardless of the media ethics of the situation. He lied to Kyle Rudolph and (literally) sold him out.

 

Wouldn't ebay put this clown's name out there since it's known that he lied to get the gloves?
Realize it's not the same as stealing but would think ebay doesn't support what this guy did.
Wouldn't the Vikings try to find out who it is?

 

Team PR has generally never been worse. Never. They have no real control, for one, and, for two, have bought into the notion that Internet media have brought something essential to the proceedings when, almost always, they really have not.

 

This was the most-typed word on this message board the first few years of its being. /statistics

 

Who let this guy back in?