By David Scott
Boston Sports Media

A brief re-cap of the past week in Scott’s Shots History: On Tuesday evening, the media conglomerate of Bo The Dog Publishing launched David Scott’s PodShots.

(Also available via direct download here, without entering LibSyn land. But I’d urge you to check out the LibSyn site anyway. Between them and a nifty program called Garage Band (which I swear I don’t get paid to say), a TechnoSchmo like Shots managed to lay some tracks down. Record ‘em and broadcast ‘em even.

Watch out Mike and the Mad Puppy. I’m on your asses. (See below, scattered throughout, for more “PodShots Start-up” tales).
But seriously friends, Shots will be donating a nominal amount per each (free) download of PodShots over the course of the weekend. I’m thinking like a dime per download up to $150. So check out the podcast and you can say you did your part for the Jimmy Fund as well. Good luck, ‘EEIers and NESNers. It’s your one day without Shots being fired your way.)

• So an extra hour is going to make such a difference for the grounds crew at Fenway? An 8:05 start? Something fishy there, I’m telling ya. Fishy like shores off Little Brewster.

• Hot Herald hammer-wielder, Howard Bryant continued his own personal, hitting streak this Wednesday when he called his professional mates’ reporting abilities, steroid diligence and ethical allegiances into question. (Bryant was piling on after this Editor & Publisher/Allan Wolper story about the under-reporting of the steroids scandal.)
Bryant names names (Gordon Edes and Shaughnasty), gives examples and, at the very least, seems to forget that his paper didn’t do a lot of digging AT THE TIME, either.

As for the present – where Bryant and the Herald are choosing to live – he is absolutely correct: The Globe is twiddling its thumbs while Bryant’s rattling cages. “Keep diggin’,” Bryant claims he was told by players. That echoes more and more, doesn’t it?. . .Yes, we’ve been paying closer attention to Bryant since the Shots’ assessment of his dual purpose steroid coverage three weeks back) – and the mixed response that item brought. It felt a lot like Bryant was irrelevant in-town but oddly, rising, out of town (on CNN and ESPN, for instance). . . Bryant continues to call out the ‘Cartel’, and sling mud – as it were – at the Green Boxers. Believe it or not, he is now the Face of the Boston Herald Sports Page, and it might be time to start pumping him up a bit – so to speak. Juice the Juice Guy the same way the NY Tabs pub their own.

• “PodShots Start-up” Tale 1

At least with blogging, you can do it quietly. With PodCasting, I found myself shrieking at audible levels to next-door-neighbors. Louie the Hull Cop is my closest abutter. That serves as fair warning if I’m arrested in the next quarter century or so.

• The New York Times’ Jack Curry ( Not linking, sorry: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/sports/baseball/23bench.html) had a nostalgic look at the lost art of bench jockeying in baseball. Funniest part was that Gary Sheffield had no idea what it was.

• The Herald has busted out the ability to give a story a bit more space – suggesting an attention to trends that has been missing in recent years. This week, Tony Mazz was allowed to look into ‘hazing’ (as it were) and a commitment to giving stories some space appears to be filtering through the back of the Herald. We like the approach and think it’s another spot where the Globe is vulnerable. . . Mazz, by the way, has been spreading his wings a bit with some recent Patriots coverage. Might be good for Mazz to stretch out a bit – not to mention a welcome boon to the Yellow Boxer’s anemic Pats-dedicated staffers. It’s basically Michael Felger Underwood Who Drank Too Much On Tuesday Night At The Stones and Whined About it On-air Wednesday. (Please, you have a kid, a great gig, a local celeb wife and you still need to play Wasted Frat Guy on the day after a show? Act like you’ve been there before or risk being perceived as a Ryen Russillo Frat Boy In Training (RRFBIT).

Meanwhile for its Patriots coverage, The Globe has immediately begun using five-tool, utility man, Mike Reiss (see below) to augment the Jerome Solomon, Nick Cafardo, Ron Borges and An Intern combo that will simply dominate if the sports desk match-ups at Morrissey and One Herald remain the same throughout the season. We’re guessing it can’t stay that way and we’re further supposing that George Kimball and Kevin Mannix will have some freelance chances (Herald buyout provisions allowing).

• Couple of heads up for the weekend reading list, both bylined by the stellar New York Times’ college guy, Pete Thamel: A scheduled Friday piece on the Boise State up-and-comer-coach-du-jour Dan Hawkins and the slated, Sunday college football season preview package (which will make super shore-side Shots reading just before the NYT Sunday Puzzleattack). And to complete the NYT Tripleheader, print out this Michiko Kakutani book review. (It should be noted the last option is only for those who continue to see the genius of Catcher in the Rye.)

• “PodShots Start-up” Tale 2
So one of the suggestions I read somewhere was to make a “spit shield” out of a pair of panties and a wire hanger. That – unlike real headphones or a sound studio – is an investment I can make. So I go to Nantasket Pharmacy and grab the buck-fifty-three, dusty-bag-hanging-on-plastic-strip-for-17-years pouch of darkish hose. Crotched, of course. (I wanted to get the egg container desperately, but it was just too pricy. Almost 3 bucks!) And I also need AAA batteries, which they have in stock. So I approach the counter with Coppertops and Control Tops.

At this point I can just see the Hull Times Police blotter entry now: Tuesday, 12:15 p.m. Nantasket Pharmacy calls to report suspicious, tanned, sandal-wearing, gentleman just purchased panty hose and batteries. Caller suspects terrorist and/or lewd behavior. Requests added patrols. O/Love reports negative search of area. O/Negative reports lovely search.

Bottom line: I now speak my PodShots into the crotch of cheap pantyhose stretched over a wire hanger clamped onto a makeshift mike stand.

Welcome to Podcasting, Crotch Talkers.

• More than a few folks chimed in to offer up love and protection for the Herald’s Copy Desk after Shots pointed out a couple of egregious errors from last week. Let it be said for all to hear: I’m sorry about that. And I’m sorry the desk (and the “Rim,” especially) are down staffers. The examples I gave were fairly important aspects (a story subject’s name and the place a suspended football player was watching a game). I clearly don’t sweat the little stuff – just look at my typos and grammatical shortfalls. But I do my durndest to get proper names and places correct. That’s all I’m sayin’. I love copy editors – they just don’t love me back.

• A strong debut with the Pats Mailbag by Mike Reiss of the Globe – it went five web pages and was both timely (including embedded links to stories) and informative (a nice breakdown of the difference between kickoff and punt returners, for instance). Reiss gets points for turning what can be a chore for some into easy reading for the rest of us. . .And while we’re in the ‘hood, we do need to give credit to Joe Sullivan and the Green Boxers for utilizing Reiss right out of the box.

• “PodShots Start-up” Tale 3

In its first 36 hours of availability, 200 people listened to the historic first broadcast. I clicked over to my calculator widget (Mac friendly Shots, we are) and discovered this: I’m awful with numbers.
But I think I could get some listeners in a pretty coveted demographic: Deranged Sports Followers Who Can Download Files.

• Believe me, there are plenty of ways to criticize the Katherine Harris BCS Poll (aka the EmbHarris Poll), so it was a bit over-reactionary when the Association for Women in Sports Media folks started to chime in about the dearth of women on the 114-member panel. (currently it’s 110, soon to be 114 with – SURPRISE – at least two women!) Point is, there probably weren’t very many Asians on there either. Or Bloggers. Or Sri Lankans. Or Hutus.

It’s the BCS people! Everything they touch turns limp or languid within hours of its debut. Deal with it!

It was a list of football-associated people put together by non-football people (the Harris people are, shall we say, more pop culturally aware than sportingly conscious). No matter what the make-up of that list turned out to be, there were going to be complaints. Of course it would be a different story if there was a strong figurehead serving as the face and voice of the BCS. But there isn’t a true one of them in the whole money-grubbing bunch of Big School Phonies. . . Contrast that to the way Paul Tagliabue stood this week (in Foxboro no less) as part of his Summer Pilgrimage to see the peasants do what the peasants do when they make his league all of its billions. Think of it this way: Steroids in football HAD to be MUCH MORE widespread than it ever was in baseball. And yet, largely because of Tagliabue’s presence, very few are even sniffing around the NFL’s ‘labs.’ That, my friends is what you would term: Controlling the media. The only other sporting organization that spins better than the teFLoN NFL is Coach Bush’s White House.

• Speed Channel has the best TV talent, female division – bar none. Sneaky great, even. Check it out. Vroom. Vroom.

• There is no single, bigger TV viewing disappointment than switching to Ch. 49 on my cable system in anticipation of the 5:30 PTI and finding, at first the awful 1st and Ten, and then the almost-as-awful Around the Horn taking up the PTI slot.

• On a similar note: The Thursday night ESPN Fantasy Football Draft was missing both Mel Kiper and a Green Room. But it did have Team Suzy Kolber (taking Jamal Lewis at No. 5), followed quickly by Team Schwabbie’s selection of Edgerrin James. Team Nick Lachey (aka Team He’s the Best ESPN Could Get?) picking via time delay in Sweden, chose Jessica Simpson, noting he could score with her at any moment. Kidding. He took Corey Dillon – a curse of Ruthian proportions for Pats fans. The first round highlight was when Nick Bakay (a Shots fave, mainly ‘cuz of his wife) proposed a Ricky Williams trade to Mike Ditka.

• Here’s the tag line at the bottom of every Boston Sports Guy on-line column: “Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. His Sports Guy’s World site is updated every day Monday through Friday.

Here’s the reality of this week as of the end of the work day on Thursday: One column on Hulkamania from Monday. On Tuesday he Cowbelled a brief Frank Deford documentary review (an ESPN show, by the way) and on Thursday he Cowbelled a mailbox entirely with readers comments.

I’m not calling him out for his lack of work this week as much as I’m calling him out for his lack of timely relevance. Can we, I dunno, maybe get some commentary on the major sports stories of the week: Lance? The BCS? Huggins?

No. We get an 80s wrestler, an 80s writer (enduring as he may be) and reader questions about Rocky movies.

That seems, maybe a little bit self-serving, doesn’t it?

I repeat: the guy’s a talent and draws eyeballs. But trying to figure out WHAT? he and his site are nowadays is like trying to figure out where Tara Reid will pass out next (that was for you SG, we see how you love the sloppiest second of all time).

Let the hate mail begin. . .

• All this Manny bashing amounts to a whole lot of nothing – Manny will still play, he will still be Manny and he will still produce. And ‘EEI will ride the Manny Train until it crashes into a brick wall come the off-season.

• An Insider’s follow-up email on the SportsCenter Interruption being perpetrated on Pardon the Interruption viewers confirms all of Scott’s greatest fears: The Worldwide Leader’s Lame Duck Leader of Import, Mark Shapiro (and his fellow meter watchers) have been watching the 6 p.m. SC stumble and bumble for some time now and this “Interruption, Interruption” is a blatant attempt to keep PTI’s viewers for a quarter or more of the daily, dinnertime SC. Those involved with the Network’s marquee banter show are none too pleased with the arrangement. Guys like Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser are smart enough to know when they’re being used and exploited. . .With Shapiro scheduled to bow out October 1, Shots reached out to one of our more connected ESPN Observers for a short list of candidates likely to replace Shapiro. Our Observer, a former ESPN employee and current national media player, gave us this: “Internal candidates are (Senior VP of Programming) John Wildhack and (Senior VP and Executive Producer) Jed Drake. I do think Disney/ESPN might look externally for a candidate. It would seem unlikely that one person would fill (Shapiro’s) job. It’s one of the biggest positions in sports television.”
Media Week reported the same two names this week, and mentioned the possibility of splitting Shapiro’s ESPN/ABC duties.
Drake, according to his ESPN bio, is a Boston University grad (1978) and Wildhack was (surprise!) a Syracuse (and Newhouse) guy (1980).

Folks within the ESPN bunker are reluctant to comment on possible successors to Shapiro, especially with, as one Bristol-based bud said, “they are two of many people here.” Translation: There’s a lot of jockeying going on right now for that sweet gig. Our observer was even mildly concerned over ESPN’s upper management depth and that there’s no slam dunk, gotta-be-him! Shapiro replacement in-house.
Shapiro’s lengthy title (Executive Vice President of Programming and Production) was only a sliver glimpse into his impact, in 12 years, on the Network. That EOE jingle that runs before so much of the programming now, is, for better or worse, the mark of Shapiro.

His position – or whatever it morphs into – is clearly a vital one for the ESPiNners, as they prepare to do battle with whatever sports entity Comcast can put together in addition to other web-based challenges to the Network’s supremacy.

• “PodShots Start-up” Tale 4:

Shots has blogged form the basement of the Seaside Shanty and we’re not ashamed to admit it. But the Podcasting? Well, that’s entirely a basement endeavor, so go ahead and make your basement jokes. I’ll be too busy talking into my new favorite pair of panties to even hear you.

• The WEEI Whiner Line overkill on the Wendy’s Dinner for Four contest was brutal, but the underlying point remains: “You’re No. 1 in the land and you give out fast food coupons?” If I’m not mistaken WMUA, the student station at the State U. used to at least have Ground Round coupons. And they always had the ‘MUA gas card. Stories always abound from the radioheads of how many amazing items you could buy at an EXXON on I-95 under the guise of “GAS.”. . . Speaking of the old Campus Center Basement Media Organizations, it was confirmed from our Denver News Bureau that Jason Nash was indeed the “Cheap Seats” actor portraying a terrier trainer. If Nash doesn’t get an Emmy, Shots will launch an investigation.

• The Globe’s front page picture this week of the Montague Book Mill reminded me of some glorious afternoons spent by the rushing waters of that fantastic spot. It also reminded me of this Springfield Union, Dick Baker story on UMass walk-on, Erin Calipari , that we were alerted to by the ever-alert Howard Herman of Berkshire Eagle fame. There’s a Cal back in Mullins – but not quite a rage in the cage.

• The response to this week’s launch of PodShots has been nothing short of – well, short.

But we feel the love. How about this comment from Drew on Wednesday: “Great, just what we need. More INANE rantings from Scott’s Shots.”

“Inane Rantings,” by the way, used to be the subhead for Scott’s Shots.

• Scott’s PodShots (a shady subsidiary of this space) is proud to announce its first corporate-like sponsorship: On Pats Opening Night, Sept. 8, PodShots will be taping a Special Tailgate Edition (to be broadcast via podcast the week of 9/12). The show will be based at the official Tailgate Spot of PodShots at the Foxboro Terminals Lot. . .This is the kind of stuff we’re talking about, by the way, when we say that Podcasting (and the like) are “programming.” On a larger platform, with more eyeballs, this is what the next wave of Internet entertainment will be. And when the video starts flowing the way the audio is now – watch out, folks. New. Ball. Game.

• The Herald’s Tuesday cover story over a “Fenway Brew-Haha” involving Richard Iannella reminded us of this post from the Jan. 7, 2005 Shots:

. . . Ordinarily, Scott’s Shots prides itself on being one of the shadier patrons at any of the Boston spots we find ourselves. But when Jeff Ruland and his Iona Gaels squad rolled into Joe Tecce’s last week with me gratefully in tow, we didn’t even qualify as any of the Top 10 shadiest guys. Somehow, a guy by the name of Iannella was hosting a party at Tecce’s legendary spot and the guest of honor was the World Series trophy. When asked how he got to hold the prized piece for an extended period of time, he Good Fella’d up and one of his stoolies said, “Don’t worry about it.” Ruland was actually first to spot the Holy Grail of Boston Sports, much the way he can usually espy the finest cut of meat on the menu. When the ever-talented and always-slightly-shot Media Relations Director extraordinaire, Mike Laprey, caught wind of the trophy’s appearance, he quickly tracked the scent and within minutes the Shady Guy and Shorty were allowing some of the Gaels to pose for photos. . .

So if we may be so bold: It seems that (if indeed this is the same Iannella and we bet it is), his connections to the Sox are such that he can get his own private night with the Holy Grail. How do you like them apples, Kevin Rothstein? He’s the Herald newshound who had the (non-)story (on his Aramark connection) this past BoozeDay (Tuesday).

I’d love to see what other “friends of the Sox” got the trophy for private affairs, wouldn’t you KRoth?

• Here’s what we got from the Herald’s Clubhouse Insider Blog and Michael Silverman on Saturday with his Schilling news: “. . . Schilling paused from his Sudoku puzzle in the clubhouse to explain that he was looking forward to the opportunity. . .”
Schill does that freaky video game and Sudoku? With interests like that, he should stay a closer, don’t you think?

Too much Sudoku last night – not enough Controlku.

• Give till it hurts for the fourth WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Telethon and check back for a new PodShots mid-week (Tuesday night or Wednesday).

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. and can be reached at shots@bostonsportsmediadotcom