The Celtics provided a brief respite from the scopious Josh Beckett coverage with their thrilling 93-90 series-clinching win over the Atlanta Hawks at TD Garden. The post game coverage on CSNNE was thorough, but they still could not help themselves by incessantly teasing upcoming Beckett coverage on UNO Sports Tonight by popping Michael Felger up on the screen, hardly unable to contain his joy.

Of course, earlier in the day on his radio show, Felger was proposing at trade of Beckett and Kevin Youkilis to HIS Milwaukee Brewers. He’d love to have Beckett on his team, but just feels he’s all wrong for this team and this city. Right.

Get all the Celtics coverage over at CelticsLinks.com.

The Celtics have moved on to the second round of the playoffs, where they will face their historic rivals, the Philadelphia 76ers, who bumped off the top-seeded Chicago Bulls in their first round series. Game one is Saturday night.

The Patriots are holding rookie camp this weekend, and also finalized their coaching staff yesterday. Check for updates at PatriotsLinks.com.

A couple of media links for a Friday:

Jerry Trupiano’s son tries to get his father Astros job – Chad Finn (subscription now required) has the son of the former Red Sox radio voice lining up support from the likes of Joe Buck and Jim Nantz in an effort to get his dad back in an MLB play-by-play booth.

Media Roundup: Boston Red Sox Are Great … At Being Terrible – My SB Nation Boston column has the team’s struggles proving to be a gold mine for local sports talkers.

If you’re going to read one column on Josh Beckett and accountability, make it this one: On Accountability.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

23 thoughts on “Old Rivals Boston, Philadelphia To Meet In Eastern Semis”

  1. One quick thought on Felger’s trade Beckett to the Brewers comments.  His real point is the Sox need to trade Beckett somewhere where there is no notoriety, pressure or scrutiny and let him stew in a market that does not care.  As I was listening I was thinking that is all wrong…why give him what he wants.  I would trade him to Philly or the Mets if I could.  But as was pointed out several times yesterday, Beckett is a 10-5 guy…he is not going anywhere without his consent.  The sox owe him close to $50 mill (pro rate of the rest of this year + the remaining 2 years on his contract).  Why would he agree to go anywhere unless it is a perfect situation.

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    1. Because he’s probably sick of dealing with the Felgers of the world.

      You’re operating from a fallacy: that Josh Beckett really cares about his “situation” baseball-wise.  If he did, he’d be doing all the things we’re criticizing him for not doing, like “staying in shape” and “working to become better”.  But in reality, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is Beckett’s view of his baseball “situation” in various places:

      Bos:  Do what I want, get paid $15m
      Mil:   Do what I want, get paid $15m
      Fla:  Do what I want, get paid $15m
      Col:  Do what I want, get paid $15m

      (etc.)

      Why would he agree to a trade?  Why wouldn’t he?  He’s not from here, he doesn’t give any indication of liking it here, he’s getting booed, the press is all over him, he’s not winning a World Series here anytime soon, and he’s going to get his money whether he’s pitching here, Milwaukee, Denver, Houston, Patagonia, or Mars.   

      Broken Clock Massarotti is right in his column: the Sox had a chance to fix this last fall (as both you and I argued, by the way) by excising the cancer and trading him and, if possible, Lackey for whatever pennies on the dollar they could get.  Instead, they scapegoated the manager and made sure everyone knew he was a pill-popper soon-to-be-divorcee who had lost his team.  Good job, guys.

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      1. Yeah…silly me…even with all that is clearly going on I want to believe that a professional athlete, all professional athletes, have the desire and drive to succeed. My bad. You are right he does not care and apathy in this case is significantly worse than anything else.

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  2. I found it funny that even ESPN acknowledges what a disgrace Atlanta is for the NBA. With comments like “What fans? All the fans that go to the ‘highlight factory’ are for the other team?” and mocking the co-owner (being like one of the minority partners at FSV/NESN (whatever they’re called) speaking out about the Yankees. It is funny how bad that team is. They’re good for knocking out a 5-8 seed in the playoffs that doesn’t belong, that’s it. 

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  3. I would have loved to read that Chad Finn article, too bad it’s behind the pay wall.  I can’t justify paying for an online Boston Globe subscription, when its costs more then the Wall Street Journal online!

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    1. Sometimes if you google the title of an article behind a paywall, you can get a link to the full story.  Just saying. 

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  5. One thing on the media culpability here. A call into SportsHub around 2:50 puts this perfectly.

    Of course, the entire hour had been about Beckett.

    A guy calls in and goes, “I finally called into the Red Sox PR department and let them have it.”

    Felger, “Who did you talk to?”

    Caller, “Some kid in their PR department.”

    Felger, “Was his name Peter Gammons?”

    Caller, “I’m not sure who his name was”

    .

    Felger + Mazz addressed briefly the media perception.

    For folks who have never been out of this market (it seems like many here have lived elsewhere or know what its like outside), Peter Gammons is basically seen as one of the front office’s mouthpieces. Yeah, he’s got the HoF credentials, but beyond the BBWAA folks, its well known how bad he homers up to the team/players–which is perfectly in his right, but not a credible source if you want to find out what is really going on.

    I’d be interested to see how many writers now “turn” and start becoming sleuths on the team now.

    Also, interesting shot from today: http://pic.twitter.com/QkhyEwrl

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    1. I don’t dispute your interpretation of how Gammons is perceived, but I think the Felger/Mazz comments may have related to Gammons’ tweets dismissing the talk about dumping Beckett as “ludicrous”.

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  6. Felger has morphed full fledge into a more pathetic, repugnant, hypocritical version of Skip Bayless. Today he ripped Garnett saying he’s “full of crap” and got outplayed last year by Chris Bosh who is a scrub. It’s like when McAdams called him Mr Baseball and he almost cried on the radio. He just has no idea about anything in hoops so it’s character attacks and that’s the substance.

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    1.  I really don’t care that Felger hates basketball.  What bothers me is that he is ignorant regarding the sport, yet these yahoos at CSNNE continue to ask him his opinion about it. 

      Felger’s hypocrisy is ironic in that he stated the reason the Bruins lost to the Capitals is their “stars” did not perform.  Yet, here Garnett & Pierce, & Rondo (the Celtic’s stars) carry the team to victory and he criticizes Garnett for what happened LAST YEAR.   

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  7. Sigh….

    Remember when we thought that a second station would improve the quality of sports talk in this town?

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  8. If you guys hate Felger so much then don’t listen. Fanboy radio never works. If it did then Greg Dickerson would still be on the radio and not a sideline ho for the Celtics. 

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    1.  I won’t listen to his dumb radio show.  What I object to is his being on CSNNE and commenting on the Celtics a team he hates to the point that he cannot be objective regarding their performance. 

      I live in Alexandria, VA and they also have two radio sports stations.  In both those instances, the hosts are fans of the teams, yet they will not hesitate to criticize them when its needed.  Moreover, these shows don’t have an AGENDA, which Felger and his ilk do.  Sorry, but both stations in Boston have yet to learn that you can be a fan, yet still objective.

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  10. I’m very late to this Beckett party, but I’m old enough to remember a similar situation with a Red Sox pitcher from Texas taking place in 1988. Roger Clemens had been well-nigh unhittable for the first 4 months of that season, but Joe Morgan, if I recall correctly, left him out on the mound to throw something like 650,000 pitches over about 3 consecutive starts in July as the Sox were climbing back into the AL East race. In August, Clemens got pounded in a couple of starts and news of “back issues” began to come out in the media. He skipped a start, but was “caught” playing golf on an off-day and told the media, “it’s good for my back because it stretches it out.” Dr. Pappas was asked about it, and he said “I can buy what Roger’s saying about that.” That was basically the end of the “controversy”.

    I wonder how that story would play out today, because back then there was no WEEI, no Sports Hub, no local all-sports shows on cable TV late nights, and the only sports talk radio, really, was whatever shows the Red Sox flagship station had (usually hosted by Andelman).

    As for Beckett: it may be best for both parties for him to be dealt, but with his contract, that means that Henry and Co. will have to eat another $25 to $30 million, and I doubt they have the stomach for that right now.

    As for Felger: something tells me that he wouldn’t hate Beckett so much if he was from Pennsylvania or California, and had the crappy attitude he has. He may be “right” about Beckett at this point, but Felger’s still a fraud in my book, and always will be. 

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    1.  Two things.  Beckett does not equal Clemens…not even close and Beckett threw 126 pitches in April, not a ton over three games and not in August, and then played golf.  See the difference?

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      1. I have absolutely, positively no idea how you came to see my post as comparing Beckett to Clemens in any way. My point was to compare the eras, vis a vis the type of media coverage the golfing “incidents” received. I never compared Beckett to Clemens, or April to August, or pitch counts, or anything like that. I have no idea where that come from. I was comparing the media eras, basically, because the stories are, from a purely media standpoint, somewhat similar, because in each case you had an injured pitcher skipping a start and then playing golf right after the start was skipped.

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  11. So, on the people who are not fans of Felger, did you catch how fake/lame he is being forced to talk NBA/basketball on Sports Sunday last night? It looks like Lou Merloni talking anything but baseball. Most of the criticism here is fair, but I’d rather have them go host-less (Donnie Marshall/Cedric are great) on these segments.

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    1. Bruce R/T’d this from Ryan (now @ WEEI but I’m sure everyone remembers his great work here):

      Scal segment on CSNNE shows the caricature that Felger has become. Scal
      made him look every bit the talking head he is in terms of #Celtics

      Favorite moment was Scal’s skin turning into a shade of red no one knew existed during Felger’s rip job of KG. #Celtics

      His timeline is here:

      https://twitter.com/#!/R_Hadfield

      Couldn’t agree more.

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  12. So, at least the media (Globe, et. al. after lots of noise being made by others) outside the bubble here is now taking notice of the fraudulent sell-out streak.

    Peter King, in his MMQB piece this morning, which leads with stuff about Brady but then has some things about the Sox in his closing remarks:

    r. The Red Sox put waaaaay too much emphasis on this sellout streak
    (up to 729 straight games) at Fenway. It’s not worth it. And the scads
    of empty seats lets you know that, even if they get people to buy enough
    tickets and give away enough others to declare a sellout, it looks like
    a phony record if the tickets aren’t actually used.

    s.
    It’s obvious no one in the Red Sox organization has the stones to stand
    up to Josh Beckett. I covered the Giants for four years in the ’80s, and
    I saw coaches stand up to Lawrence Taylor. Insane that no one can say
    to Beckett: If you’re skipped in the rotation because of a sore back,
    you don’t go golfing. And if you do, be man enough to say you might have
    erred. But the real problem is that Beckett has always been the golden
    child with that team, and too many people in the organization are afraid
    of him. Sad.

    Link here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/05/14/mmqb/3.html

    When a football writer, who did spend a bit of time here and is a Red Sox fan, is using a nationally read and respected piece, you really might want to reconsider what you’re doing.

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    1. Peter King doesn’t know if a baseball is puffed or stuffed.  Taking his opinion on anything other than how Jerry Jones’ balls smell is a risky proposition. 

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