MLB Network Insider Jon Heyman made waves throughout the baseball world yesterday by tweeting that free agent outfielder Aaron Judge “appeared headed” to the San Francisco Giants. Actually, Heyman had to send another tweet after sending out “Arson” Judge would be headed to the Giants. During The Michael Kay Show, Kay and co-host Don La Greca disagreed about Heyman’s culpability for his erroneous report.
Peter Rosenberg interrupted Kay mid-sentence to read Heyman’s report on the air that Judge would be departing New York. After they discussed the misspelling, Rosenberg asked “Are we taking this as law since it’s coming from Heyman?”
“Heyman doesn’t make that many mistakes,” responded Kay. “I’d bet on Heyman with this stuff.”
After taking a commercial break, the show rejoined with a follow up from Heyman walking back his report, saying he had “jumped the gun”.
“I’m gonna sit this out — because Jon Heyman happens to be a close personal friend — but that’s a bad look,” Kay said. “I’m not gonna drill the guy.”
“I will,” Don La Greca interrupted.
“In a world where everybody has to be first, this is gonna happen,” countered Kay. “And it could still end up being right because Susan Slusser, who works for the San Francisco Chronicle, says the buzz in the lobby is that Aaron Judge is going to the Giants.
“Here’s what I think happened: Heyman heard something that made him think Aaron Judge was signing with the Giants. Then he called the Giants and they said ‘Woah, woah, woah. We haven’t signed anything’, because they don’t want Hal (Steinbrenner) to jump in and say ‘Whatever they gave you, we’ll top it’. (The Giants) wanted to get Judge’s name on a contract before it gets out there, so now Heyman backed off. But we’ll see where it turns out.”
“I really like Jon, too, but there’s a certain responsibility that comes with being a journalist and a reporter,” La Greca rebutted. “And we live in a world now where getting it first is more important than getting it right. And you can just see by his tweet, ‘Arson Judge’, that he’s so quick to get it out there first on this big story — would it have killed him to call the Giants first? You can’t have a bunch of people relying on your information — as a respected journalist — to throw out that information and then walk it back a couple of minutes later. I’m sorry, Michael, but it’s a borderline fireable offense. Honestly.
“I don’t understand the importance of getting it first anyway. What? You’re gonna be first for 30 seconds and then everyone else is gonna jump on it? He’s got the contacts. Follow the story. You’re not a cub reporter. You shouldn’t be just walking around the lobby hungry for information trying to get it before everybody else. I’m sorry. It’s a bad job.”
