Ricciardi's loveless marriage to media over
TMC
Oct 05, 2009 04:30 AM
Chris Zelkovich
The departure of J.P. Ricciardi from the Toronto sports scene not only
ends an era in Blue Jays baseball.
It also closes one of the strangest relationships between the media
and a sports executive this city has seen since the days of Harold
Ballard.
The recently deposed general manager of the Jays did everything he
could to control his message by using the media. In the end, it may
have been what did him in.
Since arriving here eight years ago, Ricciardi tried to ensure that he
had as much control as possible on what the public heard about him and
the team.
In the early days, he would routinely appear on television and radio
broadcasts, often for innings at a time, to answer questions about his
plans and the team's performance. Needless to say, his feet weren't
put to the fire very often.
Then he hosted his own radio show, eliminating the middleman.
But that's where things started to unravel for Ricciardi, where he
began to lose public support.
In this case, it exposed Ricciardi as a rather arrogant man who had
little time for what he considered the uninformed opinions of Canadian
baseball fans. Sure, there were a lot of "let's trade our backup
catcher for Alex Rodriguez" callers, but too many fans with plenty of
baseball knowledge were dismissed as rubes. His Adam Dunn moment, in
which he trashed a player suggested as a potential Jay while all but
insulting the caller, was almost inevitable. It didn't win many
supporters among the dwindling fan base.
That arrogance extended to reporters and columnists. He was known for
browbeating those who disagreed with his moves and eventually was
barely on speaking terms with some.
Maybe that explains why he often saved his big messages for U.S.
media, leaking information to them while keeping the local guys out of
the loop. After all, he appeared to be saying, what do a bunch of
hockey nuts know about baseball?
That's why many here must have chuckled when Ricciardi's leak of the
Roy Halladay situation to a U.S. reporter came back to bite him hard.
And was it any surprise that some pointed the finger at him as the
source of the recent Cito Gaston revolt story? It certainly wasn't
hard to believe, even if it wasn't true.
While his record alone would have justified his firing, the Gaston
situation certainly sped it up.
The Ricciardi story could make a great Greek tragedy, with the
protagonist done in by the very thing he strives to possess.
And the moral? The problem with those who try to control the media is,
that in the end, the media often control you.
czelkovich@thestar.