Midwest Sports Fans is a

weblog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

, which was launched by Jerod Morris in August 2008. The site primarily focuses on professional and college teams and athletes relevant to the Midwest. They receive approximately 600,000 pageviews each month, and is a part of the

Yardbarker Yardbarker is a digital media property focused on the publishing of sports and entertainment news and information. Founded in 2006, the property distributes content on Yardbarker.com, social media platforms and via third party syndication partne ...

network, which links daily pieces to Fox Sports homepage

Authors and Content

Jerod Morris is the Managing Editor and AJ Kaufman serves as Co-editor. The author list for Midwest Sports Fans has included sports anchors Scott Reister (KNDU-TV in Kennewick, WA) and Candice Crawford (KOMU-TV in Columbia, MO). Reister wrote a regular column called "The Anchor’s Desk", while Crawford regularly contributed her article, "From the Sideline.". Other writers include "KVB," Kurt Allen, Jon Washburn, Tyler Juranovich, Devon Alexandre and Drew Lange. MSF also has a podcast.

Controversy

In a post titled, "The Curious Case of Raúl Ibañez: Steroid Speculation Perhaps Unfair, but Great Start in 2009 Raising Eyebrows," Morris outlined a variety of possible statistical explanations for the impressive beginning

Raúl Ibañez Raúl Javier Ibañez (; born June 2, 1972) is a Cuban-American former professional baseball left fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) now serving as Senior Vice President of On-Field Operations for MLB. He played 11 of his 19 big league seaso ...

got off to in 2009, his first year with the Philadelphia Phillies. In the post, Morris argues that because of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

’s sordid recent history with

performance-enhancing drug Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where bann ...

(PED) use, it is reasonable to speculate and impossible to rule out that Ibáñez’s could be steroid enhanced. In the post, Morris stated that he was withholding judgment on the issue and later clarified that he did not believe Ibanez was using steroids, only that such speculation is warranted for any Major League Baseball Player. The post on Midwest Sports Fans created a controversy when it was mentioned by John Gonzalez in a "Philadelphia Inquirer" article entitled "A cheap shot at Ibanez". Morris claimed that Gonzalez had mischaracterized the post. Once informed of the Philadelphia Inquirer article by Gonzalez that discussed the post by Morris, Raúl Ibañez criticized the post saying he considered it "pathetic" and "cowardly" and vowing that he would go to any measure to prove that he is clean. On the same day that Ibanez's comments became public, Morris, Gonzalez, and

Ken Rosenthal Ken Rosenthal (born September 19, 1962) is an American sportswriter and reporter. He serves as a field reporter for '' Fox Major League Baseball'' since 2005, and was an in-studio reporter for MLB Network from 2009 to 2022. Since August 2017, ...

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

appeared on the ESPN show, "Outside the Lines," hosted by

Steve Bunin Steve Bunin (born in Seattle, Washington) is a former ESPN Anchor, a five-time Emmy Award winner and a 16-time Emmy nominee. He is now an Executive Communications Coach for companies around the world. Career Bunin was a news anchor at KING-TV from ...

References

{{reflist American sport websites Internet properties established in 2008