Boston Sports Media Watch

I’m pleased to present a second guest post from Michael Gee, former Boston Herald sports columnist.

The only thing writers knows about their work before they start is that when it’s finished, someone won’t like it.

There has never been and never will be fiction or nonfiction created by human beings that won’t be intensely disliked by at least a few other human beings. The opening night of “Macbeth,” I guarantee that one patron left the Globe Theater and said in a very loud voice (loud was the Elizabethan Internet) “That didst sukketh!!”

Sportswriters, even the very best, are no Shakespeares. Writing for public consumption in a format as transistory as is daily journalism (or hourly journalism, these days), all one can hope for is to have the “liked its” outnumber the “hated its” by the largest possible margin – say 50.000001 percent. For this piece, which is written for a site named “Media Watch,” I’ll he happy with 30 percent. This is a tough room. Nobody clicks to a site with that title because they believe said media is doing a bang-up job.

The writer and his/her audience are always going to coexist in a state of some tension. Everyone wants to be liked and wants their work appreciated. On the other hand, nobody wants to read something they don’t like, either.

As a now very part-time writer who remains a full-time reader, I am in full sympathy with both of these apparently opposite sentiments. It took a long time for me to learn that universal approval was a fool’s goal in sports column writing, but it was the most liberating knowledge of my career. It took me an even longer time as a reader to learn that my judgments on what I read were as subject to human error as what I wrote, but that was more liberating. So in the full knowledge of the mixed (I hope) reaction to come, here are the lessons I learned, which I try to apply when both writing and reading.

1. Differences of opinion are not criticism. This is sports, not physics. Right and wrong answers are few and far between. If a writer takes a position, and a reader says, “you’re wrong, you idiot,” that’s not an insult. That’s not criticism. It’s an argument. A diligent reader will make his side of the argument, and any writer with a lick of sense will pay attention.

1a. If, as I was, a writer is in the opinion business, being wrong every so often is an occupational hazard. You’re supposed to start arguments from time to time. Columnist and Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman said it best: “A columnist who is never wrong is not taking enough risks.”

2. Judging writing is infinitely subjective, and there are going to be some readers who dislike all the work of some writers and there’s nothing the writer can or should do about it. That’s not really criticism, either.

Let me make an example from my own reading. Bill Simmons is probably the most-read sports columnist in America. Obviously he has talent. Nobody becomes that popular without ability. Bill’s writing leaves me cold, so I don’t read him anymore. If Bill worries about that, he’s nuts. Due to his enormous exposure, Simmons is destined to be more widely unpopular as well as popular. It’s a paradox he can ponder on those pleasant journeys to the bank.

There’s a poster on the BMSW message board whose writing I admire. He hates mine. This makes me sad, but it’s nothing to worry about – for either of us.

3. Here are things I DO worry about. If a critic says I made a factual error, that bothers me. If he’s right, that really bothers me. If people consistently said my work was unfair to those I write about, or that I was mean when it was uncalled for, or that it didn’t seem like I enjoyed sports, I wouldn’t just be bothered, I’d be distraught. The primary responsibilities of a sports columnist, as I saw them, were to be accurate when supporting my opinions and to be fair to everyone I covered. “Fair” and “nice” are not always the same thing, mind you.

4. The most important point of criticism for the writer is this: It means the critic read the damn thing, so right away, he/she is not your enemy, he/she is a cherished customer. Maybe they’ll like what you write next time.

The explosion of reader interaction made possible by the Internet is an enormous boon to sportswriters, and those who don’t think so are, to be polite, fools. The worst thing about writing is how lonely it is. Feedback, even the deranged anonymous kind, is far easier on the soul than the void of silence.

A writer who sneers at the critics is worse than a fool. That writer is an enemy of his own best interests.

Andre Laguerre was the most successful sports editor of the second half of the 20th century. He was the genius who in the 1960s turned “Sports Illustrated” from an enormous money-loser to the profitable national institution it has been ever since. He had three rules for running a sports magazine. Two of them are not relevant here, but one sure is. It merits a stand-alone paragraph here.

You can’t get too much hate mail.

Read Michael Gee’s blog: homegame

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This is  a guest post from Michael Passanisi.

Forty-five years ago this spring, a 19-year old kid from Swampscott made it fun to be a Sox fan again, at least for a few years. Most fans remember that Tony C has passed away, but how many remember his up-and-down broadcast career and the terrible effects of his heart attack and brain damage that made his last eight years a living hell for Tony and his family?

To be sure, Tony is remembered as a man who, in the words of author David Cataneo in his excellent 1997 book Tony C: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tony Conigliaro, had a lot of both in his life. Nearly every Sox fan knows about his 1967 beaning. They also remember his aborted comebacks, his controversial trade to the Angels three years later, and his final retirement in 1975. But the story doesn’t end there.

A year after his retirement from baseball, Conigliaro began work as a sports reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco. Cataneo’s book describes his early problems in broadcasting: “He was immediately branded just another jock enthusing about the scores. He was terrible. He spoke in clichés. He always seemed harried. His malaprops made him uncomfortable to watch….his Boston accent, charming to fans from Charlestown and Waltham and Worcester in the Fenway stands, made northern Californians cover their ears.”

Things then improved for a while. “Not surprisingly”, continues Cataneo, “he wasn’t smooth, but he came across as honest and genuine. He had a good rapport with athletes. The anchor work remained rough, but his features got better, eventually good enough to learn a local Emmy.” Though being homesick, as he always seemed to be, for his family, he was enough of a celebrity to be recognized and continue to date attractive women. He also befriended a man named Satch Hennessey, who was also touched by tragedy; his wife and young daughter would both die of cancer. Interestingly, he also became more religious. “I was given a lot of athletic ability,” Cataneo quotes him as saying…”if I don’t know where it came from it doesn’t mean much.”

By 1980, however, his life was going downhill again. KGO fired him, apparently because the station wanted a workaholic who would give “110 percent”. Another station, KRON, which had hired Tony as basically a weekend sports anchor and feature broadcaster, brought in a new news director, who let him go. That, unfortunately, was the end of his broadcasting career.

Tony’s last chance came in January, 1982, when he wanted to try out for an opening as Red Sox color commentator.. However, WSBK, which broadcast the Sox at that time, had a GM who Cataneo calls “a non-New Englander who had been nowhere near Kenmore Square in the summer of 1967″., This man apparently thought no one remembered him anymore. He might have changed his mind, but just two days later Tony suffered his massive heart attack.

Though Cataneo did an excellent job of describing Tony’s post-1975 years, many newspapers seem today to gloss over the suffering that Conigliaro went through between his heart attack and his death in 1990. This includes articles two years ago on the 40th anniversary of the Impossible Dream season, in which Tony played a big part before his injury.

An example of some writers’ description of Conigliaro’s post-baseball years is in the 2004 book Reversing the Curse about the Sox’s first World Series win since 1918. The only mention of Tony is that he “suffered a major heart attack and died at the age of 45 in 1990″. Given the interest in him in his playing days, more might have been said, and while his tragedy was a personal one and not connected to baseball in general, that description does not seem enough.

All the details of the sufferings of Tony and his family during his last years need be mentioned here, but his brother Billy, in the forward to Cataneo’s book, sums it up by saying that “nobody expected that the struggle of a professional athlete would, just a few years later, be exceeded by an all-out fight just to exist on the earth as a normal human being.” By 1990, most of Tony’s relatives were praying that he would soon be put out of his misery. Their prayers were answered on February 24 of that year.

Today, Conigliaro is memorialized in the Conigliaro Gym at his alma mater, St Mary’s High in Lynn, by the major league Comeback Player of the Year Award, and a few other commemorations of his life, such as “Conig’s Corner” in Fenway Park. But the Sox have not retired his number 25. Tony made a lasting impression on Boston baseball, and his entire life should be remembered.

Related link:

Jim O’Brien – The Forgotten Coach? - also by Passanisi.

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Editor’s note: I’m pleased to present you today with a guest post from former Boston Herald sports columnist Michael Gee. Hopefully this is the first of several to come. Today he looks at what covering the postseason is like from a sportswriter’s perspective. 

Many sports fans believe the sportswriters who cover their favorite teams have it in for them and those teams. The writers hate the teams, the players, the coaches, the furry mascots, and of course, most of all, the fans. Writers go to the park or arena hoping that the home team loses every game by a humiliating score.

This is false. Oddly enough, it is contradicted by the most common complaint actual athletes make about sportswriters, which is “You only care about us when we’re winning!” Well over 90 percent of the time, the interests of sportswriters and the people they cover mesh perfectly.

This isn’t complex. Winning sells. The day after the final game of the 2004 World Series, the Herald sold almost a million copies, quadrupling normal circulation. Stories on the team get more space and better play. The aim of the sportswriter, as of any writer, is to tell a story to an audience, and the bigger the audience, the better. Athletes have it all wrong. Writers aren’t front-runners-fans are. We’re just the unpleasant reminder of that fact.

At a more human level, being around a consistent loser is depressing. Think summer’s going to be an endless joy for those assigned to report on the death march of the Washington Nationals? Sportswriters get paid, in part, to be able to maintain a level of human understanding of those they cover. When the people getting covered are constantly on the verge of personal professional oblivion, that’s tough on both parties.

Which makes it all the more strange that the mutual interests of the sports reporter and sports teams diverge precisely at the moment of the latter’s greatest success and when public interest is highest-the post-season. Any post-season.

Baseball is the worst, and football the relatively easiest, but for the sports section, playoffs equal pain. It’s a matter of supply and demand. The demand for information from the public (those front-running SOBs) easily swamps the ability of the sports department to supply said demand. All of a sudden, there’s five pages of space to fill on an off-day hockey practice. You know what goes on at a hockey practice? Not much is the correct answer.

Playoffs are weeks of 2 a.m. hotel check-ins and 6:45 a..m flights. They are 12-14-16 hour days spent in arenas and ballparks, writing, always writing. The Internet (all technological advances in journalism create more difficult working conditions for journalists) has made it possible to achieve the ultimate in demand-the permanent writing cycle.

In addition, there is the added pressure of micromanaging from the super senior management of the news organization, who, alas, are usually sports fans. These worthies abandon their hard-bitten personas to, as a former boss of mine once stated, “dance down Yawkey Way in their underwear.” The closest I ever got to being fired at the Herald before I got fired was in 1994 during the Winter Olympics. The bosses just wouldn’t accept that poor Nancy Kerrigan was not exactly the American heroine on the order of Betsy Ross which the Herald had decided she should be.

Before you break out the “boo-freakin-hoos,” there are compensations.. The playoffs are also tremendously exciting and fulfilling professional experiences. Hey, I got paid to see the Patriots win their first Super Bowl and the Red Sox win the 2004 World Series. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. But I remember the pain of the process along with the thrills. Sportswriting is a profession that entails a constant struggle between fun and work. Fun’s usually an easy winner. During the playoffs, work gets the upper hand, and believe me, it fights dirty in a clinch.

So during the playoffs, what writers root for is mostly for the pain to go away. Let’s wrap this up. Maybe I can eat a meal at home before the end of the month. You’re up 3-2? Win that damn game six..

Here’s a weird offshoot of that sentiment. Once the home team makes it to the championship round of its post-season, the home writers sometimes express the following sentiment. “Well, as long as we’re here, they ought to make it worth our while and win the damn thing!” Surely all this work has to have some ultimate justification.

Going back to 2004, I’m sure press box sentiment was all with the Yankees in Game 4 of the ALCS. During Game 4 of the World Series, the Sox had no stauncher fan than yours truly. It was truly amazing to watch the Patriots win that first Super Bowl. I wasn’t exactly heartbroken when they missed the playoffs the following season. Nothing personal. Just business, or the relative lack of same.

I don’t believe any of the Boston writers covering the Bruins and Celtics this spring were HAPPY when those teams lost Game 7s. I believe part of their inner selves were truly sad. But I know that another part was deeply relieved. It’s a long season. When your workload triples at the end of said season, you’d have to be more or less than human not to feel some pleasure when the work comes to a temporary halt. I’d be surprised if fans of those teams didn’t experience the fleeting thought, “well, at least I can go to bed early tomorrow night.”

The late, great sportswriter Leonard Koppett (Get his book on the NBA if you can find it) came up with two statements that summarize the sportswriter’s thoughts on postseason play. One, called “Koppett’s Law,” sayss “the outcome of the game will be the most inconvenient one.”

The other Koppett motto is a corollary to the rule “no cheering in the press box.” It goes “you’re allowed to root for yourself.”

In 30 years, I never once saw a sportswriter root against a team. In a lot of postseasons, I saw a lot of guys and gals root for themselves.

That’s no sin. Sorry if you think otherwise.

Michael Gee

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This is a guest column submitted by Roy Reiss. He is a former  Sports Broadcaster at Channel 7 Boston-WHDH TV and is also the father of Mike Reiss, of “Reiss’ Pieces” fame.

Today’s sports media is quick to “rush to judgment” on teams, personalities, coaches, managers, and just about anyone associated with professional or collegiate sports. According to the media, this is what the public wants and why they purchase newspapers, tune in to TV shows, search the internet, or listen to talk radio.

Strangely the media loves to hold the sporting world they cover accountable for everything, yet when they become the object of such scrutiny and accountability they react as if they should never be held accountable for anything said or written. They can say, write, or do just about anything and please don’t ever ask them to apologize for any misstep.

One of the great examples of this lack of accountability in the media is the phenomena created annually with the NFL draft. Just about everyone knows which teams should take which players; they have opinions on every move, and rarely ever revisit those “rush to judgment” statements.

You want instant analysis and opinion, you got it! Let’s give grades out immediately following the selections. Let’s find out who won and lost before ever playing a game. After all this is really what the public wants!!

The draft has perpetrated this type of journalism and rarely if ever is anyone accountable for anything said or written. We don’t want insightful reporting or information that takes time and energy. We don’t want to wait to see how someone may develop over time. We need instant answers, instant successes and failures; anything to keep the general public’s attention.

So let’s go back to 2006 and see what a few of the so called football experts were saying after that draft 3 years ago. It’s an interesting exercise.

Mel Kiper

GRADE: B Arizona
I give them an A for the first day and a C for the second day. The Cardinals’ QB of the future, Matt Leinart, fell into their lap at No. 10 (I had Leinart as the third best player in the draft).

GRADE: C Indianapolis
First-round pick Joseph Addai (at No. 30) is a good blocking running back, but he is not all that dynamic running the ball.

GRADE: C+ NY Giants
DE Mathias Kiwanuka was a reach late in the first round, but he will get a chance to learn from Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora. Getting WR Sinorice Moss in the second round was one of the best picks in the draft;

GRADE: B NE Patriots
Laurence Maroney, selected at No. 21, gives the Patriots a security blanket at running back. WR Chad Jackson was a nice pick in the second round and could have gone in the middle of the first. TE Dave Thomas has excellent hands, while Garret Mills might be more of a fullback. Kicker Stephen Gostkowski was a reach in the fourth round (I didn’t think any kickers would get drafted).

Next, Also from ESPN is John Clayton:

John Clayton

Winners

2. Arizona Cardinals: Normally, the Cardinals are the bad luck team. Twice this off-season they struck gold. They headed into free agency without the intention of paying big money for a running back. But with a surprising $17.5 million increase in the salary cap, the Cardinals were able to sign Edgerrin James. Then, Matt Leinart was gift-wrapped for them at No. 10. Arizona coach Dennis Green rated Leinart among the top five players in the draft. He said the selection was similar to 1999 when Green was with the Vikings and selected Daunte Culpepper, whom he rated as the No. 1 quarterback in that draft. “We really had him ranked as one of the top five players,” Green said.

3. San Francisco 49ers: Acquiring Maryland tight end Vernon Davis was a bigger break for the 49ers than you would expect. Davis is a 254-pound tight end who can run a 4.38. Because quarterback Alex Smith doesn’t have the strongest arm, Davis should help Smith as much as Alge Crumpler helps Michael Vick and Tony Gonzalez helps Trent Green. Davis can work the seams, providing easier, more accurate throws for Smith. He could add three to five percent points to Smith’s completion numbers.

5. Tennessee Titans: Give Floyd Reese some credit. He was in a tough situation. His coaches wanted Leinart. His owner wanted him to draft Young. It was a debate that carried into Saturday morning. Reese found a way to satisfy everyone. In Young he got a quarterback back whom he believes will be better than Leinart in two or three years. Young might not do much during his first season, so Reese gave the coaching staff White, a big, bruising running back who can help immediately.

From Sports Illustrated:

Don Banks

Winners

NEW ORLEANS
The draft’s marquee player — USC running back Reggie Bush — lands in the Saints’ lap, thanks to Houston’s inability to seal the deal with the Heisman Trophy winner. No, the New Orleans running game wasn’t a pressing concern. But some teams are born to greatness. Others have it thrust upon them.

ARIZONA CARDINALS
Dennis Green’s club somehow came away with a Heisman-winning quarterback at the ridiculously affordable price of a No. 10 pick in Leinart and one of the draft’s top guard prospects in Taitusi Lutui. In a related development, the Cardinals franchise is changing its name once again, this time to USC East.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
The 49ers have won an NFL-low six games in the past two seasons, but they took a couple big steps toward being more than the league’s favorite homecoming opponent with Saturday’s development. Maryland tight end Vernon Davis will enter the league as this season’s favorite for NFL offensive rookie of the year honor and San Francisco with its second first-rounder landed a potential impact rush-linebacker in N.C. State’s Manny Lawson.

Anybody want to wager that Lawson will wind up his rookie season with more sacks than his former collegiate teammate and fellow defensive end, Mario Williams?

Also from SI:

Paul Zimmerman

A

BRONCOS: Two years ago Javon Walker caught 89 balls for the Packers. He wanted a long-term deal. Instead he got a torn ACL in his right knee. But wait, the story has a happy ending, because on draft day this year he was traded to Shanahan U., which also moved up to draft QB Jay Cutler, rated by some as the best of the Big Three. And how are these for extra weapons in the receiving game — Tony Scheffler, a swift TE, Brandon Marshall, an oversized wideout? I mean there’s going to be more firepower in the air over Denver than the RAF threw at the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.

SAINTS: Congratulations for not blowing the Reggie Bush pick. You sent light into a city darkened by gloom. That gets you the A. The rest of the draft? Well, you’d better put some linemen in front of this dazzling runner, or it’ll be another Dalton Hilliard story. The first time I saw Bush run I thought of two players he reminded me of, when they were in college: Marshall Faulk and Dalton Hilliard. Same rapid cuts and quick bursts. Scintillating runners. Faulk is headed for the Hall of Fame. Hilliard, believe me, a wonderful little back, had an eight-year career with the Saints, playing behind some miserable lines. His lifetime average per carry was 3.7, and he was only in the 4.0 range twice. So during the draft this time the Saints picked up a veteran center from Cleveland, Jeff Faine. That’s good. The highest-drafted O-lineman they got was tackle Jahri Evans in the fourth round. Raw talent, everyone says. Would you prefer cooked talent?

CARDINALS: A day after the draft I got an e-mail from the Cardinals. One thousand, five hundred season tickets sold over the weekend to come watch this dynamic team in brand-new Cardinals Stadium, with its retractable roof and fully retractable grass playing surface. “How about retractable players?” says my hopelessly cynical wife, but those days are gone, because now they’ve got Matt Leinart and a really terrific stud guard from the USC offensive machine, Deuce Lutui, and Leonard Pope, a gigantic 6-7 1/2 TE who can really motor.

Interesting stuff. These so called reporters, journalists, columnists, experts are doing their job. They’re giving the public instant analysis. It’s much the same on the local level as everyone gets away with this sort of so called analysis under the guise of “this is what the public wants”.

Maybe it’s time to stop and ask the public what they really want. My guess is what the public and the knowledgeable football fan really wants are insight, hard work and digging for ground breaking stories that do more than just give us a surface and superficial look at how teams fare in the draft before ever playing a game. We deserve better!

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I’m pleased to bring you a guest post from former Boston Herald sportswriter Michael Gee, who examines the relationship between Bill Belichick and the New England sports media.

Bill Belichick And His Not-So-Archenemies 

By Michael Gee

Maybe it’s different these days. The last time I was part of the relationship between Bill Belichick and New England’s sports journalists was April, 2005. Three years is a long time, and people change, even football coaches. Maybe Belichick and reporters exist in the state of mutual loathing that is imagined by both sports fans and a large number of out-of-town journalists.

I doubt it. People don’t change that much, and the “Belichick and the media hate each other” meme was a standard part of the NFL discussion back in my increasingly bygone day, just not such a loud one. It’s a simple thought, and hence bound to appeal to many. It’s reinforced by the tight-lipped, grim persona Belichick presents to the world on game days, which, after all, is the only time most of the world sees him.

But it’s hooey. “Belichick v. Media” is one part fact to ten parts urban legend. Based on my own professional observations of one hell of a lot of coaches, managers, front office types, owners, etc., I would grade Belichick’s relationship with the press as average. Some reporters like him, some loath him, and the vast majority peacefully co-exist with the coach they cover in varying degrees of mutual frustration.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a half-dozen NFL coaches and press corps over the last 20 years whose relationships were far, far worse than were Belichick’s and New England reporters on my watch. Some wouldn’t surprise you (Hi, Mike Shanahan!), and some might (Bill Cowher was DESPISED by many Steelers reporters). Because success brings scrutiny, Belichick’s behavior gets more attention than, say, that of this month’s coach of the Atlanta Falcons. What looks to a casual observer as a devious schemer at daggers drawn with a bloodthirsty pack of tormentors is, in fact, the natural order of NFL journalism.

The relationship between an NFL coach and those who cover him is not and cannot be a normal human interaction, because when they’re on the job neither side is normal. Reporters, good ones anyway, are a pain in the ass. They’re paid to be snoopy, skeptical and impertinent. Football coaches, good ones anyway, are secretive, manipulative, and paranoid. That is the only logical reaction to their impossible life’s work. Those two realities create friction. The friction, however, need not be personal. With the one obvious exception of Ron Borges, Belichick’s conflicts with New England reporters were just business as usual in football.

When a coach gets hit with the largest fine in NFL history for a mysterious rules violation, as Belichick was, and he won’t discuss it, reporters are going to go crazy and try every means short of waterboarding to draw a comment out of the guy. At the same time, said coach would have to be a supreme nitwit to make that comment. Only a nitwit scribe would hold Belichick’s silence against him once the article ripping him for it was filed with the desk. All in a day’s work for him and us.

Belichick loves to talk about football. He just doesn’t like to talk about specific issues which affect the future performance of the New England Patriots. Getting such information becomes an exercise in interpretation and analysis of Belichick’s football theories. That’s risky, but it can be done. Mike Reiss of the Globe certainly finds out enough stuff about the Pats’ operation to satisfy the most detail-obsessed fan. He does this through the sneaky trick of having earned the coach’s respect.

Reiss emulates Belichick’s approach to football. He was, and I assume is, always at Gillette Stadium. I never once walked into the press room without Reiss already being there, and this was when he was at the MetroWest News, far down the press corps pecking order. As a rule, people give access to reporters in direct relationship to their news organization’s audience numbers.

If Belichick had been a reporter, that’s the kind of reporter he would have been, diligent, prepared, relentless. By the same token, Bill Parcells’ favorite member of the press was my former colleague Kevin Mannix. Kevin was a wiseacre and a ball buster, and that surely would have been Parcells’ approach to journalism.

The other sportswriter with whom Belichick had notably good relations could not have had a more different approach than Reiss-the late Alan Greenberg of the Hartford Courant. Belichick’s stonewalling didn’t bother Alan. He spent several years covering the Raiders, so I believe he felt the Pats were amateur paranoiacs.

Alan was, however, also Belichick’s most persistent questioner when the coach did stonewall. He had a sneaky trick, too. Alan could make Belichick laugh. He phrased his efforts in humorous ways whose subtext was “this is a ridiculous thing for both of us to be doing, but we gotta, so here goes.”

I believe that is very close to what Belichick believes about press relations. It’s a silly but inescapable part of his job, so he does it in as good a spirit as he can muster. What the hell, maybe he can teach some of them something about football along the way.

(For the curious, if I had to guess, I’d say Belichick saw me as an erratic pupil, more than occasionally dim, but every so often able to grasp some elementary or even intermediate football concept.)

Another guess. It pleases people to think Belichick and reporters hate each other because it pleases them to think Belichick hates everything and so does the press. The coach of the dominant team in the NFL is going to have enemies who’ve never met him, but are sure they know him. You learn people hate reporters about your second day on the job.

But reporting is about facts, the building blocks of truth. Facts do not create understanding, but they should at least point you in the right direction. And the right direction for understanding Belichick’s relationship with reporters comes from facts I read, but did not get to experience, as they took place after my days at the Herald..

Friday is the best day to cover any NFL coach. It is when they are most relaxed. The work of preparation for the game is pretty well done, and the anxieties of game day are still remote. Not coincidentally, it’s also the weekday with the fewest reporters present.

One Friday in I think the 2006 season, Belichick treated the press to a football history lesson. He brought in and showed films of his father’s games in the early 1940s, then engaged in a wide-ranging discussion of the game’s evolution from those bygone days. I am as big a sucker for old football films as is the coach, so I read of this event with real regret for my former life.

Belichick of his own volition was bringing up two of the subjects he cares about most in this earth, his relationship with his father, and his relationship with football. Those relationships are inseparably intertwined, and the Pats’ coach was laying them on the table for all to see, if not perhaps to grasp.

That’s a very high level of emotional honesty, no less honest for being implicit. It is not the action of a man who believes that reporters are stupid swine incapable of normal human sentiment. It’s not how anyone deals with an enemy.

I’d love to watch a game with Belichick some day. That’s not something I’d do with an enemy, either.
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Related Posts: Bill Belichick and the New England Media (April, 2005)

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This is a guest column from BSMW member “rrsafety.” I should have one more post later today as well.

Borges and Felger: Lies My Radio Told Me

Ron Borges, football writer for the Boston Globe, must have a prodigiously large arse.
How else to explain his ability to pull so much out of it at a moment’s notice? Not to mention all the room he must have up there to house his many grudges, as well as the heads of his butt-kissing sycophants: most of the Boston sports writing corps and all of Borges’ editors at the Boston Globe.

But most of all, we know that furthest up the Borges rear resides the formerly respectable Michael Felger of the Boston Herald and of Boston’s ESPN Radio whose new relationship with Borges reads more like Stephen King’s Apt Pupil than it does a professional relationship.

Take for instance this bit of bitter wisdom from the almighty Borges on the January 3rd edition of the Mike Felger radio show: I, dear reader, am a “cuckoo person.”

That’s right, but not only am I cuckoo person, but I am not objective and I don’t care to look at unpleasant truths. I know this because Ron Borges and Mike Felger told me so, and they are always correct, right? Good thing for us that such virtuous folks as Borges and Felger are here to be of right mind, objective, and brave enough to look the truth straight in the eye.

Here is the exchange:

Borges: I also don’t trust the kicker [rookie Patriot Kicker Stephen Gostkowski]. I think eventually the kicker is going to hurt them and he could very easily have hurt them in each of the last two games.

Felger: Yeah, they… Belichick has done a great job keeping him out of harms way during the season….

Borges: … but eventually…

Felger: …I mean, the Patriots had more fourth down attempts… Did you know this? … They went on fourth down more than any other team in the league.

Borges: Yeah, and anybody who thinks that is not kicker related is a cuckoo person.

Felger: Right, or just not being objective or doesn’t care to look at it.

Borges: Right, they just don’t care to look at it.

Hmmmm. Lot’s going on here. But let’s sort it out by being “objective”.
First of all, let us see if they are correct regarding the most basic fact of their assertion. “[The Patriots] went on fourth down more than any other team in the league.”

Oh? Did they?

According to the NFL.com’s team statistics the Patriots “went for it” on fourth down 20 times. Was that “more than any other team in the league”? Sorry Ron and Mike, it was not. In fact, there were six other teams in the NFL that went for it on fourth down 20 or more times during the 2006 regular season. Put another way, of the 31 other teams in the NFL, almost 20% of them went for it on fourth down as many times or more than the Patriots.

So, did the Patriots lead the league in fourth down attempts? No.

Were their number of attempts completely out of step with all other NFL teams? No.

Simply put, Borges’ and Felger’s premise was wrong from the very start.

But let us not just leave it at that, okay? To the observer uninitiated in the ways of Ron Borges, one might simply see this as a mistaken criticism of a rookie kicker and the Patriots lack of faith in him. And that observer would be wrong.

Strange as this all sounds, this Borges and Felger exchange has nothing to do with the kicker Gostkowski and has everything to do with Borges deep animosity toward all-things Belichick. For Borges, this is about the “arrogant” Bill Belichick who believes that the team’s success is all attributable to “the Belichick system” and that “Xs and Os” are more important than the “Jimmys and Joes”.

You see, one of Borges favorite “Jimmys and Joes” was the Patriots’ former kicker Adam Vinatieri who the Patriots were unable to re-sign last year. The more Borges is able to tear down the Patriots’ kicker, the more he is able to peddle his anti-Belichick wares that Bill’s systematic arrogance is leading the team to certain failure.

(A quick timeout is necessary here for many a reader may wonder, “But how can the system be a failure if they won three Super Bowls? How can it be a failure when the team has again made the playoffs and were 12-4 this year? How can the Belichick system be cheap and arrogant if the team consistently made Adam Vinatieri the highest paid kicker in the history of the NFL?” All good questions, but I’m afraid that asking such questions only makes you a cuckoo person.)

But there is another issue to address besides the mere misstatement of statistical facts perpetrated by the brothers Grimm. That is the contention that the decision to go for it on fourth down is “kicker related” and that those of us who do not believe that the evidence suggests that it is “kicker related” are cuckoo, non-objective and don’t care to look at it.

Okay, let look at as scientifically as possible by setting up some givens.

Let us stipulate that Adam Vinatieri is the best kicker ever. I will stipulate this because of two things 1) the Patriots made him the highest paid kicker in history, and 2) the enemies of the people – Borges and Felger – continue to tell me so. Therefore, polar opposites – the Patriots and the two-headed Hydra – agree on one thing – Adam Vinatieri was an outstanding field goal kicker.

If that is a given, than let us set up a hypothesis (remember high school science?). Taking Ron’s lead, I will propose the Borges Hypothesis of Fourth Down Attempts, that is, “When the Patriots have a great field goal kicker that that they trust, they will attempt very few fourth downs, and, conversely, when the Patriots have a field kicker they seek to ‘keep out of harms way’ due to a lack of faith, they will have many fourth down attempts.”

Good news. We have information directly from the NFL to test our hypothesis.

• 2005 Regular Season – great kicker A.V. – 17 fourth down attempts.
• 2006 Regular Season – “out of harm’s way” kicker S.G. – 20 fourth down attempts.

Ouch.

Shouldn’t there be a much MUCH bigger difference between these two numbers? I mean, we are talking about the greatest kicker in the history of the league vs. the nerve-wracking ineptness of a rookie kicker.

I know, perhaps the A.V. team of 2005 had a lot of fourth down attempts because the team ran more plays that year in comparison to 2006.

• 2005 Regular Season – A.V. – 1031 plays – 1.64% of plays were 4th down attempts
• 2006 Regular Season – S.G. – 1055 plays – 1.89% of plays were 4th down attempts

Uh, oh…. That can’t be the reason, because the Patriots actually had more overall plays in 06 than in 05.

Okay, I’ve got it now, maybe the reason why the Patriots attempted so many 4th down plays even though they had the greatest kicker in the world was because it just so happened that in 2005 the Patriots were extra-special, double-luck good at converting those fourth downs.

• 2005 Regular Season – A.V. – 76% success on 4th down conversion attempts
• 2006 Regular Season – S.G. – 80% success on 4th down conversion attempts

What? You mean even though the Patriots had LESS success at converting 4th downs in 2005, they STILL had A.V. sitting on the sidelines? How can this be when Borges had told us that the number of 4th downs you go for is “kicker related”??

Perhaps if we look at it another way. What percentage of the Patriots plays were FAILED fourth down attempts. This is a great statistic because it goes to the heart of the matter “The willingness of a coach to tempt failure in the quest for a first down”.

• 2005 Regular Season – A.V. – .387% of plays were failed 4th down conversion attempts
• 2006 Regular Season – S.G. – .379% of plays were failed 4th down conversion attempts

YIKES! Statistics from the NFL demonstrate that the Patriots actually accepted a higher percentage of failed 4th downs with Adam Vinatieri than they did with Stephen Gostkowski.

If Borges and Felger are correct, and the number of fourth down attempts is “kicker-related” then that means the greatest kicker in the history of the NFL was kept “out of harms way” at a higher rate than even our current rookie kicker! Has the world just turned upside down?

But that can’t be, can it? There must be a more satisfying solution that that.

Here is a satisfying solution: Borges and Felger are (once again) wrong.

Despite what they claim, perhaps the number of 4th down attempts is NOT related to kicker talent or trust. In fact, the data shows that the number 4th downs is more closely related to the team’s ability to MAKE 4th down conversions (the Patriots were #2 in 2005 and #1 in 2006). I should mention that many of the teams that also went for it on fourth down at a high rate, also have quality, veteran kickers.

So, not only did we disprove that statement: “They went on fourth down more than any other team in the league.”, but we have trounced the contention that in the Patriots system a high rate of going for it on fourth down is in any way related to the quality of the kicker.

If something that is so easily verifiable and so basic as kicking statistics can be twisted into a lie by the likes of Borges and Felger, how is that we can ever trust them to be sincere and accurate in more complex analyses for which readers cannot easily check?

Is it possible that writers like Borges and Felger have become so brazen in their biases that they have no qualms at all to present untruths as fact?

I’ll leave you with a reminder of what they said:

Felger: Yeah, they… Belichick has done a great job keeping him out of harms way during the season….

Borges: … but eventually…

Felger: …I mean, the Patriots had more fourth down attempts… Did you know this? … They went on fourth down more than any other team in the league.

Borges: Yeah, and anybody who thinks that is not kicker related is a cuckoo person.

Felger: Right, or just not being objective or doesn’t care to look at it.

Borges: Right, they just don’t care to look at it.

And will leave it to you to decide:

Who is being objective?

Who cares to look at it?

And, most importantly, who are the cuckoos?

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