By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

A brand new PodShots is available for downloading. This week’s offering features Donny Marshall and can be found by visiting PodShots’ Podcast . (Or direct download it here.) The former UConn Husky is currently the rookie in-studio analyst for FSN New England’s Celtics telecasts.

Hear Donny’s reverence for Jim Calhoun; his thoughts on being a “retired” player in the prime of his life; and of course, the pride and love he has for his 5-year-old daughter, Savannah.

All that and more as we mark the start to the Celts’ 2005-06 season with the Green Team’s newest media personality, Donny Marshall.

• We’ll admit it: This past week knocked us on our ass. We had grand plans for both a WWZN follow-up piece on Jon Anik AND the start of the “Howard Bryant Chronicles.”

Both are in various states of edit/production, so we’re going to keep it short and snappy and get cranking on those. Sadly (I jest), we’ve also seen a huge spike in “real, bill-paying” work as well, so the priorities are being juggled a bit. In a nutshell: Things are hoppin’ and happenin’. Which is better than the many alternative, most of which I’ve experienced in 15 years in The Biz.

Also, in another bit of housekeeping, we need to thank all of you who supported our Sheriff Sully/Shots’ tete-a-tete that took place on Tuesday night and Wednesday during the Theo Hearings. It’s humbling to realize how many of you clicked back and forth to get some perspective (and wise-assed-ness) from the Lawman and the Lawless Man. I know I speak for Sully when I say, “Thanks for being here.”

And finally, before we get into our usual vitriol and rhetoric, Shots wants to let fellow Hullonian, George Kimball, know that a whole slew of his friends, admirers and former colleagues have their thoughts and prayers with the big fella.

Kimball, who left the Herald under the buyout program, was featured in last week’s Hull Times in another keeper from Lanny Larason (three guesses to anyone, of whose pen-name that is). Kimball told Larason, “This isn’t the Herald’s most shining moment, but it I hope it might bounce back.”

There are a bunch of ink-stained, and not-so-ink-stained folks, who wish the same for Kimball. Stay strong, George.

Now onto some easy reading for the end of a loooooooonnnggg week:

• Ah, sorry, that was my cell phone that was ringing during the packers presser. My bad.

• The most evident outcome of the Bob Neumeier/Bob Ryan segment during Thursday’s “SportsPlus” on NESN was this: the P-A-S-S-I-O-N that Ryan has for his job and his livelihood.

There are certain times when Ryan is so in tune with a topic that you can start to see all the wheels in his cranium spinning into overdrive. Steam just about toots from his ears.

Such is the case on the entire Theo Fiasco, right down to the tangled web now woven within the paper Ryan was representing (on the network his paper co-owns, discussing the team his paper has a stake in). Ryan knows the truism of perception being reality and he was smart enough to not dismiss public sentiment entirely. Trust for the Globe might be eroding, but people like Ryan (and Jackie MacMullan makes two) are not about to let people sully the name of the section they’ve poured their lives into.

MacMullan, we’re told, went on the offensive during Mike Felger’s “The Drive” on Wednesday, chiding Jersey Bob Halloran in her impassioned defense of the Globe and especially Chris Snow and Gordon Edes. (You have noticed, by the way, that almost everyone – to a man – has let Shaughnessy dig himself out of his own grave. That might be the most telling tale of the whole Globe involvement in Theogate.)

As one Globie told us on Thursday: “It just seems like it’s getting personal (between the Herald and the Globe writers) and that’s what bothers a lot of people. But it’s probably inevitable.”

Yes, it is inevitable. Especially at this juncture in the history of Boston newspapers – remember, the Herald is in a much larger state of flux than the Globe will ever be in. Because of that, the Herald, as a whole, has begun to hang its hat on discrediting and yes, “smearing,” the Globe at every turn.

A natural offshoot of all this will be strained relationships between the two sets of Sox beat writers, which in turn will lead to fiercer competition, which, oddly, will result in better coverage for all of us.

So really, The Cartel IS working for you!

• Okay, David Halberstam can write the crap out of a page of words. We recognize and praise that. But he doesn’t make good TV and probably the only thing keeping Neumie awake during the interview was the bright lights of the NESN nest. You’ll sell more books leaving a little mystery than putting forth the deliberate, monotone Halby.

• WEEI owned the week on radio (i.e., Curt Schilling, John Henry, Shaughnessy in the AM drive), as they should have, but it would appear that ESPN Radio Boston 890 AM and its afternoon “Drive” was not all that far behind. They had Shaughnasty first in the market; the aforementioned Jackie Mack semi-event; and a Bill Simmons chat on Thursday afternoon. (If Simmons isn’t a regular by now, he should be. Not necessarily because he’s the greatest radio guy (although he is pretty capable) but moreso because he brings you an audience that can become fiercely, fiercely loyal.)

• Tee Oh, not to be confused with Theo, was spouting off again last night to an “exclusive” interview with ESPN.com contributor, Graham Bensinger. All due respect to Graham and his ability to get an exclusive - he’s the same young buck who nabbed OJ for ESPN’s E-ticket - it seems TO might talk to the Hull High School Daily Pirate if they would just call. Or even existed.

The rest of the talk with Bensinger, ESPN.com promised, will appear next week. Next week? By then, TO will have done 18 more exclusives and his semi-syndicated weekly hit with Dan LeBatard.

• Wasn’t it odd that Babbling Bob Lobel had all this Theo contract discussion during the week at the very time when he is undergoing protracted (if not delicate) negotiations? We were reminded in a lengthy talk with a local TV insider last week, that it’s coming up on one year that Lobie has been without a contract from his CBS4, WBZ TV bosses. Doesn’t seem to indicate a big embrace from the suits, now does it? Maybe Lobie can bring Theo in to negotiate for him. . . That same conversation also spurred the idea that Neumie could be adding NFL on NBC duties to his now-expanded Olympic role, come next season. He’d probably make a great No. 1 sideline reporter, ala seven-time Emmy winner, Armen Keteyian for CBS.

• Paul Shirley got snatched up by ESPN.com and let me tell you something: he may be the best new writer to come along on those pages since, well, yeah, The Boston-version of Sports Guy. . .Also good to see some sensibility in the removal of Page 3 from ESPN.com. The post-Mark Shapiro maneuverings are either beginning, or beginning to begin. There was also some low-level banter regarding the future of ESPN Original Entertainment, and its direction. . .And all this, amongst a backdrop, that had CBS reportedly interested in snatching up the Chelsea Piers (NYC)-based College Sports TV. Meaning, in essence, that the company that made Seth Davis into TV and the company that gives Seth Davis his highest profile might be buying the company that Seth Davis moonlights for. When, of course, he’s not moonlighting on Sports Illustrated. All of which boils down to this: Seth Davis is sitting pretty damn pretty and we’re not sure we’re in favor of that development.

• Did anyone hear Eddie’s last stand?

Okay, how about this, anyone hear Eddie in the last 10 years or so?

All righty, try this one: Do you know who Eddie is?

Bye, Eddie. Thanks for the memories – of the 80s.

• Evidently, news of Ted Nation being annexed from WEEI hasn’t made it over to the streaming portion of the website: His show is still shown as being on from 7 p.m. – midnight when you try to “Listen Live” to the 850ers. Which sort of makes us feel good because that means mighty busy Jason Wolfe isn’t strictly too busy just for Shots, but also for his very own website. (Wolfe last week, explained to us in person, that he’s been too busy to extend the common courtesy of returning a phone call. He must be spending all his hours trying to replace the malfunctioning recorder that continues to make the station sound like student-run radio, WUMA. Glenn Ordway’s premise was right when he bitched about the long-broken device: If you’re going to be No. 1, act like it.)

• The Herald neglected its “Clubhouse Insider” blog after Michael Silverman broke the news on Monday that Theo was gone. That’s too bad, but likely a direct result of the enormous burdens put on the under-sized staff, all week long. Newbie John Tomase was writing pigskin AND rawhide and it was all hands on deck for the Wednesday presser.

Still, once you alert people to your blog by being credited with some relevant breaking news, you need to keep those users coming back by giving them some crumbs in the aftermath. Just another missed opportunity for the tightly-budgeted Yellow Boxers, who otherwise had a fantastic week from A1 to the back page. The Business folks got into Henry’s other obligations and the Track Gals even pitched in with an unflattering Theo/Significant Other/Mother photo from a while back. (By the way, and we mean this most kindly, is that a Shiksa on Theo’s arm? The name indicates a WASP lineage (Whitney), but we thought our Tribesman would be sharing time with ah, well, Michael Gee, what would you call it? A “sloe-eyed. . . bitchin’ bod. . . .sabra,” perhaps? We’re sure she’s a nice girl and all, but we were just a little surprised that she might not have been born under the Chai sign.

• Here was what I took away from the few initial minutes of the WEEI Big Show/John Henry interview at 5 p.m. on Thursday: Henry should have let his (soft) words from Wednesday stand. Instead he brought up this whole “reason to be named later” joke regarding Theo’s impetus for leaving and he also continued the assault on his co-owner’s newspaper, the Building 17 Percenters. Henry was questioning where sourcing for Snow’s A1 story on Thursday had come from, at the very time everyone else had almost forgotten about the huge swing and a miss taken by Snow and Edes on Monday.

Further, Henry, who we’ve never actually seen make an emotional display, tried to play the role of funny guy for a bit and at one point even said “Sources suck.” Thank Beavis, can we now hear from Butthead?

For all the money the Sox must spend on their PR machine, with Doc Chuck and Glenn Geffner and who knows how many consultants?, they really have been completely overmatched this week. The purpose of John Henry doing what he did on Wednesday was to make that the final “new newsday” of the whole story’s cycle. Instead, it will now continue with new fuel in the fire.

The Sox damage controllers and spinners are failing miserably.

. . . And we reaffirm our belief that Globe Sports Editor Joe Sullivan needs to make some sort of public statement. May we suggest the most-read Sunday Globe for an Editor’s Explanation of the week that was? And bite your damn tongue if you want to yell out “It’s not Judith Miller for crying out loud!”

You’re right, it isn’t. But it’s about the very same thing: credibility, leaks and sourcing. So there should be some explanation from the man-in-charge. And if there isn’t there should be demands for it from Sullivan’s superiors at the Globe. The very reason that Bob Ryan and Jackie Mack are out there defending, tooth and nail, their co-workers and the section, is the very reason that some explaining needs to be done by Sullivan: re-gain our trust now, or lose it for good, later.

• Shots has once again located the guy that Leigh Montville famously dubbed “Our Babul” back during the Calipari Days in Amherst. Mike Babul, the former Minuteman and North Attleboro hoopster, is Bruiser Flint’s Coordinator of Basketball Operations at Drexel this season. Babul has now served under UMass exiles, John Robic, John Calipari and Flint. he also managed a year as an assistant at Seekonk High School. “Their Babul” – Mike’s brother, Jon who played at Georgia Tech, had been at James Madison last year, was hired at Jacksonville University in May, but does not appear on the Jacksonville website as a coach for this season.

If anyone knows the final destination of where “Their Babul” is, let us know. We’ll be sure to pass it along.

• Yes, he’s a close personal friend. And yes, I like the idea of close, personal friends reaching milestones. But to think that Dan Wetzel’s commentary is appearing on Wheaties boxes across the country (back of box), well, I can’t deny a chill or two up the ole Shots’ spine. The front-of-box photo has Wetz soaring, Air Jordanesque, over the bowl of wheatie goodness.

Okay, so it doesn’t. But I’ve seen him dunk.

A donut.

Into coffee.

. . . And while we’re at the web-genius side of things, what would be the chances that the Globe or Herald would ever think about something as “outside the box” (sorry for the pun) as creatively getting their content and their brand name into peoples’ hands in innovative manners? Slim. And none. Internet leaders like Yahoo! don’t waste their time trying to pinch pennies and cut costs. The Old Media still has that market covered.

• All right, thanks for sticking with us all week long. Check back over the weekend and on Monday for some leftovers and a trimmed down version of the Bryant Chronicles. And don’t forget PodShots too!

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