A hell of a nice guy, from most accounts.
Cafardo begin his career in Brockton in 1975 before moving to the Quincy Patriot Ledger in 1981. In 1989 he joined the Boston Globe sports staff.
Cafardo has covered both the Red Sox and Patriots during his tenure at the Globe, but his heart is clearly with baseball. During his time on the Patriots beat he was clearly frustrated with the working environment and it reflected in his coverage of the team. Having moved back to baseball, he’s noticeably more confortable and in his element.
He was a frequent presence on the various NESN programs, and in the past was in demand on WWZN radio, ESPN Radio and WBZ-TV’s Sports Final.
He is the author of several books, including The Impossible Team: The Worst to First Patriot’s Super Bowl Season
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Boston Sports Media Watch 
I get Bills notes from Nick. APPROVE!!!
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“Do you smell that too?”
“No, Nick. I don’t.”
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Actual quote from the photographer that took that photo?
“A six hour shoot and THAT was the best shot. (deep, heart-wrenching sigh)”
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i wish i could mail in this vote like Cafardo does with his Sunday notes column. has a mancrush on JP Riccardi and the Poston bros.
disapprove
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Has no more than five names in his rolodex.
Never covered the Bruins for a full season.
“Disapprove!”
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Never lets the facts get in the way of his sweaty man love for certain sports figures willing to chat him up….noted water carrier for Roger Clemens…prays nightly for Tom Donahoe’s employment prospects…currently carrying six live salmon in his neck pouch… enjoys writing about contracts and money… frequently looks and writes dyspeptic…balding, gunty…hates the NFL’s cut-throat player relations practices…looks like a 1970s era member of the Pro Bowlers Association…pasty
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He has no home. Horrible at football, in love with Donahoe and Bledsoe. Bad at baseball, in love with Trot and Roger, JP.
Jackass of all trades, master on none. Disapprove.
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He’s a Friend of the Guntfather. Approve!!!
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Laziest and hackiest writer at the Globe. Ignorant of any changes to happen in baseball in the last 25 years, and that’s the sport he likes. Beyond horrible football writer. Solid disapprove, don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything in my life.
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Nick, Sep 2003:
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team do so much to help a competing team within the division get so good so fast. The Bills were in ashes just two years ago. The trade to Buffalo of Bledsoe, sparked their offense. Their offseason moves to revamp their defense has worked well, and taking Milloy away from the Patriots has made them a worthy contender. We don’t even know what Willis McGahee can do yet. It didn’t take long thanks to a little help from the Patriots.”
The Bills proceeded to go 20-28 before mercifully gassing Tom Donahoe (Nick “I’ve always felt Donahoe is the best at what he does in the league”) 3 years later.
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Wow…I guess I was a little too hasty on my ‘Approve.’ Is there an ‘Undo’ command here somewhere?
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Asked to be taken off the Patriots beat because he wasn’t being spoon-fed what he needed. Shows you all you need to know about Lazy ol’ Nick.
Did several years of regular appearance with Andelman on the Zone. That alone would earn a dissaprove. On the Zone, he had about three responses “Yeah..oh yeah”, “Sure”, and “Right.” Played along with Eddie’s antiquated schtick like a puppet.
His mailbag was legendary. It’s final few appearances nearly drove Nick to suicide with the deluge of negative emails that he got.
Still fondly remembers a Gillette stadium rat that nibbled some foot in the corner of the locker room. That rat gave him better copy than the rest of the organization.
Another tired old Globie that mails it in and whores himself out to any TV show that will have him. Cares not that the quality of his work is garbage, so long as the TV checks roll in.
Needs to come to grips with the fact that the last remaining strands of hair on the top of his head would look better on the barbershop floor. If Sarandis can give up the combover, anybody can. Weight flucuates somewhat, but the gobbler under his chin does not.
DISAPPROVE!!!
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May have to retire when Nixon hangs ’em up, Ricciardi is fired, and Clemens slinks off in disgrace. In other words, imminently.
Thumbs down.
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i spoke to old friend chad eaton before voting…
king of the mail in.
strongly disapprove.
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Former Bills GM Tom Donohoe is only one of the several NFL executives troubled by the recent revelations that the Patriots cheated their way to three world titles. Donohoe has retained high-powered Washington attorney Michael Levy as he considers his next move.
“I think its safe to say that I would have never traded a first round draft pick for Drew Bledsoe had I known he had been given the defensive signals ahead of time,” said a clearly disappointed Donohoe, who sees the game to which he he has given so much collapse around him. “I seriously thought all he needed was some good coaching – but it turns out his problems were much, much deeper than that.”
“And Lawyer Milloy – I wouldn’t have done that either. I realize the Patriots stole only defensive signals, but the confidence Lawyer had as a result of this completely maksed the fact that he couldn’t run or cover to save his life.”
The fact that the reclusive Donohoe is speaking out so openly now shows that the media is on the right track with Spygate. Until the Patriots answer to and apologize for each of the victories they falsly claimed from 2000 through last season, and compensate each of the rival executives who lost their jobs as a result of the Patriots nefarious methods, the story will not be over.
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This can’t be real, it’s too ridiculous.
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Even though Nick has been known to answer mail bag question from nonexistent cities all across the globe, I must DISAPPROVE! Nick likes baseball, but didn’t like the travel so he moved over to football, but he could never come to grips with the fact that football and baseball are different. He couldn’t hang out in the locker room for hours on end, and the head coach wasn’t inviting the media into his office. Now he’s back on the baseball beat, well the secondary baseball beat. He doesn’t seem to be really covering the Sox, except when Privates Benjamin is out on maneuvers, instead Nick talks with out-of-town GM’s and makes excuses for Roger Clemens. He may have enjoyed his job a few decades ago, but he certainly doesn’t now and it’s reflected in his work. Nick should retire, but he’s got nowhere else to go.
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Has a column entry entitled “Apropos of Nothing.” Is this something that you want me to read?
Almost miraculously, he manages to add neither insight nor incite.
He is the watercress in the newspaper sandwich.
His Sunday column has at least one of:
a factual error
a Clemens reference;
a Nixon update;
a slam at anyone using statistics developed after 1980.
He is conventional wisdom without the wisdom.
Ixnay.
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I love how the people who slam Cafardo for having a Clemens note every week are the same people who lavish praise on Kevin Paul Dupont, a guy who does the EXACT SAME THING with Joe Thornton and has his stupid nicknames.
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Dupont is irrelevant like hockey.
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When they unpack Nick from the mothballs and send him out for Spring Training if he sees his own shadow there will be six more weeks of winter at Morrissey Blvd.
Long after keeping the drugs out of Southie for all those years Will befriended a young Cafardo. He must have made the Globe promise to keep Nick around as a last favor.
Who got Will’s rolodex? Not Nick.
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Badly in need of a Globe buyout and some better glasses. Maybe suffering from Excessive Andelman Exposure, a syndrome where a sports reporter slowly enters a state where other teams and ex-local players always seem more appealing to cover than the more successful local teams. This condition eventually led to total career implosion of Ron Borges.
If, as alleged above, he’s a good guy, I hope he can find something that he actually seems to enjoy doing as this doesn’t seem to be it.
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Terrible, terrible, lazy hack, who will let his suck-up-ness for his sources (Donahoe, Bledsoe) completely color his “writing”. His books are terrible, too. Consider how he inserted a long pro-Bledsoe, anti-BB rant out of nowhere into the middle of his Pats book.
I can’t see how any of you can do anything other than DISAPPROVE this jerk.
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Jackass of all trades! Yes!
Complete hack – Hates Hockey
Should move to Buffalo and cover the Bills
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Strong Disapprove, Cafardo is the type of writer that longs for the 50’s. He hasn’t come to grips with the changes in the media landscape and it shows. His writing is devoid of flair, insight and passion. He lets his personal opinion seep into his prose, and his predictions and analysis are Stearnsish in their accuracy. He’s bad at his job and it really shows.
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Disapprove. I haven’t enjoyed reading his baseball notes column for awhile now and he seems to be lazy and without a lot of contacts. I agree w/ Rotillo…this guys is badly in need of the Globe buyout..
Bruce…I know he’s been off WEEI for awhile now, but can we vote on Ted Sarandis at some point just for the fun of it? I’d love to see the reaction…
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Ok, so we all seem to be in agreement that he’s a hack’s hack, so why is the vote pretty much split? Approvers, show yourselves!
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He is equally awful at every sport he covers. Once he gets a source on the team he covers, he protects that player to the end of the earth, regardless of what that athlete has done. See Terry Glenn, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, etc.
What I believe defines his career is the time,about eight yaers ago, when the Pats were about to play the Cardinals at Sun Devil Stadium. He wrote a gushing story about Tedy Bruschi’s return to his alma mater, Arizona State, and how wonderful it was going to be for Tedy to go home and see old friends. The only problem was that Tedy went to the University of Arizona, and it is safe to say Tedy despises Arizona State, which he affectionately to as the “Scum Devils”.
If you read his stories closely there are constant inaccuracies. I also believe he is not above making up a quote or a source to suit the needs of the story.
Just a bad, lazy, reporter.
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Approved just to be a contrarian.
Let me know when you get to Smerlas, CHB, and the Giant Forehead!
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Wow, I was going to vote Disapprove, but after reading all of the nasty things said about Carfado here, I may have to change my mind out of sympathy.
Nah…he sucks.
I think he’s just mailing it in until Donahoe gets hired as GM for some other NFL team and brings Nick along as the team’s PR guy.
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There’ll always be a place for Nick at The Toronto Star!
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More from the photographer…
“I lost my voice screaming, “Smile!…I said SMILE!” After two hours of that he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I am smiling.”
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Very tired, very uninterested. Basically playing out the string like a union state worker. Not worthy of an APPROVE or the passion needed to DISAPPROVE.
In honor of Nick we need a third choice in this poll, one that reads “don’t give a sheet”.
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Nick’s Sunday baseball column review:
— Mention of Roger Clemens and/or his agent? Check.
— Mention of Toronto Blue Jays and/or their GM? Check.
— Mention of Trot Nixon (typed somehow through tear-swollen eyes)? Check.
He’s probably a nice guy and someone who’s a great neighbor, but in his chosen field at this stage of his career he’s just plain b-a-d. A major disapprove at this address.
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Seems to be hedging his bets by stroking Kenny Williams along with JP. If one of them gets canned he still has the other as unnamed “American League General Manager/Front Office Executive” source. Has the distiction of being both the worst Baseball Notes and Football Notes writer of the last 15 years.
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No one does less with more
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The only time I’ve ever bought a book, read it, and then returned it for a full refund was with Nick Cafardo’s book about the Patroits and their first Super Bowl-winning season. I expected the beat reporter for the team to bring something new to the table, something that I (as an avid fan who’d followed the team the entire season) hadn’t read before. Unfortunately, it was the WORST example of exploiting a team’s success for commercail profitability that I’ve ever seen: It consisted of snippets from all of his Globe stories throughout the season, and added NOTHING new–no additional insights, no locker room anecdotes. How can a guy who’s supposedly been around the team all year have NOTHING else to add that I hadn’t already read in the newspaper during the season?
Major disapprove…
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He has covered the Red Sox and Patriots for all or part of their 2001,2003,2004 and 2007 Championship seasons .. he was around those teams every week, multiple times a week.
Name one story he broke. Name one story he wrote that was mildly interesting – and no shoehorning a Clemens reference into everything doesn’t count.
He’s basically a non-entity.
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The question is: Why was he ever given the Baseball Notes column over Edes in the first place? That column used to be the standard for American sportswriting; now it’s the standard for suckitude.
Two-hundred-fifty-whatever “approves”? As far as I’m concerned, that’s 250 votes from those who don’t know what good writing looks like…or 250 votes from Cafardo himself. Oh wait, that’s the same thing…
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Lazy, clueless hack.
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A lazy hack that tries very hard to be superior and smug. That’s the important thing to Nicky. Writes the same 4 things every week. He is one of the reasons I canceled the Globe. Why pay for this clown to write nothing on a weekly basis? Another embarrassment in a long line of Boston Media jackals.
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Here’s the sad part: Nick is a world-class guy. I can genuinely say that he’s the nicest guy I’ve met among the Boston sports media and I’ve dealt with most of them. What’s most amazing is that he slams stats like defensive zone rating and range factor, but he attends functions for SABR!
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a lazy , boring, oaf…oh yeah, DISAPPROVE!
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Apros po of nothing:
Disapprove!
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Do we believe that the subjects of these polls come here to check them out and read the comments? The nature of the typical sports media hack would suggest that they do, which is a good thing. Our plan is working. Oh yeah…’Bwahahahahahahaha.’
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Not a big fan of Nick. The guy has done some major ballwashing over the years of former players. And his number 1 of all time Clemens in theory might have the smallest balls of them all. A baseball note section with value would be nice sometime as well.
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I feel like i lose an IQ point each time I read his column.
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This is one of those instances where I’m surprised by the extent of negative reviews. Although I can’t argue with much of this, I find Nick to be relatively benign. I know it’s a sad commentary on the state of local media when I’m voting thumbs up on a guy because he’s not doing any damage, but there it is.
My take on Nick; despite his biases, he reports facts and has a straight-forward writing style. He understands that he’s not the story. He does not engage in hateful, negative, agenda-driven reporting. Unlike Shaunessey or late-stage Borges, I will actually read his stuff when its a topic of interest. Not high standards I know, but there’s not much to choose from out there these days.
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A friend alerted me to your piece on the video tape story.I just finished reading it and in a word…..”BRILLIANT.”
I understand people will view me as pro-Belichik in this and that’s fine because I am.
Best regards,
Gil Santos
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My comment was meant for Bruce Allens piece and I have no clue how it ended up here.
I’m not in the business of judging other sportscasters or sportswriters.
I’m too busy trying to do my own job and don’t try to tell others how to do theirs.
Gil Santos
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Too much love for Roger Clemens and JP Ricciardi. Disapprove.
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Nick is the most boring TV reporter I have seen. He never offers new information and his columns are equallu innocuous.
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Early 90’s cut my wife and I off heading into an elavator to the skyboxes at Fenway. Missed the first few batters…..disapprove! Also, please go write a book about Tom Glavine, instead of putting him the column every Sunday.
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Looks like he needs a “press” card inserted onto his top hat…then he can ask FDR what he’ll do about Pearl Harbor.
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Borges-lite. Nuff said.
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