With Bobby Valentine officially fired yesterday, the process of replacing him, and rebuilding the Red Sox begins in earnest. Ben Cherington has already said they don’t wish to drag out the process of hiring the manager, so if John Farrell is their guy, you can be sure they’re already putting together a plan.
I’ve heard plenty of people point to Farrell’s record with the Blue Jays and wonder why the Red Sox would be interested in bringing him back. To me, it seems similar to the Patriots and Bill Belichick. Farrell was here previously as a coach, the front office and ownership got to know him, and liked him, and were comfortable with him. It reminds me of Belichick when he was with New England as an assistant under Bill Parcells, and developed a relationship with Robert Kraft. They got to know each other and were comfortable working together. Belichick’s previous coaching record in Cleveland didn’t concern them, so Kraft was willing to pay the price to bring him to New England after firing Pete Carroll. John Farrell’s record the last two years with the Blue Jays probably doesn’t bother the Red Sox all that much, as he is a known quantity to them.
If they want him, they will pay the price to Toronto to get him.
Previous managing record isn’t always an accurate barometer. Terry Francona didn’t set the world on fire as manager of the Phillies.
Red Sox eying Farrell, but open to others – Sean McAdam looks at the interest in Farrell, but also provides some alternative candidates.
Red Sox pushing for John Farrell – Gordon Edes has more on why the Sox like Farrell.
Heat’s on Sox to get it right this time – Michael Silverman says whomever they hire, it needs to be the right guy.
Patriots
The Patriots take on the Broncos and Peyton Manning this Sunday. All the coverage is available at PatriotsLinks.com, but here are a couple of film-study looks at the Patriots from Football Outsiders:
Word of Muth: Crashing the Nickel – Ben Muth has a really good look at the performance of the Patriots offensive line in the running attack against Buffalo.
Film Room: Broncos-Patriots – Andy Benoit looks at the disguised coverages the Patriots may employ against Manning, and how the Broncos will counter. Matt Chatham also discussed disguises this morning.
Media
ESPN Radio finally has a Boston home – Chad Finn looks at ESPN Radio finally debuting on 850 AM today, with a focus on the Mike and Mike Morning Show.
Ryen Rusillo is back on Boston airwaves with return of ESPN Radio – My SB Nation Boston media column also looks at ESPN 850, but with a look at the newly renamed SVP & Russillo show.
Ron Darling, John Smoltz predict long road back for Red Sox – Bill Doyle has the TBS analysts speaking of what the Red Sox need to do to return to contender status.
Boston Sports Media Watch 
One nice thing: You can get ESPNRadio up here in Southern NH. Besides two pretty weak transmitters on AM900 and AM1250, both which have very limited reach outside of main parts of Manchester/NH. I haven’t tested the “range” but the added option is nice because those two ESPN repeaters above don’t have a full ESPN schedule.
Great read by the way of Matt Chatham from cprice about Bolden:
http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/football/patriots/christopher-price/2012/10/05/how-patriots-discovered-brandon-bolden
Also, did anyone write about this “interview with the media” process basically how the Sox lined everyone up, basically going in reverse order of outlets who give them positive coverage? I’ve never heard of this. Comcast made point of it on their shows, but I think rightfully so.
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When it comes to the sports media in general but specifically with Comcast/SpawtsHub one thing is quite clear. They think the story is all about THEM.
Everything they claim to hate about others in the sports world you’ll find on full display with their behavior. I laughed out loud when Felger and Mrs. Felger (Mazz) were whining because Comcast was put at the back of the line for interview sessions with Larry and Ben. Laughed out loud!! You can’t personally attack people (and they personally attack people) and then expect the red carpet treatment. That’s not the way the real world works.
Even Chris Gasper was whining about the venue yesterday; whining because he had to wait to get a face to face interview in which he could ask any question(s) he wanted of the Pres and GM of the Boston Red Sox. Now if the Sox had given a press conference yesterday and did not give one on one interviews these same whining media schmoe’s would be b!tching about that.
I really wish someone in the sports media business would take these whining jerks to the woodshed.
Enough is enough is enough!!!!
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I know this is pointless but the idea that Belichick was a poor coach in Cleveland is a myth. In 1990, the year before they hired BB, Cleveland was 3-13. They steadily improved to 6-10, 7-9, 7-9, to 11-5 and beating the Patriots in the playoffs and were 3-1 before Modell backstabbed Cleveland and they understandably fell apart. it was much harder then too to rapidly improve a team since there was limited free agency where teams could protect their top 37 players.
This pales in comparison to Belichick’s record in New England but he was a good coach/GM in Cleveland in terms of rebuilding a barren organization. He wasn’t good at PR.
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Oh, I agree with you 100%, but his hiring in New England was met with much skepticism both by many (not all) fans and media. I’m just drawing that comparison. You can’t judge someone solely based on their prior coaching job.
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ahhh yes, who’ll ever forget the hiring of Bill Belichick?……Kevin Mannix calling him “pond scum”, Ted Sarandis having a meltdown on the air and calling him a “despicable human being” all this before he even coached a game..not one of the Boston sports media’s finest moments….(at the time I had NO IDEA what kind of coach he’d be but I do remember saying, “can we at least give the guy a chance?)…..
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Ahhh….Bruce….you might be the only one who will get this…but when you talk about Fans who did not like the hiring of Bill Belichick I go back to the old Pats USENET forum and John Larkspur’s hilarious rants against the hiring. Of course there were those of us who said relax he has to be better than Pete Carroll (and we were right). But there was a lot of uninformed skepticism about the hiring. I will say this…Greg Doyle the same one who was a contributor to Patriots Daily might have been the first person I know to jump on the BB bandwagon. he loved the hiring from the start precisely because of what he had been able to accomplish in Cleveland.
Now to really date myself…of course Bob Jensen loved the hiring…because he thought it was going to be a disaster.
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Anyone else find it strange that there has been little, if any, talk about the ESPN 850 move on the airwaves at WEEI? They’ve mentioned a number of times on air that you’ll only be able to hear them on 93.7 going forward and the call-in number would be changing, but no explanation given. In fact Ordway tried to throw the uninformed off the other day by saying there would be a Spanish language station starting up on 850AM. I don’t think it was an attemp at humor either. Then this morning I heard Callahan make an off-hand reference to “some company” taking over one of EEI’s stations and stealing their guests.
Clearly this hasn’t gone over well with the on-air talent at WEEI. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it would make some sense for ESPN to pull some of its more well-known guests off EEI (Olney, MacMullen, Mortensen, et al) if they already have another outlet in the market. I recall the same thing happening when 890AM was still around, the only time you ever heard ESPN personalities on WEEI is when they weren’t representing the networking, like if they wrote a book or something. I still think this ESPN deal is good for Entercom, but may be worse for WEEI than I originally thought.
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“Larry Lucchino runs the Red Sox.”
— John Henry, 10/14/11
Team Record Since September 1, 2011
76-113 (.402)
People Fired / Run Out of Town Since September 1, 2011
Terry Francona
Theo Epstein
Bobby Valentine
Bob McClure
as-yet undetermined members of Bobby V’s coaching staff
DeMarlo Hale
the medical team
assorted trainers/physical therapists
Kevin Youkilis
Carl Crawford
Adrian Gonzalez
Josh Beckett (good riddance)
(honorable mention to Jon Papelbon)
People Signed to Contract Extensions Since September 1, 2011
Larry Lucchino
Team Record Since September 1, 2011
76-113 (.402)
Team Record Since September 1, 2011
76-113 (.402)
Team Record Since September 1, 2011
76-113 (.402)
Team Record Since September 1, 2011
76-113 (.402)
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Dave, how could you forget Nick Punto? Head of the hi-jinks department on the RedSox pine.
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I used to listen to Rusillo on 1510 a lot because they were the only guys talking C’s back then. He was entertaining, and he had good chemistry w/ Felger when he would guest on Mike’s old 890 show. I love Felger and Mazz, despite all the hate on here, but Felger and Rusillo would have been truly mint.
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Some notes/thoughts:
1.) At least Manning made it interesting.. At the same time, this is Denver. They remind me of New England without the “win”. Down 21-7 in the first quarter? They then throw 3x4th quarter touchdowns but lose (see their last few games). Anyways, this running stuff.. love it.
2.) This ludicrous speed offense we’re running? Turn on ESPN/ESPN2 on Saturday evening at 10:30 when Oregon is facing off with another Pac12 team. (If you’re a CFB fan, you know where I am going.) That’s what it looks like at the CFB level and Oregon is #2 in the country.
3.) Interesting that Carolyn Manno made her debut on SNF. Must be moving up the ranks quickly at NBCSN if they put her on that. Jade McCarthy (remember her?) also does ESPN gap clips for highlights and is on ESPNNews doing highlights.
4.) Matt Chatham is tearing it up. Follow him on twitter @chatham52. He’s a great in-game follow talking about the game with both sides (he’s not afraid to identify bad coverage, etc). Also, he can write really well. Have to imagine he’s a rising star around here?
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