Boston Sports Media Watch

Sunday night…time for the weekly shows on Fox25, WB56, NECN, WBZ and WHDH…

FOX25 starts out with “Sports Sunday”. Hosted by Butch Sterns. After the Red Sox highlights, they had footage of Manny taking NH native Chris Carpenter deep in the Pawtucket game today.

They had Antoine Walker on with Levan Reid. Antoine says he learned alot this year, learned to win, knows what he needs to work on this summer; he learned alot about the game mentally this year. Everything is where they want it to be right now. He does think the game three win actually took alot from them; the game four loss was deflating. They need to learn from it, and know that “games 5 and 7 need to be on your home court.” He stuck it out through the tough times because he knew the people around him needed to develop. The fans in Boston have seen 16 titles, so they’re right to expect alot. For next year, they’re humble and need to approach each game as critical and try to “have a New Jersey type season” and get the number 1 seed in the East.

They had highlights from the Father’s day activities from Fenway, where kids could sit in the dugout, pose by the Pesky pole, check out the scoreboard, look behind it, and play catch in the outfield. Caught my first glimpse of Dr. Charles Steinberg, a bit different and younger than I pictured. A youngster said that this experience was better than Disneyland.

The next segment was on the gala at the Sports Museum on Thursday night, a look at some of the exhibits, some words from Dave Cowens, Johnny Pesky, Curt Gowdy -who hadn’t been feeling good, but his wife said “You’re going”, and Milt Schmidt.

Last Blast was aimed at Sergio Garcia; the “waggle” has to go. He says he spends far too much time standing over his ball before he hits it. Sterns thinks Garcia is a fine young man and the sports world needs more of his type, but the waggle is too much.

WB56’s “SportsZone” with John Rooke actually showed highlights of the other things going on in the world, like World Cup soccer, Nascar and the College World Series. Their poll was about Terry Glenn getting a ring; overwhelmingly the respondents said he should not get one.

NECN’s “Sports Night” hosted by Chris Collins. Had Steve Gans in to talk World Cup Soccer. Broke down the Spain/Ireland match. Senegal is the biggest surprise thus far. US can beat Mexico Monday morning. Then had Charlie Pierce, sporting a new tropical shirt courtesy of father’s day.

WBZ 4’s “Sports Final

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The way the Boston Media has handled this Manny Ramirez injury just steams me…

Tony Massarotti with a little shot at the Boston fans. Talking about Manny on WWZN this afternoon, he said “I guarantee that if Manny’s return had stretched out over 6 weeks, that the fans would have been all over this guy asking why it’s taking so long.” (When he got injured, Dr. Morgan said it would be 4-6 weeks before his return, that six weeks was more likely than four)

What about the media, Tony? If the fans think that he should be back by now, it’s because of what you and others in the media are saying. Your colleague Gordon Edes did one flip-flop already this week as documented here. One day he was saying Manny was taking not taking his rehab seriously, and then the next day talking about his accelerated return. Speculation by Bob Neumeier and others on the radio was that Manny was out clubbing in Miami each night instead of 1) Doing the rehab on his injury and 2) Cheering on his teammates. They had no evidence of his nightlife, it was just said “How do we know he isn’t?”

Today, in the Globe, Nick Cafardo has Manny quoted thusly:

”It wasn’t a vacation,” he stressed. ”I stayed in shape.”

He said he worked with a therapist who did ”a lot of exercise on the finger, like ice and heat and a lot of motion. It probably took an hour and a half every day.”

So that takes care of worry number one, as for number two, well, Cafardo goes on to say: “Ramirez said sitting around watching the team is not one of his favorite pastimes; that it’s agonizing not to play.” Hmmm. That sounds familiar to me. I think one Larry Joe Bird felt exactly the same way, and never sat on the bench in street clothes when he couldn’t play. It was too difficult for him. He’s lauded as such a competitor for this. Manny is ripped for it. (Nomar and Varitek weren’t around most of the time during their injuries last season, either.)

Ramirez is also among the hardest working guys on the team. Teammates marvel at his preparation, in the cage and on video for his hitting. Johnny Pesky on WWZN yesterday said “he’s such a great kid”, (who can forget the picture of Manny picking up and hugging Pesky during Spring training, huge smiles on both their faces.) Manny is unfailingly humble in his remarks, comes off as very likeable.

So why does the media rip him every chance they get? A few weeks ago Jim Donaldson had a total hack-job on Manny, accusing him of not hustling on the basepaths. That was just a short time before he injured himself attempting to score running full-out with a head-first slide. The play that “Charlie Hustle” made famous. The Red Sox insisted all along that there was no firm date when Manny was supposed to return to Boston from Miami. Yet each day he wasn’t here, it was treated as if he was refusing to return and should be fined or something. Then Edes wrote earlier this week about Manny’s hamstring injury two years ago and implied that Manny was lazy then and not rehabbing and that the same thing was happening now. Talk show hosts constantly harp on him. Sure, with a big contract come big expectations, but I don’t think misrepresentations and pot stirring is part of the package. Stirring up the fans fears, making themselves part of the story…just par for the course in the Boston Sports Media.

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Pretty lame papers today. On days like today, where there is little news due to no local teams being in action last night, the papers should have feature articles lined up, ready to carry the day. They’re just lazy nowadays.

Steve Bulpett has Shaq and Magic talking about Paul Pierce. Shaq says the Celtics should’ve been in the finals if they hadn’t “went back to that Rick Pitino (expletive) defense”

Steve Buckley has some anecdotes from The Sports Museum’s anniversary party.

Bill Griffith goes inside the production of the NESN pre-game show. So that’s what he was doing at Fenway Wednesday when he was spotted by Larry Johnson of WEEI and mentioned on-air. Johnson: “Hey there’s Bill Griffith of Globe..the TV writer” Ordway then made some sarcastic comment about ratings numbers or whatnot and intimated that Griffith must be headed over the WWZN studios in Twins Souvenir shop.

WSKO-790 had former Red Sox phenom Sam Horn co-hosting it’s “Midday Meyhem” show, a regular appearance for Horn. Sam also played for a year at AAA with Manny Ramirez and will be heading down to McCoy Stadium to chat with Manny. Horn is pretty good. I don’t know why, but I never had him pegged for a broadcasting career after his playing days were over. He’s got the knowledge of someone who’s played the game for a long time, and is articulate enough to be more than just the “sidekick”…he led into a couple segments from commercials quite well. Wonder if he was considered for the the NESN job that Corsi got…

Marv Albert has been hired to replace Howard David on the CBS Radio Monday Night Football broadcasts. Will be interesting to hear Marv call football…do you get a YES!! after each first down? Touchdown? How will that work?

FOX25 has Red Sox/Braves tonight at 7:30 from Atlanta.(ATT3 in Western Mass) The game is also on TBS nationally. ESPN2 has College World Series action at 7:00

Tomorrow NBC has the U.S. Open coverage starting at 12:30. FOX has it’s national game of the week, either Cubs/White Sox or the one that everyone wants to see, Yankees/Mets. NESN and TBS will have the Red Sox and Braves at 7:30.

Sunday, the U.S. Open coverage continues on NBC at 1:30. Red Sox Braves at 1:00 on NESN and TBS and ESPN has Yankees/Mets at 8:00.

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Peter Gammons made his weekly visit with the Big Show on WEEI this afternoon. He said a new stadium for the Sox is financially impossible. It’s possible to open up areas around the stadium for some expansion, the Mayor has said he is for closing off Yawkey Way and Landsdown street to traffic and making it cobblestoned. The Red Sox might move their office out of the park, to a nearby building, they won’t be touching the basic inside of the ballpark except to renovate. They’ll keep putting seats wherever they can. Ordway said maybe they’ll change the seats to face home plate. The future could be tough, in winter of 2004 Pedro and Nomar will be up for new contracts, there’s no farm system, they could turn into the Detroit Tigers in a few years. A 73-89 season could really drop revenue. Ordway said this isn’t the state to try to build a new stadium state won’t help, and the real estate is too costly. Gammons said they’ve looked at a land swap and were told it was impossible. They’ve made their decision to renovate and they’re going to go with it. McAdam said this sounds like a band-aid without addressing the long term questions. Gammons agreed. Gammons noted the new climate that this team has with the media though, cited Johnny Damon bringing back a sweater for Johnny Miller. Ordway asked about mid-season deals for pitching. Gammons said you’re not going to get a prime guy. Graeme Lloyd is available. Sox need a middle reliever, a lefty, they’d like a starter. Been told they can take on another contract if it’s a starter who can make a difference. Don’t want to trade Brad Baker. With the strike looming, contract dumping will be very popular.Fehr has drawn a line in the sand with the Luxury Tax. ESPN guys described listening to Fehr for three hours was like listening to Castro….Looks like a 8-10 day strike around Labor Day. John Harrington said there’s a 99% chance of a strike. NESN could end up being a national cable station but can’t rival the YES network in ad revenue.

Thoughts…Gammons is rarely right these days. He makes up rumors, (The whole Hampton to the Sox thing had its roots with Gammons) he has sold his soul to the devil. (New York..as a member of the National media that loves all things NY) On ESPN, he seems to go out of his way to bash the Red Sox, just to appease everyone that thinks that because he’s a Boston guy, he’s partial to them. Once upon a time, Gammons’ Sunday “Notes” column was the best thing in any sports section. He still is perhaps more well-connected than anyone in the game, but is maybe spread too thin trying to cover all the MLB teams the way he used to with the Red Sox. Saying the Sox could be the Tigers in a few years is a Shaughnessy-like scaring the masses tactic.

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Dale and Neumy spent a lot of time today talking about Roger Clemens, Pat Burns and Phil Jackson compared to Red Auerbach. They had Braves GM John Schuerholz on the program, after talking a little about the Red Sox start this season, they moved onto Tom Glavine, who is a Free Agent after this season. Schuerholz made no mention at all of trying to sign him now; their focus is on this season and trying to win this year. He said they’re going to wait and see what rules changes are perhaps instituted after the season, see what guidelines there are what costs involved in the industry before they can make big decisions like that. They do have a spot in their heart for Tommy they think he can still pitch and they hope to keep the team together for years to come. Asked if they worry when they make deals for players if the guys coming in are on steroids, he said they have very good scouting information they feel the know almost everything they need to know about players they acquire, so there aren’t many surprises, it would be easier with a testing mechanism. He said Red Sox fans travel well, but there are more NY fans in the stands when they come into town. Last question…asked what one thing could he changed about baseball, he answered without hesitation that he would institute one year contracts, similar to the NFL, where the players are basically paid for performance, put an end to the multi-year guaranteed contracts.

Meanwhile, on WWZN, Eddie along with Steve Burton were talking about fathers and having people call with memories of their fathers and ideas for gifts and so forth. He did get a bit of a scoop getting Pat Burns on the show. Just named Head Coach of the Devils today, he’s glad to be back in the league, nothing but good memories from Boston. He thinks this team can win and is really excited. Asked about why so long to get this job, Burns said he took a step back, waited, analyzed things before going for it. There’s a commitment to win there. The players are going to have to show accountability and show desire at all times. He’d love to take Bill Guerin away and get him on the Devils. He will consider asking Ray Bourque to come on as an assistant coach. Larry Robinson looks like he’ll stay on as an assistant as well.

Bill Simmons says just hold on a minute here with this Lakers dynasty stuff…

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NBC wrapped up its NBA contract last night, and as a conclusion played a highlights package from their years of broadcasting the NBA. As you might expect, there was quite a lot of Michael Jordan. The only Celtics highlight in the bunch was the end of the comeback win in game three of this years Nets series.

Jackie MacMullan cranks out two columns today. One is on life behind the scoreboard at Fenway…something she was always curious about. She also writes about the Sports Museum’s 25th Anniversary tonight. (Tickets still available) Having MacMullan back with the Globe is a lifesaver for them.

Michael Gee says that Red Sox fans “need to get out more” and should stop being so miserable. Maybe if we didn’t have the most miserable sportswriters in the country things would be a bit more positive around here.

Bill Reynolds tells us that Roger Clemens has made himself “smaller than life” by talking like an idiot.

WEEI had Red Sox manager Grady Little on this morning with D&C. Started off talking about the role players, Little says the key to having them ready is to communicate with them up front, by the end of Spring Training, they had been let know what their roles would be. Baerga has done a great job, when Mirabelli gets in there he making something happen, (John Dennis said he could be starting elsewhere) and Lou Merloni has stepped up and will likely be in there another two or three weeks. It’s important to treat individual players individually. He mentioned Merloni has plans to do something when the team is in L.A.and he went to Grady to tell him what was up. (My guess is Affleck made good on his promise to set him up with a supermodel) Little said the biggest difference between managing in the minors and majors is that he has less time to spend with the players, working with them on things. He leaves that sort of thing more to the coaches. Stanley, Cloninger. Stanley is a good man and he has a good future as a manager. They’re still trying to get Tony Clark work, put him in good situations, but it seems the more he works, the deeper the hole. Hinted that when Manny is back, Tony may not be playing much as “we’re going to put our best lineup on the field”. Little says he likes Juan Diaz. Grady isn’t a high tech guy, makes 80% of his decisions on gut instinct. Biggest surprise this season…Shea and Lowe…biggest disappointment has been Clark…but there’s alot of time left.
They’ve started keeping an eye on Lowe’s pitch counts, just a little, they want him pitching in late October. Trot Nixon is having a bit of a hard time, but at the end of the season he’ll be there with 20 Homers and 75-80 RBI. He doesn’t care what happens to Roger Clemens this weekend, but he will be watching to see if MLB treats Yankees players the same way they treated ours. Sounded a bit concerned about that. Team Chemistry is a a product of winning, he deferred praise for it, saying it’s come from the top down. He’d like to pick up some bullpen help before the trading deadline. As far as Pedro…they’d be crazy not to be concerned..but Grady is convinced that he will be totally back to normal.

Pete Sheppard will be happy. Pat Burns was just named coach of the NJ Devils. Look for this to be a topic on The Big Show this afternoon.

With the Red Sox on an off-day before heading out on the road again, it’s a rather slow sports night locally. You can catch Manny Ramirez doing his rehab stint for the Pawtucket Red Sox tonight at 7:00 on NESN. ABC has game five of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight at 8:00. ESPN will have coverage of the U.S. Open starting at 11:00 AM.

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File under “Weird coincidences”? From an article in the N.Y. Times on Sunday:

“Each previous generation has had one. Babe Ruth. Joe DiMaggio. Mickey Mantle. Joe Namath. Walt Frazier. Their ambition and zeal for life were big enough to mark an era, like a caption under a photograph. When they played, they carried a whole club

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Bill Simmons talks in an article for ESPN the Magazine about the rejuvenation of Boston sports. In the same issue, Scott Burton says Boston fans are self-possessed, and he’s sick of it.

If you tune to WEEI this afternoon, expect plenty of ribbing and banter around the new book “There’s no expiration date on dreams” about Tom Brady. Pete Sheppard is quoted extensively in this book and some of the things he has to say are…well, subject to ridicule by his colleagues there at the station. He fawns over Brady endlessly and describes falling to his knees at the end of the SuperBowl, crying, saying he knows he shouldn’t have as a journalist…but couldn’t help himself. That’s just a taste..there’s much more, which I’m sure will be shared over the course of the show. They’re expected to have Nomar and Larry Walker on this afternoon as well.

Globe writer Michael Smith is only 22 years old? He’s on WWZN this afternoon and Sean McDonough asked the ages of Simmons (31) and Smith because he felt old compared to them.

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Bouncing around a bit…WEEI has Sean McAdam in for Dale Arnold today to go alongside Bob Neumeier. Most of the talk was either about the Red Sox or about Roger Clemens and whethers he’ll get into the batters box against the Mets this weekend. There were questions about Pedro. McAdam mentioned that an orthopedic surgeon he talked to said the just about all major league pitchers have fraying on their rotator cuffs, as Pedro does. What Pedro did in the offseason is what you need to do, stregthen the muscles around the cuff. He wouldn’t worry too much about the “soreness” Pedro has, because again, almost all pitchers have that. It’s more about Pedro learning to deal with his new limitations. When talking about Pedro not being taken care of last year, he cited Dan Duquette having Pedro make the start against the Yankees last September, “when they were 20-something games out”. McAdam isn’t usually given to hyperbole, but given that at the end of the season the Red Sox finished 13.5 games behind the Yankees, I don’t think they were *ever* 20 games back of the Yankees, especially in early September when Pedro made the start, doesn’t that just seem to be another attempt to slam Duquette again?

They had Red Sox Owner John Henry in for a chat. He thinks it’s interesting that this Red Sox team is built differently than the prototypical Fenway team and is also playing better away from Fenway than they are at home. Still exploring if they can renovate the current park. The biggest issue is they need more space. It’s not been ruled out yet that with renovations this building could be used for another thirty or fourty years. a new park is not always the answer as we’ve seen in a number of the new ballparks recently built. They’re projected to lose Nineteen million dollars, and they don’t want to do that every year. But not having the money is not something people should worry about right now. As far as a major deal at the trading deadline, they don’t really have things that other teams want. He said the Red Sox have been trading their prospects for established players and eventually you run into a problem when you do that. Henry acknowledges that a work stoppage would be devastating here. He can’t say much more than that he hopes cooler heads will prevail. He hoping they can avoid a confrontation. They took some risks in the draft this year with players with signability issues. They have their work cut out for them.

Meanwhile, Eddie Andelman had Dennis Drinkwater on giving analysis of the Red Sox. Ugh.

Tuned in at noon to Patriots.com’s “PFW in Progress” Internet radio show. The talked about the rings, they received theirs at a ceremony for the office workers yesterday. Mentioned the talk with Roman Phifer shown on the Patriots Video News, that while it was non-committal, it does appear Phifer will be back. Belichick has just had a sly smile when asked about it, and numbers 94 and 96 have been given out, but not the 95 Phifer wore last year. They found some incredible quotes by the Steelers in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today.

A sampling…

“We’re the hunted right now, to be honest with you,” (Safety Lee) Flowers said. “All teams right now are looking at how to beat the Steelers.”

“Consider wide receiver Hines Ward’s Tuesday take on (Herman) Moore possibly joining the team. After acknowledging Moore’s potential value as a leader and example-setter, Ward downplayed the need to add those qualities into the locker room mix. ‘It would be hard for Herman to come in and try to tell guys what to do,” Ward said. “He’s going to be a help, but, at the same time, we went to the Super Bowl without him.” (When was that, Hines?)

Everybody knows. Everybody knows who the hunted is. I’m not going to get into the logistics of why we’re the hunted, but New England knows. Ask (the Patriots), they know”

“We’re focused right now. It’s only June and we’re talking about New England. Somebody better look out. We’re ready, man, we’re ready”

PFW in Progress also said to watch for Pittsburgh’s Troy Edwards as a possible cut by the Steelers and pickup by the Pats.

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The newspapers/radio station alliances continue to grow and be made firm. WEEI now lists headlines from the Herald on its webpage. WWZN has segments throughout the day in which a 20/20 update guy will read from stories in the Globe sports section from that day. Tony Massarotti is the only truant in this arrangement as he hangs with the Globe guys at WWZN. Larry Johnson’s cartoons still appear in the Globe occasionally, but I don’t think he’s considered a Globe employee and is thus free to appear on WEEI.

Spent some time this morning listening to the creatively named “The Morning Show” on WWZN. This is the national morning show for the Sporting News radio network. Hosts are Doug Russell and Scott Wetzel. I usually always flip to them when D&C go to their “Headlines” segment. I can only stomach so much of Gerry Callahan calling for executions of scumbags…Anyway, “The Morning Show” does manage to stick to actual sports most of the time, though because the show is based in New York, many times it turns into a Yankee lovefest. Wetzel is a Red Sox fan, but the Sporting News website lists his favorite NFL team as the Miami Dolphins. Strange alliances. This morning they did have a call-in game segment in which they gaffed one of the questions. They were asking where the Air Force Academy is located, Wetzel gave the answer as Boulder, Colorado, when it is actually in Colorado Springs. Wetzel does say that if Clemens somehow weasels out of appearing this weekend at Shea, that that will be his legacy. He’ll be remembered for that more than all the other things he’s accomplished over the years. Wetzel is a Clemens hater, and makes for some entertaining banter on the show. There are quite a few Boston callers on the show. The show today did focus alot around Clemens, from the tiff with the Mets, to Roger’s exiting game six of the ‘86 World Series to Boston’s view of him. Wetzel picks the Nets tonight because of the NBA conspiracy. Thinks the NBA will throw NBC a bone here and give them another game.

Michael Holley has a piece of Shaq today, as well as a Finals notes column. Guess Holley is the only columnist working these days at the Globe. Shaq gives some respect to Bill Russell in the article, while Holley examines the criticism leveled at Shaq over the years and says that tonight’s game four should be shown on the History Channel. If you didn’ have enough to worry about with the threat of an MLB strike in August, now word is coming out that the WNBA players are considering a strike…Jim Baker is disgusted that Marv Albert will make up to 3.8 Million a year with his new deal with TNT. Hey Jim, I should show you the e-mails that I get from people disgusted that you make money at all on your columns…(I must say though, that the title of your piece today was pretty clever) Steve Bulpett talks with Rick Fox and Brian Shaw about what it would’ve been like to have faced the Celtics in the finals. More irony…I click on the lead Red Sox story in the Herald, and one of the ads in the right hand column is for the book “At Fenway” by Dan Shaughnessy.

NESN has Red Sox Rockies tonight at 7:00. ESPN once again subjects us to the Braves at 7:00 taking on the Twins. They also have an afternoon game today at 1:00 with the Yankees and Diamondbacks. NBC has game four of the NBA Finals tonight at 9:00.

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