Why Jed York Running Out on the 49ers at Halftime was a Story

To me, this is deadly serious.

It's about the nature of Jed York as a person and an owner. But even more important for me, it's about the nature of current sports journalism.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, York ran out on the 49ers at halftime of their Week 5 loss to the Miami Dolphins. Left the Levi's Stadium, drove the wrong way down a blocked off street, got stopped and redirected by police.

I broke this story on Friday.

York ran out on his team like the spoiled brat we used to think he was. This is serious stuff. It's very important what an owner does. He's the face and leader of that entire organization. And if he can't face the heat, how the hell does he expect anyone on the 49ers to face heat?

So that's the basis of this discussion -- York's maturity and professionalism. But there's more.

A couple days ago, Ira Miller phoned my dad. Ira Miller covered the 49ers in the '70s,'80s, '90s and '00s for the San Francisco Chronicle and is in the Hall of Fame. He is generally regarded as the greatest NFL beat reporter of all time and certainly the greatest one to ever cover the 49ers. He's a legend. And he's retired -- he lives in Chicago now.

He used to work with my dad at the Chronicle -- they're dear friends. They talk every few weeks. So Ira called up and he was laughing. He said, "So Jed ran out on the team? You think that was news?"

My dad said, "Yeah, I think that was news. Do you?"

And Ira said, "Hell yeah. What the owner does is news. And what I want you to do, the reason I'm calling, I want you to call Grant and express to him my admiration."

The word the great Ira Miller used was "admiration." That's the biggest complement you can get as a beat writer. It's like winning a Pulitzer Prize.

So my dad said, "You know, it's very interesting, but none of the other reporters reported this, not even as a note."

Ira laughed. "Things have changed a lot since we wrote," he said. "A lot of these people now want to be on the right side of the organization. A lot of them want the organization to like them. They didn't want to write this, I believe, because then they'd be on the wrong side of Jed.

"Please remind Grant of this. We don't care if they like us. We want them to respect us. How can you respect reporters who don't report news because they're afraid to report it?"

Sports journalists are supposed to speak truth to power. They're not supposed to go along with the team's propaganda. At least that's what I thought.

Maybe I'm just old school.