In Defense of Bianchi, et al. and Raul to Cosmos

If you haven't read Kevin Draper's Deadspin piece, I suggest you do so before continuing.


Warning: Most of this will be a rant. Read at your own risk.

Deadspin just came out with a piece on the firing of Kevin Bianchi, the former beat reporter for the Colorado Rapids for MLSsoccer.com. He was employed by MLS, and could not write too negatively on the Rapids, and he could not advocate for the firing of any Rapids employee. Before I get to the main issue at hand, let me start with an ideological point. Why are US leagues so uptight about the content on their website? They could have put at the bottom of the website: "The contents of this website are the views and opinions of the writers themselves and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Major League Soccer, its partners, subsidiaries, sponsors, and teams; nor do they reflect the opinions of the United States Soccer Federation or the Canadian Soccer Association and their partners, affiliates, or sponsors, when appropriate." That quote removes any liability from the league for anything posted to their website regarding those three major things, and it makes the writers responsible for their work, and they would be free to write anything they wished to write about their subject.
Now, to the meat of the story. According to the aforementioned article, Bianchi was fired by MLS at the Rapids' behest. That in and of itself is completely wrong to do to a beat reporter who attended every home game, every practice, and every event, and that is hard to ask for someone who has to do it for such a bad team as the Rapids. Next point is about the e-mails, which are embedded into the article, and you can read them for yourself. Bianchi overall was very cordial in the e-mails, and very kind. I got the same impression from the president of the Rapids, but that's not the point. The point is that all of this was caused by a tweet:

@JDSportsfan85 @ColoradoRapids Say it once, say it again: Front office deserves much more blame than coaching staff.
— Chris Bianchi (@Rapids_News) October 7, 2014

Obviously, the FO would be mad about receiving criticism, but there's a way to handle that criticism in a healthy way, and firing the person is not a healthy way of doing things. I wish I was the editor of the Denver Post because I'd hire him in a heartbeat.

The other major news today is that the New York Cosmos have signed Raul, the legendary player from Real Madrid. This is another example of the Cosmos putting their money where their mouth is (collectively) and signing a big-name player. What's shocking here is that no MLS team even tried for his services. Apparently, MLS as more worried about a beat reporter straying from the company line that the Cosmos were able to grab a legendary player right from under their collective noses.