Adrian Gonzalez hit a pair of home runs last night, as the Red Sox beat the Texas Rangers 11-5 last night.

Sox snap out of funk, beat Rangers, 11-5 – Sean McAdam is in the leadoff spot for the CSNNE.com game story.

Red Sox ready to round into form – Joe McDonald has the Boston bats returning to the lineup, and hopefully to form.

The three players who might carry the Red Sox to where they want to go – Rob Bradford says that Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Jon Lester will need to carry the Red Sox.

Lackey proves cool in the heat – Michael Vega has the Sox starter enjoying heat of his home state, John Tomase thinks that you can pencil in Lackey as your game three playoff starter.

Expansion of roster will give Sox a boost – Tim Britton looks at what help the Sox can expect on September 1st.

Ryan Lavarnway glad to be unknown commodity – Tomase has the Sox rookie trying to sneak up on people.

Ortiz gets medical clearance – Peter Abraham’s notebook has the Sox DH expected back in the lineup tonight. The Herald notebook from Scott Lauber has more on Ortiz’s return. The Red Sox Journal has Darnell McDonald finding his hitting stroke. The CSNNE.com notes from Sean McAdam have Gonzalez ending his home run drought.

Patriots hope Albert Haynesworth’s return permanent – Ian Rapoport says that Haynesworth’s “clean start” officially began yesterday. Rich Garven believes that Haynesworth’s delay in getting on the field “has placed him in a hole that may prove impossible to dig out of.”

Patriots face more tough decisions than usual with roster cut-downs looming – Paul Kenyon says that it will be tough to cut this Patriots roster down.

Former busboy Koutouvides takes blue-collar approach to role with the Patriots – Glen Farley has the Connecticut native hoping to carve out a spot on the Patriots roster.

Hard for new guys to grasp Patriots passing attack – Christopher Price says that there are good reasons that Chad Ochicinco has struggled at times this preseason.

Breaking down the ‘other’ teams in the AFC East – Jonathan Comey looks at the competition within the division.

Chad Ochocinco takes it all in – Rapoport’s notebook has the receiver reviewing as much game film as he can get his hands on. The Gatehouse notebook from Glen Farley has Jerod Mayo looking at some role changes. The Globe notebook from Monique Walker has more on Haynesworth returning to practice as does the Patriots Journal.

If you missed it yesterday, Gregg Easterbrook had this to say about the Patriots:

Here’s the deal: The New England Patriots have not won a playoff game since Spygate broke. Bill Belichick continues to refuse to say, “I cheated and I apologize.” Until he does, the football gods will torment this team by allowing the Patriots to play very well during the regular season, then denying them in money time.

When informed that the Patriots won two playoff games against Jacksonville and San Diego to get to the Super Bowl, Easterbrook responded to an emailer – my feeling is the real spygate began with the NYTimes report on Matt Walsh two days before the NE-NY super bowl.

How weird is that? So what happened in earlier in the season when the Patriots were actually punished for Spygate? That wasn’t the ‘real’ Spygate? What the hell was it, then? And if you recall, Matt Walsh brought absolutely nothing to the table when questioned by NFL officials, and the Tomase report of the practice taping (also just before the Super Bowl) was later retracted by the Herald and apologized for. Easterbrook here is just making stuff up and trying to be clever with the whole “football gods” thing.

Just prior to the above paragraph, Easterbrook had written:

It was the second consecutive year New England had been fabulous in the  regular season, then looked awful at home in the postseason.

The 2009 Patriots (10-6) were not fabulous in any sense of the word. The  loss to the Ravens, while shocking in how it happened, was not really surprising in the actual result, especially in hindsight. That team had issues. But it fits Easterbrook’s “football gods” theme, so he’ll go with it.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that a writer with a national football column should be interested in things like accuracy.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

29 thoughts on “Gonzalez, Sox Break Out Against Rangers, Easterbrook Rant”

  1. When I see garbage like this from Easterbrook it makes me appreciate Reiss even more. He informs and entertains but gives his audience enough substance to form their own opinions.

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  2. Naturally, you wouldn't have to search more than thirty seconds to find innumerable Spygate blurbs written by Herr Gregg pre-Walsh. I would guess those would leave you with the impression that the 'real' Spygate had already begun.

    He should stick to pissing and moaning about SUV's, or something.

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  3. I really can't believe that Gregggg is still pushing this Spygate nonsense. And now, apparently, Belichick "not apologizing" for it is the problem? I guess that's an admission from Greggggg that the whole thing, as confirmed by several former NFL head coaches, was a big overblown bunch of nothing to begin with. So now he has to harp on the fact that Belichick never "apologized for cheating." Unreal….I think BB will apologize for "cheating" right after Al Davis does, and right after the dozens of other coaches who did far worse things during their careers do (and after Denver's franchise administrators apologize for their salary cap cheating during the 90s–they got caught TWICE, by the way). What an imbecile. I haven't read a word the idiot has written since his "Patriots Evil/Colts Angels" article prior to the 2007 regular season game between the two teams; and now I remember why. God, would I love to see BB and the Pats win about three more Lombardis with Brady at QB–maybe that will finally shut up media morons like Gregggggg.

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  4. Not so Random Observations…

    1) As I said yesterday…Easterbrook is an anti-semite as such I don't read him or consider any opinion he has.

    2) So it looks like Albert Haynesworth is going to make the team. Further it looks like he is in shape, buying into the program, and by all accounts working hard to resurrect his rep. I am not saying he is a choir boy. I am saying that the speculation/reporting done by a lot of the non- beat writers…has ranged from uninformed to absolutely atrocious. Having said that Reiss, Curran, Rappaport, Gueregian were all pretty even keeled. They all saw what was happening and figured the Pats were quietly getting him into shape physically and mentally (the trial)…rather than risking his health before they had to. We will never know how much of an issue the trial was and how heavy it was weighing on him, but now that it is over and he is back at practice is a pretty amazing coincidence.

    3) Yesterday's conversation on 98.5 concerning the Mayan Calendar and Mike Felger's seemingly actual belief that "something is going on" and "that these people 2000 years ago predicted it" might have been the dumbest conversation I have ever heard on a sports radio station. I kept flipping in and then out because he was still espousing a position that defies logic if you are at all educated. I already have issues with his 'schtick" but I respect how he has turned "DBism" into a hugely marketable and salable commodity. However if he really believes an earthquake in North Carolina on a fault line no less is part of some cosmic plan deciphered 2000 years ago by a tribal people who also believe that their bodies were composed of maize, then I fear for his kids. I lost a lot of respect for Felger and his intelligence (or as I think lack thereof) in that conversation.

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    1. Do you honestly think Felger believes this? I thought it was abundantly clear by his tone that he was playing a role here. He does it all the time with the natural disaster stuff.

      You say you don't like Felger's schtick so I assume you don't listen to the show much. Anyone who does knows this is just part of the schtick. Personally, I caught the show from 5-6 and was laughing the entire ride home, which I think was pretty much the point.

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      1. Felger believed that Tom Brady had to "get on his knees and beg" for a new contract so anything's possible with him.

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        1. So wait. At least three or more people don't think that Felger's credibility is suspect (if not shot) because of his comments about Brady in his contract (and other asinine comments he's made about the Pats)?

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      2. I listen to F&M regularly because I have a 90 minute commute 3 days a week. I don't like his schtick because it comes off as disingenuous. When I listened yesterday…i did not get the feeling he thought it was hooey. If he had the segment would have died in three minutes. The fact that it went on for arguably the worst 45 minutes in Boston Sports Radio this year is a testament to his stupidity and the amount of respect I lost for him. If you are laughing at him…great…you are proving my point. If you thought you were laughing with him…then you missed his point entirely.

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        1. Not so sure I'm the one that missed the point. I have a feeling if you went out for a beer with him and had a discussion about the Mayan calendar he would laugh at it too. It's part of his radio personality. I'm sure you have heard him with the "end of the world" scenarios, like the asteroid hitting the Earth or the solar flares. Do you really think he lies awake at night worrying about these things, or do you think perhaps this is part of his radio schtick? I think it's pretty obvious.

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          1. Not the first time I've heard about 'having schticks', or 'playing roles', as if we were talking about a production at the summer playhouse, and not people talking about sports. I'd be interested to hear why such schticks and roles are necessary in the first place.

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          2. All the world's a stage dude. It's entertainment. Low grade schlock, but entertainment and these guys don't work at CERN. Why waste the time if it's so irritating. Plenty of other things in life.

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          3. You missed the point…they wasted precious air time on something so dumb it was mind numbing. I guess there was nothing better to talk about with Haynesworth and Woodhead back, the Sox losing in Texas again, Sid Crosby still feeling the effects of the concussion a year later and still no basketball. This is the radio station that prided itself on talking sports in the afternoon and not being Big Show lite. As I said…if it had been a 5 minute pass off coming into or going out of a break fine…for it to be a whole afternoon discussion…awful.

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    2. In regards to paragraph 2 – someone pointed out to Mike that although the Mayans could see 2000 years into the future – they couldn't see the Spaniards coming to take them out.

      And Tony just yells and does his Boston Accent Guy voice.

      And we all sold some Slingboxes

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      1. Well… that's probably because the Spaniards didn't really take the Mayans out. The Mayan civilization had collapsed (probably due to agricultural failure) way before the Spaniards arrived. When the conquistadors showed up, the Mayans who were left were basically just a bunch of large settlements in the Yucatan/Guatemala area.

        They fought like the dickens, though. Spaniards had a lot of problems with them.

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  6. Easterbrook.

    Ten to twelve years ago — i.e. pre Jewgate — Easterbrook's TMQ columns were a must-read. He's a very bright guy, and has interesting things to say on a lot of things. For a non-industry person, he's got a surprisingly sharp football mind, too.

    Today, though… he's still a bright guy, and he's still got some interesting things to say, but a lot of what he writes is just the same old broken-record stuff he harps on constantly even when there's evidence (sometimes elaborate evidence) to the contrary, mixed in with his increasingly shrill politico-social rants. And the turning point was Spygate. His columns on Spygate were, quite literally, the rantings of a lunatic. I don't know what snapped in him, but something did. And he hasn't been the same since.

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    1. Dave, a good friend of mine worked with Easterbrook at the Brookings Institute when ESPN first hired him. He's really not a bright guy and was not respected by his peers. The feeling my friend got about him is that his main quality was he was/is a self-promoter who had a huge ego who lacks(ed) true intellect. Definitely was not liked at Brookings and the grudging respect he got was for overcoming his weak brain to become famous.

      Any schmuck can write something outrageous and get attention (see Barstool) but I don't remember getting insight from him and never got his so-called wit. Maybe he writes some good stuff but it's not worth it to wade through the rest of his cesspool of knowledge.

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  7. How could the Red Sox have won last night? Tony Mazz has spent the last two days telling me what trouble they are in. There's no way that really happened.

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  8. Someone credible, and national, needs to write the definitive spygate piece and put this thing to bed. It stands as the single most overblown story in the history of sports media. There is no close second.

    Re: Easteregg… For someone so obsessed with spygate, you’d think he’d know more about it. What a moron.

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      2. Just as soon as Erick Mangini writes a book about how his camera guys were kicked out of Gillette for filming BB's signals the previous year.

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  9. Easterbrook got a second chance when he was accused of anti-semitism in 2003, but he can't let go of spygate. Not too much of a hypocrit, is he? He used to be appointment reading each week, but he hasn't been relevant in many years.

    I miss Dr. Z's columns the most.

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  10. Bruce great points about Easterbrook. Truthfully the 11-5 team that didn't make the postseason, without Brady, was much better than the 10-6 team that lost to the Ravens. Last year was a huge let down for fans, and gives everyone reason to question their methods and not anoint them right away this year…..BUT it has nothing to do with spygate. That's pathetic.

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  11. Easterbrook is a huge tool. Someone should ask him if he's still chastising the Boston sports world for "running" oh poor lil' Manny out of town while at the same time gloating he was now a Dodger.
    Funny how that worked out.

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  12. You know the Easterbrook story gets even more ridiculous as time goes by. I was reminded this morning by an article that I read–I believe on NESN.com–that Kraft and Belichick BOTH apologized to the assembled masses of NFL executives at the 2008 league meetings held about a month after the Super Bowl disaster against the Giants. Kraft's apology even brought tears to the eyes of some in the room. Belichick's, I'm sure, was more succinct and less emotional, but the fact is that reports at the time had both of them apologizing. So…either Easterbrook is ignoring this fact, doesn't know about it, or is ticked off that BB never apologized to the most important people in the world in his eyes: the media.

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      1. Ah. Thank you.

        (Shafer is lame. Or rather, I appreciate his distinction between an anti-Semitic act and consistent anti-Semitism, but I since he's basically saying "He's my friend so he can't be Anti-Semitic," he is, as I say, lame.)

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