Justin Verlander had several issues with Detroit reporter he banned
Updated, Monday, August 26, 2019
After every major-league ballgame reporters crowd around the door to the players’ locker room – clubhouse, it’s called in this particular sport. Rules state that within ten minutes of the end of the game, all accredited media are admitted to the players’ quarters.
The usual protocol was in effect Wednesday night at Houston’s Minute Maid Park after the Astros lost – in a historic upset – 2-1 to the woebegone Detroit Tigers.
But when one of the visiting reporters, Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press, attempted to enter, he was barred by three security guards.
Justin Verlander, leading contender for this year’s Cy Young Award but the unlikely loser on this particular night, had informed his team’s publicity staff that he would not talk to media in Fenech’s presence.
Fenech has been a Tigers beat reporter since 2015. He covered Verlander prior to the pitcher’s trade to Houston on Aug. 31, 2017, and has spoken with him on subsequent occasions.
The pitcher on Thursday tweeted that he declined to speak to Fenech “because of his unethical behavior in the past.”
Fenech was not admitted to the clubhouse until Verlander finished a six-minute media session.
Once inside, Fenech approached Verlander, who said, “I’m not answering your questions” and walked away.
The behavior by an athlete who’s regarded as media-friendly generated a firestorm of protest.
Rob Biertempfel, president of the Baseball Writers Association of America, said he was “alarmed” by an action that “violated the MLB club-media relations which are laid out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.” Biertempfel said he expected MLB to respond “accordingly and promptly.”
Mike Teevan, MLB Vice President of Communications, said, “The reporter should have been allowed to enter the clubhouse postgame at the same time as the other members of the media. We have communicated this to the Astros.”
Verlander had the right to refuse to talk with Fenech. But he did not have the right to delay him from speaking to other Astros.
Verlander’s agent, Mark Pieper, said he contacted Chris Thomas, sports editor of the Free Press, early Wednesday afternoon to state Verlander’s position and “give them an opportunity to have someone else there.”
Pieper is clueless of the economics of print media if he expects the Free Press to fly a second reporter to Houston on Wednesday afternoon to provide postgame coverage.
What’s curious here is that Verlander provided no details of Fenech’s “unethical behavior.”
The reporter is well respected in the mainstream journalism community. The Associated Press Sports Editors ranked him among the top 10 baseball beat reporters in the country in 2017.
Thomas on Saturday wrote an article providing some detail of Fenech’s deteriorating relationship with Verlander.
The problem began Aug. 22, 2017, when Fenech joined a clubhouse conversation between Verlander and Tigers great Al Kaline.
They were discussing a solar eclipse. Fenech later tweeted that Verlander said, “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life.”
The next day Verlander, according to Thomas, delivered a profanity-laced tirade inside the Comerica Park clubhouse in front of coaches in which the pitcher said, among many other things, that his conversation with Kaline “was private.”
I’m guessing someone very close to Verlander felt eclipsed by his gushing about a beautiful and rare heavenly object.
This sort of problem arises with most sports beat reporters. You’re having a friendly conversation, presumably off the record (no recorder or notepad visible), and the athlete says something unexpected, interesting and apparently harmless, and the reporter quotes it to the public.
And then it turns out to be not entirely harmless.
But there’s more.
On Aug. 9, 2018, Bleacher Report published an article saying Verlander felt the Tigers’ medical staff “misdiagnosed” an injury the pitcher suffered in 2015.
On Sept. 12, Fenech approached Verlander to discuss the B/R story. Fenech said some of their conversation was on the record and some of it was not. Afterward, Verlander decided he did not want any of his conversation quoted, and the Tigers’ PR staff relayed his wish to the reporter.
But Fenech wrote the story anyway, and Verlander was furious.
And there’s also an issue Thomas did not address.
The DetroitSportsRag, for what it’s worth (not a whole lot, if you ask me), reported that Fenech accepted a gift from the Tigers valued at approximately $4,000. Verlander may have considered that another example of “unethical behavior.”
The team invited Fenech to participate in its Fantasy Camp in Lakeland, Fla., last February.
This is an annual event in which fans play baseball and hobnob with retired Tigers stars such as Alan Trammell and Frank Tanana. According to the team’s website, the cost of attending the Fantasy Camp is $3,550 plus state taxes and room and board.
Fenech made no secret of his participation, even posting on social media photos of himself in Tigers uniform. He wrote an article about it last February for the Free Press.
We don’t know the details about who paid what expenses. And it can be debated how much news value there was in Fantasy Camp. And if wearing the team uniform was a good look for Fenech, who admittedly is handsome in the uniform, something that could not be said for most ballwriters.
I do wonder if his coziness with the team he covers affects his reporting. Some of his readers have complained that he’s gone too soft on the Tigers, who have the worst record in baseball, winning 31% of their games.
Is Fenech being overly chummy with the ballclub so he can get the break on news? One of the challenges of sports beat reporting is to know your subjects well, without knowing them too well.
