By David Scott
Boston Sports Media

• If you hit the sack right after the Pats meaningless loss on FOX, you probably missed the meaningful departure on NESN of Tim Wakefield from the Sox-Angels game, in the bottom of the fifth with one out and the Sox trailing 4-0. Wake was struck on the right shin by a ball hit back up the middle by Casey Kotchman and Wake left the game in obvious discomfort. (NESN’s Eric Frede reported at 12:44 a.m., during the top of the eighth, that Wake had been taken for x-rays, but had no further details.) If you think the rotation is screwy now, take a look at what it could be with Wake out of action for any amount of time. Amazingly, in four and a third, Wake threw 95 pitches. And then came Mike Myers who looked an awful lot like Mike Remlinger in giving up a three-run shot – a blow that came just after Jerry Remy had uttered something to the effect of: these Angels can strike so quick. Great analyzing by the Remdawg, who has seemingly recovered from the silliness of The Motown Streaker earlier in the week.

• We’re starting to feel the rumble of some further steroid boomers and it could be the loudest – and most damaging – of the current steroid storm, if our indicators are correct. Let’s bet Howard Steroid Bryant is in the midst of the sucker when it finally does make landfall. And let’s further bet the Globe is nowhere to be found (see below). (Interestingly, Johnny Damon was being asked about rumors of positive steroid tests, before last night’s game – this according to Michael Silverman and the Herald’s Clubhouse Insider Blog, from a 10:30 p.m. post.)

•Terrible Terry Bradshaw was in awful pre-season form with his FOX pre-game mangle of Matt Cassel into “Matt Ca-Campbell.” Even the always-steady, JB, James Brown got thrown for a loop when he began talking about Corey Dillon while a warming-up tape of Rodney Harrison was being shown pre-game. Brown, unlike Bradshaw, was able to regroup. . . There just can’t be a minimum of 18 more weeks of Gino Cappelletti. The FCC should step in on this guy – he’s embarrassing their airways for his 25th season. It’s outrageous how dismal Cappelletti has become and Thursday night’s pre-season broadcast on the Patriots Rock Radio Network and WBCN 104.1 FM was further proof of his downfall.

• Here’s one for you JOURN Dept. Philosopher Kings: What percentage of Boston Globe Readers, would you guess, read a majority of the words written on the recent Track Championships from Helsinki (by John Powers) AND Part I of Tony Chamberlain’s “Ka-Yakking in Maine” two-parter? (Still struggling with the headline, can anyone help me?)

Shots can’t imagine that any more than 10 percent (and that’s generous) even got past the jump pages for any of the past two weeks’ Globe Sports, Page One submissions. While both Olympic Powers and The Wilt of the Wilderness are capable writers and clearly proficient on their “beats,” the question that arises is “Who Are they Serving?” And beyond the Who?, we also have the Why? As in: “WHY waste the ‘valuable’ print space with such niche stories for such a small percentage of the readership?”

That type of fringe coverage seems perfect – at least for purposes of serving mainstream sports followers – for the web. Are you telling me that the Pats and Sox coverage couldn’t be expanded at this time of year for the print edition? Or that more enterprise and investigative pieces can’t be assembled? I mean, c’mon! Steroid Bryant is single-handedly destroying the Green Boxers with his wide-reaching steroid coverage for the Herald, and yet we’re getting nature stories and 4×100 results. Can you say: JOKE?

You know, Shots has spent a lot of time trying to point out the antiquated ways and backwards thinking that shrouds the Joe Sullivan sports desk, but this long-dead strategy of being an elitist, agenda-setting, Yankee newspaper is affecting the products (print, web and TV) in unnecessarily harmful ways. It’s not like the “non-revenue” sports coverage is bringing in high-end advertisers (since that would require synergy between ‘ad’ and ‘edit’ and we know that no such synergy should ever exist in the newspaper world for the risk of turning a profit is far too great). By all means, do these types of stories, but please – don’t waste the paper space. Just throw it on the web – we’re smart enough to find it if want to. The once-great sports section of The Boston Sports Guy’s youth is currently a shadowy shadow of its former self, right down to unwarranted Lobsters coverage and attempts to legitimately cover the WNBA’s Connecticut franchise.

Who do they think they’re kidding? All these “country club” readers they seem to be catering to, simple aren’t relevant as daily, print media consumers.

• The new SportsCenter Interruption (SCI) to TV’s best half hour, “Pardon the Interruption” (PTI) is really starting to enrage Scott’s Shots. Korn and Wilby basically hold me hostage until they decide it’s time to finish the show in proper fashion, usually a good 10 minutes into the 6 p.m. SC. The ESPiNners should be ashamed for such a blatant abuse of their marquee show. I have a remote and I’m willing to use it!

• Finally! A night-time equivalent to the morning disgrace that is Mold Pizza: ESPN Hollywood with Thea ‘Be a Schlump’ Andrews and Screech’s old Hispanic Jock Buddy (Mario Lopez). Andrews never quite perked us up in the morning and she still swings and misses at night. The show will survive, because ESPN is always stubborn with (and committed to) these experiments in programming. (A trademark of ESPN’s October 1 departing Mark Shapiro, we assume. Here’s a good Shapiro piece, by the way from Larry Stewart at the LA Times and a look at just what the WunderGuy is doing.)(Or cut and paste this: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-tvcol19aug19,1,726605.column?coll=la-headlines-sports) But a recycled morning host is not going to cut it. Summer Sanders might have. Or Amanda Beard even. And why the guy at all? It should be two women hosting, no questions asked. There’s enough pretty boys on the Worldwide Leader as it stands: Just watch ESPNEWS for a few days and you’ll see what we mean.

• This new news index tracker is just fantastic. And take a look at the media organizations whose data is being used, among them are ESPN.com and CSTV.com. It’d be great to have a sports-only breakdown as well. (Whoever uses that idea must pay Scott’s Shots proprietary fees in the range of $3.8 million. Send checks care of: Hull, MA, 02045.)
• The local mainstream media’s attempt to enter the world of blogging has resulted in both outright failures and near-misses. The good news is they’re trying. The bad news is, well, they might be trying too hard. The Providence Journal’s Tom Curran (we drop the ‘E.’, unlike My Boss Bruce) has been at his projo.com blog for almost a month now and he has yet to hit his stride with the medium. This week, he went missing from Tuesday afternoon until three hours before game time on Thursday and tcurran7340 still appears to have trouble writing for the moment, instead reverting to newspaper ways. For instance, last Friday night before the first pre-season game, Curran wrote: “CINCINNATI — A number of Patriots weren’t ‘expected’ to play last night according to a pregame release.”
It’s not “last night,” when your readers at the blog are reading on that very night, maybe even a minute or two after you post it. Live in the present, TC.

One other disturbing part of the projo.com blog – and this may or may not be Curran’s own doing – is that he randomly links to sites that have nothing to do with his story, or worse yet, nothing to do with anything of relevance. On two separate occasions in the last 10 days, Curran has linked to a t-shirt site (when mentioning what Tom Brady was wearing) and then an out-of-region pet groomer when he discussed the rookie hazing haircuts.

If he’s trying to be cute and funny, it’s missing the mark. If someone’s hacking the system, he should be made aware of it.
Over at the Boston Herald, the new kids on the blogging block are also stubbing their toes with regularity.

Last week’s pre-game 5:15 post from Howard Bryant went unchecked for some time with the following omission: “. . . The news in Terry Francona’s sardine-stuffed office was that Keith Foulke
Francona was also bubbly about Trot Nixon’s recovery. . . .”
The Foulke info was nowhere to be found until a later edit indicated Foulke: “will be traveling with the team on the next road trip to Detroit and that he’s throwing on flat ground today. He will also throw some key side sessions before they re-evaluate him.”
With the Clubhouse Insider Blog being a new feature, we’ll cut the Yellow Boxers some slack for that one. But not for these words from Michael Silverman last Sunday: “. . . Also, you can bet that if I’m sitting on a big scoop, or Jeff, Tony, Howard or Buck is, we’re not going to spill it here right now. Although, I can tell you that you should check tomorrow’s Red Sox notebook for an item about a certain uniformed member of the Red Sox who will NOT be flying with the team to Detroit after the game tonight. Instead, he’s got to go Cape Cod for some reason – what the heck’s that all about???? Not one word more. For once, my lips are sealed.”

Silvo might not quite understand the beauty of the blog: If you have something before anyone else, run with it. You’ll beat everyone, have the Globe chasing your tail and generally be considered a swell guy by your bosses. There is no 24 hours news cycle anymore, people! It’s minute by minute.

Even more unpardonable was that, as a valued Shots reader pointed out, the note which Silverman claimed would appear in the next day’s paper was no where to be found. . . It wasn’t a glorious week for the Herald copy desk by any means. On Sunday Mark Murphy’s easy, breezy 2-page read about Boston’s Streetball scene contained two different spellings (picture cutline vs. body of story) for one of the story’s main character’s names, Michael Bivins. . . or was it Bivens. . . There was also the Herald’s mis-id’d photo of TO sitting at the Falcons game last week, which had the game taking place somewhere entirely different. . . We know, we know: Scott’s Shots make plenty of typos and stupid errors. Start your own damn blog if you want to point out my missteps, okay Pal?

• Okay, I need some Umie help here, so listen up all you washed up old Collegian hacks: Was that the legendary sports stud, Nashman, who served as the actor for Cheap Seats’ ‘SportsCentury’ riff on the Thursday night, 10 p.m. show (1990 Westminster and college cheering were the highlights)? The premise was to present the tragic tale of a Boston Terrier trainer who was ‘cursed’ from winning at W-minster. Nashman appears to be said trainer and he is simply brilliant in the role. A just-the-right-touch Boston accent and some classic mannerisms made Shots think he was watching a young Vince Vaughn get his national intro. If it wasn’t the talented Nashman, well then, the guy was still pretty good. But Nash would have done it better.

• You almost feel like the GQ Tom Brady spread should have been for the April issue. And the last page of the feature could have had the punch line: “Tom Brady’s sick of his image – now you can be too! April Fools!”

There are cooperative, sure, no problem, I’ll do anything athletes. And then there is Brady. He acted in his Risky Business undies on SNL and now he shows his girlie side with more costumes than a Le Cage Aux Folles remake. You think Bridget had something to do with this?

• Big ups to the Herald’s Michael O’Connor who included this line (sorry) in his Fishfinder column last week: “Stripers, meanwhile, have chased bait deep into the tidal rivers. Teenage angling sensation David Do of Hull hauled in a 47-incher the other day from the Weymouth side of the Fore River, hard by Burt’s boatyard.”

I was once known as David Don’t Do of Hull, but never as an angling sensation. So it ain’t me of whom he writes. . . Hull is just filled with talented people, eh? There’s Shots (of course), clothier Johnny Cupcakes, our newfound fishing boy D. Do – and oh yeah, how about that vacationing radio sensation Pete The Meathead?

It’s starting to feel a lot like Silicone Valley on the Hull Peninsula, I tell ya. Someone get me a venture capitalist on the phone.

• When the Big Fella upstairs (or downstairs for that matter) asks Shots to list the most endearing athletes we’ve met on our travels across this land, the name of Craig Biggio will be right up there with Ray Bourque and Curtis Martin. If you need an example of why Bidge makes the list, take some time to check out John Lopez’s story for the Houston Chronicle.

• There’s no reasonable comparison in Boston-area sports to the Huskies Horde that covers UConn athletics and has been chronicled ad nauseam at the various national apexes of UConn’s successes. It’s a unique group of small-town newspapers in every nook and cranny of the state. Known more for their homer-ism and Husky-colored glasses than their Storrs’ dirt-digging prowess, the Horde finds itself in the unfamiliar position of needing to attack Jim Calhoun’s program instead of hugging the boys under command of the Braintree Basketball Brain. The pack is sniffing around currently on a laptop theft ring that includes two of Calhoun’s best guards – AJ Price and Marcus Williams. The recent shady student-athlete problems at UConn could signal a true chink in the Husky Armor.

Now, let’s see if the Horde is husky enough to take on the de facto Governor of Connecticut, Calhoun, and his all mighty cronies. . . (Of course our own Hazel Mae took part in the annual Calhoun Golf Tournament earlier this week and nary a word of the scandal touched the NESN airwaves on Tuesday night. Instead, Mae thanked her patient golf partners for a wonderful day. On Wednesday evening, Mae managed a mere mention of the laptop larceny. Have the Track Gals file it under: A ‘Mae’ late and a dollar short.).

•We’re still trying to figure out the most bizarre aspect of the ESPN.com E-ticket OJ Simpson interview from last weekend. The month-old weekend feature, Eticket, gives ample space and promotion to each weekend’s expansive story. It’s an honorable, worthwhile attempt to bring in weekend eyeballs.

That said, the OJ interview was simply handled too awkwardly. An 18-year-old aspiring journalist, Graham Bensinger (of ESPN Radio), got the one-on-one and acquitted himself well. But what exactly does it say that the only way ESPN could get the OJ interview was to have a relatively unknown teenager do it? And what exactly does OJ have to say that is worth the space and time given to him? I like my killers to be neither seen nor heard.

A look at the transcript gives the answer we already knew as to Simpson’s relevance and worth: “Zero.”

• We’re still “ruminating” over Cam Neely’s “Rescue Me” cameo as Mungo the hockey player. But no rumination is necessary when comparing the ascension Rescue is taking, while Scott’s Shots other current TV fave, “Entourage,” has been tanking. It’s tough for a legit, good show to Jump The Shark in under two full seasons, but Turtle and the Boys are approaching the ramp. (I can also make the argument that it jumped officially with the Bat Mitzvah episode, but I prefer to give these things an extended shelf-life. Especially for summer viewing.). . . Oh, and Denis Leary is the best actor on network TV or my name isn’t Scott’s Stinkin’ Shots.

• If I can somehow work in a Hoosiers and/or Blue Chips reference right here, I will have officially been afflicted with The Boston Sports Guy’s Hollywood Reporter Disease.

• Paul Devlin’s rookie hazing haircut story on Tuesday night’s “Sports Desk on NESN was just the right combo of levity and bad hair. We gotta figure if Mike Adams had been at camp, he would have joined in the madness. Remember when the guy used to get haircuts on the set of his NECN show? (Was it even NECN back then?) Whatever it was, Adams would bring in a hottie from Barbazon or somesuch place and do the show while under the scissors. Some of the greatest local TV moments of all time, no doubt.

• Speaking of the NECNers, Laura Behnke has risen to superstar status this summer with her consistent reporting and effervescence. Someone’s going to scoop up Behnke, and soon. She’s too damn talented to be the No. 3 talent at any station.

• Here, in reverse order courtesy of UPS.com, is the travel path of my brand new, Podcast ready, Samson CO1U USB Studio Condenser microphone. From Whistler, AL to Hull, MA in less than a week, Wooo-hoooo!:

4:45 P.M.
SHREWSBURY, MA, US
DEPARTURE SCAN
1:26 P.M.
SHREWSBURY, MA, US
ARRIVAL SCAN
8:50 A.M.
EDISON, NJ, US
DEPARTURE SCAN
7:38 A.M.
EDISON, NJ, US
ARRIVAL SCAN
Aug 13, 2005
2:26 A.M.
ATLANTA, GA, US
DEPARTURE SCAN
1:44 A.M.
ATLANTA, GA, US
ARRIVAL SCAN
Aug 12, 2005
9:44 P.M.
MONTGOMERY, AL, US
DEPARTURE SCAN
12:56 A.M.
MONTGOMERY, AL, US
ARRIVAL SCAN
Aug 11, 2005
9:00 P.M.
WHISTLER, AL, US
DEPARTURE SCAN
8:21 P.M.
WHISTLER, AL, US
ORIGIN SCAN
5:48 P.M. US
With all that travel, my microphone’s a bit jet-lagged. But Scott’s PodShots should be debuting next week. Stay tuned!

• Remember to support the AND 1 Streetballers this Sunday at the Garden – tell ‘em Shots sent you so I can get another fleece hoody or two.

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