By David Scott
Boston Sports Media

A special Monday night post for all of you kind enough to check back in the 8 o’clock hour.

• A local observer recently lamented the loss of the Boston Herald’s “Magnificent Seven,” from its streamlined sports desk. Overstatement and questionable adjectives aside, the Herald is about to suffer a truly indisputable and most lamentable defection.

Scott’s Shots has learned that the region’s most promising, fastest-rising sportswriter, Mike Reiss, will be leaving his post at the MetroWest Daily News (a Herald/Community Newspaper Co.-owned, suburban paper), for a slot as a sports writer at the Boston Globe’s, twice- weekly GlobeWest section.

Reiss, whose “Reiss’ Pieces” Patriots blog is featured prominently at http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/reissPieces/ is expected switch mastheads in mid-August, according to those familiar with the discussions.

Although Reiss’s primary focus will be continuing his outstanding coverage of metro west region sports at all levels, the folks at Morrissey Boulevard could also choose to rely heavily on Reiss for web-based Pats coverage, presumably through his Pieces blog, which has developed a devoted following since its launch in October of 2004.

(Interestingly enough, scuttlebutt in Boston media circles has suggested that Ron Borges may be removed from Patriots coverage for the Globe in favor of a different writer altogether. It is not believed that Reiss is that writer, but it does open the door for an increased Pats role for the Reiss.)

The loss will hit the Herald particularly hard just as Patriots season gets revved up. Already down to just the divided-loyalties and responsibilities of multi-outlet Michael Felger, the Herald will no longer be able to augment Felger’s work with that of Reiss, as had become customary, especially with recent Sunday Notes columns.

(Shots will once again fully disclose, at this time, a close and lengthy friendship with Reiss that dates back to Amherst and the State U. That relationship doesn’t affect this simple fact: Reiss is a legit talent with huge opportunities in front of him. In fact, this news re-affirms some of our lost faith in the Globe; they are able to bring on a true writer-reporter with Internet skills and web-savvy. Maybe Sully and the Gang do have a plan, afterall.)

Reiss, who recently turned 30, is currently the Deputy Sports Editor for the MWDN and has been on the Pats beat, in one incarnation or another (a prior stint at Patriots Football Weekly and patriots.com) for five years.

Some observers are bound to look at the move with raised eyebrows (suburban sections have been dead-end jobs for some rising talents), but a simple check of raw data gives a good glimpse of what a monster opportunity this is for Reiss:

The MetroWest Daily news, according to the Herald family’s ad packet, reaches approximately 26,000 readers Monday-Saturday (with up to 38,000 on the weekends). On the other hand, GlobeWest’s daily circulation is, according to the Globe’s ad material, over 87,000 daily (plus an additional 35,000 on Sundays). In that respect, Reiss will be getting the chance to be seen – and appreciated – more in print.

Couple those stats with the reach and potential of boston.com – although slow to catch-up with the ‘industry leaders’, boston.com is far more advanced than the Herald’s somewhat laughable site – and it starts to become clear what Reiss was thinking in making this decision.

Also remember that Reiss was not simply a beat guy and not simply responsible for Pats coverage alone. He has still been doing layout and also maintained and fostered his vast Mass Pike/495 connections by keeping up with his region’s local high schools and colleges. It’s unheard of for a beat guy to still have layout and high schools duties AND be the No. 1 guy on the beat.

Reiss will have more time to do what he does best – find stories, develop them and break them.

All of this should be music to the ears of still-getting-his-footing, Jerome Solomon of the Globe. By removing Reiss from the Yellow Boxer’s website and snagging him for the Green Boxer’s URL, Solomon’s Globe bosses have effectively leveled the playing field for their rookie on the Pats beat.

Let’s hope, for the sake of one of the truly tremendous guys in the business, that Reiss’s new employers at the Globe appreciate what they have landed and use Reiss’s Pats prowess to its fullest. He is the best of both worlds: a newspaper-trained and groomed guy with a New Media vision, understanding and following.

The, ahem, ‘Magnificent Seven’ may indeed be gone, but it’s the loss of Magnificent Mike that will leave the biggest void at One Herald Square.

(And in honor of Reiss - thanks for checking us out.)

While we’re quote-unquote, here, on a Monday night, we’ll offer up a few more observations from a weekend’s worth of Manny coverage that still boggles the mind.

• Always at-the-ready Boston Sports Guy waited until 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon to chime in on the Manny situation. Did the news take a while to get out to the left coast? Or was he filming another riveting cartoon episode? I know! Maybe the Sports Baby needed to be fed.

Simmons should have been on top of that mega story with a reaction piece as soon as the potential trade was announced.

Then he could have rung his cowbell all he wanted. But Monday afternoon after everyone from Lobel to Larry King had chimed in? This is why the guy has lost it. Not because his writing is sagging, but because his effort is.

And I stand behind that statement.

• WEEI’s Pete Meathead was so intolerable in the first 15 minutes of the Big Show Monday afternoon that we went back to WUMB 91.9 FM right up until the Whiner Line, which was highlighted by a few callouts of Keyless Greg Dickerson’s misadventure this weekend.

I know Meat Lungs is a fellow, transplanted Hullonian and all, but the guy is a one trick pony with little-to-nothing to offer after his booming voice and his incessant interrupting prowess. That said, being hooked up with magic marker man, Larry Johnson, wouldn’t help anyone’s cause. In the annoying pantheon, there’s finger nails on chalkboards, the Emergency Broadcast System test-sound and soon thereafter, lies Johnson’s grating voice.

But really, other than that, they make great radio. Poor Steve Buckley was trapped in a four-hour shriek fest.

• A pay-for-viewing website in LA run by Ron Fineman has been reporting on an alleged affair between former Sox enigma, Derek Lowe and an LA sports newsbabe, Carolyn Hughes. According to the tease from Fineman’s “On the Record” site: “The wife of Dodger pitcher Derek Lowe tells (Fineman) that Fox Sports (LA) anchor/reporter Carolyn Hughes has been having an affair with her husband. Fox Sports has taken Hughes off of Dodger coverage, and we have candid photos of Lowe and Hughes on the beach. Mrs. (Trinka) Lowe says they deny the affair, but she has strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

If you need to know a bit about Hughes here’s a riveting discussion of her hair at: http://www.super-hair.net/qs-1002.html.

We’re assuming our Track Gals (see below) will be over this – right up their alley, for sure.

• Bob Ryan’s column and sidebar tribute should have been reversed on Monday. Boggs – a faded memory and joke punchline in these parts – would have been better served with a sidebar and Ryan’s Peter Gammons ode would have been Gold as the main piece. . . Loved to see where their first shared byline was “Peter Gammons and Robert Ryan.” When, for byline purposes, did he drop the R-E-R-T and add the B? Inquiring minds want to know, Bob. And Shots wants to know.

• My faux Girlfriends, the Track Gals are reporting that Carlos Santana will be part of the Pats home opener against the Moss Raiders and we are immediately reminded of a Santana show at Great Woods back in the mid-to-late 80s where drunk-in-training, Shots, was found fetal on the grassy knoll. Carlos sang to me and me alone that night and I hope he does the same come Sept. 8 at Gillette. The t-shirt we picked up that evening (and vomited on for good measure) was a red number with a wild Carlos pose on the front. Washed it that night in the kitchen boys’ bunk’s sink and wore it for 7 a.m. KB duty in the morning at a place we affectionately call Camp Peabrain, in Pembroke, Mass.

Santana, by the way, starts the west coast swing of his “Embrace Your Light” tour on Sept. 15 and it appears the guitar God has nothing scheduled on Sept. 8. Green Day, who the TGs also pegged for the Foxboro gig, is also off on the 8th, in the midst of a three week break that ramps up again on the 16th.

Someone get Rolling Stone on the horn – I’m blogging musically all of the sudden.

• ESPN2’s “Quite Frankly” with Stephen Angry Smith launched tonight at 6:30 and the highlight was seeing Allen Iverson pseudo cry during a clip of Larry Brown. The show is done before a studio audience and feels a lot like the awful Mike Lupica show that got a go-round a while back. Might even be the same studio and set.
Smith’s act is not strong enough, in our opinion, to carry a show by itself. But we’re guessing Shots is far form the demographic The Deuce is trying to lure in at dinner time.

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