Peter Abraham .... Take 3

Towney007

New Member
Nov 19, 2011
225
Then don't fucking interact with him. It's not like he's the
only guy reporting on the Red Sox on twitter, at this point you know
what you are going to get.

 

Twitter is easy... you don't like someone click unfollow. 
 
Take the tone down a tick, corky.
 
I don't interact with him. I've never trolled him. I asked him one perfectly reasonable question and got 'obviously, genius' in return. I follow him on the 1 in 100 chance he ever breaks something because I like consuming information on the Red Sox and *do* read some of his work. Doesn't mean he's not a totally unprofessional, obvoiusly bi-polar dick.
 

URI

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Well, US News and World Report has us as number two, in a write-up full of backhanded compliments and tied with the Yankees. Or actual insults, I guess. Obviously, it's piffle. But it's a source.
 
No it's not.  JMOH said that there is no evidence that Red Sox fans are smarter than any other fans.
 
This article talks about home and away attendance numbers.
 
So you either presented something you didn't read as evidence, you thought no one was smart enough to actually read it and the post you refered to, or you weren't smart enough to comprehend the article, or the 1 important line of his post.
 
There is nothing relevant in there to what we are talking about.  I bid you good day.
 

absintheofmalaise

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Mar 16, 2005
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Curll said:
I initially created the Abraham because, well, he makes little to no effort at his job (Hence the "Zero Effort" title). His columns are (were? I haven't read him in a long while) bad, they are full of factual errors, and he takes zero responsibility for his lackluster job performance or his simply atrocious behavior towards readers. 
 
I was personally threatened physically by him on Twitter via DM. 
 
So, there is a serious disconnect between what a lot of posters here see/read and what a few select mods see/read. And, I hate to play a nutter, but absintheofmalaise did confirm there may be a financial side to this disconnect. 
 
I don't see why there is any attempt to eschew attacks on PA in this forum where as King, Cafardo, and CHB get ripped to shreds with zero interjection. 
 
/shrug
 
(There was a fairly robust defense of PA from JMOH on the first page of the old thread and a bickerfest, but Page 2 starts to point out more errors/laziness by PA, which JMOH tries to squash)
 
Edit: Again, I am just confused by this. I don't really care. I am not ragging on JMOH or the staff, just pointing out some observations as it relates to analogous threads/discussions.
There is no "financial side to this disconnect." The guy donated some things to a couple of the charity auctions we've held and I was just adding that to the information that JMOH posted. They were maybe worth $200 or $300 bucks to the Jimmy Fund. It was nice of him to do, especially since it was unsolicited, but in no way was I defending anyone over that. I'd appreciate it if you didn't jump to conclusions over what my motives are, because they sure as hell weren't financial.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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URI said:
No it's not.  JMOH said that there is no evidence that Red Sox fans are smarter than any other fans.
 
This article talks about home and away attendance numbers.
 
So you either presented something you didn't read as evidence, you thought no one was smart enough to actually read it and the post you refered to, or you weren't smart enough to comprehend the article, or the 1 important line of his post.
 
There is nothing relevant in there to what we are talking about.  I bid you good day.
 
Jiminy Cricket - I don't think any of this is worth the amount of time we're devoting it, but, to recap:
 
Jimbo said: "No, unless it counts that I do indeed think Sox fans, on balance, are among the top tier in terms of loyalty and knowledge."
 
JMOH asked for a source.
 
I provided a source showing the Sox are #2 in attendance percentage. How is paying for a ticket not a indicator of loyalty? And then I even said it was "piffle." I was clearly being light-hearted. As in, "you can find a source for anything." But I guess I'm stupid. 
 
Why not address the other 300 words of the post? Doesn't that add more to the conversation?
 

mabrowndog

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I've had my share of issues with PeteAbe in the past, but I've also taken note of his positives. So I'd like to make a suggestion:
 
How about we try to limit discussion to his baseball-specific reporting and writing? Address what he writes about the games, players, coaches, managers, player development staff, and front office. Ignore obvious minor typographical errors, twitter flame wars, or any disputes with readers in the comments sections of his articles or blog posts. Instead, assess his interpretations of events, writing style, originality, presentation of concepts, and factual accuracy & relevance.
 
Can we try this for a few weeks and see how it goes? Because regardless of where one stands on PeteAbe as a writer or person, the few pages of this thread are an insufferable disaster. The vast majority of posts don't serve the reader; they merely satisfy the blood lust and venting desires of the poster. Left unchecked or unchanged, this thread should meet the same fate as its predecessors and be locked straightaway.
 
Thus far it's been a pathetic reflection of the worst elements of this message board, and that includes my own post. There's plenty to discuss about him as a Red Sox beat writer, both pro and con, without wallowing in the mud and reducing things to Jerry Springer levels. Improve, or die.
 

URI

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Why not address the other 300 words of the post? Doesn't that add more to the conversation?
 
I'm more insulted you didn't see my post as performance art.
 
Imagine someone seeing a small oversight and then putting real effort into exposing it and nitpicking it...
 

URI

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You don't get to swing and miss and then say "Hey the pitch was a ball...."
 
This thread will live forever.  One more word out of you and I'll move it to the main board and sticky it.
 

Dogman

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How is paying for a ticket not a indicator of loyalty? 
 

 
Last season, when the team was terrible, do you think most tickets were purchased the day of or the week prior to that game?  The point is,  you are basing loyalty off of numbers that are obscured by a number of factors including "reported" attendance figures.  
 
I know, I know. 
 

geoduck no quahog

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I've been to that park multiple times and people are far more interested in drinking microbrews and sun bathing than paying attention to the game.
 
Don't know about you, but the major point about baseball is to go to the park, sunbathe, have a few beers (preferably not Miller Lite), talk with your friends between pitches, bet on stupid things, read the sports section between innings, look for pretty girls, have a tubular meat sandwich or 3 (preferably not Fenway Franks), tell jokes, pay strict attention to the high intensity moments, maybe keep score, and hope you'll luck out by being at one of those special games where tension buildins to the last pitch or something historical happens...
 
And walk out happy if your team wins one of the 80-90 games you hope they'll win. 
 
It's fucking baseball...the sport that's better viewed stoned than amped up.
 
Sound like decent fans to me.
 

joe dokes

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It's fucking baseball...the sport that's better viewed stoned than amped up.
 
 
I'm hearing this in Spud Zelig's voice and laughing.
It's so much better than "Baseball Fever .... Catch IT!!"
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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Just bumping the thread to note a nice couple of stories from Pete Abe:
 
Profile of Iglesias' chances of actually becoming the Red Sox shortstop, including good quotes from Pedroia, Farrell, Arnie Beyeler, and Baseball Prospectus. Basically, it was both informative and a good piece of writing, with a strong lead:
 

 


 

Merry Christmas. Here’s a trip back to the minors.

 
 
 
Interview with Bryce Brentz, where we hear from a contrite player who still has a lot of promise. The quotes from JBJ were a nice touch, noting the Jackie has really taken advantage of the opportunity that Brentz left on the table. Also, I thought Abe did well not to pile on, letting Brentz lambaste himself. 
 
In both pieces, Pete distinguished himself from the likes of Cafardo by not overplaying the sentiment and letting the sources do the talking and opinion-giving. I enjoyed both of them. 
 
Edit: And I didn't have to look long for a contrast. This Cafardo piece on Lackey is a mess. Two completely unnecessary uses of the imperial "we" in the first two paragraphs and while there are a lot of Lackey and Nieves quotes, it doesn't hang together nearly as well.
 
Not to mention Cafardo gems like this one:
 
Lackey is always going to be a pitcher who puts the ball in play. He never will amass big strikeout numbers and his hit total always will be high since he’s a sinkerballer and the ball is bound to go through the infield now and then.
 
By "never," I guess he means "never again"? Does an 8.6 k/9 in 209 innings in 2005 not count as "big strikeout numbers"? Perhaps Nick is unaware that Lackey's k/9 has fallen every year since then, finally resulting in the Tommy John surgery. Is there no chance his ability to get strikeouts will return? And he actually doesn't have a history of giving up a ton of hits when he's healthy. He had five straight years leading up to coming to the Sox with a H/9 of 9.0 or lower and league average was well over 9 until 2010 when it dipped to 8.9, so he's actually been better than average at giving up hits until he came to the Sox. But I guess he'll "always" have a high hit total and he's a "sinkerballer" now, despite Brooks showing he's thrown more curveballs than sinkers in his career.
 

czar

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More waves in the Twitterverse.
 
Jack Keller (FireBrand) posts a blog piece detailing Pete's infatuation with JBJ.
 
Pete tweets "also this same person made crude pedophilia jokes about some tweets" re: Keller.
 
Keller contacts Globe demanding retraction.
 
Meanwhile, Pete's busy going off the handle again with "JBJ won the Sox two games" and arguing that "people intellectually incapable of coming up with decent content lazily sit back and criticize others."
 
</popcorn smiley>
 

mt8thsw9th

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RED SOX 6, INDIANS 3


Pen is mightier again as Red Sox topple Indians

 
 
By Peter Abraham
Globe Staff /  April 17, 2013
 

Foulkey Reese

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czar said:
More waves in the Twitterverse.
 
Jack Keller (FireBrand) posts a blog piece detailing Pete's infatuation with JBJ.
 
Pete tweets "also this same person made crude pedophilia jokes about some tweets" re: Keller.
 
Keller contacts Globe demanding retraction.
 
Meanwhile, Pete's busy going off the handle again with "JBJ won the Sox two games" and arguing that "people intellectually incapable of coming up with decent content lazily sit back and criticize others."
 
</popcorn smiley>
Do you want to know why Pete doesn’t care about the Red Sox in 2019? Because he isn’t a fan of the team. He doesn’t care about the Red Sox. He was a beat reporter for the Yankees before coming to the Globe to cover the Sox. This team is about a paycheck for Abraham, not a passion. So, please try to excuse us for caring about and consider the future of the organization, Pete. I’m not just a Red Sox fan for the first half of April (or until my job is unceremoniously eliminated), I’ll be a Red Sox fan in 2019 and beyond.
 
Abraham's Tweets aside, this is one of the most embarrassing things that I've ever read. No idea who Jack Keller is, but he sure comes off as a complete idiot. Fucking Sina writes more intelligent things about the Sox.
 
He doesn't care about our Red Sox!11!!
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Foulkey Reese said:
Abraham's Tweets aside, this is one of the most embarrassing things that I've ever read. No idea who Jack Keller is, but he sure comes off as a complete idiot. Fucking Sina writes more intelligent things about the Sox.
 
He doesn't care about our Red Sox!11!!
 
While Abraham isn't supposed to be a fan at all, he grew up in MA as a Sox fan, didn't he?
 
This guy would be much better served to go after PeteAbe for the real reason he wanted him JBJ to make the team...it's a better story.  It gives him an easy subject to write about, particularly if the team is cruising along like it is without a whole lot of drama or boatrocking like there was last season.
 

Towney007

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Nov 19, 2011
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It totally blows my mind how people skim stuff on the internet and put minimal effort into reading anything. Not only does Keller make it blatantly obvious what he meant with the 'fan' comment later on in the piece, but he goes into at length about it when asked by someone in the comments section as well. Taking more than 20 seconds to read something pays dividends, kids.
 
But still, even if we were to take his one homer-ish comment at face value, the overriding value of the piece is compelling enough to the point where it's a pretty hilarious takedown. I mean both Neyer and Calcaretta (among others) got it - and even got INTO it with Abraham over it, which makes the piece far more worth it as far as I'm concerned. Even funnier - they weren't alone. Just his reaction to the piece on it's own made him look like a completely unprofessional idiot - especially considering the fact that he tried to convince everyone that Keller was making jokes about pedophellia, to which Keller and others made calls to the Globe's legal department over it. 
 
Make him squeal, I say. Good for them.
 

mabrowndog

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Towney007 said:
But still, even if we were to take his one homer-ish comment at face value, the overriding value of the piece is compelling enough to the point where it's a pretty hilarious takedown.
 
This I agree with to a point. Keller did a pretty good job painting the timeline of Pete's tweets and posts relative to JBJ's performance. Frankly, the tenor and tone of Pete's words speak for themselves as to his agenda, and Keller added just the right amount of sarcasm in his presentation to make it mildly entertaining.
 
My issue with his piece comes later on. It would have been far more effective had he not chosen to wallow in the mud and make those personal attacks on Abraham, regardless of whether they were merited. It starts out as convincing journalism, but it ends as something downright juvenile, like an angry teenager ranting about a parent that grounded him and took away his iPhone.
 
PeteAbe's subsequent batshit accusations don't change that.
 

joyofsox

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At 9 AM, Matthew Kory posts "In defense of Stephen Drew" at Over The Monster
http://www.overthemonster.com/2013/4/23/4254106/red-sox-shortstop-stephen-drew-jose-iglesias
 
At 1:30 PM, Peter Abraham posts "Coming to the defense of Stephen Drew" at the Globe.
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2013/04/in_defense_of_s.html
 
Maybe I'm making more of this than is warranted, but I happened to go from one to the other in my web travels. (Pete's piece is good - plus he mentions UZR and BABIP.)
 
 
 
 
 
 

soxfan121

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Corsi said:
I missed it, but I see this:
 
 
Do not discuss Peter Abraham's published articles in the Globe unless you also pay Peter Abraham to make another appearance on your radio station so he can explain what he meant.
 

Van Everyman

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Great odds and sods piece on Boston.com by Pete today:

Covers all sorts of things -- Pedey's defense, Iglesias, the state of the Punto Trade. But I thought his insights into the fandom and the media culture were the most interesting:

Speaking of media matters, Jon Lester deserves a lot of credit. The lefty was, frankly, a difficult guy to deal with in recent years. He was impatient and even short-tempered at times. You've probably seen that on the field, too. Lester wasn't afraid to scowl at umpires while on the mound.

Who can blame him? It was tough sledding for Sox players for a long time in the court of public opinion and the media in Boston can be brutal.

But since the start of spring training, Lester has tried hard to be pleasant and cooperative and he now laughs off silly questions instead of grimacing. Last week, after we finished up an interview in Chicago, Lester chatted amicably with a few of us and left saying, "See you tomorrow."

It may not sound like a big deal, but it's part of the job of a big leaguer to deal with the media in some reasonable manner and Lester is better at that part of his job.

Lester always seemed like a good guy, even when he was grumpy. It's good that he's letting that show.


And:
Finally, a request: Enjoy what is going on. The Sox were one of the worst teams in baseball last season and now they're one of the best. They have a fun team to watch. They play hard, they generally play the game right and they seem to care about each other. There's a plan in place that starts in the front office, goes through the manager and coaches and gets to the players. This organization staggered around for a bit and now it's back going in the right direction.

It's the default position for Boston fans to grouse about their teams, that's a given. But don't worry about the future for a change. Enjoy the present.


http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2013/05/pedroia_looks_g.html
 

joyofsox

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Rudy Pemberton said:
Pete's in mid season form, just retweeted a sox fan saying the team sucks with a wise ass #bestfansinbaseball.

Why can't the globe do better than this guy?
 
He plays the "best fans in baseball" card again tonight:.
 

 
 

1969plus50is2019

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Dec 15, 2013
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I am so vindicated!
 
I'm the source of the mods expunging Pete Abe threads.
 
Long live "I Still Don't Like Pete Abe", August 2011.
 
-PBRedSox