Content advisory: only one posterisk.

I understand Mellinger gets a difficult time around these parts, but I’ve supported him. True story – I sent him an angry letter (not necessarily directed at him) two years ago over the Star’s coverage of Buddy Bell, a manager whom I did not like at the time. (I like him much better now….which is pretty self-explanatory). Within 24 hours, he e-mailed me back and empathized with my view, which I did not expect.

Anyway, as for the Rany/Royals rift….I side with Rany mostly because the Royals’ credibility has taken so many hits over the years and…well, you get the idea.

“In a way, both Rany and the Royals are at fault here.”

“But in another, more accurate way, the Royals are at fault.”

I wasn’t intending to read his piece and now I definitely don’t need to read his fluffery to “understand.”

* Though it is worth pointing out that The Star ran a story three years ago that went into great detail in evaluating the Royals’ injuries and training staff. At that time, the team was looking at making changes so the story was particularly timely. The numbers showed that the Royals were remarkably average in recovering from injuries. They ranked 15th in most categories, rarely better than 14th, and rarely worse than 16th. You can argue that they need to be better than average, and that’s fine, but the numbers indicated that the medical staff was not a bunch of hacks.

That doesn’t seem to be what Tucson Royals’ data shows.

I also think its ridiculous to say that Rany “needs to make a call” before calling for a firing on his radio show. You really think Kevin Kietzman makes a call to Arrowhead before calling for Carl Peterson’s head? I can’t imagine that is done anywhere.

I think maybe it boils down to that question. A few more newspapers go under and the teams might start issuing Press Passes to bloggers so they can get some coverage, and problem fixed. Rany won’t write the article he did for fear of losing his access. Though, living in Chicago, he may have a hard time with using that access.