We’re past the opening months of the baseball calendar and starting to get into the meaty part of the season. With the Yankees in town this week, interest in the Red Sox will likely be at the highest point of the season to date, with the possible exception of opening day.
There will be plenty to read and go over in the next few days, but who will you turn to first? Who is the best Red Sox writer in Boston at the moment? Who gets the information you want? There are plenty of options, so I’ve tried to narrow them down to either beat writers, or writers who have a main focus on baseball. I’m leaving out the general columnists. (Sorry, Shaughnessy, Ryan, Massarotti, Reynolds, Megliola, Burt.) I’m also not including writers who are mainly bloggers for online operations. (Jeff Goldberg for NESN.com and Chad Finn at Boston.com come to mind. Massarotti fits here, too.) I’ll do other polls for those categories in the future.
However, I have included Bradford and Speier from WEEI.com and Ian Browne from RedSox.com because these guys are serving up game coverage and features each day and even go on most of the road trips with the club. Even though they’re strictly on-line, they’re still working in the traditional beat writer/baseball writer mold.
Even narrowing it down, I still have a baker’s dozen on the list.
There are other writers out there that aren’t in the above list, like Brian McPherson of the Manchester Union-Leader, Ron Chimelis of the Springfield Republican, Maureen Mullen of the Lynn Daily Item. If you feel they, or anyone else not mentioned is deserving of consideration, say so in the comments below.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Whoever votes for that lazy, stupid sack of %&!* Nick Cafardo should have their internet access permanently removed.
Tell us how you really feel? I think Nick is lazy but certainly not worth that kind of vitriol. Shank on the other hand….
Do you ever read his Sunday Notes section? What a tremendous waste of valuable newspaper space. Unnamed source after unnamed source, pointless questions without answers (or reasoning as to why the questino was asked)… I could go on and on.
Yes, Shank is awful, truly a frustrating waste of writing talent, but his job to rile people up, and he’s successful at it (without judging the merits of what he says). Cafardo, on the other hand, has taken what was once a fascinating and informative read (the Sunday Notes) and ruined it.
Hey, at least Nick can’t quote former Bills’ GM Bill Donahoe 15 times in one Sunday Notes column when he’s on the Red Sox beat
Sorry, my bad, his name is Tom Donahoe, and his name always appeared multiple times in Carfado’s “Sunday Football Notes” columns when he covered the Pats’ beat.
After all these years covering MLB, one would think that “Nickles” would have cultivated more sources than just J.P. Ricciardi, Trot Nixon, Gabe Kapler, and the Hendricks Brothers.
To paraphrase that song by The Buggles, “the Internet Killed the Media Hacks.”
I miss Gordon Edes.
What about Joe Haggerty?
No slight on Haggerty, I just think in the public eye he’s view more as a Bruins guy these days because of his work on WEEI.com.
Can’t a guy cover more than one sport and still do it well?
Yes, Pepper. I mean Turd. or Alyssa. Easy to get confused, same IP address and all…Joe?
I ain’t no turd.. I don’t see a clause where it says family can’t vote for family..
Multiple times you and “Turd Ferguson” have posted from the same IP address. Including today. Not a coincidence.
Look, you can certainly vote for family, you can certainly vote or comment for yourself, others do it. Haggerty is a good writer, and I enjoy his stuff. I’ve never said anything disparaging about him, but as I told him today, I think of him right now as more of a Bruins writer doing Red Sox on the side. The poll today was for writers I think of as Red Sox writers first and foremost.
Understood, but you asked who we turned to first and then said if you thought someone was deserving to “mention them below”. Obviously I turn to Joe first, and I know I’m not the only one or he’d be doing something else. If you don’t want other suggestions, then by all means don’t ask for them! Many sports fans (and friends/neighbors) in this building share this IP address, I can’t control how they spend their time online..
Glad you’re also a fan..
Bruce, you are my hero. Using things like IP addresses to call people out. Sheer genius. Keep up the good work.
Who?
I think a better question would be “Who are You?”
We know who you are, Joe.
Misters Daltrey, Moon, Townsend and Entwhistle, call your lawyers.
Which one of these guys writes the box scores? That’s all you need to read anyhow.
I think that’s Joe Haggerty.
Anyone who votes for Mike Silverman is on crack. His stuff is borderline unreadable, and his sunday notes are of the mail-it-in variety
Hands Down It’s Ian Browne! okay, I’m NOT the writer
For my money it doesn’t get better than Jon Couture, like a young Louis Gosset Jr. of writing…Sandy Koufax, they still haven’t made a better pitcher…If you are ever in India watch out for the Tigers…same goes for the AL Central..This Tiger Woods kid is pretty good..Cheers is still a very funny show…Check out this show Charmed, if the Salem witches looked like that they wouldn’t have been burned at the stake…Mormons…TV’s JAG is doing our boys in uniform proud.
What about Tony Spazz? He sucks.
Take off your Bruschi jersey and say that!!! (tee hee)
so glad sean mcadam is winning
leave off the last S for sarcasm!
I’ll have you know I’m no Turd…
Funny Ian.
Or is this Joe? IP address from Fenway Park? The plot thickens…
So Turd uses the same IP as Pepper Potts, AND posts from Fenway Park?
Neither…I am the Most Interesting Man in the World. Whenever I go swimming, dolphins appear. Stay Thirsty my friend.
Whenever I go swimming, sharks show up and mock people who make awful Dos Equis commercials. Go sharks!
This is like watching horses graze and pretending that you are watching a horse race. These people are not competing to be the best.
What would it look like if they were competing? For one thing, nobody would cover baseball unless they could speak Spanish. It should be a huge disadvantage not to be able to communicate with a substantial number of baseball players in their native language. If a sportswriter covering the Red Sox really wanted to be the best–ie get stories that other writers miss–he or she might also learn some Japanese. It might seem like a a lot of work for a small payoff, and not everyone could do it, but that’s the nature of competition.
I’m not pushing multiculturalism here. Language learning is just an example. But there must be a lot of ways to get better information and write better stories. For the most part I don’t see any indication that anyone is trying to do that.
What about Garry Brown from The Springfield Republican??? That guy is legendary in Western Mass. He’s the original Red Sox beat writer before Ron got there (no offense to Ron he’s a great guy too).
Yep, definitely deserves a mention, though isn’t he more of a columnist these days?
Garry did his last Red Sox game sometime last month. He’s taking a buyout and retiring.
He’s always typically been a columnist however him and Ron have been switching the beat job duties. But JC is right, he is retiring at the end of this month.
Funny how no one every mentions the site in print (only Bill Griffith) or god forbid on the radio but the same people get all bent out of shape when they are forgotten in some pole by a “Blogger”(Fraudway and Sheppard can define Blogger if you need it).
Amalie Benjamin has my vote.