By David Scott
Boston Sports Media

11:43 p.m.

• So, the week’s “Slategate” doesn’t seem to be over entirely. For those of you who have missed the riveting drama thus far, here’s the re-cap: A new Media Guy (Seth Stevenson of Slate Magazine – slate.com) ragged on an Old Media Guy (the Boston Herald’s Michael Gee) and a fellow New Media Guy (Shots, himself) “outed” the heretofore unnamed writer from Stevenson’s original piece. (Note: Shots had contacted Stevenson to get the identity, but Stevenson refused, kindly replying he wasn’t telling but also that “it wasn’t (Dan) Shaughnessy”).
Gee, who we’re thrilled to see is a follower of the site, then sent My Boss Bruce the following email, as well as the ensuing follow-up.
Since some of the response is addressing what I wrote, I figured I’d parse it out and respond where necessary.

I think you’ll agree that these two things become crystal clear: Gee gives better email than column; Gee is not quite fully understanding the revolution about to engulf him and some of his sisters and brethren.
For many of you this will be too ‘he said/she said’ or ‘Shots is jealous of a gainfully employed guy – again.’ What I believe it to be, is a sterling example of why papers like the Herald are about to be gutted from within and internet companies like Yahoo! and AOL are about to further revolutionize event and team coverage as well as the emergence of legit Internet ‘programming.’
Some of you are starting to hear what I’m saying. Your emails (in volume and voice) indicate as much. So how come no one’s doing anything about it?

Anyway, Gee’s email to Bruce is italicized. My responses are not.

Gee’s email to Bruce, received Wednesday afternoon:
Subject: Perhaps you could help me explain a few things to a pair or simpletons.
Being one half of that pair of simpletons (Stevenson is the presumed other), I should take offense at that comment. I don’t, however. Simple is, as simple does.

Dear Bruce: Yes, I was the guy bitching for the game to end faster on Monday. I don’t apologize for that at all. In fact, I think my attitude might highlight the difference between actual journalism
. . . ooooh, here comes a web attack, I can just feel it. . .

and golly-gee-whiz fanboy web types who got credentials thanks to the soft-hearted Red Sox PR department.
Stevenson, indeed may have been golly-gee about the day’s events, and admitted in the blog that it had been a while since he was in a major league clubhouse. Still, he’s not writing for a hardcore, sports audience, so for Gee to slight the guy just because he was describing the goings-on in the press box (and beyond) is missing the point entirely.

As for me, I’m neither ‘golly-gee-whiz’ nor ‘fanboy.’ What I’d propose I am is someone who has been credentialed for a few Super Bowls and a few more Final Four. I’ve been to All-Star games, Bowl games and yes, even some long, drawn-out games that had me wishing for a bomb scare to clear the place. I get the part about the “grind of the job.” I really do.
But I’m happy to say I never outwardly spouted my frustration or made any type of spectacle of myself – however small that spectacle may have been. But that’s just me, I suppose. Lupica IS a spectacle and a few of his ilk are on their way: Woody, Skip and Beano make four. I could go on.

Lastly on this Gee excerpt: The Sox PR department isn’t necessarily being soft-hearted, they’re being forward-thinking. Gee (or is it golly-gee-whiz?) is most likely getting about one-one hundredth of the eyes reading his stuff as the Slate site, and by default, Stevenson’s Sox piece. Truth is, the Sox are being soft-hearted by allowing all the deadwood newspaper guys, radio hacks and TV jamokes into the ballyard.
That’s not to say that the Sox media relations is perfect by any means. But they’re not blind to the environment’s changing ways.

Did Scott or that other moron ever hear of the word “deadline”? My thoughts about a given sports event MUST be completed and turned in by x o’clock. Every needless pitching change, every reliever nibbling at the corners when his team is up or down by 8 runs is stealing time from me and my ability to do my job as well as I’d like or hope. OF COURSE I resent that. Tech types bitch when their tasks are interrupted by system failure, don’t they? What am I supposed to say “Oh, goody, Johnny got a single!”
Fair question. I have, in fact heard of deadlines. Of course, blogging eliminates that problem, but the restraints of newspapers do indeed handcuff the writers. Just ask Mitch Albom.
But did Gee ever think of using his time to, I dunno, maybe craft the column he was going to have to file soon after the final out? His day after “Wake’s gem perfect way to go forward” piece was standard Gee: solid, nothing flashy and hardly must-read. He doesn’t have Bob Ryan’s style or even Shaughnasty’s edge.
And get this, he was ostensibly having his outbursts over the fact that the game was running long, thus delaying his access to the players. The guy used one quote in his entire column and it was placed seven grafs in. It mainly had Wake saying his start was an ‘honor’ and the win was ‘important.’ For that, Gee could have filed during the seventh inning and not missed a thing. And been home by 7 to boot.

To extrapolate from those remarks that I didn’t have a good time at the game is a) false, b) beyond stupid. I have a good time at every game. The day I don’t enjoy attending sports events and writing about them is the day I quit, immediately and without regret. I’m sure not sticking in this racket for the money, endorsement opportunities, and groupies.
True enough. Why should we really care if you had a good time at the game. We should just be comfortable in the fact that you’re giving it your best effort and delivering something worthwhile to the readership. However, with outbursts such as the ones reported, we tend to doubt you were in the perfect state to deliver the goods if you were steaming mad about the sun setting – as it does every day, we remind you.

Every word I write for the Herald or anywhere else is fair game for any critic, be they a rational one like yourself or a bullying uninformed Big Show punk. My comments during (the) said process are irrelevant.
He writes for other places? And he thinks My Boss Bruce is rational? The guy sent me a small t-shirt as my bonus check. I haven’t been a small since birth. . . . As for Big Show punks – that’s tremendous right there. Gee killing the “Big No” boys, and completely unprompted. So when DeOssie, Krisily Kennedy and Smerlas come rolling outta the Dry Dock on their hogs to kick my ass for hating on them, I’ll be able to send them over to the Gee Teepee first. Big Show Punks – it sounds like it should be the Fan Club’s name. “Be a punk – like Meat Head.”

One more thing, smarmy crocodile tears like the ones Scott shed for us Herald types is the sort of comment that could lead to a fella ending up wearing his testicles for a necklace. Just sayin’
Sincerely, Michael Gee, friend of the 2:30 ballgame.
P.S. You have my permission to use any or all of this communication for your website. Now I must prepare for tonight’s game.
Those were neither smarmy nor corcodiley tears. My first magazine job was at College Sports mag and it went under, leaving myself and about 10 good friends out of work in lean times. Clearly, as ESPNU and CSTV show, it was an idea ahead of its time. That hurts a lot when you know something is good in theory, but gets run into the ground. My last magazine job was at SPORT when a bunch of blimey Brits killed the title after a semi-proud 50-plus year history. That was another stretch of good people getting shafted and that one hurt a lot, as well.
If that sympathy and empathy gets me measured for a necklace made of testicles, then you might as well call me Ball Chain Wearer. But I do fear for the industry at large and some of the long-timers who might get squeezed out. (All this, by the way, as Gannett announces its newspaper ad revenues are up. An anomaly or a trend?)
And, by the way, thanks for the permission to use your words. It got me a 2,000-word column in half the time it usually takes.

Follow-up from Gee after a Bruce reply:
. . . As for a blog, it’s looking increasingly likely that quite a few Herald writers will be starting them up in the near future. All in good time.
“In good time?” The paper is being decimated, the website is so substandard it’s a joke and the true players in the Internet information world are already beginning to implement ‘next generation’ philosophies and technologies.
The time is now and that’s one of the biggest lessons the Herald needs to learn from the popularity of Mike Reiss’s daily Patriots’ mid-day update.

. .Oh, yeah, for the record, first edition deadline for us is 8:30, preferably 8 for a day game. Since first pitch Monday was at 3:18, last out was at 6. So I don’t think my grumbling was totally unjustified, although I admit some might have been force of habit. Thanks, Michael Gee
I’m not seeing the issue of having two hours of post-game (at least) to grab quotes and finish off the column – especially if you worked the column into shape during the game.
But I’ll admit there are times when the ridiculous newspaper printing schedule and the “Bulldog Editions” make the process so antiquated that it’s laughable.
But this gets into the argument where newspapers and the old wretches who run them are too damn stubborn to change. The news cycle is fluid now and forever more. With a little planning, the Herald could have driven website traffic for Monday night with a Monday tease in the paper of “Read Michael Gee tonight at the Herald’s website.” Gee, then could have filed soon after the game and either done a follow-up column for the Tuesday hard copy or allowed his colleagues to fill the rest of the Tuesday edition. It’s a different way of using resources – a different way of thinking. Will some writers be resistant to the change? Of course. But a lot of the dinosaurs were pissed when the typewriter and later the Radio Shack laptop went by the wayside. They adjusted – for the most part – and the process was streamlined and improved.
It’s not just Michael Gee who doesn’t understand this New Media world in which we exist and truth be told, I always have liked his low-key, no-TV, no-Radio approach. That said, I think he’s having trouble understanding the way his job has changed and, almost daily, continues to change.
And all those thoughts are coming from a Simpleton – imagine what the trend leaders could add to this conversation?

• It appears Shots may have been the only one who actually enjoyed Terry Cashman’s performance on Monday. It did the trick and part of the appeal was the very fact that it was a familiar voice doing a familiar tune. For The Big No to be so offended by it seems a bit far-fetched and another example of Sports Talk radio gone mad. Cashman’s not getting a Grammy, but O ain’t exactly getting the Edward R. Murrow himself. . . This is for Teddy Ballgame and All the Lonely People. . .