By David Scott
BSMW Columnist

Cut the Sheath, Babbling Bob Lobel (and all you Internet-Haters)
I’m not going to get into the he said-Victor said-Red Sox said particulars of Friday’s BostonDirtDogs.com’s claim that Nomar’s injury is worse than we originally thought. It is worse, simply because it’s six weeks into the season and Nomar’s name still has not been meaningfully uttered by Carl Beane.
If Bob Lobel and his fellow AARP media brethren would take off their blinders, they’d see a whole print/broadcast/Internet revolution. I pick on Lobel for the simple reason that with each of his Friday night segments he dismissed Steve Silva’s DirtDogs’ story as if it were the most absurd, ludicrous, lark of a story, he’d ever heard. It wasn’t. And Lobel’s dismissive nature should worry his CBS4 bosses and concern his (dwindling) viewers. Silva is a guy that has been on Lobel’s Sports Final at least twice in the past year (that I have seen) – so he was clearly worthy of talking-head status alongside Babbling Bob. However, when Silva might have scooped Bob – and the rest of the so-called “mainstream media,” the seemingly earnest (and creative) Silva is nothing more to Lobel than a looney with a PowerMac G5 (that’s a type of Macintosh computer, Babbling Bobby – FYI, pal.) Butch Stearns (he’s your competition, at a rival station, Bobby) said almost as much in his last, Last Blast” last evening. Stearns, unlike Lobel, “gets it.”
We’re heading into the second full decade of sports coverage on the Internet, people. Athletes are going to control their messages in completely different ways. This “fringe media” could very well be one of those ways. It is time to wake up to those realities and to understand that the rules are changing and the medium is completely different from the “Don Kent Days.”

Sunday Night Shows
When the sports shows all ran directly into midnight coverage of same-sex marriage licenses being issued, I could have sworn I saw through my bleary eyes, Lobel and Steve Burton first in line in Cambridge. . . Sports Final led off with a feature on Ty Law’s representatives, the Postons – Carl and Kevin. It was introduced by Steve Burton, who mostly wasted a trip to Houston to feed the egomaniac, “brother” agents’ egos. Burton’s voice-over began with “They are black, they are brothers, they are attorneys. . . . (this) dynamic duo is not to be taken lightly.” The highlight was ultimately the post-package interview Lobel conducted with Harry Manion, the straight-shooter, on-the-money attorney (yes, they do exist), who represents Willie McGinest. Manion said the Postons were an example of agents pandering to their clients. “Negotiating in the press is a dangerous, two edged sword,” Manion cautioned, adding that “reasoning with the Krafts” is a more wise negotiation ploy than taunting them, publicly. Manion said: “The Postons are trying to attract more clients for themselves, in my opinion.” Manion further opined that the Postons are trying to prove, with an “advertisement” like this the Burton piece that they’ll show NFL owners they’re “tough guys. Ty is a victim who needs to be more sophisticated,” Manion said. . .After plugging a charity event of Manion’s, Babbling Bobby threw it to commercial by stating: “All the media back-stabbers will be there – including myself.” He also urged viewers to stay tuned for live coverage from Cambridge City hall where “all the action is.”. . . Burton, in addition to a lack of solid interviewing skills, was hampered by what sounded like running water on the audio from the Postons’ microphone. . . Lobel brought in both an “Achilles expert,” Craig Parsons and a skeleton, Calista Flockhart wearing a blue Red Sox cap, to explain Nomie’s Achilles. . .NECN’s Chris Collins couldn’t come through with embattled fellow-Peabodian, Marlins’ draft-pick, Jeff Allison, but Collins did bring in Silva for some dirt straight from the DirtDog’s mouth. His “other” Peabodian guest, was Tudes, John Tudor. Collins said goodbye to Tudes with a humble, kindly, “The pride of Peabody – you, not me.”. . . I’m seeing a trend here with the Peabody guys, CC. If I get overlooked for Bobby Carpenter or Steve Lomasney, I’ll know it’s a conspiracy, Pal. Tannahs for evah!. . .Silva defended his story and was fairly convincing in his explanation of the “sheath” report. The glaring weakness is that the “sources” are sounding more like fringe Nomar associates (maybe health club workers where Nomar’s rehabbing?) than inner-circle, Nomar peeps. The problem then becomes this: a “fringe media” outlet (uncredentialed, as Silva pointed out) is likely using “fringe sources.” Where there’s fringe, there’s sometimes fire, as sources go. At the very least, Silva’s driving traffic, which is half the battle in Internet circles. . . Also, let’s credit Collins for his best Sunday night in months. . . Butch Stearns and his FOX25 Sports Sunday ended with an inglorious clunker that featured Pat Bradley discussing the US Women’s Open. Hmmmmm – how’d that final show meeting go?: “Come on Butchy, let’s have them remember us in all our glory with a fantastic, gender equity piece, six full weeks ahead of the event.”. . . I don’t know what kind of Asian voodoo crap that “escort” brought into Tony’s Plaza suite, but I do know my man Tone doesn’t dream like that when he’s back in Jersey. . . If Tony had gone into coaching, I’m thinking he’d have been more Parcells than Belichick; more Ditka than Vermeil. Although, in his current mental state, involuntary crying is certainly a possibility.

Sports Guy Gets One More Chance. . . That’s it.
Okay, you all happy now? – you’re first, true man-crush is in the full-time employ of ESPN, the employer that he managed to play like a Youkilis throughout his fantasmical, funny, foray out West. I think we can all agree that Simmons serves the greater good, in a much better way from under his ESPN hat than he did under the Kimmel cap. I always gave Kimmel a couple of minutes believing that maybe, just maybe, he could convey some Sports Guy humor just from the mere fact he was around him a lot. It never happened and you can just about call Kimmel, “Arsenio” from here on out – he may survive, but he’ll always suck. . . As for Simmons, he managed to take Disney for a whole boat load of Mickey Mouse dollars and the guess from Scott’s Shots is, he’ll now become a bigger TV presence with the network. He might make “Dream Job II” worth watching – although that’s a tall order for someone not named Gwyneth or Meg. SG would also probably be a good Nick Bakay-esque character, who wouldn’t need Lovely Robin to pick up the slack. Whatever SG does, this is the final time Scott’s Shots and its subsidiaries will put up with his shenanigans for the rest of his career. You can chase the Hollywood dream once. Don’t desert the loyal SG Sports Guys and think we’re going to be all lovey-dovey next time. In fact, I’m not afraid to admit I’m a little bitter about what your overall statement during the Kimmel Dalliance seemed to be: Sports Town’s lure is secondary to Tinsel Town’s aura. Bullcrap! LA is a smoggy city with smoggy people doing smoggy things. Between NYC and LA, the grand total of TRUE friends I’ve met in either place is approximately 1. You were the BOSTON Sports Guy first – and, no matter what, that it is where your heart needs to be. Beyond all that, welcome back, SG. And condolences to Kimmel.

Ponies
I know I usual joke about Neumie’s pony predilection, but the guy really seems at home around the sport. He handled post-Preakness interview duties with two jocks – Mike Smith and Gary Stevens – deftly and with poise.

Between the Lines of Pages
The weekend’s best ink-stained piece came early on, when Gerry Callahan penned a Friday Callahan Classic for the Herald on Baby Bonds, or as Callahan calls him, “Barry BALCO. . . Bonds has some illegitimate records to set, and the damn pitchers just won’t cooperate,” he wrote, “. . . He’s on his own. . . stuck in his hard-ass job,” as Bonds described his baseball life to SI. Nice to see Callahan’s fast ball again – BB wouldn’t have a chance in the box against Cranky of Denky and Cranky fame. . . Cal’s Pal over at Yellow Box Headquarters, Karen Guregian, turned in a solid, Sunday centerpiece of “Manny Being Manny” as well, but like a Danny Boy offering, it petered out late. . . Speaking of which, It was just three days ago that I had to apologize, to you the dutiful Scott’s Shots reader(s) for the lack of Shaughnastiness and (Bill) Griffith Grumbling. Wouldn’t you know it? Both gentle-scribes provided excellent examples of how the Globe sports section remains buried in its antiquated ways and means. It also signifies the launch of an official heading for critiques of the Griffith kind: Please give a hand to Scott’s Shots newest, semi-regular heading:

Griff-Gruff
SporTVacuum’s Sunday suck-up gave un-earned props to NECN for its mediocre match-up of improving Chris Collins and stagnant Mark Ockerbloom. Griff examined NECN’s “news station” approach to “Sports Late Night.” Griff forget to mention how that approach makes for dull, even tedious segments with the likes of (Globie Guy) Nick Cafardo. And talk about burying the lead? Griff waits until graf 20 to divulge that NBC7 had come after the third guy at NECN, Mike Giardi. Which could have been taken as a huge slight for the duo of CCMO – you might think the big boys would be coming after your aces?
On a much more annoying and confounding level, Griff continues to ring the death bell for the newscast’ sports segment even going as far as to write the falsely stated: “. . . Channels 25, 38 and 56 do ‘traditional’ sportscasts at 10 p.m., . . .” Funny, here in Hull, I’ve been subjected to 15 minutes of Babbling Bobby Lobel on TV38’s “EXPANDED,” week-night “10:45 sports. Is that too late for Griff to be up on a school night? Not to mention, the new trend is actually for NBC7 and CBS4 to start their Sunday late night entrants with, what used to be the 11:20 or :25 sports report. Now that time marks the tip-off for SportsXtra and Sports Final. The thought being, Amorosino and Lobel can lure their respective newscast loyalists into staying right there for 30 more minutes of fluff on the Sunday night blab-o-rama. . . And through all of that Sunday night/weeknight sports report maneuvering, the steadiest, most reliable tandem in Boston remains Mike Lynch and Mike Dowling– that’s just a plain and simple fact.

Shaughnasty
It was the same old, same old from Danny Boy in Saturday’s missive from Toronto. It proves once again that DB is the nation’s sole columnist who requires a middle reliever and a closer to get through one stinkin’ column. In this case, it was an honest effort that began by looking at team Brain Fart’s fielding miscues. Midway through the jump, for the early edition version, it turned into a running game story, which oddly enough was also provided in the Bob Hohler game-story accompanying DB’s half-effort. I realize there are rolling deadlines, but why should some readers (like the loyalists in Hull) suffer with an incomplete game column (IGC, for you media-rotisserie league geeks)? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Trending
A Focus and a Dell. . . A Focus and a Dell. . . Neither gets me where I want. . .Stop the damn campaign. . . A Focus and a Dell. . . A Focus and a Dell. . . So Bob Costas has this much-ballyhooed show on HBO, called “On the Record.” How about “Off the Charts Horrible?” His guests on Friday night included Peter Graves from TV’s “Mission Impossible”, Leslie Nielsen from every dumb movie ever made and George Thorogood. That’s it? Wait. Let me guess, you would have had Nipsy Russell if he wasn’t already doing Dick Cavett? Next week on Costas: “Chico and The Man.” . . Between NBC’s Saturday’s over-coverage of the elderly Ray Chapman struggling down to the infield at The Preakness and CBS’s glut of Byron Nelson on-his-18th-hole-perch shots during Sergio Garcia’s playoff gift – it felt like I spent the weekend with Grampa Simpson at the old folks home. Pass the Geritol. . . You know, Thorogood once verbally abused me when I asked him some inane “Bad to the Bone” question in a telephone interview.

Rawhide
My buddy, Paulie Brookline, offers up this one after hearing Frank Thomas and Mark Bellhorn lead the league in walks: “Hey, Davey Hull, it’s The Big Hurtand The Big Horn.” Paulie kills me. And he shows how easy humor can be – even clean and kid-friendly. . . Nothing says summer on Nantasket Beach quite like Joe Castiglione calling the Blue Jays the “Torontonians” as the waves crash, from a retreating low-tide. . . NESN used Angry Bill in a pre-game package for Saturday’s game. An attempted salvage of the awful material was made with some quick-cut editing, but if I want to see an old crank bitching in his sparse abode, I’d rather it be Uncle Junior Soprano than Cousin Moron. . . That was from Angry Scott’s Shots, buddy. . .NESN also force-fed another Jimmy Dunn “bit” – this one about a write-in campaign for David Ortiz’s all-star voting. You basically get the feeling that Dunn couldn’t spell “Ortiz.” Or Dunn, for that matter. . . I caught the Canuck Broadcast Booth Babe just as she ducked under the broadcast table during a bottom-of-the-2nd inning shot of Saturday’s NESN booth. Is she in the witness relocation program of something? And what made her think hiding behind Little Wally was going to save her. That little ‘roid-head was too zoned out to know he was even in Toronto. . . If ‘Lil Wally sues me for libel, does ‘Lil Dershowitz serve the papers?

Ricky The Dragon Steamboat was making the rounds on CN8 and NECN Friday evening. This means Jimmy Super Fly Snuka should be popping up on FSN with Greggy and Gary/Greg and Gar. Someone tell the Track Gals!. . . Word from my laddie mag sources says that we can expect a Misty May (gorgeous lady of volleyball) spread in an upcoming Maxim issue. Misty is sort of like a sexier, yummier Mia Hamm. But Maxim is sure to slut her up in predictable fashion. And the teenage, zit-facers who keep those laddie mag titles afloat will love it. Almost as much as another fart joke.

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull and can be reached at david@bostonsportsmedia.com
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