The A-Rod story becomes the MLB Network’s defining moment
By: Jim Williams
The Examiner
In TV there are those defining moments that establishes when a network makes it to the big time. For the MLB Network that moment came Saturday February 7th 2009 at 2pm when Bob Costas had a one on one interview with Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Robert. It was Roberts who broke the story that in 2003 Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs use during a “blind test” conducted by Major League Baseball to determine how best combat the issue. There were 104 names in that sealed report and someone leaked A-Rod’s name to S.I.
For nearly an hour Costas and Roberts talked about the all aspects the S.I. story and the ramifications that story may have A-Rod and others. It was the MLB Network handling breaking news with the best anchor in the business. Any thought that the network would run away from controversy was silenced with Costas interview of Roberts.
Not to be outdone ESPNews was also all over the story with New York’s top sports talk host Andrew Marchand doing a masterful job of getting listener reaction from ESPN Radio 1050 in the Big Apple. They also had phone interviews with Rodriguez’s former manager (and ESPN analyst) Buck Showalter, ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn, ESPN baseball analysts Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney and Steve Phillips, ESPN legal analyst Roger Cossack, Texas Rangers former director of conditioning Fernando Montes, and former Rangers teammate Doug Glanville.
They also had an interview with Roberts but it came from ABC News and not directly with her that scope belonged to Costas and the MLB Network.
Later Saturday night ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News and all the other major new outlets had the story. It is one that we will be following for quite a while but on the day that it broke credit must got to the upstart MLB Network for getting Costas on the air with Roberts and proving wrong those who had any doubt that the the network would be a force in the marketplace when it comes breaking news in baseball.
