XM MLB Chat: San Diego Padres are right about "east coast bias"

Thursday, April 3, Charley Steiner promo-ed his XM show noting calamities for "closers" in the past few days. His first guest, John Donovan, SI.com.

Charley says to Donovan in effect, we've already seen some closer cave-ins in just a few days.

(Steiner doesn't bring up any names, but there was Hoffman's 4ER including a 3 run HR 12 hours earlier, Lyon, Street, Gagne, Gordon, Putz (result of injury), etc.) The name Mariano Rivera didn't qualify for this particular topic.

Instead of discussing Steiner's topic, Donovan ignores him and seizes the opportunity:

Without addressing ANY of the 6 names above, SI's Donovan says: "Mariano Rivera struggled in the beginning of the 2007 season."

Steiner lets him go on, then finally brings up Hoffman from the night before with the homerun.

Donovan refuses to acknowledge what happened with Hoffman, instead saying 'well, he had pitched a day or 2 before that and had struck out (Lance) Berkman.'

Even though Mariano Rivera had nothing to do with the topic, Donovan chose to direct negative attention to him for something a year ago--not the past week. Which was so honest of the SI employee and BBWAA member.

And proved that the Padres are right--they can't get a break and get any attention compared to east coast teams--certainly the Yankees. And certainly compared to Mariano Rivera. They should complain that their guy Hoffman can't get his performances publicized. That IS what they want, right?

Or, do they mean they only want the GOOD performances covered?

That is what happened in this case--"reverse bias." ie, A poor performance by Hoffman is dismissed as nothing.

Donovan hid the truth from listeners and fans and bashed Mariano Rivera for no reason.
He knew Charley Steiner would not call him on his failure to truthfully discuss any player's performance.

Buck Martinez on Trevor Hoffman, as told to Mike and Chris on WFAN, 10/8/07