The Celtics/Miami series feels like it just ended (and still stings) and here we are at the start of another Celtics season. The Celtics hold their annual media day today, hold their first practice tomorrow, and then head to Turkey early next week.
Long-ago abuse, and years of repressing the memories, take toll on Dooling – Jessica Camerato has what should be an award-winning feature on recently retired Celtics guard Keyon Dooling, who was hospitalized this offseason after memories of abuse that had been repressed for years came flooding back to him. This really is an amazing story and work by Camerato.
Rebuilt Celtics take another shot at championship – Paul Flannery looks at how Danny Ainge rebuilt the Celtics in one offseason.
The Patriots head to Buffalo this weekend, and there is genuine concern locally that New England could lose its third game in a row, and fall to 1-3 on the season.
These Bills are ready for Patriots – Tedy Bruschi says that the Bills were built with an eye on beating the Patriots.
Bad time to space out – Matt Chatham says that the Bills creative ways of manufacturing space for their offense is something the Patriots need to be wary of.
Get all the Patriots coverage today and this weekend at Patriotslinks.com.
NESN’s Caron refused to spin bad Red Sox season – Chad Finn has the Red Sox TV host speaking candidly about the difficulties of covering an awful team.
Matt Chatham offers Patriots fans a different style – My SB Nation Boston media column looks at one of the newer ex-Patriots who are now working in the media.
UMass football radio analyst needs aspirin from day job – Bill Doyle looks at UMass football radio analyst Matt Goldstein, who manages a Walgreens when he’s not calling games.
Gorman and Golf are a Perfect Fit – John Molori talks to CSNNE Celtics voice Mike Gorman about his love of golf, and desire to announce golf someday.
Dan Shaughnessy Hates Ideas and Loves it When the Red Sox Fail – One of the better takedowns of the Globe columnist. I wish I wrote this:
The Boston Globe allows Shaughnessy to write his columns in such as a way as to be trolling his audience. I have come to the conclusion the only way Dan could be fired is if he murdered someone, and even then the Globe would probably allow Shaughnessy one more column to taunt the family of the person he killed.
Tony Massarotti had an epic meltdown yesterday over people who insist he is nothing more than Mike Felger’s yes-man and lapdog. (Who says that??) The most amusing thing was his insistence that Felger is always right and that’s why he doesn’t disagree with him! He’s also sick of everyone coming after him just because they hate Felger.
Way to dispel commonly-held notions, Mazz.
No one is saying that Massarotti needs to automatically take an opposite stance. That sort of contrived debate is just as annoying. But when Felger is on one of his insane conspiracy theories, how about grilling him a little? Making him explain things. How does he know this? Ask what is to be gained by the Patriots freezing out Welker? Why would they do it? Why are the Patriots cheap? Why would they not want to win? In what ways have the Jets passed the Patriots in organization building and as a franchise? (Oh wait, that was two years ago.)
Show some skepticism over what Felger says once in a while, instead of blindly agreeing with every damn thing the guy says. Work at it a little bit. Not only would Mazz shed the lapdog image, it would actually make for better radio.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
Bruce, I was waiting for the Tony Mazz rant to be brought up. I was thinking the same thing you mentioned: The reason he supports Mike is because Mike is usually right and uses logic, reasoning, and facts to support his “takes.” What Tony fails to realize is this is why people give him crap. Felger rarely brings logic and reasoning to form his opinions. Just because he inserts the catch-phrase “Fact Not Opinion” after a statement, doesn’t make it true.
Tony is easily swayed and clearly the Waldorf to Mike’s Statler (or vice-versa). He blames “tonality” for the problem, when the real issue is simply logic. Felger’s opinions are extremist and are always formed to elicit reaction (hence sports-talk radio). My problem is he tries to force these outrageous takes as absolute truths. I don’t mind the occasional pot-stirrer but it’s become his M.O.
We don’t need Tony to “fake” an argument with Mike, but simply challenging him on blatant lies would be nice, such as the Cap is Crap. It’s clearly too much to ask for of sqeaky Mazz.
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Tony sold his sold his soul for a steady paycheck on the radio. Simple as that.
If anyone remembers the WEEI version of Mazz then you remember a guy who took no crap from Ordway and ALWAYS challenged his opinions from sports to politics.
Then I think somewhere along the line Tony got frustrated with always being passed up for permanent gigs at WEEI, The Zone and ESPN Boston especially public was being passed up two times with Dale. And let’s not forget that he wasn’t even Felger’s first choice. Merloni was the first choice. So now you have a guy who’s been desperate and was a runner up choice who is going to say and do anything to stay in the good graces of the guy who didn’t even originally want him.
If we could ever get that Tony Mazz again who was on the Big show it would be great but unfortunately challenging Felger on his conspiracy theories doesn’t pay the bills.
It would be nice if Felger would take the reigns off of Tony but he won’t. Felger likes being Hannity and Tony being colmes.
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Good points Dan. I do find it funny that when Felger and Mazz are making one of their “on point” statements, their reasoning is “Well Troy Brown and Ty Law think so or said so.” I’m largely referring to the Wes Welker type stuff. So because those two said it, it must be true. Fred and Steve say ALOT of nonsense. I’m not saying Ty and Troy are bad, but using the “because he said it, it must be true” logic is pretty weak stuff.
Side note: I did find it interesting the other night when Ty Law basically said he hated Felger more than anyone and it took alot for him to accept working with him. I think that says it all right there. Ty has put his personal hatred for the guy behind his want to succeed in the media. It just proves the point that Ty has likely been coached by Felger on how to “make it” in this business.
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Some details on the ref deal. As suspected/suggested by GearBear, Kraft was on this, as was Mara. It is funny which owners dug in and ones who didn’t. Woody Johnson work for anything in life? Nope.
“A number of owners, including, according to people with knowledge of the
negotiations, the Panthers’ Jerry Richardson and the Jets’ Woody
Johnson, initially dug in on Tuesday, reluctant to make any deal under
such public pressure. Others, including the Patriots’ Robert Kraft and
the Giants’ John Mara, were concerned that damage was being done to the
league by the subpar officiating and the focus on it.”
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The Shank takedown is great… but with one caveat.
I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE the argument that’s structured as follows, which the author uses at one point:
1) You’re complaining about someone else’s idea to solve a problem.
2) You don’t have your own alternative solution to the problem.
3) Therefore, your complaints are less worthy of consideration/wrong/totally wrong/idiotic.
That’s… well, that’s just idiotic logic. You don’t need to have your own answer to a problem to be able to analyze, critique, and reject someone else’s answer. I don’t need to know how to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to know that “let’s kill the firstborn child of every Palestinian” is a really flipping stupid idea. In the same way, I don’t need to have a comprehensive plan to return the Red Sox to glory in order to make a coherent argument why Ben Cherington announcing that he was interested in paying Cody Ross $7m a year on a 10-year deal to play left field would be a terrible idea. (He would be grossly overpaid, he’s unlikely to ever earn that contract, he’s really valuable as a platoon player, the Red Sox have outfield prospects in the pipeline that could fill the position more reasonably down the road, etc.) The author, though, in his zeal to ding Shank, thinks that one could reasonably say to me “well, YOU don’t have an idea who should play left next year and beyond, so who are you to complain about Cherington?”
Which is idiotic, as noted.
Other than that — great.
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that’s not the point he was making. the point the BTOB guy was making is that Shank’s theory that James is the problem has no basis in fact. James has been listened to less often in the past few years and was a greater influence when the team was getting players like walker, mueller, ortiz, bellhorn,
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“Dan is at-heart a lousy politician. Everyone else’s idea for a solution are terrible ideas, but Dan has no suggestions of his own and brings nothing to the table. He just knows that certain idea sucks.”
“Dan is a great backseat analyst. He knows every single problem the Red Sox face, but he has no fucking clue on how to formulate his own solution to these problems. That’s not his job. His job is to serve as the person who says every idea is stupid.”
I don’t think I misstated the author’s point of view.
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Dave, I see what you are saying. I want to try to clear up what I wrote and intended to mean. I would agree you don’t need to know of an answer to a specific problem in order to criticize another person’s solution. I was trying to write more in terms of Dan Shaughnessy and his seeming constant disagreement. It isn’t that he doesn’t have the solution to this problem in this case, it is that he seems to never have a solution to a problem. He enjoys writing about what the Red Sox are doing wrong, yet he seems to have no original ideas of his own as to what the Red Sox should do. I realize that is his schtick, but he thinks every idea won’t work and he serves as a consistent voice of negativity. I don’t believe it serves a purpose.
So I see your point. Let me hope to make myself clearer. Using your example, I wouldn’t say that you are in the wrong to criticize Cherington for announcing he wants to sign Cody Ross to a 7 year $70 million contract. First off, I think any reasonable person would say this is a bad idea, so I think this example is more extreme than simply arguing against Bill James having a larger voice in the Red Sox organization. Second, I would have no issue with your opinion on this single, specific issue. But if you thought nearly every idea Cherington presented is a terrible idea and constantly voiced this opinion, I would feel like I could criticize you for being constantly negative with no corresponding ideas of your own.
For me, I feel comfortable asking why Dan doesn’t have ideas on his own because he consistently criticizes with no corresponding ideas of his own. Obviously he can disagree on a move the Red Sox make, but he seems to disagree or be negative about any idea the Red Sox have to improve their team. So while I do agree I couldn’t call you out for criticizing Cherington in your example, I feel like we are at the point where Dan Shaughnessy consistently knows what the Red Sox shouldn’t do (re-sign Ellsbury, get Bill James more involved, sign any big name free agents), but he conveys no idea on what the Red Sox should do. Since he doesn’t seem to like anything, I would be interested to hear his opinion on what the Red Sox should do.
For me, it is the volume of his disagreement that makes me feel comfortable asking why he doesn’t have ideas of his own. Thanks for reading.
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Why then do people think F&M are better than the Big Show with Ordway and Holley? Holley is the opposite of Antoinette Massarotti. He challenges Big O and he’s not afraid to tell him to calm when he gets a little crazy with his theories. So again, how is F&M better than the Big Show? Especially where hosts challenge each other.
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Have no idea.
Felger and Mazz have never had a debate on any topic that I’ve heard (listen far less than I used to) since their show started. It’s obvious Mazz is there to be a laughtrack and sounding board for Felger. In the big wide and wild world of sports those two agree on everything?? Come on!
The lack of genuine disagreement, i.e. not having strident opposing views on ANY topic takes away from that show in a very big way. Since it’s really Felger’s show and he calls the shots it’s obvious he simply wants a platform to pontificate and does not want a challenge to his views.
F & M has become stale and predictble and in a very short period of time. Name the topic and we’ll know that the take is going to be before they ever say a word.
Not good!!
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What Tom said to all the media going nuts and losing it Twitter when it was 21-7..
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What are you pocking on me for? Felger told me to say all that!
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Did anyone read Cafardo’s piece on Iglesias? Classic Nick. The only source Nick likes better than an NFL agent is a pro scout, and this has a couple anonymous ones. I think there is a debate to be made about whether Iglesias will win more games with his glove than he loses with his bat, but Nick’s piece is basically play him and who cares if he can’t hit. The anti-weight training bit is comical. It’s if Nick has no idea that athletic strength training has evolved since as a teen he ordered Joe Weider’s Weight Gain Shakes from the back of his Boy’s Life magazine.
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Remember when Rex Ryan was refreshing & new? Bold&brash? The next great coach? Had Belichicks number? was this, that and the other thing? …yeah…..that was cool #ItsOVAH
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Your critique of Mazz was pretty much right on.
I enjoy Felger, but Mazz is wearing thin on me. He reinforces Felger’s takes, but doesn’t offer much. He thinks he’s legitimately funny. The only funny things that Mazz says, are written by Toucher & Rich
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