Consider the (Anonymous) Source

Well, it's a sad day for baseball in general, and the Yankees in particular. Alex Rodriguez, (known as A-Fraud to his teammates), has been revealed by Sports Illustrated as having tested positive for the steroid Primobolan. (So did 103 other currrent and former big leaguers, but A-Rod's was the only named leaked to the press.

Now, Sports Illustrated is a venerable and reputable magazine, and they doubtless wouldn't print this allegation without what they felt was proof positive.

One of the articles appearing in the New York Times today about the A-Rod case made use of an anonymous source. Let's take a look.

But in 2004, the 104 positive tests from a year earlier were seized by federal authorities in conjunction with their investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, the California company known as Balco that has long been accused of supplying performance enhancers to Bonds, the career home run leader.

The two people who confirmed Rodriguez’s result spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to jeopardize their access to sensitive material.

Selena Roberts and/or David Epstein talked to two different people who both verified the fact that A-Rod was on the list. However, according to the agreement between Major League Baseball and the Players Union, all results of the testing were supposed to remain confidential (as they did for the rest of the players testing positive). Basically, these two sources said "I'll give you some really juicy information, but you can't use my name, because I'll lose my job. So if you want this information, you have to call me 'anonymous'."

Also in the Times was an article pondering the strange case of Manny Ramirez who can't get anyone to offer him more than $25,000,000 to play leftfield -- and that's only for one year! Ideally, he'd like a four-year contract ($100,000,000). And of course Manny's not about the play for a measly $25,000,ooo. I mean, would you?

Tyler Kepner, the Times reporter, is checking with his contacts in the game to see what they think of this:

One major league official, who was granted anonymity so he could speak candidly about another team, said he was baffled that the Giants’ new owner, William H. Neukom, had not pursued Ramírez more aggressively. “Neukom wants to make a statement,” the official said. “They must have money because they were talking about C. C. Sabathia, and they know the effect of a great hitter from having Barry Bonds. Plus, they could hurt L.A. and win the West. You can’t rule them out.”

Now, this source wouldn't have lost his or her job, but it would be considered bad form to talk publicly about how others are doing business. "Well, look, Tyler, I'll tell you what I think, but you can't mention my name. Neukom would be extremely p.o.ed, and my boss wouldn't like it either." Now Kepner pushes back. "Okay, I won't say your name, but I need something that will validate you as a reputable source. How about your job title?" That won't work, because then everybody will know who it is, so they settle on "one major league official".

[Full disclosure: I am a lifelong Red Sox fan -- but that has not caused me to slant my coverage of this issue in any way. For instance, I didn't mention A-Rod's affair with Madonna, or either of the strippers he was connected to.]