Boston Sports Media Watch

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% [?]

For now, the Approval Ratings have run their course. I could’ve continued to trot out names in this space, but increasingly I would’ve gotten a string “WHO????” replies in the comment fields. This feature may pop up from time to time in the future, but for now, I’m going to table it.

All in all, we’ve rated about 75 Boston sports media people, which is pretty amazing in itself.

Thanks to an industrious BSMW message board member (jforb) who has been tabulating the results in a spreadsheet, we have a point of comparison to see who has been the most approved – and least approved – among the media personalities we’ve put up for approval.

So, without further adieu, here are the 10 Boston sports media personalities according to the percentage of “approves” in their total votes:

It’s an interesting list. Five are mostly writers and the others are mostly broadcasters/analysts. No sports radio WEEI personalities in the top 10. The highest WEEI regular in the polls was Michael Holley, who finished 23rd in approval percentage at 84.5.

Mike Reiss had the most actual ”Approves” in the series with 1547, Bob Ryan was second, with 1407. Heinsohn and Gorman were next with 1290 and 1274, while Holley was fifth in approves with 1271. Holley was also the very first subject of this series.

Tomorrow we’ll have a look at the Top (bottom) Ten Disapproves.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Alice Cook is a figure skating queen turned TV sports reporter.

Cook competed in the 1976 Winter Olympic games in the pair skating competition. In 1984 she joined WBZ-TV as a sports producer, and the next year became a sports reporter for the station.

During her career at WBZ, Cook has covered the Patriots extensively for the last 10 years, being a key part of the station’s pre and post game coverage. Cook has also covered several Olympic games, both for WBZ-TV and Turner Sports.

Cook worked for ESPN in 2001 and 2002, winning a Gracie Award in April 2002 for a story she did for “Outside the Lines” on Mari-Rae Sopper, a former gymnast killed in the September 11 attack on the Pentagon.

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Popularity: 31% [?]

“I got the ball!”

With those words, Cedric Maxwell interrupted the call of broadcast partner Sean Grande as the Celtics clinched their 17th World Championship just a few weeks ago.

After an 11 year NBA career with the Celtics (who retired his number 31 in 2003), Clippers and Rockets,  Maxwell joined the Celtics radio broadcast team in 1995.

He’s developed his own signature style over the years, including the “Quack…quack…QUACK!” after a big play. This call originated while the broadcasts were on AM 1510 the Zone, which had a signal that went straight out to the ocean. The call is said to be a reference that only the ocean birds and ducks could hear the call.

Maxwell got in some hot water last year with a comment he made about referee Violet Palmer. This controversy went national in scale, and caused much discussion around various blogs on the internet and in the media. The remark was actually a dig at the style of Celtics TV announcer Tommy Heinsohn, but those who weren’t familiar with the reference assumed the worst of Maxwell.

With the Celtics resurging to a championship level this season, Maxwell has been a frequent guest on WEEI’s Big Show. He seems to have something of a beef with former teammate Larry Bird, as not a show will go by without some reference (usually initiated by the host) by Max about Bird.

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Popularity: 31% [?]

“Lenny Megs” is a longtime sports columnist for the Metrowest Daily News.

Megliola is a sportswriter from the old school, bringing you his observations and thoughts on sports without making himself the story.

He is a frequent guest on WEEI’s Planet Mikey with Mike Adams, and makes appearances on the weekend as well.

On television, Megliola can be seen regularly on NECN’s Sports Late Night and occasionally on other outlets.

Megliola is also passionate about the theater, having written about it in the past, and even having been a member of the Concord Players.

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Popularity: 25% [?]

Craig Mustard is co-host of the weekend “Mustard and Johnson” program (aka The Preacher and the Teacher) on WEEI.

During the week, he is also a Wellesley High School English teacher.

Mustard was one of the original crew of WEEI, back when the station first went to the all sports format. In fact, he was one of the “stars” of the station, teaming with Tom Doyle for the Mustard and Doyle show.

Known as a huge Roger Clemens fan, Mustard severed his allegiance with the Red Sox and became a Yankees fan. His program with Larry Johnson on the weekends is dominated by Yankees talk, with Yankee fans calling into the program constantly.

He was also a Drew Bledsoe fan, but didn’t switch over to following the Bills when Bledsoe was traded.

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Popularity: 31% [?]

Jerry Remy, the “RemDog” is the color analyst for Red Sox games on NESN.

We’re a week late on this one, because if I had any sense of timing, Remy would’ve been in this space last week on Jerry Remy Day at Fenway Park.

After a playing career in the majors with the Angels and Red Sox, Remy began his broadcast career in the NESN booth alongside the late Ned Martin in 1988.

He’s had several other partners over the years, including Bob Kurtz, Sean McDonough, and currently Don Orsillo.

In addition to his NESN duties, Remy occasionally fills in on Red Sox broadcasts on the FOX network, and does a weekly segment on the Dennis and Callahan show on WEEI. He also oversees The Remy Report website.

Remy can be prone to silliness from time to time, and his increasingly raspy voice and cough sometimes take away from the brilliant skills he has in analyzing the game. Remy knows baseball, and he knows the Red Sox, and can oftentimes call a pitch or steal attempt before it happens.

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Popularity: 31% [?]

Jeff Horrigan is one of the baseball writers for the Boston Herald.

A graduate of Northeastern University, Horrigan’s MLB beat career started in Cincinnati, where he covered the Reds for seven seasons with the Cincinnati Post.

In 2000, he joined the Boston Herald, where he is in his ninth season sharing the beat writer duties covering the Red Sox.

Horrigan is the  Co-Founder and Director of the Hot Stove Cool Music concert series, which has raised over $2 million for The Foundation To Be Named Later – benefiting inner city and at risk children and the Jimmy Fund. He was named  the Jimmy Fund Council’s Co-Man of the Year with Peter Gammons in 2005.

His work on the beat in the paper is solid, but Horrigan doesn’t do a whole lot of  appearances on TV and Radio, and it was hard just to find a photo of the guy. The picture from the right is from an interview with Stacy and Lauren of foxxysports.com.
 
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Popularity: 32% [?]

Mike Reiss is the Patriots beat writer for the Boston Globe and blogger extraordinaire on “Reiss’ Pieces.”

Reiss started his popular blog while working for the MetroWest Daily News, where he worked for seven years. In 2005, he was hired by the Globe’s West weekly section, and the next year he joined the Globe’s sports department.

Reiss’ Pieces is THE place Patriots fans go to when looking for breaking news about the club, year round. Reiss makes some appearances on NESN, especially during the football season, but is not a constant presence on the airwaves.

Reiss grew up in Framingham and is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

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Popularity: 27% [?]

Dale Arnold is the co-host of WEEI’s mid-day “Dale and Holley” show.

A Maine native, Arnold has been broadcasting games since he was 15 years old. He attended Bowdoin College, and began doing Maine Mariners games in 1979. In 1986 he got the same job with the New Jersey Devils. From 1988-1990 he was the voice of the New England Patriots.

In 1991, he joined WEEI, and in 1995 he started calling Bruins games for NESN, a post he held until 2007. On WEEI, he has had a variety of broadcast partners, from Eddie Andelman, to Bob Neumeier to his present partner, Michael Holley.

This year he also joined the Red Sox broadcast team, calling mostly Wednesday games while Dave O’Brien handled his ESPN duties. Arnold is the only broadcaster to have called games for the Bruins, Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Revolution.

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Popularity: 30% [?]