Tame Tuesday

Another light morning for the daily links, so in addition to Red Sox coverage, I have a mini “Mailbag”, which has some readers giving some thoughts on Dan Shaughnessy. We also have updates on Gary Payton’s back, and some NCAA tournament coverage. A couple media columns round up the day’s links.

In the area of Red Sox links, Jeff Horrigan, Sean McAdam, Chris Snow and David Borges report on David Wells giving up five runs in yesterday’s spring training game, and then pronouncing himself ready to go for opening night on Sunday. Tony Massarotti reports on Kevin Millar, who is hoping to put together a complete season with the Red Sox this year, after putting up two season where he was hot for half of the season and cold the other half. The Herald has a pair of its columnists squaring off in giving the upside and downside of the current state of baseball. In the upside, Steve Buckley looks at how more and more players are playing past the age of 40. Not just playing, but dominating. George Kimball takes the downside and says that having all these senior citizens in baseball is retarding the development of younger players, claiming there are no players under the age of 21 in the major leagues.

Gordon Edes talks with Yankees starter and former Red Sox farmhand Carl Pavano, who picked the pinstripes over the Sox this past offseason. Pavano talks about missing out on meeting Curt Schilling as a 12 year old, picking the Yankees this winder and his friendship with another former Sox prospect, Brian Rose. Joe Sullivan of the Union Leader writes about a poster that caught his eye in a Manchester pub, a poster of Orlando Cabrera hitting in the World Series. He was so transfixed by the poster that he just had to find out more about it. Jack Perry of the ProJo relates his experience taking his family to Red Sox spring training. Horrigan’s notebook today says that the Red Sox will not show any of their starting pitchers to the Yankees in today’s spring training game. John Halama and Byung-Hyun Kim will get in some work today.

With the baseball (and other) links a bit sparse today, I figured I’d share a couple emails I’ve gotten in the last day or two. A couple deal with my comments regarding Dan Shaughnessy’s new book. The first is from Charlotte, who writes:

----- Original Message -----
From: Charlotte
To: bruce@bostonsportsmedia.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 10:56 AM
Subject: Shaughnessy's book

Dear Bruce:

Thank you so much for your comments on Shaughnessy's book. I've been telling everyone I know NOT to buy it, not only because of CHB's moronic "curse" milking but also (and even more importantly) because of the man's incessant trashing and backstabbing of Red Sox players over the years. His insane attack (which continues to this day) on Doug Mientkiewicz was the last straw.

I posted a poll at theremyreport.com asking for opinions on which new member of the Red Sox will be the first to be trashed by Shaughnessy. The "winner" was Edgar Renteria. I left off David Wells because Wells would probably stuff CHB head-first into a whirlpool.

Keep up the great work - I love your site.

Sincerely yours,

Charlotte

I’d have to say that I get quite a lot of emails along this vein. I wonder if Shaughnessy and his employers really know how much he has turned off a lot of people over the years. Here’s another:

----- Original Message -----
From: Rocky
To: bruce@bostonsportsmedia.com
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 4:53 PM
Subject: Shank's sham

Shaughnessy is the L Ron Hubbard of the Boston sports scene. The guy creates a "curse" sycophantic saps buy into it,and the smirking Shank cashes his checks. He's hack in the vein of Lobel, Andelman, Dennis, Lynch... highfalutin' creeps who don't care all that much about sports and know next to nothing about them.

My hope is that new tome is a Buck a Book stalwart,but since I'm a realist,I know the book will be a success. Life sucks.

Rocky in Southie

The L Ron Hubbard of the Boston sports scene, I kind of like that one. There are quite a few others in a similar tone, but not fit for publishing on a family site like this. Ok, here’s one more, a little different angle:

----- Original Message -----
From: "mike b"
To:
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 12:03 PM
Subject: What are they teaching at Harvard these days?

Bruce,

How I fear for dear old Harvard!

My brother in-law is a smart, Harvard educated fellow who by all measures is a rousing success. Yet for some reason , after years away, he has started reading Shaughnessy again.

It may be time to burn down the place. Here's why. (From Shaughnessy's column Sunday:)

"It is therefore no surprise that Steinberg took an interest in the young Theo Epstein. By 1992, he was the Orioles' director of public affairs, overseeing four departments. He'd reviewed 10,000 resumes and interviewed more than 1,000 young candidates when Epstein went to see him during spring break in 1992."

Let's see. Ten thousand resumes, at one minute per resume, comes to 166.67 hours, or a little more than four work weeks. One thousand interviews, at roughly 30 minutes per candidate, comes to 500 hours, 12.5 workweeks. Combined, that equals nearly 17 workweeks -- one-third of the working year -- devoted to finding a single unpaid intern!

No wonder the Orioles were such a mess.

Realistically, either Shaughnessy made those numbers up, or Steinberg made them up and old afro-head was too dumb to do the math. And now he's got Harvard grads falling for it. Can anything be done?

Mike B

The column referred to here is actually an excerpt from the book. Now I realize there was likely some exaggeration involved there to make a point, but that’s not even the statement that jarred me the most. That would be this one:

Like John F. Kennedy's, Giamatti's term in office was cut short by an early death

Huh? A. Bartlett Giamatti = John F. Kennedy?You’ve got to be kidding me. I first saw the quote on the message board here on the site, and thought someone had to have made it up as a Shaughnessy parody.

Mark Murphy looks at how Antoine Walker’s role with the offense may need to increase if Gary Payton’s bad back hampers him from playing or playing big minutes the next couple games. Marvin Pave looks at Payton’s sore back, and whether he would be risking further aggravation if he tries to play through it. Murphy’s notebook has more on this topic.

Bob Ryan says yes, this could be the most exciting NCAA tournament ever, but he’s still not happy. He doesn’t like the three-point shot in the college game, at least from the distance that the NCAA puts it. It’s too easy, he says. Jeff Jacobs looks at a 12 year run in Connecticut coming to an end. For the first time in that period, neither the mens or womens basketball teams made the elite eight with a chance to go to the final four. Mark Blaudschun looks at how the final four teams made it there. Lenny Megliola looks at Rick Pitino, and offers up his top three memories of Pitino in Boston. The first is from BU, the other two from his arrival and departure from the Celtics. Michael Gee (subscription only) also has a piece on Pitino, but says we should chalk up his time with the Celtics as a “seemed like a good idea at the time” blunder. Jon Couture says that Travis Ford is an appropriate choice for UMass.

Bill Griffith looks at 10 years of Revolution Soccer on Television. He has a few other notes, such as WEEI winning their second straight “Station of the Year” award from the Sports Radio Awards and also that UPN38 will be added to the Comcast HD tier in time for the Red Sox/Yankees opener Sunday night. Boston Radio Watch also reports on WEEI and had word of the upcoming ESPN Radio affiliate in town, AM 890 looking to hire some people, including a program director, which indicates that there may be local programming planned for the station.

You can now see the top five links of the day by looking in the box to the left.

A few people have emailed to asked about the runner that Dennis & Callahan had on this morning, who does the 75 hour runs, and is looking to do a 400 mile straight run. Here’s his book: Dean Karnazes – Ultramarathon Man

NESN will show Red Sox/Yankees at 1:00 and has a special Season Preview at 8:00. ESPN has the NCAA women’s tournament, while ESPN2 has the NIT Tournament.