Controversy is nothing new for sports reporter Ronnie Nathanielsz.
Nathanielsz reminds me of the late bombastic New York columnist Dick Young.
Like the longtime, usually acerbic Daily News writer, Nathanielsz takes no prisoners in his commentaries, be they written on over the airwaves.
The way Sir Ronnie operates, you get no sugarcoating. He always tells it like it is or at least how he thinks it is. He leaves the sugarcoating to the bakeries.
See comprehensive bio on Nathanielsz from Insidesports.ph.
My line on Young, who was often not only reactionary but at times racist, was “often wrong but never in doubt.”
“Young Dick” as some detractors called him always made it plain where he stood and it was rarely in the middle of any road.
One example came when Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden returned to the field after a cocaine rehab stint. Young penned a vicious column, exhorting a crowd of 55,000 to go to Shea Stadium to loudly boo and berate the star hurler.
Like it or not, Nathanielsz is more than a bit player in Manny Pacquiao’s defamation case Golden Boy principals Oscar de la Hoya and Richard Schaefer and the “Unholy Trinity” of Mayweathers, meaning Floyd Sr., Floyd Jr. and uncle Roger Mayweather.
The “he said, he said” sideshow is raging between the reporter and Golden CEO Schaefer ever since Nathanielsz alleged that the promoter told him, face to face at the Goldens’ downtown LA offices, that Pacquiao is a drug cheater.
In a recent court document, Schaefer first attacks Nathanielsz before completely denying he made such allegations to the veteran scribe.
?Amended Complaint alleges that, in September 2009, I told Philippine reporter Ronnie Nathanielsz ? a reporter whom Pacquiao himself has accused of ?fabricating horrible tales and putting words into the mouths of people he has not even talked to? that I was ‘sure Pacquiao was using PEDs,'” Schaefer said in the court papers. (Source: GMA.TVNews)
So Richie Rich’s first line of attack is not the denial but to charge that Pacman has a low regard for the reporter.
Imagine that, a fight promoter sullying the reputation of a journalist. I don’t know if I am shocked and appalled or appalled and also shocked.
I don’t know how Pacquiao regards Nathanielsz but the boxer’s opinion is completely immaterial to what Nathanielsz claims Schaefer said.
This is a defamation lawsuit, not a kidnergarten insult contest.
Then, in a real twist of everyday logic, Schaefer said he never made any such allegation in a conversation with Nathanielsz and the lack of publication by the writer verifies that.
In other words, why would Nathanielsz withhold from his readers and listeners?
Mindanao.com
He described such allegation as ?absolute falsehood,” saying, ?if I had made the alleged statement to Nathanielsz, he (Nathanielsz) surely would have published it, which he did not.”
Look, Herr Schaefer did not just fall off the turnip truck. He’s the former Swiss banker, he worked at controversial UBS.
Only Nathanielsz and Schaefer know what was really said in their conversation but the fact that the reporter did not run into print or post it on the Internet immediately means nothing.
It’s possible, I think I can say most likely that if Schaefer made the allegation, that he did it as deep background, not for attribution material or did so confidentially.
That’s a game reporters and news sources play every day. That’s we you read stories citing unnamed sources or, in the sports context, “someone familiar with (Yankees owner George) Steinbrenner’s thinking.”
This kind of juicy information or allegation is almost always filtered one way or another.
If it was tendered that way by Schafer, then he assumed the risk it would come back to bite him.
And now it has, right on the backside like a nasty dog attacking the mailman.
Maybe Nathanielsz can’t prove Schaefer said it but, conversely, how does Schaefer prove he did not?
I’m not clear as to why Nathanielsz finally diviulged this tasty tidbit but I do know he has claimed he informed an editor about sometime soon after it happened. My guess is that Sir Ronnie told the editor the comment was made off the record.
Schaefer vs. Nathanielsz, it’s not a main event.
But, as far as undercards go, it’s an intriguing matchup.
Who do you believe?
