The Red Sox and Blue Jays played the first game of a two game series at Fenway park last night. You can get the local coverage from newspapers and blogs on the Red Sox Daily Links page.
You can browse coverage from North of the border from the Toronto Star and the Globe & Mail.
Today, we’re going to look at a group of very talented, hard working writers – the Red Sox beat writers for the various New England newspapers. This job can be a grind. Day in and day out you’re going to be around the clubhouse, traveling with the team, seeing them after terrific wins and demoralizing defeats, but your job remains the same. Report on the team, get reaction after the game, get scoops and break news ahead of your competitors.
On top of it all, you probably don’t take home a huge salary, either.
Here’s a look at the voting for the “best of”:
1443 votes were cast in this category, and in something of a minor upset, a rookie – Chris Snow of the Boston Globe – came away with the award from the voters. Snow, a former intern with the paper, came over prior to the 2005 season after covering the Minnesota Wild of the NHL the previous year. He got 544 votes for 38% of the total. In his first year on the job, Snow proved himself to be capable of meeting the challenge of covering the most popular team in a sports crazy region on a daily basis for the area’s largest newspaper. He avoided the petty agendas and sniping that often goes along with covering the same team day after day. He showed that he was open to new ideas such as statistical analysis and formulas. All in all, it was an impressive debut season on the scene for the Melrose native and Syracuse graduate.
Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald came in second in the voting with 16%. Silverman is another solid performer, often splitting the beat duties with Jeff Horrigan. He got a number of scoops during the offseason and was one of the few reporters to be able to talk to Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez in recent years. Rob Bradford, who split the year between the Lowell Sun and the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune came in third, thanks to a spectacular offseason, after moving the Eagle Tribune, where he seemed to be breaking news and getting angles no one else was getting on a daily basis.
Reader Comments: Went with Silverman as I like his writing style. Snow and Horrigan both do good work here as well. No one meets worst status. I actually think the daily papers do a good to exceptional job with Red Sox news - I read a tidbit or two that is new and interesting pretty much every day in their notebooks.
I’m actually very proud of the participants of this poll for how they voted in this, and other sections of the balloting.
I believe that all of the beat writers covering the Red Sox are very good. None of them would be deserving of a “worst” label, and the voters overwhelmingly felt the same way. 950 out of 1357 votes cast were for the “No one deserves this award” category, which I believe really shows the sincerity and seriousness with which voters approached this poll.
Interestingly, Snow, who won the best award above, was the leading vote getting among actual writers in this category, but the 81 votes and 6% he got were just a drop in the bucket compared to the total votes cast.
The Red Sox beat writers have a grinding, high pressure job, and all seem to being doing a good job in the eyes of the poll participants.
Reader Comments:
Love your poll, but I wish you'd have included the Brockton writers. Their baseball writer is a freaking boob who doesn't have a clue. I'd love to see how your readers feel about him...
Tomorrow: Sports Media Story/Scandal of 2005
Boston Sports Media Watch 