Thoughts about media types who don't have their own threads

E5 Yaz

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CBSSports.com laid off baseball writers Danny Knobler and Scott Miller. 
 
Both these guys are really solid and should land on their feet. Seems like a move where CBS hasn't been a baseball factor in so long, that they would be "logical" cuts in a downsizing. 
 

Jnai

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The Houston Chronicle is a HUGE paper.
 
And Evan is a great guy. So, congrats to him. =)
 

nattysez

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E5 Yaz said:
CBSSports.com laid off baseball writers Danny Knobler and Scott Miller. 
 
Both these guys are really solid and should land on their feet. Seems like a move where CBS hasn't been a baseball factor in so long, that they would be "logical" cuts in a downsizing. 
 
This is the problem with holding a grudge:  both of them have said things in the past that I found so mind-numblingly dumb that I stopped reading them.  But I can't remember what it was in either case.  
 

Merkle's Boner

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Lose Remerswaal said:
Going from Masslive.com and springfield republican to a big city paper?  Large promotion.  Not like he's leaving the Globe or Herald
Sorry about that. Figured he was a Globe guy.
 

HriniakPosterChild

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Ryan Divish hired by The [Seattle] Times to cover the Mariners beat
 
 
Divish is a baseball guy who knows the game inside and out. He played baseball at the college level. He gets the nuances of our national pastime, understands Sabermetrics and knows how to translate the game for seamheads and casual fans alike.
 
“Baseball has been my first love since I was a kid in Havre, Mont.,” Divish said. “I’ve tried to bring the same consistent passion and intensity I had for playing the game into my day-to-day coverage. I can’t think of a better sport that offers more engaged and informed debate amongst its fans. I look forward to continuing that debate at The Times.”
 

E5 Yaz

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@VinScullyTweet: 64 years ago today, Vin Scully made his radio debut, calling a Maryland-B.U., football game at Fenway Park. http://t.co&#8230;
 

Buffalo Head

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It is. He goes from essentially being a back-up writer for MLB.com to having his own beat with masslive, including home-and-road travel. That's a big step up for him ... it's actually the same path Evan took last year.
 

nattysez

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2 random thoughts:
 
Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star is trolling pretty hard already.  He's twice today tweeted out something about the Pats' record in the playoffs, and he was sure to retweet Kaufman's column saying the Pats will blow out the Colts.  Kravitz is generally a good follow, though I recall hating him during the height of the Pats-Colts rivalry, so we'll see how much this trolling keeps up.
 
Frank Isola is an interesting Twitter follow.  He's the NYDN Knicks writer and he has no qualms about calling out the Knicks, other writers, or anyone else.  He seems to hate everyone. 
 

PBDWake

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John Tomase with a gem today for the Herald
http://bostonherald.com/sports/red_sox_mlb/boston_red_sox/2014/01/tomase_hall_opinions_net_worthless


There’s nothing lazier than painting with an overly broad brush, particularly when it comes to an intellectual expanse as vast as the blogosphere, so I want to parse the following words carefully, succinctly, and thoughtfully
...
“But, but, but . . . ” the Internet sputtered. “Morris pitched in the steroids era, too! And Gurnick voted for Lee Smith once! Where’s the consistency? BRING ME HIS HEAD! And a Hot Pocket!”
...
That was my second year with a vote, and it’s still the only one I regret. I selected Blyleven not because I thought he was a Hall of Famer — I didn’t and still don’t — but because in that moment, I allowed the avalanche of statistical support to overwhelm what I saw with my own two eyes:
I'm sure we all remember the last time John Tomase decided he didn't need to look at facts and instead just went by what he felt happened.  :rolleyes:
...
 

epraz

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nattysez said:
2 random thoughts:
 
Bob Kravitz of the Indy Star is trolling pretty hard already.  He's twice today tweeted out something about the Pats' record in the playoffs, and he was sure to retweet Kaufman's column saying the Pats will blow out the Colts.  Kravitz is generally a good follow, though I recall hating him during the height of the Pats-Colts rivalry, so we'll see how much this trolling keeps up.
 
 
This is only "trolling" if you think every sports journalist in america should abstain from communicating facts that aren't 100% supportive of the Patriots.
 

RoyHobbs

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Pg. 35 of "Win it For"
PBDWake said:
[SIZE=10pt]"I selected Blyleven ran with the walkthrough story not because I thought he was a Hall of Famer the tape actually existed — I didn’t and still don’t — but because in that moment, I allowed the avalanche of statistical support desire to make a name for myself to overwhelm what I saw with my own two eyes."[/SIZE]
 
Fixed that for him.
 

glennhoffmania

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CBSSports.com's writing has been pretty horrible lately.  It's like they told a few guys to just write whatever comes to mind as if they're posting to a blog.  Here's the latest example- one of their writers (Matt Snyder) reporting on ARod:
 
While I have as much A-Rod-coverage-fatigue as the next guy, I can't help but laugh hysterically at the thought of video footage from this coming spring training showing A-Rod off on the side, being completely ignored by everyone. A cruel thing about which to laugh? Possibly, but if A-Rod shows up at spring training -- surely bringing a media circus with him, a huge distraction to his teammates -- he pretty well deserves any negative attention he gets.
 
Another layer here is that it's entirely possible the Yankees don't actually want to do this, but instead are sending out such information to deter A-Rod from coming to camp. That really seems like the best solution for all involved, but when things involve A-Rod these days, is the best solution usually what we get?
 
 
This isn't reporting.  It's some guy posting random thoughts.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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glennhoffmania said:
CBSSports.com's writing has been pretty horrible lately.  It's like they told a few guys to just write whatever comes to mind as if they're posting to a blog.  Here's the latest example- one of their writers (Matt Snyder) reporting on ARod:
 
 
This isn't reporting.  It's some guy posting random thoughts.
 
Have you read anything from Eye On Baseball...i mean it IS a blog.
 

glennhoffmania

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I try not to. 
 
I used to go to Yahoo and CBS to catch the latest sports news headlines.  They both really suck lately.  Yahoo is unreadable and CBS has become a bunch of useless commentary for the most part.
 

mabrowndog

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Here's a thought about a media type who doesn't deserve his own thread:
 
Fuck you and good riddance, Tim Brando, you motherfucking bigot and persecuted white Christian male.
 
Not sure if CBS's parting company with him was influenced in any way by his shameful Jason Collins chapter. I tend to doubt it, especially since the network did and said little in its wake. But if they're reflecting on that episode to the point they're telling him to hit the road because he's not worth the aggravation or embarrassment of waiting for the next idiotic phrase to emanate from his mouth or keyboard, fine by me.
 
I just hope to hell he's not headed back to ESPN to take any sort of role with the SEC Network.
 

nattysez

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mabrowndog said:
I just hope to hell he's not headed back to ESPN to take any sort of role with the SEC Network.
 
I'd bet $100 that's exactly where he's headed.  I otherwise agree with everything you said in your post.
 
On a separate note, does anyone else follow/read Jon Bois?  He strikes me as someone who has really figured out how to do off-beat humor on Twitter, and a lot of his Breaking Madden series on SBNation was fantastic.  
 

E5 Yaz

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Erin Andrews replaces Brooke Burke as the bubbleheaded interviewer on Dancing With The Stars
 

mpx42

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https://twitter.com/PFTCommenter/status/446478046325768193/photo/1
 
Mariotti takes credit for getting Obama elected, then blames him for the plane still being missing. Priceless.
 

glennhoffmania

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CBS Sports headline on the front page: "Darvish's neck has structural damage; to open on DL."
 
First two sentences of article:
The Rangers have finally received some good injury news. The team announced that tests performed by Dr. Keith Meister on Yu Darvish's neck showed no structural damage.
 
 

nattysez

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Tyler Kepner has the Orioles winning the East and the Sox finishing fourth ahead of only the Jays. That's the craziest prediction I've seen from a legit source thus far.
 

soxfan121

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E5 Yaz said:
Gary Smith is retiring from Sports Illustrated, one of the best pure writers in the business
 
Here is one of his best stories, on the trouble life of basketball phenom Richie Parker
 
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1008297/1/index.htm
 
SL Price has penned a tribute to Smith on SI.com that includes a link (at the bottom) to Smith's choices for a 20-story anthology of his own work. 
 
Gary Smith was a titan in sports journalism and he will be missed until he publishes again. 
 

nattysez

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Tyler Kepner picked the MFY to win the division in March.  Now, 1 month into the season, he writes:
 
 
The Yankees are taking on that same discouraging feeling from last season: old, sad and broken. You look at the names and the salaries and you expect something special. Then you look at the calendar and know better.
This is the Yankees’ reality now, the price they must pay for years of failing to produce homegrown talent and losing the aggressiveness they once had on the international market. They spend big for marquee names, pay them well past their primes and watch them get hurt.
 
 
Pick a lane, Kepner.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/sports/baseball/injuries-and-age-march-on-to-the-dismay-of-the-yankees.html?smid%3D=tw-nytsports
 

joyofsox

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Dave O'Brien says he is a Red Sox fan, and has been one since he was a kid.
 
Yet I swear someone once told me that they were listening to a Red Sox radio broadcast (maybe 2-3 years ago?) and O'Brien said his favorite BOS/MFY game of all-time is the Aaron Boone game.
 
Which seems like a really odd choice for a life-long Red Sox fan. Does that ring any bells with anyone else?
 

cromulence

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joyofsox said:
Dave O'Brien says he is a Red Sox fan, and has been one since he was a kid.
 
Yet I swear someone once told me that they were listening to a Red Sox radio broadcast (maybe 2-3 years ago?) and O'Brien said his favorite BOS/MFY game of all-time is the Aaron Boone game.
 
Which seems like a really odd choice for a life-long Red Sox fan. Does that ring any bells with anyone else?
 
Definitely would be a bizarre choice for a Sox fan, but in fairness if you remove allegiances it was a fantastic baseball game. Some offense but not too much, dramatic stuff like Mussina's relief appearance and Ortiz immediately homering off Wells when he came in. Not to mention the comeback/finish, which while obviously shitty for a Sox fan is undeniably really fucking exciting for a Game 7. Compare that to Game 7 2004, which I'm sure you all liked juuuuust a bit more - that game sucked from an objective standpoint. The tension was gone after the first inning. So if he's trying to be an "impartial" Sox fan, I can see it.
 

mwonow

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cromulence said:
 
Definitely would be a bizarre choice for a Sox fan, but in fairness if you remove allegiances it was a fantastic baseball game. Some offense but not too much, dramatic stuff like Mussina's relief appearance and Ortiz immediately homering off Wells when he came in. Not to mention the comeback/finish, which while obviously shitty for a Sox fan is undeniably really fucking exciting for a Game 7. Compare that to Game 7 2004, which I'm sure you all liked juuuuust a bit more - that game sucked from an objective standpoint. The tension was gone after the first inning. So if he's trying to be an "impartial" Sox fan, I can see it.
 
No such thing IMO - you're a fan or you aren't. No Sox fan has fond memories of the Aaron F'n Boone game, the Bucky F'n Dent game (heck, I was at that one, it definitely doesn't get a pass) the shitshow that would have been the 86 series (I still don't acknowledge that it ever took place), etc. I can appreciate a well-played game between the Kings and Black Hawks, they're both skilled and likeable-enough teams. But games the Sox lose suck. Games the Yankees win suck. Games where both things happen at once are excruciating at the time, and definitely don't merit "favorite" status in retrospect.
 

cromulence

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mwonow said:
 
No such thing IMO - you're a fan or you aren't. No Sox fan has fond memories of the Aaron F'n Boone game, the Bucky F'n Dent game (heck, I was at that one, it definitely doesn't get a pass) the shitshow that would have been the 86 series (I still don't acknowledge that it ever took place), etc. I can appreciate a well-played game between the Kings and Black Hawks, they're both skilled and likeable-enough teams. But games the Sox lose suck. Games the Yankees win suck. Games where both things happen at once are excruciating at the time, and definitely don't merit "favorite" status in retrospect.
 
I agree - by "impartial" (I put it in quotes because I know it's kind of a ridiculous notion) I meant maybe he's trying to be the journalist version of a fan. Just a guess though. Obviously I wouldn't put Game 4 2004 anywhere on my favorite games list so I agree it's a weird thing to say.
 

cromulence

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tomdeplonty said:
Isn't it possible to take multiple perspectives on the same game? As in - as a baseball fan, that was a terrific game; as a Red Sox fan, that was horrible and heart-breaking? I've definitely felt that way before - after this http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA200908070.shtml game, for example (Tazawa's debut; it wasn't intended to be, but both sides almost ran out of pitchers).
 
That's pretty much what I'm saying. I think both sides have examples - I hated the Mueller walkoff game but can't deny its greatness, just as you guys hated the Jeter diving into the stands game (or the A-Rod walkoff you referenced, which I'll always remember as I'd watched every pitch of that 0-0 game for 15 innings). But they were great games. The random regular season moments is one of my favorite things about baseball. Jason Giambi's walkoff grand slam down 3 in the 14th in the pouring rain is one of my top baseball moments of all time, and it was a random game in May.
 

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I bumped into We've been friends long enough, you'll understand... while looking for the "Vin on Zim" piece mentioned in the Zimmer thread. Vin Scully is a treasure, and if you don't already agree, the article may convince you.
 

Yet, age is inexorable, and that has meant years of wondering as to when Scully will choose to say goodbye, followed by subsequent celebration when he chooses to stick around for one more season. Scully gives reassurances that he will keep calling games for as long as he can, but there's a nagging sadness knowing that all friendships eventually come to an end. "The people have responded so well -- so touchingly -- that it will be very difficult for me to just suddenly walk away," he said. "It's the human relationships I will miss when the time comes. Like everyone in life, I've had my tragic moments, and the crowd has always got me through those moments. That's why I've said ‘I needed you far more than you needed me.' I rarely use the word ‘fans.' I realize the origin is ‘fanatics,' but I always use the word ‘friends.'"
 
 
 

mabrowndog

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Thought this was worth a hat tip to the longtime WBZ reporter (an old SoSH thread on him is here):
 
Mike Petraglia ‏@Trags 
Classy move by the @RedSox to bring a happy birthday cake to the legendary Jonny Miller here before the bottom of the 5th.
 
Maureen Mullen ‏@MaureenaMullen 
The incomparable Johnny Miller celebrating his 65th birthday, 42nd season covering Red Sox.
 
 

mabrowndog

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Tom Verducci with a superb piece on venerable scribe Roger Angell
 
 
Over the last half-century nobody has written baseball better than Roger Angell of The New Yorker. What he does with words, even today at 93, is what Mays did in centerfield and what Koufax did on the mound. His superior elegance and skill are obvious even to the untrained eye.
 
In long pieces published a few times a year, Angell has turned Bob Gibson as soft as a stick of butter under the noonday sun; sequenced like a geneticist the original Steve Blass disease; and, drawing on his first writing gig—when he tap‑tap‑tapped on a typewriter for a GI newsletter as a soldier stationed in the Central Pacific during World War II—chronicled the winning maneuvers and statesmanship of Joe Torre and Derek Jeter.
 
A lifetime of exquisite work—much of it anthologized in books such as The Summer Game and Once More Around the Park—will be honored on July 26 at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., where Angell will receive the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest honor given by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Angell is the 64th writer to win the annual award but the first never to have been a member of the BBWAA. (The New Yorker does not cover baseball as a beat.)
 
“He is the best baseball writer in terms of talent, insights, the turning of a phrase, everything,” said Susan Slusser, the A’s beat writer at the San Francisco Chronicle who nominated Angell for the award. “I felt very strongly that there should not even be a writers’ exhibit in the Hall without Roger Angell.”
 
We are seated in the front row of the press box at Yankee Stadium in June, with a dull home team challenging a first-place but unconvincing Blue Jays squad. Baseball never has been more incidental to people at stadiums than it is now, the actual game made smaller by too-loud music, inescapable commercials, mobile technology and myriad food and retail options. “They line up to go eat in the middle of the game, which amazes me,” Angell says.
 
The press box is no different. Heads are down, buried in laptops, tablets and smartphones. Angell, device-free, sees only the game, and he captures its most interesting elements with doodles and notes in a Mead three-subject notebook with the slightly rough paper he cherishes. Because those notebooks are extinct, Angell resuscitates his retired ones that still have blank pages. This one is from September 2005. It includes a doodle of Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui; the drawing helped Angell remember the thickness of Matsui’s chest and the width of his face.
 
The Red Sox legend Smoky Joe Wood sat with Angell at a Yale–St. John’s game that turned out to be a classic duel between future big leaguers Ron Darling and Frank Viola. Pitcher David Cone, in his first three hours with Angell on a book collaboration, told such deep, moving stories about his childhood and his alcoholic father that Cone’s wife, Lynn, said in amazement, “I’ve never heard any of this!”
 
And then there was Gibson, the notoriously stern Cardinals ace who regarded reporters as he did poison sumac. “I never worked harder to set it up,” Angell says of the interview. “I was terrified. Gibby brings me to his house and he gives me a swimsuit, and we’re sitting by the side of his pool, and for three or four days I’m with him all the time. And he’s telling me every single thing I want to know. When the piece was finished, he sent me a picture of himself and wrote, ‘The world needs more people like you.’”
 
Angell’s greatest contribution to the game is that in his writing he has preserved the great people and moments with such grace and care. He is the curator of our baseball souls. Reading Angell on Fisk’s home run is as different from seeing the highlight as falling deeply in love is from speed dating. The beauty of these words, in “Agincourt and After” (1975), is the amber to preserve our emotional connection to the game:
 
It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look—I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring—caring deeply and passionately, really caring—which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naïveté—the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball—seems a small price to pay for such a gift.
 

Traut

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Christian Arcand is doing a bang up job this weekend on WEEI. Hopefully as WEEI looks to attract younger listeners, they'll look to Arcand. With the right partner, I could imagine him pulling off a show similar to Van Pelt and Rusillo.
 

twibnotes

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I have to be missing something here bc it seems Steve Buckley is recommending that reporter Rachel Nichols be a candidate for NFL commissioner.

Nichols, who absolutely should be on the short list if the NFL does decide it’s time for a new commissioner, followed with a question about the Ray Rice investigation
http://bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/steve_buckley/2014/09/buckley_if_roger_goodell_stays_change_job_description

How is a journalist with no executive experience qualified to be NFL commish?
 

soxfan121

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twibnotes said:
I have to be missing something here bc it seems Steve Buckley is recommending that reporter Rachel Nichols be a candidate for NFL commissioner.

http://bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/steve_buckley/2014/09/buckley_if_roger_goodell_stays_change_job_description

How is a journalist with no executive experience qualified to be NFL commish?
 
She's not, but Buck is clearly supporting a fellow reporter who asked the hardest questions of that farcical press conference. 
 
And there would be far worse choices. Rachel Nichols knows the game and how to do her job; the "executive" experience really means she's not an insider with the connections associated with the son of a Senator.