Boston Sports Media Watch

Red Sox Team Doctor Bill Morgan appeared on WWZN this afternoon to report that Manny should be able to begin “baseball activities” in 4 weeks and should be ready for game action in 6 weeks. This is of course, barring any setback.

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Peter May really doesn’t like Kevin Costner. In both his Globe article today (linked below) and his ESPN.com article he makes disparaging remarks about Costner movies. In the Globe it’s: “It was Cousy, you may recall, who had to try to put a fine point on some really rough basketball in the 1990s. He had the unenviable task of being the analyst for Celtics road games through the lockout season of 1998-99, roughly the equivalent of being a film critic consigned to watching Kevin Costner movies.” At ESPN.com it’s “Now, they’re at the top with, essentially, the same personnel. What did Jim O’Brien do? Lock them all in a room and force them to watch Kevin Costner movies until they promised to do better?” Nice job, Peter. Guess “For love of the game” isn’t in your DVD changer at the moment.

Eddie Andleman had former Celtics radio play-by-play guy Howard David on his show this afternoon. David is now doing a morning drive talk show in Miami, and is very happy for Jim O’Brien and the Celtics. He sees them getting to the NBA Finals. He misses Cedric Maxwell very much, calling being with him the best part of that job. WEEI is inexplicably spending time today debating Jose Canseco’s hall of fame chances. Neumeier brought it up early, and it’s stuck. Mike Port was on talking a little about “today’s” callup Bryant Nelson, the 28 year old called up from Pawtucket. (His callup is apparently a day-to-day proposition) He also talked about the possibility of making a trade to help fill the gap left by Manny’s injury. He didn’t mention any names, however. Dale and Neumy also had Celtics assistant Dick Harter on just before 2:00. Harter gave Jim O’Brien credit for selling defense from day one this season. He’s hoping the C’s don’t take their foot off the pedal tonight, and need to learn out to close out when given the chance. He again emphasized that O’Brien understands offense and defense X + O’s better than any coach he’s been around.

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Bill Griffith has a great media report on Sunday’s Celtics and Red Sox games. A review of the NBC Celtics broadcast which included a look into Jim O’Brien’s huddle, as well as ESPN’s careful monitoring of Pedro’s strike zone. Peter May catches up with the Cooz, and mentions some of the celebrities that routinely attend the Celtics games.

Gerry Callahan takes his radio show to his column. He is so blissfully ignorant and comfortable in his middle-aged, white, wealthy environment that he claims racism doesn’t exist in Boston anymore, because the Celtics are mostly composed of African-Americans, and that the fans cheer for them, and hate Rick Pitino. He says he’s never heard the “N” word uttered at any sporting event he’s been to. Sorry Gerry, but it happens. You likely can’t hear it from press row. During the Celtics/76ers playoff series, first hand reports tell me there were racial slurs yelled at Sixers star Allen Iverson. (Note to whoever was sitting in Section 21, Row C, Seat 1; your words were heard) Pathetic, but true. The fans may like embrace *our* black athletes, but what about the opposition? Another bone to pick: How about this line from Gerry: “These days nothing but good bleep is happening to this team and this town.” When did “bleep” become an acceptable descriptive term for a columnist to use? Just because Kenny Anderson used the actual word that “bleep” refers to in a postgame interview, Gerry think it’s cool and hip to reference it in his column. Callahan actually has some decent points in this piece, but he’s way off on many of the points.

The ProJo today is requiring you register (for free) before viewing any articles. Bill Reynolds has a nice piece today saying that the Celtics present compares well with it’s past. Jim Donaldson continues to try his best to throw some negativity onto the Red Sox. Now he wonders why Manny chose that play to hustle on the basepaths. One line: “Red Sox rooters never are truly happy unless they’re absolutely miserable.” Wrong Jim, aging white sportswriters who just want to sell papers instead of reporting fairly are never truly happy unless they’re spouting venom.

Ken Macha on WEEI this morning said he “wasn’t pleased” that the A’s refused permission for him to meet with the Red Sox in spring training about the manager’s job.

Celtics on TBS and FSNE tonight at 8:00. Red Sox on NESN at 7:00. TBS also has Lakers/Spurs game 5 at 10:30.

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Bill Simmons spent a couple nights last week hanging out with Charles Barkley and the gang at TNT during productions of “Inside the NBA”. Predictably, talk on WEEI today has been about Manny and his injury, (Should Cubbage have sent him…) and also the Celtics. All of a sudden, the Celtics can beat the Lakers, according to the callers. One caller was trying to describe a seven game series between the Patriots and Rams. He was adamant, but made not a lick of sense. On WWZN, Eddie had Matt Siegel and Billy Costa from KISS 108FM with him. They seemed to spend a most of the time I heard talking about all the avenues Costa makes money from. A typical Eddie departure from sports. Don’t expect a whole lot of sports talk on his show this week with the Hot Dog Safari coming up next weekend.

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John Molori’s latest Media Blitz contains the following radio tidbits:

“In the wake of NECN

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Yesterday was a very busy day, capped off by the Sunday night sports shows on Channels 4 and 7. Channel 7’s Sports Extra featured Michael Holley and Jackie MacMullan in studio. They were both very confident that the Celtics will finish off the Pistons. MacMullan is worried that everyone is overlooking the Nets. She thinks they’re a dangerous team. She is however, very confident in Jim O’Brien’s ability to out coach Byron Scott. Bill Russell was in studio after that, and gave his thoughts on this edition of the Boston Celtics. He likes their attitude the best.

Channel 4’s Sports Final started off with Kenny Anderson, his Mom and his Fianc

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Cedric Maxwell says on the postgame tonight that the Pistons are done. Says a loss like this just demoralizes the losing team, and doesn’t think they can recover. Early in Celtics Rewind, it looks like Kenny Anderson is going to be *hammered*, both by Marty Tirrell and by callers for his foul on Chucky Atkins 3 pointer with little over 2 seconds left. It’s too bad because Anderson played an outstanding game otherwise and they wouldn’t have won without him. Paul Pierce made an appearance on the show, confirmed that he slammed that missed free throw into the floor on purpose to make more time come off the clock. A heads up play.

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Ugly game at the Fleet tonight. Mike Gorman scored by telling the audience with 2:30 left that this was officially the lowest scoring playoff game in NBA history…he then dropped the ball when Kenny Anderson was shooting free throws with 11.7 seconds left. Anderson touched his head before each free throw, prompting Gorman to say, “I think Kenny banged his head there…” This was something that was told during the season, that this is Kenny’s way of saying hello to one of his kids. FSNE had great replays as well to show that Stackhouse’s 3 point banker at the end was clearly released after the game clock read 0:00. Listening to Celtic Rewind on WWZN this evening should be interesting…we’ll keep you posted.

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Another day with all sorts of things happening. Celtics/Pistons game 3 from the Fleetcenter at 7:00 on FSNE.(TNT Nationally) Red Sox/Mariners at 10:00 on Fox25 (AT&T3 in Western Mass) Anticipation is building for the unveiling of CMGI field tomorrow night. The Globe has two separate media columns today, with Bill Griffith giving a profile of Celtics Radio analyst Cedric Maxwell, and Jim Greenidge with notes on the media digs at CMGI and other media notes. Jim Baker of the Herald weighs in with comments on the TNT coverage of the NBA playoffs.

Gerry Callahan thinks that the Celtics have a championship feel. Bob Ryan continues to crank out NBA columns in his lazarus-like rebirth, he breaks down the Celtics supporting cast.

On NECN’s Sports Late Night last night, there was a great preview of the ESPN Classic Mother’s day special, “Apple Pie” which airs Sunday at 7:30. Drew Bledsoe was one of the featured athletes, and it was a compelling clip. His father was also in studio for the show and talked about how weird it is going to be to root for the Bills. (He saw a helmet Drew had signed and said “We have to root for *that*?) There was behind the scenes information about how Drew and his family felt about Drew getting to come in during the AFC Championship Game against the Steelers. Drew’s wife was interviewed and when it happened she said “oh no, Tom’s hurt”…then she realized that Drew was going to be coming in, and she said the boys went wild for their dad.

Chris Wallace was on the Big Show this afternoon, and did confirm that Ben Wallace was all but a Celtic at one point. (Pitino nixed the deal) Nomar also appeared on the show from Seattle, mentioned that his wrist still isn’t exactly where he wants it to be. He’s just going out trying to be a part of this team. Last year was way blown out of proportion….that because they were losing, the media made a huge deal out of the supposed clubhouse illwill. Nomar likes what the new owners are doing, that they’re listening to suggestions to the players, trying to do things right.

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A totally ridiculous article by Jim Donaldson points out clearly that football guys should stick to football. Manny Ramirez is the target of this article, in which Donaldson says Manny will never be a champion, compares him to Randy Moss, says he needs to be more like Cal Ripken Jr. The New England media guys are all over Manny lately, accusing him of not always running out every ground ball 100%. Why this attack is coming on a team that is 23-7 and when Ramirez is having another monster year at the plate, is puzzling. For a guy that has had hamstring problems the last 2 years that have caused him to miss significant time, most people would rather have his bat in the lineup everyday rather than have him hurt the hamstring again. He’s likely concerned about injuring it again, and who can blame him? But Knights of the Keyboard like Donaldson have to play judge and tell professional athletes what it takes to win.

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