Raul Ibanez Is Not A Fan Of Blogs

Part of being a blogger regardless of how big you are or how many readers you have, you have to take accountability for what you write and if you are going to make or report on some accusations, you have to some sources to cite otherwise you risk something like this happening. Apparently The Philadelphia Inquirer stumbled upon a blogger wondering if Ibanez used steroids and when that was made public in yesterday's Inquirer, Raul Ibanez was not at all happy. Au contraire, he was rather quite upset and angry and that led to this angry tirade of words. Via the Philadelphia Inquirer

"I'll come after people who defame or slander me," he said before last night's game against the New York Mets. "It's pathetic and disgusting. There should be some accountability for people who put that out there."

"Unfortunately, I understand the environment we're in and the events that have led us to this era of speculation," he said. "At the same time, you can't just walk down the street and accuse somebody of being a thief because they didn't have a nice car yesterday and they do today. You can't say that guy is a thief."

Ibanez said he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.

"You can have my urine, my hair, my blood, my stool - anything you can test," Ibanez said. "I'll give you back every dime I've ever made" if the test is positive.

"I'll put that up against the jobs of anyone who writes this stuff," he said. "Make them accountable. There should be more credibility than some 42-year-old blogger typing in his mother's basement. It demeans everything you've done with one stroke of the pen.

"Nobody is above the testing policy. We've seen that."

Ibanez, who signed with the Phils as a free agent over the winter, has impressed team officials and teammates with the time he spends in the weight room and batting cage.

"It's unfair because this story should be about how hard work, determination, and desire trumps chemicals and shortcuts," he said. "That should be the message: desire, character, work ethic. But some guy who doesn't know me - one idiot - says something like this. They should be held accountable. It's cowardly."

Maybe it is naive homerism, but I definitley believe Raul Ibanez on this one. And also keep in mind the fact where he came from. Ibanez was a Seattle Mariner! Not only not a big baseball market, but a sucky team that no one cares about. I mean for goodness sakes, Ichiro is practically forgotten about up there. So naturally when Ibanezcomes to a big baseball market in Philadelphia there is going to be more media coverage of him and people wondering how on earth is this guy so good? They think that he's been in the league for awhile and because he never made a splash before that he is on the juice. That means nothing. And for those on the statistics bandwagon, you can get stats to say whatever the fuck you want them to say.

If anything, we definitley should NOT be surprised by the production of Ibanez. For one thing, he is now at Citizens Bank Park, one of the biggest homerun parks in MLB and going back to stats, try this one out for size that backs up my point that we should not be surprised that Ibanez is doing so well this year. Last season, Ibanez had a higher batting average than any Phillie did last year. Yep, his batting average was higher than Howard's, Utley's, Rollins', Victorino's, etc. If you were a Phillie in 2008, you did not have a higher batting average than Raul Ibanez of the Seattle Mariners.

Now there's an off-chance that I'm wrong and Ibanez is using juice. It would not be the first time someone has denied steriod use only to test positive for it later, but when all you are doing is comparing Ibanez's numbers from year to year, and not only that but when he switched teams, ballparks, and leagues, there is no case there. It's that simple.