It’s a subject I’ve often gone on about here:  That access is used as bludgeon and bait to control media opinion.

It happens with big subjects, it happens with little ones but I was surprised to see it happen in baseball.

Mike Wilner, who hosts the Fan 590′s post-game, baseball call in show was suspended this weekend after having a run in with Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston.  Not a bad or even unprofessional run in.  He didn’t get drunk and kick Cito in the nuts.

During a press conference, he just asked some legitimate questions about Cito’s handling of the bullpen (something a lot of people were doing) and then blogged about what he thought were unsatisfactory answers. The Fan 590, who is, like the Blue Jays, owned by Rogers, then suspended Wilner for the weekend.  A weekend where the beloved Jays took on the dread Yankees.

In other words, an important weekend.

It’s unclear who made this choice.  Cito denies any involvement and I believe him.  Says the skipper: “I didn’t go to anyone.  I didn’t think it was that bad anyway. . .  Who am I going to complain to, his boss? I’m not going to go calling up his boss.  I’ve gone through far worse [questioning] than that.”  No one else from Rogers wants to comment.

I can’t imagine why.

Thank God that the blogosphere is full of varied opinion.

I do know that, as a fan, I feel like Rogers got drunk and kicked me in the nuts.  I wanted to hear the Wilner postgame show after those Yankee games.  In the first, which I attended, we pounded the hated AJ Burnett, in the second the bullpen (the management of which  Wilner was questioning) held the Yankees down for 14 innings and in the third that same bullpen melted down and we lost late in the game.

That’s baseball: It’ll prove you right one day then wrong the next.  Then do it all again backwards.

In such an endeavour disagreements are the norm.  I, for example, often disagree with Wilner and have the somewhat unpopular opinion that Cito is a good manager. I like his method and approve of his results.  Though I often disagree with Wilner, I enjoy his perspective; though I often agree with Cito, I often hate his results.  It’s baseball.  That’s to be expected.

Fandom is about differing perspectives.  Any Yankee fan will have a totally different take on this weekend’s series than any Blue Jays fan.  Reporting the game is, like talking about it, a question of second guessing choices.  Football has its own term for the phenomena:  “Monday Morning Quarterback.”  It’s the same with baseball or any other strategy based game.

Managers can handle that.  Apparently someone in the publicity department can’t.

This is not about whether or not you find Wilner abrasive nor is it about the managerial acumen of Cito Gaston.  It’s about living in a world where a sports reporter asking a baseball manager tough questions is considered out of line; where people lose their jobs for doing them.  It’s like some people saw The Wire and thought: That’s interesting, how can we make it worse?

Some even seek to ban manager umpire arguments.

Like seriously – if you can’t criticize a baseball manager for an eccentric series of decisions resulting in a dramatic 9th inning loss without being suspended, just who the fuck can you criticize?  The Prime Minister?  A Rogers sponsor?  Anyone?

I love the game because of its ability to clarify and analogize philosophical points.  It is a common wealth of myth that every fan can draw on and it provides a language that people from all sorts of backgrounds can speak.   Unlike the arts, there are concrete facts that every opinion must be based on. Your opinions on a player’s quality might differ but the OPS is agreed.

Just that simple fact makes it more honest than politics or art.

I’ve been on the internet for years and have made factual errors on plenty of subjects.  None have embarrassed me more than the ones I’ve made about baseball. Just the other day on twitter I went off about this year’s all star game being in Arizona, when it is, in fact in Anaheim.  When I realized that, I actually blushed.  A rare occurrence.

But when I’m wrong on facts, I see little point in denying people whoa re right access.  When my opinion is contested, I don’t mind.  People have a right to think differently than I do and to ask questions.  Like Cito, I have a right to brush them off.  But no one should be suspended for asking those questions, especially if that’s what they’re paid to do. I wish Rogers and everyone else with a publicity department felt the same.  Because a world where PR writes the script is just a bullshit world.

In this Wilner situation, baseball, once again,acts as mirror.  And I love a mirror.  Especially when it shows something bad.  Why even have a mirror if you can’t see that your tie is improperly dimpled before you leave the house?  And make no mistake, according to this mirror, our shirt is inside out.   Reporters are being suspended for reporting.  Like OPS, that is incontestable.

We have a duty to protest that world wherever and whenever we see it.  No subject is too trivial.  If we can’t even protect the trivial subjects, there’s no way we can protect the important ones.  In politics, the arts and even sport, boos must be heard and questions asked.  Especially the ones that go against the script.  Mike Wilner needs his job back.

His only crime was doing it.