Was sportswriter right to write Major League Baseball about Fernando Rodney incident?

A report today from The Detroit News that a letter from a sportswriter might have caused Fernando Rodney to be suspended raises some interesting questions.

To sum it up: Detroit Tigers president and general manager Dave Dombrowski said he doesn't think Rodney would have been suspended if the chairman of the Tampa Bay chapter of the Baseball Writers Association hadn't written the letter. The correspondence raised concerns about Rodney throwing a baseball toward the grandstands after Friday's game (See video). The ball landed in the press box at Tropicana Field, but no one was injured.

The letter was from Marc Topkin, who also covers the Rays for the St. Petersburg Times.

Was Topkin justified in filing a complaint with MLB?

I'm not going to say he was wrong, but I will say that it's not something I would have done had I been in Topkin's shoes.

Maybe the Baseball Writers Association could have filed a complaint with the Tigers, as Pat Caputo suggested today on Detroit radio station WXYT-FM 97.1.

In my 16 years as a reporter, I always tried to avoid becoming part of a story. Now Topkin is part of a story about a player being suspended for three games during a pennant race, pending a decision on Rodney's appeal.

I'm not saying that it's always wrong for a reporter to get involved in this type of situation. If a player had assaulted a reporter, or intentionally thrown a ball at a reporter, a complaint to the league would have been more than appropriate.

But my philosophy regarding confrontations or incidents involving sources or readers was to pick my battles carefully. I've been yelled at, personally attacked and been the subject of veiled threats. It goes with the job. I didn't make a big deal about it.

One time a colleague made some type of complaint about a police officer putting his hands on the reporter at the scene of breaking news. I don't remember the specifics, but it seemed like a battle not worth fighting. The reporter wasn't injured. The officer's action might or might not have been appropriate, but let it go.

If a source struck me, pushed me or made a specific verbal threat, I likely would have filed some type of complaint. For anything short of that, it's best to just consider it a hazard of the occupation and move on.

One other thing troubles me about the complaint against Rodney. Topkin wrote a story about the suspension yesterday that makes no mention of his letter. In the interest of full disclosure, it seems that the newspaper should have mentioned Topkin's involvement in the situation. Perhaps another reporter should have written the story.