The Red Sox are back in first place in the AL East following a 13-2 win over the Texas Rangers last night. Couple that with a Yankees loss to the Oakland A’s, and the Red Sox have a one-game lead in the division.
A real diamond sparkler – Bob Ryan has the Red Sox answering any questions people had about whether they can beat the Rangers.
With hot combo, Sox can’t go wrong – Joe McDonald has both Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford showing off all their skills last night.
A reminder regarding the importance of Carl Crawford – Rob Bradford says that last night showed what a big piece to the puzzle Crawford can be when he is on his game.
Homers go a long way for Red Sox – John Tomase looks at the Red Sox home run derby in Texas last night.
Changing His Stripes – Christopher Smith chats with Red Sox first round pick Matt Barnes, who grew up a Yankees fan.
John Henry downplays talk of Theo Epstein joining the Cubs – Tomase has the Red Sox owner releasing a statement on the rumors of the Cubs interest in the Red Sox GM.
1-2-3 Inning: Alfredo Aceves – Jessica Camerato takes a few minutes with the Red Sox reliever.
Doubleheader in forecast? – Peter Abraham’s notebook has the Red Sox pondering a double-header with the A’s in advance of the potential hurricane on Sunday. The Herald notebook from Scott Lauber has former teammates Adrian Gonzalez and Michael Young battling it out for the batting title. The Red Sox Journal has Andrew Miller feeling good going into tonight’s start. The CSNNE.com notes from Sean McAdam look at the return of David Ortiz to the lineup.
Tom Brady quick to pick up pace – Karen Guregian looks at the importance of a quick tempo by the Patriots QB and offense. More on Brady from Shalise Manza Young | Mark Farinella | Chris Forsberg | A. Sherrod Blakely | Paul Kenyon
Caserio indicates trade winds could blow – Tom E Curran says that the Patriots might have some trades in their future.
Because he’s the best, in Belichick we all trust – Bill Reynolds says that the Patriots coach’s knowledge is his power.
Belichick views players’ growth from first to second season as a potential leap year – Glen Farley looks at the development of players coming off their rookie season.
Living on the edge: Rookie free agents have odds stacked against them this year – Christopher Price notes that an undrafted guy like Jeremy Ross will face long odds to make the team this year.
Albert Haynesworth OK by old coaches – Guregian’s notebook has former Titans assistants Jim Schwartz and Gunther Cunningham speaking highly of Haynesworth. The Globe notebook from Julian Benbow has Taylor Price eager to get back to game action. The Patriots Journal has more on possible trades.
Summer is short but sweet – Fluto Shinzawa has Nathan Horton and the Bruins ready to start camp in a few weeks. Tom Layman has Horton saying that his concussion symptoms are gone. DJ Bean has more on Horton.
Get Your Barf Bags Ready—The Matt Cooke Redemption Press Assault Has Commenced – Rear Admiral on Barstool Sports has the despicable Penguins forward trying to line up sympathy for his cheap shots. (Warning – adult language.)
In defense of Jeff Green – Paul Flannery looks to make a case for the Celtics forward.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
It was a valiant effort by the Red Sox over the past two nights to score 25 runs and such, but because the current Boston Sports Pundit Truth Matrix requires them to be unable to beat the Rangers, especially on the road, the past two victories have been stricken by MLB and replaced with a pair of 8-1 Ranger wins. Also, Carl Crawford and Darnell McDonald have had their statistics for the week changed/downgraded to "worst signing in baseball history" and "why's he still on the team?", respectively.
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Tony Mazz is back at it again today screaming about "people" are discounting the Yankees because they are old. I repeat, whose discounting them? Obviously, there is never going to be a consensus aka 100% of the population that agree on anything, but Tony just doesn't get it. Everything I hear has people around this area being critical of the Sox, not discounting the Yankees. Tony can read George Cain's article here and reassess his statement. If anything, people around this area are not discounting the Yanks, but are concerned about the potential postseason matchup with Texas/Detroit and the looming Wilson or Verlander first game. Sox fans are more concerned with the health of their own team, not the Yankees. If Tony knew anything, he would know that Sox wins wouldn't be couting out the Yanks while Youk, Ortiz, Ells were all out last week. He's such a Putz.
*Why does he still seem to think that Boston Accent Voice is funny? I don't hear New Yorkers hosts mocking the New York accent?*
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I think the people Mazz is talking about are just the voices in his head.
Why would any Red Sox fan who knows anything about baseball discount the Yankees? They still have something like a $150M payroll, don't they? I know the Sox got all of the offseason attention with their spending spree, but Hank's boys are still a pretty well-paid and talented bunch, too. I've been concerned about the Yankees all season long, so I know I'm not one of those "people" that Mazz is talking about.
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It just drives me insane because he speaks in generalities and makes blanket statements about all fans.
I'm betting Felger go on his Jets rant…. "All you people said the Jets were going to be in cap jail" blah blah soon.
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A couple of items:
1) Continuing with Winning's point on Maz, Maz was at his condescending best today when he was telling us all the Red Sox are not a guarantee to win the World Series. I'm still trying to find out who has made this claim. Maz then came up with this moment of Zen, "If the Red Sox play like crap they are not going to win." No &#!+ Sherlock.
2) For a few moments today, I was in bizarro world. Hardy, who I usually enjoy, was doing the usual BSM blathering about how Bill Belichick has such disrespect for the media and the fans are fed up with it. This came about because Bert Breer tried about ten different ways to get Belichick to talk about Albert Haynesworth. Breer was just doing his job but you would think after three tries he would get a hint. Belichick answered most of the questions by saying, "He's done what we asked of him." Hardy wants to know what type of person Haynesworth is. Is he a good guy in the locker room? Did his return have anything to do with his plea agreement? Why is he not practicing? Here is what Hardy and others still do not have a clue when it comes to Belichick. If the media wants to talk football with Belichick, then he will give a ton of info, some of it pretty interesting like Belichick believing it is time to get rid of the extra point. If you want to talk about personalities or injuries you will get nothing. Why? because Belichick will always protect the player and the organization. Here are two great examples why he does not do this.
The first one comes from the fearless leader of this blog, Bruce Allen. In 2008 Giants defensive end, Usi Umenyiora suffered a knee injury during a game. Giants coach, Tom Coughlin stated that there was no ligament damage and the injury was not that serious. The next day an MRI did show no ligament damage but there was significant cartilage damage and Umenyiora missed the season. Whoops. Here is post from Bruce. http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/2008/08/sox-go-t…
The second example is the 2008 Boston Celtics and how they handled the Kevin Garnett knee injury. Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers constantly gave conflicting reports on Garnett's knee injury. Ainge would say Garnett was going to come back soon while Rivers would say Garnett is not running well and is far off. The media had a field day with noted orthopedist, Michael Felger saying that Garnett does not like to play in pain and that the injury is not serious. In the end the injury was pretty significant. The voice of reason in all of this was Gresh. Let that sync in for a moment, Gresh.
3) Mike Flanagan was a native of Manchester, NH so his story is on the far periphery of the BSM. As all of us are aware Flanagan tragically died from committing suicide at his home near Baltimore. Ridiculously, WBAL TV in Baltimore reported that the reason for Flanagan's suicide was he was distraught over the way the organization had performed while he was in management and he was not allowed to run the organization the way he wanted to. I never bought it the moment I heard it. Today it was announced that Flanagan was suffering from financial issues. I would hope that someone in the Baltimore area calls out WBAL for horrendous journalism.
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In re: #3, Mazz was going off about the whole thing on the Baseball Show. Why is it that it's /either/ depression *or* society sucking (for famous people, is I think what some of the callers were getting at), and not some of /both/? (Because I guess that makes for boring radio. Oh, well.)
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Neat points MandB…as usual…
re 2) Bert Breer is a moron. That might not be strong enough condemnation of him. He embodies the Peter Principle rising to the highest level of incompetency he can. There is clearly no respect from Belichick for Breer. Breer asked the Haynesworth questions knowing he was going to get stonewalled. He continued for no newsworthy purpose other than to become part of the story. He brings nothing to the table.
re 3) Mike Flanagan feeling his world was so out of control that he felt his only option was to kill himself splashes a huge amount of reality into all of our faces. The Baltimore media did a lousy job covering the story as it broke. In his defense the afore mentioned Tony Mazz, I thought, did a pretty good job pointing out that behind the salaries and fame there are actual people with actual problems. Sometimes that gets lost.
4) I take a lot of shots at Michael Holley. I want to be fair to him. Today in the 4:00 hour he actually told an inside story about the Patriots. It was about his binky Ellis Hobbs when he was a rookie and how he was treated after he let Dante Stallworth beat him on a 70 yard play in an exhibition game. His crime was telling the media he would have done it again and stallworth just made a great play. His punishment was two weeks of missing the media portion of lockerroom time by sitting in his car. It is the type of inside info he should be freely shared by Holley regularly. It was the first time in 5 years I have ever heard his tell an "inside" story on the Pats.
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Thanks Late, you are right about Breer, it was a look at me moment if there ever was one. I did not hear Maz speak about Flanagan but am glad he took the tact he took.
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He did it during the Baseball show about 20 minutes in. Lately I have been blowing so hot and cold on Mazz. I think his work with Felger is embarrassing, but I also think they sit down with the producers and program director and map out positions and tenor ahead of time and Mazz is stuck in a role. Then at 6:00 the Baseball reporters show rolls around and every night a switch is flipped and he becomes a different guy, well researched, interesting opinions, reasoned arguments. It is very difficult to understand why he can't be the same guy on both shows…until you factor in Felger and how he really does bring out the worst in everyone he works with.
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"Late, if you were in front of me I would kiss you on the lips." I mentioned this awhile ago. Mazz has become Jekyll/Hyde between the two shows. And I think you have stated the reason. My bet is Mazz's position is to be Felgers toadie, agreeing with the him frequently, and pumping his tires. The 1 hour of independence is great radio, and is what Mazz is clearly capable of. Now I don't always agree with his premises during that hour, but it is a well constructed show and provides great insight.
My feeling is that TSH program directors saw how WEEI failed their listeners: Played to the hometown teams, never criticized, talked over calls, instilled their will on the airwaves. TSH naturally went on the other end of the specturm. Heaviliy attacking hometown teams, allows callers to voice opinions (although hanging up more often, especially on F&M because "your cell-phone sucks") and taking the role of the Anti-EEI. I feel this mentality has locked in its hosts to certain roles, where not all said hosts excell in filling them. Breakdown:
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Very good points.
Regarding the treatment of injuries, there is a famous clip of when Mike Ditka was coaching the Saints, I believe, where a reporter asks him about a player who was injured during the game. Ditka was in one of his very ticked-off moods and he just yelled, "talk to the trainer!" at the reporter and then moved on to the next question. Really now, is that what Pats fans want from their head coach regarding injuries? Talk to the trainer!!! And when the guy goes and talks to the trainer, who is a medical professional but NOT a doctor, maybe the trainer goes ahead and gives a very preliminary diagnosis of the injury that could, like Umenyiora's injury, turn out to be much worse than originally thought. Personally, I prefer BB's methods, but I know I'm a biased "fanboy" who thinks that BB eats grapes and then excretes sweet-tasting wine a day later; at least that's what guys like Felger, Mazz and Borges think about me anyway.
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Nearly all of sports radio and sports "opinion" shows on TV are absolutely worthless – for any nugget of information you get out of it, you have to put up with the remaining hours of BS.
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