Becoming to be

I rest my case.

Becoming? It never stopped being. Winning just farking lets you gloss over that shiat for a while

I love how the Boston Media is completely ignoring that Ortiz is only talking about how the Boston Media is terrible.

And by "love" I mean let's just fire every Boston 'reporter' and start over.

jaylectricity: DeWayne Mann: I love how the Boston Media is completely ignoring that Ortiz is only talking about how the Boston Media is terrible.

And by "love" I mean let's just fire every Boston 'reporter' and start over.

It's true. So many times they bring up certain things and as a fan I'm just thinking, "Shut up, don't put that doubt in their heads!"

But they do, and it's there, so what the hell? Just put the Boston media out of business, is what I say.

Except for Freddy T...that badass is way over our heads with his paddle board.

Did you catch the NESN pregame today? Matt Stairs came so, so close to just telling Gammo (who kept pretending Ortiz was talking about the fans) to shut up.

So, now that I've called for them all to get fired, I'll point out that at least one media member actually understands what Ortiz was saying:

http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/mike-petraglia/20 12 /06/21/trags-bag-feeling-pain-david-ortiz?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_mediu m=twitter

Well, who said the clubhouse was "toxic?" Oh, Buster Olney. Let's look at his resume.

Lives in: New York

Wrote for: The New York Times

Covering: The New York Yankees

Wrote a book on: The Yankees Dynasty

I don't know whether to say he's not 100% impartial or just to say that I can't buy anything he reports unless it's on the Yankees.

jaylectricity: DeWayne Mann: Did you catch the NESN pregame today? Matt Stairs came so, so close to just telling Gammo (who kept pretending Ortiz was talking about the fans) to shut up.

I'm avoiding the Red Sox from now on, so no, I didn't see that. Although I still check out sports radio for the soap opera.

Pregame drives me insane, but I lose track of time really easily, so I generally turn NESN on once I realize it's after 6pm.

Like I said, it usually pisses me off, but watching Matt Stairs say that the media needs to stop saying stupid stuff while glaring at Gammo was totally worth it.

DeWayne Mann: I love how the Boston Media is completely ignoring that Ortiz is only talking about how the Boston Media is terrible.

And by "love" I mean let's just fire every Boston 'reporter' and start over.

The clip was pretty great (audio only, edited so mostly SFW). The tones of voice are pretty telling-- the cockwit reporter who demanded clarification about whether Ortiz meant that fans or reporters needed to leave the players alone sounded downright bellicose.

It reminds (as it's reminded others) of when Nomar said what I had heard as something along the lines of "No wonder players don't want to play here-- this place is a f----ing joke." Granted, his comment was mostly in the context of how the front office mistreated players and was directed at his teammates, but he said it with reporters clustered about demanding comment about how the receiving end of Mussina's near-perfect game and the general ass-drubbing by the Yankees had just felt. The pitching coach had just been pretty crassly fired (for drinking, with no attempt to save his dignity) despite the pitchers' relative success (6 runs in 3 games), the Red Sox had just been swept at home by the Yankees in a weekend that culminated in Mussina's-- facing Dave Cone, of all people-- retiring the first 26 Red Sox (before Jurassic Carl's bloop single) he faced and winning 1-0 on that Sunday. Jimy Williams had got sacked earlier in the season with the team at 12 games above .500, but he was too mad to be trusted, and utterly lost control of his players. All of that was swirling around, with Joe Kerrigan and Dan Duquette publicly badmouthing one of their own employees and the press swarming to get comments from the shell-shocked players. And Nomar was right-- it was a f---ing joke. As the article you posted later mentioned, that was a particularly horrific clubhouse, before the time of anyone left on the team save Ben Cherington (and he worked in player development at the time, so spent most of his time on the minors).

And that's how it's been feeling again in Boston this year, which I would have found inconceivable only a few years ago. Given the improvements in technology over the past few years, why is it still necessary to have dozens of reporters and cameras crowding every locker after the game? Why not have a designated locker-room reporter contractually bound to ask every question that comes in through his earpiece, with one camera streaming footage available to every news agency? Or even have a tablet computer with live video feeds being recorded on one end, with the designated locker-room reporter switching among networks? I remember when reporters basically lived with the teams they covered-- they rode the trains with them, they went to dinner together, they caroused together, they stayed in the same hotels-- and they could be trusted not to report on non-stories or stories that might damage the players. So of course they had more access than today's reporters. I'm not saying that was a better system, but I preferred it. I'm sure tonnes of newsworthy stories went unreported (the rampant drug use, for example, or stories of clubhouse-attendant molestation), but I still think many of those stories (players' personal issues, for example) are still better left unreported. Not the actual crimes, of course, but the minor things. That can never happen with this current feeding-frenzy mentality.

Boston's a rancid cloaca like that: very little goes unreported. Boston reporters were all proud of themselves last year for waiting almost three whole weeks before dishing their vaguely substantiated rumours that John Lackey had been seen picking up women at bars in the area AFTER he had tried to use his cancer-stricken wife as a reason to lash out at reporters. They wanted a biscuit, or something, for their restraint. Now, Lackey is a scumbag, and all, but I still don't need to know about his personal life. And now I do know a bit about it (and now so do you, if you didn't before). Hell, the thought of that misshapen puss leering at women and actually pulling is sickening to me. I resent that. Good for Ortiz for telling them to piss off.

I have nothing against fans of the Boston Red Sox.

Sawx Nation, WEEI, and the Boston sports media (hell the northeastern media in general) can go eat a bag of flaming dicks.

We have covered that he was talking about the media, right? fark the Felgers of the world.

I'd like to cut a big eggy fart in David Ortiz's gaping mouth.

Also, may Charles Steinberg eternally rot deep within the filthiest molar in Satan's festering maw. When the Red Sox re-hired him this year, I knew PR this season would be ugly. I didn't know it would get this bad this fast, but I suspected it might get very bad.

I'm not even partial to this team, but spending time in Boston makes it hard not to form opinions. The team seem fine, but the reporters aren't worthy to be flicked out of the filthiest nostril on Earth. Let them get blown desultorily to the ground like all the other body-waste, and overtrod.

Nana's Vibrator: I was kind of hoping that 98.5 Sports Hub was going to take a completely different direction from WEEI, but Felger and Maz are possibly bigger blowhards than the idiots at WEEI.

Boy, you got that right.

Oh wait, I guess I should say 'This' and utilize several exclamation points.

THIS!!!!!

AtticusFinchEsq: Felger is an idiot of the highest order.

Sadly, most of HUB is now like EEI, which is disappointing but I really should have seen coming. I just can't stand the concept of sports radio any longer: spend hours talking about topic A, beat it into the ground. Take a call. Caller says, "Yah, dude. Whatchu guys think about [topic A]? If ya wanna know what *I* think..." Jesus, it's infuriating. Back to XM radio and old school hip hop.

xpisblack: The team seem fine, but the reporters aren't worthy to be flicked out of the filthiest nostril on Earth.

I appreciate everything you wrote in your posts. Pretty much sums it up for me. The sad part is all this crap is ruining what could have been an enjoyable season watching the young talent really shine.

Nana's Vibrator: It's a good thing for me, I can get tickets for less than $5 on StubHub.

I remember in previous seasons when tickets went on sale, you'd have to spend hours waiting online in the "virtual waiting room" only to end up sitting behind a beam. This year, it took less than five minutes.

fatalvenom: Listening to anyone talk baseball is just as boring as watching baseball.

Agreed, assuming that by "just as boring" you mean "not necessarily boring at all." Hearing truly knowledgeable speakers dissect a game or a trend therein can be fascinating, just as watching baseball can be fascinating. But the chirping heads on the Boston sports radio stations bring new depths to the word "awful." Like the difference between hearing Vin Scully or Hawk Harrelson discuss the game and enduring Tim McCarver or Joe Morgan or Bobby Valentine's ham-tongued attempts at infinite profundity. I refuse to learn the Boston radio hosts' names-- every show is the same, so far as I can tell. But hearing clever, informed, passionate people discussing the nuances of baseball is one of the great joys of sport fandom; in Boston, you're more likely to find such a discussion in a pub's washroom than on the radio, but every once in a great while one of the morons shows a flash of human sentiment or sports-talk acumen, and it's like finding a beautiful geode growing out of stagnant faeces.

desertgeek: Well, who said the clubhouse was "toxic?" Oh, Buster Olney. Let's look at his resume.

Lives in: New York

Wrote for: The New York Times

Covering: The New York Yankees

Wrote a book on: The Yankees Dynasty

I don't know whether to say he's not 100% impartial or just to say that I can't buy anything he reports unless it's on the Yankees.

Didn't know that about Buster. I consider him to be the only tolerable person on espn when baseball talk is happening and I never like Yankee talk.

Listening to the celtics coverage was brutal. All narrative no substance.

This is what happens when you don't have ownership, the GM, field manager, coaches, and players who aren't on the same page. Too much time in Liverpool makes for a crappy baseball team.

I guess it would be too boring if the media talked all day about how good Middlebrooks is hitting and why Gonzalez is now a singles hitter.

fatalvenom: Anyone who has the first name "Buster", should be taken as seriously as a guy who dresses up in women's panties and asks you to beat him in the face with a cane pole while you call him Kate.

This is just Papi trying to get a fire lit under this team, which has failed to inspire nor live up to expectations. So he creates the bogus boogeyman of the Boston Media as an 'us against them" thing for his team to rally against because of reports of a "toxic locker room". It may sound like a hissy fit, but it is a rallying cry. Papi is having a great season, he has to fight for his next contract and he is taking a leadership role to galvanize the team so it stops in-fighting.

We've seen Papi do this stuff before. He doesn't do it nearly as well as Pedro Martinez did, but it's all good. For the first time this season the Red Sox are starting to get interesting. But they tend to get RED hot about this time of year every year.

Really is time to jettison most of the old veterans and let the young kids develop.

The Red Sox need to invite the Celtics to their locker room.

Ahhhh, Boston. The Cubs of the American League.

mainstreet62: Ahhhh, Boston. The Cubs of the American League.

Hmmm, interesting. I don't think so. They both have the old ballparks, and there's the Theo thing, but that's really where the similarities stop. The Cub fanbase tends to be pretty laid back about the team; the Boston fanbase tends to be, well...see thread? They used to have the "curse" thing in common, but that's no longer the case. And I think the two team city thing sorta messes up the media coverage.

I'd say that the Red Sox are the Phillies of the American League. Mostly annoying fans, northeastern city that thinks its more important than it really is, recent success leading to some bad roster moves, Jonathan Papelbon...

As for the Cubs of the American League, I'm trying to decide between the M's, Rangers & Twins. MAYBE the O's. None of them are perfect, but I could probably make a decent argument for any of them.

DeWayne Mann: mainstreet62: Ahhhh, Boston. The Cubs of the American League.

Hmmm, interesting. I don't think so. They both have the old ballparks, and there's the Theo thing, but that's really where the similarities stop. The Cub fanbase tends to be pretty laid back about the team; the Boston fanbase tends to be, well...see thread? They used to have the "curse" thing in common, but that's no longer the case. And I think the two team city thing sorta messes up the media coverage.

I'd say that the Red Sox are the Phillies of the American League. Mostly annoying fans, northeastern city that thinks its more important than it really is, recent success leading to some bad roster moves, Jonathan Papelbon...

As for the Cubs of the American League, I'm trying to decide between the M's, Rangers & Twins. MAYBE the O's. None of them are perfect, but I could probably make a decent argument for any of them.

Ok, screw it, I've got nothing better to do. I'm gonna come up with AL v NL comparisons. For the purpose of this, I'm moving the Astros to the AL a year early so the leagues are equal:

Red Sox/Phillies: See Above

Yankees/Dodgers: In their two team cities, they were the first team and traditionally the better team. Don Mattingly. Typically large payrolls. Fans occasionally appear more concerned with "being a fan" than actually watching the games.

Orioles/Giants: Early in life, they were the lesser team in a multi-team city (New York Giants, St. Louis Browns). They eventually moved to a city where they could be by themselves...only to have some other team move in 30 minutes away. In recent times, they've been plagued by terrible front office decisions.

Nationals/Athletics: They've never really had a home. The teams that moved in on the Orioles & Giants. Don't spend any money.

Mets/White Sox: The lesser teams in 2 team cities. Even on the rare occasion they're better than the other team, no one really notices. Actually, come to think of it, I don't know anything else about either of these teams.

Astros/Brewers: AL! NL! AL! NL! NL! AL! Also, probably the two least "kid-friendly" team names in history: one is named after the people who make beer, the other was originally named after a firearm. Both had weird uniforms back in the day that never should've been good...yet were (the Astros rainbow, the Brewers powder blues).

Mariners/Padres: West Coast expansion teams that everyone always forgets about. Tony Gwynn & Ichiro are secretly the same person (Ichiro is wearing the suit from Big Momma's House). Ridiculous pitchers parks.

Rays/Marlins: Eh? We're supposed to get fans? NO ONE TOLD US THAT! Welp, time for a name change.

Royals/Pirates: Eh? We're supposed to pay our players? NO ONE TOLD US THAT! Welp, time to trade them all away, then ruin the prospects we get back. Also, remember that one good player we had that one time? Remember him? He was good, right?

Twins/Cubs: The year is 1950. I wanna tell a really funny joke about a bad baseball player who gets recruited by a long suffering team. But what team should I use? Well, if it's the NL, I'm picking the Cubs. AL? Senators. 'Course, the Senators had to move and screw everything up. Jerks. Also, they tend to hold onto "tradition" way, way too long.

Indians/Cardinals: They've both secretly been pretty decent for over 100 years, but everyone remembers them for A. Offense in the 90's (McGwire vs Thome/ManRam/Etc) and B. somewhat overlooked players back in the day (Stan Musial vs Nap Lajoie).

Rangers/Rockies: Eh? We're supposed to win the World Series? NO ONE TOLD US THAT! Welp, time to get good hitting LFs, then randomly put them in CF. Also, ridiculous hitters parks.

Reds/Blue Jays: Best known for two things: completely random dynasties that made no sense (the Big Red Machine, the late 80s/90s Jays that I don't know any nickname for), being terrible the entire rest of the time. Also, both are in third world countries. Ohio's a country, right?

Braves/Tigers: Both are founding members of their leagues; no one cares. Atlanta and Detroit are secretly the same city (Atlanta is wearing the suit from Big Momma's House). Both are pretty good at getting to the World Series, yet bad at winning it.

Angels/Diamondbacks: Both were surprisingly good in their second season. Both sorta want to disguise where they actually are ("Arizona" vs "...of Anaheim.") Never have any rain delays. EVER. Um...look, I couldn't get perfect matches for everyone, ok? I think I'm doing a pretty good job here, considering.

Ok folks, tell me I'm wrong.

better analogy

DeWayne Mann:
[parallels redacted]


Your jib. I like the cut of it.

VogonPoet: DeWayne Mann:
[parallels redacted]


Your jib. I like the cut of it.

Thanks.

You remember that guy, right? God he was good. We should put up statues. We can use the money we're not paying our players!

DeWayne Mann: Words

Additional similarities:
Rangers/Rockies: Both teams use their state instead of their city because of the way it works with their team name.
Orioles/Giants: Both teams wear black and orange

Changes (to kinda address the D-Backs/Angels issue):
Angels/Mets: Both are expansion teams, both were placed in a city that already had a team, and both are the "secondary" team in their city. And each team won it's most recent World Series after a memorable rally in game 6 when their opponents seemingly had the championship all locked up. Plus, it even matches the Yankees/Dodgers connection.

Diamondbacks/White Sox: Both teams have colors that don't match their name. The White Sox wear black socks (and those red Sunday uniforms, despite the fact that there is another team called the Sox that wears red). The D-Backs used to wear purple and now they wear red - but diamondback snakes are not purple or red - they are copper-ish colored. Both teams have won 100 games once - and they both won exactly 100 the year that they did it.

Rex_Banner: DeWayne Mann: Words

Additional similarities:
Rangers/Rockies: Both teams use their state instead of their city because of the way it works with their team name.
Orioles/Giants: Both teams wear black and orange

Changes (to kinda address the D-Backs/Angels issue):
Angels/Mets: Both are expansion teams, both were placed in a city that already had a team, and both are the "secondary" team in their city. And each team won it's most recent World Series after a memorable rally in game 6 when their opponents seemingly had the championship all locked up. Plus, it even matches the Yankees/Dodgers connection.

Diamondbacks/White Sox: Both teams have colors that don't match their name. The White Sox wear black socks (and those red Sunday uniforms, despite the fact that there is another team called the Sox that wears red). The D-Backs used to wear purple and now they wear red - but diamondback snakes are not purple or red - they are copper-ish colored. Both teams have won 100 games once - and they both won exactly 100 the year that they did it.

OOooooh, this is all good stuff.