It’s not a great time for quality Boston sports writing and talk. The Red Sox are just getting going, so all we’ve got are the usual spring training profiles, any Patriots article these days is bound to be laced with snark and doom, the Celtics are just coming off a West coast road trip where most of the writers didn’t go with them, and the Bruins are off until after the Olympics.
Here’s what we find this morning:
Set up to go long? – I went back and forth on this Albert Breer piece about the Patriots applying the franchise tag to Vince Wilfork. Breer is a top-notch football reporter and writer, but has the annoying habit of sometimes talking down to his readers. There is a little of that in here. I like the overall points he’s trying to make, but his manner is a bit off-putting – spare everyone the “He’s got 7.003 million reasons not to complain.’’
Tag ordeal might have happy ending – Karen Guregian has a more optimistic view of the situation.
Randolph armed, ready for NFL – Jennifer Toland with a nice piece on Holy Cross QB Dominic Randolph, who has gotten plenty of looks from NFL scouts, and who many feel has a good shot at landing with an NFL team.
Patriots Have No 2007 Draft Regrets Thanks to Randy Moss and Wes Welker – continuing his series, Jeff Howe takes a pick-by-pick look at the 2007 draft for the Patriots. Judging by the number of clicks the first two part of this installment have gotten, Howe is doing a good job looking at the Patriots draft record without the hysterics used by others in town.
Bird-Magic documentary on HBO is a winner – Jim Fenton gives his take on the new HBO documentary Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals which screened last night at TD Garden.
Kid stuff high on Doc Rivers’ list – Mark Murphy has a really good feature on how Doc Rivers and his wife balance out keeping up with their four children, plus another that they have guardianship over, while living in two different states.
Celtics’ (re)starting 5 – Steve Bulpett tells us the keys to the stretch run for the Celtics.
The Celtics prepare to add Nate Robinson to the mix – A. Sherrod Blakely with a look at Nate Robinson getting set for his Celtics debut tonight.
Crossroads moment for Ortiz: Past and future loom over slugger – More and more I’m coming to the realization that if I just want to read one baseball writer in town, it’s Alex Speier. There were at least six or seven articles on Ortiz in the morning papers, and Speier has the best and most informative. Again.
Cameron gets the star treatment; Beltre talks about the Fenway turf – Daniel Barbarisi’s extensive Red Sox Journal covers a number of topics from camp yesterday.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
My one quibble with the Howe pieces on the draft is he is a little over the top in his praise at times. Mayo has the potential to be the best defensive player in football? That seems like a stretch.
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But… but… the Howe pieces are completely ignoring the cold, harsh reality that the Patriots will struggle to finish better than -4-20 next year unless they go out and sign every good linebacker born since 1942 for $400m a season each!
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you really think Breer is “top notch”?…..I admit I don’t read his columns much but in my opinion his blog seems to have too much of that “smart ass attitude” and as you said his habit of “talking down to the readers”….puts him in the bottom notch to me.
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I read most of his stuff and I don’t think he’s quite the same guy he was during his first term around here (before he went to Dallas. I sense a smugness now at times that I don’t seem to recall before. I think, skills-wise, he’s still a very good writer, but I find myself resenting what at times seems to be an air of superiority in his work.
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Jackson, my thoughts exactly. When he was at the Herald he was part of a blogging duo (the other guy was THE idiot) and he seemed to write with common sense. I even read some of his stuff in Dallas and he was good.
Now, he’s writing with some CHB attitude and I don’t think he’s lost his talent I just think the sports section of the Globe is all about controversy. Just think about how Gaspar’s writing has gone downhill since Reiss left. I hate “attitude” in sportswriters and that’s the Globe. I’d like to believe it’s got a lot to do with the sport editor.
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