Before I left on vacation at the beginning of the month, Jim Donaldson of the Providence Journal wrote a column that was simply staggering in its stupidity. The column was titled Has marriage cost Tom Brady his competitive edge?
It got me thinking…where does that column rank in the annuals of just bad, absurd, off-base Boston sports columns of the last few years?
There are no shortage of candidates. You’ve got Tony Massarotti’s column while at the Herald last year (“Nobody Wins This One – 5/15/08) in which he called New England “the official home of yahoos, hero worshipers and gutless suck-ups.”
There’s Gerry Callahan’s over-the-top farewell to Manny Ramirez on August 1, 2008, (“No Dodging it: Manny Ramirez just a bad, bad man”) which can be summarized as “Manny hates kids with cancer.”
We can go with Bob Ryan’s claim that the Celtics might just barely be a playoff team after aquiring Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. (Title for Celtics far from a done deal - 8/2/07) “That’s it? Someone actually thinks this Celtics team will win the East and contend for the championship? Really?” The column ends with “They might even make the playoffs.” The only player the Celtics added before the season started was James Posey.
Going back a little further, we’ve got the column Dan Shaughnessy wrote which essentially caused Theo Epstein to quit – Let’s iron out some of this dirty laundry (10/30/05)
That’s without touching anything from Bill Burt, Ron Borges, Steve Buckley, Nick Cafardo, Peter May, Bill Reynolds, Jeff Jacobs or even Buddy Thomas.
John Tomase’s Rams Walkthrough Tape report doesn’t really fit here, as it was reported as news, not an opinion column, so it doesn’t fit here. We’re looking for columns only here. Let’s keep it fairly recent, maybe the last 10 years or so.
Your assignment is to submit further columns – with links and excerpts if possible, and post them in the comment section below.
There will be prizes given away as part of this project. Everyone who submits a comment suggesting a column or voting on a suggested column will be entered in a giveaway for one of two AX MEN (Mondays 10:00pm on HISTORY) roadside kits – click here for a photo of the prize - they’re pretty sweet.
You need to enter a valid email address in the comment form email field (won’t be displayed to others) to be eligible for the prize.
We’ll leave this open through the end of the week, and then we’ll publish a list of the top columns as suggested and put them to a formal vote.
Popularity: 19% [?]
My entry is a 1998 column where Shaugnessy implores us to get behind NY and root for the Jets in the playoffs.
This only a year after Parcells bolts to the Jets, and then takes Curtis Martin with him.
Any column by Steve Buckley. Has he ever written anything good?
The column that Buckley wrote several years ago about Dana Wingate, the Harvard ballplayer who was the first batter in the history of Fenway Park, is one of the best pieces of sportswriting I’ve ever read.
That article on Eric Van from a few years back
Jackie MacMullan’s column on Tom Brady’s “Body Language” always stuck out to me as just awful:
Body betrays a mental slump
I think that Donaldson’s column (full disclosure, I didn’t read it after viewing the headline) is the leader in the clubhouse. I sent Art Martone, the ProJo sports editor, an e-mail asking him to replace Donaldson with a more competent writer. I’m not expecting a reply.
I owe an apology to Art. He sent a respectful and lengthy reply. Good for him.
Anything by Bob Halloran on the subject of Bledsoe v. Brady.
Good one. Halloran compared Brady to a sneeze guard at a buffet.
The column by Shaughnessy when he called David Ortiz a useless bag of you-know-what.
That was actually on a TV appearance. Two of them, in fact. I don’t think he ever put it into a column.
my bad then.
Either way it makes Shaughnessy the worst in general.
Oh, so now it’s a television appearance? The story used to be that it was on radio, on whatever the call letters were at the time at what used to be the Big X. I’ve been waiting for years for someone to produce tape but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s kind of like Ted’s last game; if everyone who claimed to have been there had actually been there, the joint would have been banged out.
Hi Dan.
Sorry OB, he said it twice. First on Sports Final (TV:
WBZ’s Sports Final had Steve
and then a few weeks later on the radio (WWZN)
Though on the sidelines, Antoine
I appreciate you sticking up for Dan all over the internet, OB, but I can assure you I’m not making these up. I heard them both with my own ears.
Thank you Bruce.
I’ve been asking others to cite to a specific instance but they couldn’t or wouldn’t.
While I disagree on such things as your use of SporTView, I have no reason to doubt your credibility.
By the way, I don’t defend Dan. I defend perspective, common sense, and treating paid mercenaries as paid mercenaries.
On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.
- Ron Borges
I know of two Shaughnessy columns during the Celtics/Lakers finals last year. One was one of those “talking to a dead guy” columns with Red Auerbach. Leigh Montville did it much better. The other was whether Celtics fans would be upset if the team won in LA.
I also submit Jim Donaldson for a lifetime low achievement award. Still looking for his first original thought.
Can we just put in there the column that we know the CHB will write about Schilling’s retirement.
Any column where Borges offered his opinion on how the Pats did in the draft.
I think Mike Mulddon’s article was pretty awful about “classless” Belichick:
http://www.eagletribune.com/pusports/local_story_036062703.html
He sounded like a hysterical housewife who bragged about having a husband associated with Madoff then left him when he lost his money.
How about Buckley’s column today ripping Davey Johnson of all people? Or a few weeks back when he ripped Mike Lowell for saying he was hurt by the Sox pursuing Texeria. I mean, he only took less money to re-sign here and played hurt for as long as he could when he could barely walk. I mean, what right did he have to be hurt?
Then there’s the column from Jim Donaldson a couple of years back who ripped Michael Vick for giving the fans the finger after he was booed. Donaldson cited how he himself had sat stoically while he received similiar abuse he was getting from fans while he was covering a Providence Friars game.
You could nominate Hector Longo for a lifetime achivement award in this category. Usually his dumbest ones are where he does his NFL predictions the day after the schedule is released. Expect another one when the schedule comes out this April.
Another classic from Jim Donaldson. He so crazy!
http://www.projo.com/celtics/content/projo_20050516_16jdcol.22ec631.html
Wow. That column was borderline racist.
I wouldn’t say borderline it was. He makes it sound like an Amos N Andy radio skit. What a meathead.
This gem by Ron Borges after the Pats-Raiders snow game in 2002. The title sets off the tone:
Ruling Keeps It From Being A Just Win, Baby on Jan 20, 2002
He then digs up quotes from Ben Dreith saying that the “tuck rule” reversal was a horrible call (despite the fact ruling was correct).
And do you know the worst part of it? Borges, and several of his ex-colleagues at the Globe STILL believe to this day that the call was incorrect (Shaughnessy, Ryan, and the ultimate gasbag, Charles Pierce, all believe to this day that Walt Coleman was wrong). Borges, for his part, continues to maintain his brilliant analysis, now 7 years old, that “if it looks like a fumble, then it’s a fumble, period.”
It’s really quite amazing.
I know. They know nothing about football especially since the call was OVERTURNED, not a bad call on the field without clear refuting evidence like so many times in the last Super Bowel. Coleman saw the call was wrong and reversed it because the rule and the visible evidence was clear. And this exact call is not an uncommon occurrence in football games.
I remember this particularly bad Shaughnessy column…just bits and pieces though. Something about snowbirds, Warren Zevon, Lou Gorman, Animal House? Can anyone help me here?
thats the one with the college kids tying up Boston traffic with Uhaul trucks right?
I seem to remember a mention of Red Auerbach, too. And Bruce.
Some great nominees here . . .
My nominee would be the column submitted by Kevin Paul DuPont in the Globe the morning before a Game 7 (I think), complaining that Joe Thornton should resign the captaincy of the Bruins because he wouldn’t speak with the media.
Totally disagree. The column was dead on accurate listing the reasons why Joe wasn’t captain material. The playoff choke against Montreal being Example A. It wasn’t about the media.
The article bested the headline.
Plus, he was right. Joe had an obligation, not to the media, but to his teammates, to take the heat and answer a question. But we know that Joe isn’t a leader and Dupont was right.
Both Mike and Wilson are completely wrong. He did not speak because O’Conell did not want him to due to the injury. Dupont was the baby because he could not deal with the fact the Bruins were taking a Belicheckian approach to the media.
Didn’t Bob Ryan write a coulmn at the Final Four breaking down the matchups of two teams who weren’t even playing each other?
Yup. He had the big boys of LSU (Big Baby) and George Mason going head-to-head, but they never played each other.
I’m kind of partial to Bill Burt’s “this was all Pedro’s fault” column after Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. When the whole of the baseball world was, rightly, blaming Grady Little for the Sox blowing that 3-run lead, Burt laid the blame squarely at the feet of the man who had thrown over 100 pitches (his effectiveness limit at that point of his career, and everyone knew it) and allowed just 2 runs through 7 innings against one of the best lineups in baseball, on the road no less.
Mazz explaining what’s wrong with the latest generation of ballplayers:
“The young guy? Between stints in front of his Wii and Xbox 360, he spends most of his time listening to his iPod. He shows up at the ballpark early and leaves late, working on his body before, during, and after. Along the way, he tells us about such things as his dietary habits, sleep habits, and daily routine, mostly because we stand in front of his locker and ask him.
His mistake comes in believing that somehow those things matter to anyone else. Here’s something the young player never does: He never asks about you, the way any grounded person would. He never asks you for a movie tip or restaurant recommendation, the way someone like Bret Saberhagen might. He never talks about his failures as candidly as David Cone.”
http://www.boston.com/sports/ot/2009/01/a_large_dose_of_reality.html
“He never asks you about you…”
Pretty much says it all.
Here’s how I read that impressively succinct phrase of self-importance:
“WE are the story. You may have just won the game, but what does that matter when I have a hot restaurant tip or a really thoughtful movie recommendation? Worse, because you — Mr. Smug and Young Athlete — don’t ask me, then I can’t put it in my column and enlighten all my readers, too. You selfish, heartless, swine!”
Here are my two, one recent and one from the dustbin.
Tony Mazz on Boston Sports Injuries:
http://www.boston.com/sports/columnists/massarotti/2009/03/the_bostonians_guide_to_sports.html
I can’t find a link to this one but Clark Booth’s column for the Pennysaver about Pedro being a bigger prima donna than Ted Williams was just brutal.
I completely agree Tiki. This was terrible. It’s interesting how often these guys try to be funny and it falls completely flat. Maybe that’s a sign they should stop trying to be funny. My comment on this is comment #5.
Ech. That injury column Mazz did screamed amateur.
Another candidate from Bob Ryan. The day after the Celtics hoisted Banner 17, Ryan wrote an article calling Pierce’s speech “embarrassing and self-indulgent.” Even worse, he erroneously claimed that the 17th banner is “conspicuously larger” than the first 16 banners.
http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2008/10/29/little_rhythm_but_no_blues/?page=full
That statement about the banners is completely false, and if it were true would imply that the current Celtics ownership is trying to downplay the achievements of past Celtics greats. I called out Bob Ryan but received no response and I also e-mailed his editor, who responded to me but never issued a correction.
Bob Halloran in the Metro, about 3 years ago.
He took the feel-good story of the autistic high school basketball team manager, who came into the game and kept hitting 3-pointer after 3-pointer, and decided to play contrarian by viciously ripping the coach.
Lots of good submissions for worst column, but this one should win because of the target. Any garden-variety bad columnist can rip a pro athlete or coach, but it takes a world-class d**chbag to go after a high school coach, and by extention, a disabled teenager.
Picking the opposite side and arguing for it takes no discernible talent. That is why Halloran is a boob.
All true, but it would make ol’ Bob the best on his high school debate team.
Yeah I remember that one and thinking what a self-important prick. His stuff is generally pretty vile.
Here it is, though it’s not on the Metro site anymore. I actually found it on PatsFans.
Wow. Stunning. McElwain got national acclaim for that moment and will cherish the memory forever. Way to crap on a dream.
I only wish this column had been forwarded to Coach Johnson along with ol’ Bob’s home address so a just revenge could have been executed.
Can’t find any links but I’ve got 2 nominees from Kevin Mannix. The infamous, “Belichick is Pond Scum” column…..and The other column he wrote saying the Pats should be charged with “consumer fraud” because they didn’t play the starters in a freeking pre season game……This is a real mind bender,Bruce. …..I know there are even MORE foolish columns I’ve read, but now that I’m trying, I can’t recall them……
Thanks to the person who just mentioned Clark Booth….How about the one Booth wrote were he ripped Bill Belichick for running a fake field goal against the Rams. (It went for a touchdown in a CLOSE game) Booth went on and on saying it showed “poor sportsmanship” gave it as a reason Belichick is “disliked” throughout the league…..It was unreal…..couldn’t find a damn lnk to that one either
Booth clearly had no understanding of why everyone around the league loved that play: they were tired of Mike Martz’s “I’m an Offensive Genius, and I Know It Act.” Belichick had to have called that play to tweek Martz.
well maybe.. but I think he ran that play because he was,ya know…TRYING TO WIN THE GAME…If I remember right the score was fairly close at the time. It wasn’t like a garbage time touchdown or anything like that. I still shake my head over what Booth wrote. It’s the NFL not pee-wee football. The hatred some of these guys have for Belichick boggles the mind.
No doubt that was the #1 reason: Win the Game. And you’re right, it wasn’t the Flutie Drop Kick in a meaningless game.
I just meant that everyone loved the call because the self-proclaimed offensive genius couldn’t see it coming.
This was the game they were supposed to get blown out because the secondary was in shambles (Troy was playing DB). BBs strategy was to score as much as possible to keep up with Bulger getting hot (he never did). The tweaking was also probably in his mind.
Anybody remember this oldie but baddie from Shaughnasty
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2007/01/06/after_research_yahoo_is_on_board/? The icing on the cake for me was that Dan plagiarized some of the column from Charlie Pierce’s column in Slate 3 years before http://www.slate.com/id/2093642/
Great topic Bruce. Off the top of my head with no linkage, Borges 2001″Belichick lied” carrying Bledsoe’s water. Will Mcdonough’s look at me piece in 97 “Parcells vs. Kraft” in which he completely and unethically was the story as he carried Parcells’s water and tried to humiliate Kraft.Most recently you have Borges again, supposedly a knowledgable boxing scribe, dismissing Manny Pacquiao’s chances against De La Hoya as laughable and foolhardy. Nevermind that Pac-Man was a great fighter and that de La Hoya had looked lackluster for the last 6 fights. We should have known that ol’ ronnie had an agenda as it seems that Golden Boy Productions had contracted Mr. Borges for some pr work and water carrying, which Ronnie is the(Don) king of. Ron Borges has no objectivity when it comes to money or access, which is a big deal when you are a journalist.Plagiarism? I’m not so sure of that.
You’re spot on about the McDonough piece in ‘97. That was shameful, “look at me, I’m the story” journalism at its worst. In fact, I believe Will the Shill’s opening line in the article was: “This is my story, and I’m sticking to it.”
Nice.
In his twilight years, McDonough was a shameless butt-boy for Parcells, John Harrington and Jeremy Jacobs. He was not a journalist anymore at that point.
Oh, but he was everyone’s FRIEND…
Shaughnessey on his daily 1 mile run. While it doesn’t showcase embarrassing biases and flat out wrong info like these others, he hoists upon the public a column purely celebrating himself . . . and for a relatively minor accomplishment.
I missed that one. Shouldn’t a 1 mile run be a warm up?
Occasionally I spot ol’ Dan on his morning jaunt while I’m driving in to work. Should I attempt a wrong turn one of these days?
Borges’ Patriot columns for The Globe were just total crap. I remember that Seymour column well. But Donaldson’s about the married Tom Brady turning into a Nancy-boy is the worst I’ve seen in a while. But I admit, there is a lot of material from which to choose.
Eric Wilbur said towards the end of the 2007 regular season that the Red Sox had no hope of winning the World Series. I can’t find the original article, but here is FJM taking it apart.
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2007/09/hey-red-sox-time-to-hang-it-up.html
I’m sorry, but a blogger (and a terrible one at that) shouldn’t even get acknowleged.
Googling the CHB’s daily mile column it appears as if he worked it almost word for word into the book on his son.
Does it have to be a piece by a Boston-based writer? If not, I’d like to nominate Gregggggggg Easterbrook’s frantic declaration that the 2007 Pats-Colts matchup was nothing less than the final Armageddon between Good and Evil.
It was like a six-year-old’s screamed treatise about how a 7:00 bedtime is a violation of his constitutional rights and a Stalinist pogrom by his parents…. Epicly mentally unbalanced. To the point where even mild-mannered Le Anne Schreiber the Ombudswoman bitch-slapped him in print over it. (To which he replied that it was “satire”…. which is a familiar theme in these entries, isn’t it?)
DaveR….I think we could start another thread devoted entirely to Spygate! Many local writers didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory during that time period, when the most overhyped “scandal” in history was front-page news practically every single day.
For me, the great rivalry is between the Herald’s Hat Trick of Patriots Hating (Mazz’s “Yahoo” diatribe, Tomase’s BS walkthrough column and Howie the Hostage’s despicable gloating over the Brady injury) and any column by CHB. Ever.
Globe vs Herald. To the DEATH.
Kevin Manixs column after Milloys release.
Michael Gees column in 2003 about how the Pats should lose a game before the playoffs started.
Marriotis column asking for an investigation on the Cassel trade.
Michael Gee was a guilty pleasure of mine.
Finally, a nomination!!! Thanks for remembering AK. For the record, I by no means believe that was my most misbegotten column. I award that dishonor to my 1996 prediction it would take several years for Tiger Woods to hit his stride on the PGA Tour.
Umm a column on golf? Yeah I guess technically it’s a sport. Must have missed that one somehow. Makes you wonder where the outrage was.
Your are welcome! I didn’t think that was the worst column. Just listing some bad ones that I remembered. I don’t go that far back in the US (didn’t get here till ‘98) to know about your 96 column. Kudos to you for nominating it.
Another bad one I recall was from that Worcester T&G guy (Ken Powers i think was the name) that got fired for plagarising from Peter King. It was a column about how big a meanie BB was for chewing out a member of the press for asking some moronic question. I think it went something like “Its a sham of a a sham of a sham…” I remember Bruce lambasting the column.
…..in another “group” catagory….I’d like to nominate those columns written after the Red Sox won their 1st World Series that lamented, “The Red Sox aren’t the same now” I believe several Boston scribes went that route. ….Here’s a quote from Shank Shaughnessy back then:
“When you have a goal for this long and you finally realize that goal, it’s kind of like the song: Is That All There Is? It’s going to be great, short-term, no question. I do think the long view is something will be lost”
well Shank, I’ve seen the, “long view” ….what was it we “lost”?????
AOB, you totally missed his point because you’re right, we haven’t lost anything. The way ol’ Dan actually meant to write that paragraph was, “When I have a goal for this long and I finally realize that goal (publishing COTB and the 27 addendums that followed), it’s kind of like the song: Is That All There Is? It’s going to be great, short-term, no question (short-term people still bought the book to remember why they were angst-ridden in the first place). I do think the long view is something will be lost (the continued profits from my book sales).”
LMAO!….right on,Jason
Someone stole my thunder already about the Greg Easterbrook column concering the “good vs.evil” Colts/Pats matchup, so I’ll give you this abortion (granted, it was a blog entry):
http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/for_the_record/posts/38641-boston-backslide-to-mediocrity-is-return-to-familiar
This guy should just quit life. Period.
I nominate Tony Massarotti’s infamous “pink hat” article:
(Hey fake fans: Make like Damon and leave – Friday, June 2, 2006)
“The Red Sox win some and lose some, though they succeed more than they fail. They still stir the passion in most of us and they still fill the summer, and they leave us wanting for more. And while the newbies prance around and act like they’ve never been there, the rest of us do the only thing we can.
We wait to get our seats back.”
I love the first person plural in which Massarotti includes himself proudly with the “rest of us” true Boston fans. 2 years later, Tony stepped out from their ranks and ripped them as “yahoos, hero worshipers and gutless suck-ups” in his post-spygate apology article.
There’s nothing more impressive than versatility.
I wholeheartedly agree, second the motion, and would like to nominate any and ALL pink-hat columns. It seems like every (male) columnist in Boston has had to weigh in on this weighty subject at least once.
Michaels Wilbons column calling for someone to intentionally take out Brady’s knee during the 16-0 season. I’m suprised nobody threw that back in his face when Bernard Effing Pollard took his advice to heart.
Didn’t Jamele Hill (spelling?) write something similar about KG and the Cs last year?
Was that a column or a PTI on air quote?
I think he wrote it for the Washington papers he writes for.
Plenty of good nominees here – I’ll add one from CHB the morning after Game 7 against NY in ‘04 where his entire column was devoted to reminding everyone in his usual haughty tone that the Curse (which he made up, BTW) wasn’t officially over until they won the WS. He hardly mentioned at all that they had just completed arguably one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, or winning the last two games in Yankee Stadium, or Tim Wakefield’s emotional moment on the field after the game. Instead, the column was all about him and his stupid made-up curse.
Anything by David Scott or Charlie Pierce. Are they different people?
Bill Burt wrote a column several weeks ago claiming that Matt Cassel was a top 5 or 6 quarterback in the NFL. That has to be one of the most absurd examples of homer-ism I’ve seen recently.
Two come to mind that haven’t been mentioned yet.
One one from Shaugnhessy around 2002 or so. Late in a Sox game, Jose Offerman is put up to bunt in the 8th or 9th inning, with two men on first and second and one out. Offerman refuses to bunt, swings away, and hits into a game killing double play. Sox lose the game. Next day Shaughnessy comes out with this very over the top rambling ripping Offerman to shreds, using lines like “Take for example the piece of junk that is Jose Offerman”, calling him a “Bowser” and other potential racist terms…
The other one is from Ron Borges round that same year, between the 2001 and 2002 Pats seasons. It was a column about how the Pats were doomed to failure because they were not hitting home runs with their late draft picks. Yeah, they hit a home run with the #1 that year (Seymour), the #2 (Matt Light), and *cough* drafted a little known guy called Tom Brady in the 6th round a year earlier and they’re doomed to failure over this subject!??!
For me it was the NFL notes column written some years ago by Nick Cafardo where he gushed on and on about the homecoming Tedy Bruschi was going to have when he went back to his alma mater, Arizona State, to play the Cardinals at Sun Devil Stadium. The only problem of course was that Bruschi actually went to U of A.
Cafardo is by far the worst sportswriter in Boston and has been for years. He’s lazy, ill-informed, and worst of all boring.
Easterbrook comparing the Colts to small-town, American, wholesome, apple-pie goodness and the Patriots to the devil.
Equally as lame: his “claim” that the article was tongue-in-cheek even though there were zero hints in the actual article.
That is the dumbest column I ever read. Second would be his article about Belichick being suspended for a year.
I disagree….his dumbest column was suggesting, a few days after Matt Walsh turned over NOTHING NEW that the NFL didn’t already know, and made Easterbrook (and the rest of the hyperventillating morons down in Bristol) look like the fool he is, that Belichick should resign as Pats’ coach, “because an honorable man would do just that…..and it’s for the good of the game” (I’m paraphrasing, but it may even have been written in the same article that you’re referencing above).
It was his last ditch attempt to make Spygate seem like something serious, when it had become completely evident that it was nothing but a media-hyped non-story, with Easterbrook the leading hype’ster.
Oh, Jemele Hill’s article comparing Celts fans to Nazis.
That was classy.
One of the best ever? J.A. Adande’s column praising the C’s and Red for the team’s role for doing just that.
Ken Rosenthal – Oct 14, 2008 – “Will Non-White Free Agents Shun the Red Sox?”
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8670984/
Steve Buckley – June 10, 2002 – Red Sox should set their rotation so Derek Lowe can pitch game 1 of the playoffs
http://www2.bostonherald.com/sport/sports_columnists/buck06102002.htm
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet (a lot of posts, so it’s possible I missed it if it was) but how about Will McD’s “Bag Job” column on the sale of the Red Sox?