Alana Rizzo on High Heat. Alana Rizzo on High Heat.

The last couple of days have seen an incredible amount of discussion around the Atlanta Braves’ clubhouse. That comes from a report from Jake Mintz of Fox Sports after the Braves’ win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the National League Divisional Series Monday that Atlanta shortstop Orlando Arcia was mocking Philadelphia first baseman Bryce Harper in the clubhouse, saying “Ha-ha, atta-boy, Harper!”

That led to Harper twice staring down Arcia after hitting home runs in the Phillies’ 10-2 Game 3 win Wednesday. And that led to the Atlanta radio broadcast bashing Harper, and to a number of Braves’ players and (mostly) Atlanta-based media members criticizing Mintz for sharing Arcia’s comments. That then led to a number of other media members going off on those takes, saying that clubhouse comments are not off the record (unless specifically agreed to by the player and the reporter).

But while the media reaction outside of Atlanta has generally been in support of Mintz and critical of the Braves and the local reporters arguing against this, there have been a few media members from other markets who have chimed in to bash Mintz’s reporting of Arcia’s comments. And one of the most fervent takes on that front came from Alanna Rizzo on MLB Network’s High Heat Thursday, where she weighed in with some anti-blogger rhetoric seen much more frequently more than a decade ago:

Here’s a transcription of that:

“And I am so irritated with all of these people, these bloggers, or podcasters, or, not even reporters, not even journalists going into the clubhouse. You’re ruining it for the rest of us, the guys that come in in the postseason and don’t have any clue of the pulse of the team. And it’s making it worse for the people that are there every single day covering this team on a daily basis.”

“And then some jackoff comes in at the end of the season that gets a credential, God only knows why. And the clubhouse is a sacred space. And, remember, I’ve been in clubhouses for the last 16, 17 years. I remember I would go in there, get my job done and get out. That is their space. So for this idiot to go in there and take something out of context just to make him give himself a name is ridiculous.”

“And I completely understand what Travis D’Arnaud was saying, I completely understand what Kevin Gausman was saying.  You guys can throw up the tweets right now about Kevin Gausman, what he was saying about the fact that they should be allowed to talk in their own clubhouse. Now, there are non-media areas in clubhouses, I understand that, but that’s ridiculous. You have to have some sort of decorum intact if you’re going to be lucky enough to cover a Major League Baseball team or a professional team.”

“This is what Kevin Gausman had to say. It’s ‘Players have to watch out, watch what we say in our clubhouse.’ And you know what? He’s absolutely right. That is their space. It is not a space to go in there and linger around and watch their televisions and, you know, just kind of, you know, hang out in there. That’s not your space.”

She then quotes Gausman’s tweet: “Some of y’all, man. All I’m saying is that you should not be allowed to quote a player, say you heard something like this in the clubhouse when you, the reporter, are not talking to that player.”

And she then bashes Mintz more.

“First of all, this guy, Jake Mintz, that’s not even a reporter. That’s taking away from true reporters and true journalists. Where were you on the random Tuesday in April in Cincinnati when this team was playing in Cincinnati. Where were you on a rain delay? And you have to sit in the press box for all of this time. It’s ridiculous.”

And host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo chimes in with a “You sound like me.”

Rizzo’s take itself wound up taking plenty of criticism from media figures. Some of the most notable there came from Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein. (Language warning.)

Another notable reaction came from Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post, who also reported the initial comment (but didn’t attribute it to Arcia), and stood up for Mintz Thursday:

And as Goldstein notes, much of Rizzo’s career has been working either for MLB Network (2012-13 and 2021-present) or for the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers’ local broadcasts on Root Sports Rocky Mountain and Spectrum SportsNet LA respectively. She did do local sports work for CBS affiliates in Wichita Falls, Texas and Madison, Wisconsin before that.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Rizzo isn’t a reporter, or that she can’t share her views on reporting etiquette. But it’s unusual to hear someone whose career has largely been as a reporter for local team broadcast and league network broadcasts come in on such a high ethical horse against someone working for a national media outlet (and yes, a MLB broadcast partner, but MLB isn’t producing Fox’s broadcasts themselves).

And Rizzo’s “Where were you on the random Tuesday in April in Cincinnati?” comment is rather absurd. The whole point of the postseason is that there is now a national spotlight on the remaining teams. And that should naturally lead to access for more than just the local reporters. Many around baseball regularly complain that the sport, and especially its playoffs, should receive more national attention, which flies in sharp contrast to attempts like this to gatekeep coverage to reporters around a particular team all year.

It’s also notable that Mintz and his @CespedesBBQ coverage partner Jordan Shusterman have been doing national coverage of MLB team for years (including on DAZN’s MLB ChangeUp). And they’ve been covering the sport nationally all season for Fox. And that’s included clubhouse interviews. So the “jackoff,” “blogger,” and “podcaster” comments are a little much, especially with criticism of people for those last two categories being so a decade ago.

If anything, the Braves’ clubhouse saga has once again illustrated that there is not universal journalistic agreement on much of anything. But the majority of journalists discussing the situation have weighed in in defense of Mintz, and in defense of Arcia’s comments in a media-accessible area not being off the record without an agreement to that effect. So that makes Rizzo’s take here, and especially the fervent level she went to, quite unusual.

[Awful Announcing on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.