By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

• This is how the Bruins become relevant in SoxPatsVille: make the most daring trade in the history of the franchise and get top-billing on WEEI 850 AM all day on Thursday. For all we know, the Whiner Line might still be going on as you read this. It was that kind of “banner day” at the sports talk leader (and bleeder).

It also proved to be a rekindling of the old Dale Arnold vs. Pete Meat radio-host-on-radio-host crime. Talk about brain vs. brawn. . .

Arnold, a little “Cartel” of his own, can do nothing BUT put a positive spin on the trade. It’s what WEEI gets for allowing its midday host to moonlight for one of the local franchises. Such conflicts are everywhere (see: Gary Tanguay with his Pats and Celts roles; Greg Dickerson with his Celts role; and just about every other media personality in the market who has split allegiances and multiple bosses.)

Why we have to be brought into the Dale and Meat mess is an entirely different question and one we’d prefer not to address in hopes it will cease immediately. If we’re made to choose between the folksy, rational guy and the gruff, hothead guy, we’re taking Ned Flanders all the damn way. And we’ll bet we’re not alone on that one.

. . . In the immediate moments after the story broke (just before 10 p.m. Wednesday night), there were all sorts of assessments on the tube, the Web and the dial. Who’s Better Than Butchy Stearns teased his report at FOX 25 with: “Sounds like a panic move to me.” Just before that, former hockeyhead, MikeMichael Felger told the FSNE audience: “I like it.”

As the 24 hours elapsed – and the New‘uns showed initial life on NESN – the overwhelming sentiment was that the move was a bad one and further solidified the public’s general distrust of Bruins management.

Still, for a day anyway, It Was Called not “Bruins,” but “Attention,” something the franchise has been longing for in this market for quite some time now.

• While their cross-town rivals are busy sweeping away some sweepers and moppers, the Boston Herald has its own mess to clean up.

Patrick Purcell is actively seeking bids for the paper (and Herald Media Inc.) and rumors are running rampant about what the future will hold for the listing (but not listless) daily.

At stake for the Sports department specifically, is the possibility of more cutbacks to an already depleted staff. Also, the chance that Howard Bryant’s columnist position would be filled at this juncture is slim – at best.

It’s likely, according to industry observers, that the paper is in a hard-and-fast ‘hiring freeze.’ It’s also likely that “last-to-hire, first-to-fire” will be the next course of action, should a legit buyer not surface soon.

(As a point of reference to all this, Editor and Publisher reported last month, that thus far, in 2005, there are have been 1,900 major and mid-major newspaper layoffs.)

Yesterday, two separate, already-scheduled, meetings (one with the general staff and one with the union) were held at Yellow Box HQs. At least a few Herald staffers began to think something was up, but fears were eased somewhat by the lack of Purcell’s presence (which had been rumored earlier in the day) at the routine staff convene. If the Big Guy, isn’t there, the thinking went, nothing major is shaking down. Likewise, the union meeting was for regular housekeeping matters (like healthcare and building entry procedures), according to one Herald insider.

Mostly, it was a day to re-assure the troops that they’re doing good work and to forge ahead. It was more of the old “don’t believe anything you hear, until you hear it from us” kind of stuff that all unsteady places of employ utilize in times of great uncertainty. Staffers were told not to believe rampant speculation, especially if it’s coming from the Globe or its minions.

It is safe to say, however, that both management and labor are preparing for what could be a worst-case scenario.

If the duo of real, established, Boston Media Critics – Mark Jurkowitz and Dan Kennedy – are to believed in content and tonality (as they most often are) the situation is getting uglier and uglier, quicker and quicker. The popular rumor on Thursday was that the current cash flow would last through January 31, giving Purcell 60 days to find a buyer, more partners or a most-needed pot of gold.

• A candid and sincere Bob Huggins opened up a bit to ESPN’s Andy Katz for Thursday night’s “SportsCenter.” AK-47 is being used in more comfortable roles after a few years of bouncing around the Network and the payoff has been huge for both Andy and his bosses.

And by the way, Huggs is definitely looking to coach again. I’d take him in a heartbeat.

• Can someone get me the email address for Monty Beisel? I’d like to forward my resume and a list of the bridges I’ve burned in a career spanning 15 years. We seem to share the same basic principal of good PRing: Screw everyone. Including the REAL PR guy.

. . . Athlete on beat guy “crime” is nothing new in the NFL or any other league. The real problem with the Tom No E Curran run-in is that Curran didn’t take advantage of his ProJo.com blog to give his account of the incident. Of course, Curran isn’t exactly fastidious in his blog updating as the calendar under the oddly titled “BeerBlog” illustrates.

. . . My Guy, Tilber, had this comment on the brouhaha: “Word out of the Patriots’ locker room is that ProJo beat writer Tom E. Curran and backup linebacker Monty Beisel got into it. How refreshing, Beisel is finally trying to hit someone. Typically, he missed.”

You can be sure that Marquette air and the inspiration of daily entrance to the Al McGuire center have brought Tilbs to new levels of dementedness. He’s still a Top 5 hire for any upstart looking to get fresh perspective and hysterical observations. Hear that Gather.com Guy? I’m still talking to YOU!

It appears Curran ignored the incident entirely, despite day-after reporting on it from both the Herald and the Globe. In this day and age, an explanation from the writer was not only completely reasonable to expect, it was almost required.

• WEEI’s streaming audio window still includes the Ted Nation promo, which is almost as sad as it is laughable. Everyone must be too busy honoring each other and talking with Red Sox reps in dark corners as fancy soirees. Gag me with an escargot – someone please let The Wolfe Denizens know that their poo also has an odor.

• Still efforting some answers for the direction of the Globe’s sports media coverage. Joe Sullivan has yet to respond to two of our emails, leaving Shots to assume this: The Globe has no clear-cut plan to either do away with the “SporTView” space entirely, or to bring it back under a more apropos heading.

It shouldn’t even be open for debate. It needs to continue in some shape or form and it needs to do so seamlessly. And soon. To abandon it at this juncture in the city’s sports media evolution, would be a complete and utter disservice to every Globe reader, writer and employee. (It’s also another reason why the Herald should be ALL over it and launch their own sports media/biz/entertainment column. Find the money now and it will pay off later. . .

Which leads us to this:

The other day a close friend, outside the ‘business,’ asked: “Would you want that job?” referring to the “SporTView” space currently in limbo.

“More than the Celts wanted Tim Duncan,” I said, surprising myself with the quickness and loudness of my response.

“Then why do you kill them so much? They must hate you, over there.”

“They must be reading if they hate me,” I said.

He nodded. He shook his head. He grinned.

“You’re an idiot.”

So be it.

And since we’re in the habit of not only job-begging, but people-impressing, we’ll dig up our long ago suggested “SPop Culture” column idea. It would be a cross section of everything that doesn’t fit anywhere else in the Sports page. Hear that Gather.com guy? I’m talking to YOU!

We’re all watching, reading and listening to the same things, so yes, it would be heavy on the ‘traditional media’ side, but it would also have that Track Gals/Sports Guy tonality to it.

Word is, a similar model is about to be launched at the NY Post with a “Page Six for Sports” column. We suggested calling it “Page SixSixSix” to honor all the dirty devils doing dastardly deeds (see: HBO Real Sports’ “Groupies” piece form this week). . . The point is, the sub-culture of sports business and entertainment is all part of the package these days, oftentimes at the expense of the sports news. If Joe Sullivan were to ever realize such a thing, he would be one step closer to a successful re-invention of the section he oversees.

• It was a truly special “Real Sports” this month, by the way. The Monday Night Football piece was sappy to a point, but still worth the view. Armen Keteyian’s aforementioned “groupies” piece was just priceless. Armen is smoother and shrewder than most and that shone in his reporting of the sleazy story. And Frank Deford also got sappy – in a good way – with photog Neil Leifer, the little guy with the big lens.

None of those outstanding pieces could fully make up for the pompous Bryant Gumbel, but even he is bearable in small doses.

• I’m still dumbfounded by the lack of attention paid to the Pete Thamel/Duff Wilson story on the University High diploma mill in Sunday’s New York Times (and smartly complemented at the Times’ website). Somehow, an OJ story by a college kid at ESPN’s E-ticket got more buzz than a truly disturbing development in the ongoing saga of collegiate cheating and athlete-selling.

I’m linking to it again and I’m not gonna stop linking to it until, well, until now.

In a follow-up, the Times reported the school is now under investigation and Thamel and Wilson should be credited for their work. (Disclosure No. 367,896: I’ve had a beer or two with Pete Thamel. He’s a good guy. And his sister went to UMass and broke the heart of a buddy of mine. But I only just found out about that. And I don’t hold Pete or his vegetarian sister responsible for any of that. Good enough? Disclosure over.)

• Mike Michael Felger Underwood Belichick and Steve Burton got into a little hepped-up banter on Sports Final this past Sunday. Felger was (rightfully) calling out Tom Brady for an awful performance and Burton was blaming dropped balls by receivers. It had elements of good TV but was ultimately held back by Burton’s lame defense of his indefensible assessment. Not only was Brady piss-poor on Sunday (ala Denver), he’s starting to lose some of us (me, for instance) with the “aw shucks” reactions to every question. Clearly, he’s been frustrated within the confines of the team setting; I, for one, would love to see a little of that fire in one of his post-gamers, just to shake things up a bit. . . Speaking of post-gamers, the Patriots Rock Radio Network was too busy fitting in all its ads to provide Belichick’s Sunday post-mortem in its entirety on 104.1 FM WBCN. It’s not like Double-B was giving any golden words in the brief, de-brief, but you sort of expect the flagship to have flexibility to dump in and out of the Coach’s post-game pout.

• Curious choice by the Herald to get earnestly into Ski coverage, but it appears they have some support for it form the ad community. Moira McCarthy, the section’s Ski Bunny, is providing the ‘advertorial-like’ words throughout, and the up-North ski areas like Bretton Woods and Mount Sunapee are buying in (with small ads).

We say it’s curious because the ski crowd is typically thought of as more of a wine and cheese, Tony Chamberlain, New York Times kind of crowd. But perhaps the Yellow Boxers are onto something – another good percentage of the skiing set is T-riding, beer-swillers trying to pick up ski bunnies on weekend retreats. And the Herald can sure deliver on both of those demographics!. . . The column, by ski and travel writer McCarthy, is called “Powder Shots” and we ask: Who gave you permission to infringe on the Shots naming rights? The Globe did the same thing with one of its Sunday add-ons. Shots is looking into ways to recoup royalties from use of the Shots moniker. We’ll be in touch. . .

• New York Radio Badboy Sid Rosenberg resurfaced at 790 WAXY AM, The Ticket in Miami a couple of Mondays ago, sharing 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. shift with OJ McDuffie.

One of that market’s radio observers told Shots this week that Rosenberg is delivering the way he always has and has helped to bring McDuffie out of his shell a bit. The ever-lurking problem is if Rosenberg allows his demons to re-enter his life. Here’s hoping they don’t, but here’s also guessing they might.

• The Rolling Stones at halftime of the Super Bowl? That just doesn’t even register as anything beyond “Oh.”. . . Sheryl Crow, by the way, worked for me on Thanksgiving day. Up until they showed Lance for the second time. Then, I got to work on some of The Shirl’s frozen chocolate mousse on a bed of Vienna fingers, drizzled with Kahlua and Bailey’s. (Okay, Shirl doesn’t condone the alcohol pollution of her creation, but she’s old enough now to know that’s how it’s best served.)

• Jimmy Dykes is the most under-rated color guy in the history of televised sports – of this I am convinced after his stellar work on the Alaska Shootout for ESPN.
Stacey Dales-Schuman is also outstanding in her transition from behind-the-desk to on-the-sideline.

• An intro to Howard Bryant from the Washingtonian shows Bryant toted along the fire and flare that marked his final months in Boston. So far, however, he’s yet to expose any steroid use by either Daniel Snyder or Joe Gibbs.

• Nice tribute to Marvin Pave from Mike Reiss this past Sunday. With the Globe’s Fantastic Five (Bill Griffith, Ron Indrisano, Marvin Pave, Tito Stevens and Judy Van Handle) joining the once-dubbed “Magnificent Seven” of the Herald Boston has now lost a Dandy Dozen of its newspaper brethren and sistren in this, the great Newspaper Buyout Age.

The sadness of that is not lost on us, rest assured.

• We’ve been into the sassy, attitudinal attempt by the Herald to juice up its “news voice” with the Michelle McPhee entries. But she picked on the wrong Tribesgal on Monday when she went after Scott’s Shots former fave/still highly-coveted, Sarah Silverman.

We know she’s Kimmel’s gal, (WHY? We often wonder) but we’ll go to our grave believing it was Shots she was destined to meet. And Sister Elle, for one, agrees.

Anyway, Sweet Sarah pushes the envelope and that’s not going to change. McPhee can focus on real problems like mounting violence and rampant corruption. Leave Sarah Silverman Scott’s Shots (how alliterative we would be) to me. And fear not: I’ll spank her if need be.

• Another miss by earnest Joe Sullivan, Green Box sports honcho, when, on Sunday, explained in his “Editor’s note,” that dog-racing results have been dropped from the section.

Instead of moving the entries to the web (which would have appeased a portion of those affected), Sully dropped the puppies and also New York’s ponies’ results, entirely. True, a small portion of the dog-bettors have Internet access, but it does provide a more consumer-friendly solution. Not that consumers of the paper are ever truly considered in any of these decisions. . .

Furthermore, Sullivan opened himself up to future criticism by explaining “. . . Dog tracks were once popular venues, but the interest. . . is no longer great enough to warrant daily entries and results. . .”

This, from the man, who brought us regular Boston Lobsters coverage during the summer?

While we commend Sully for tinkering with his pages, we sort of get the feeling he’s trying to fix Big Dig-type leaks with Scotch tape. The sooner Sully completes a total overhaul, the sooner his section can move forward – preferably hand-in-hand with Boston.com’s established platform.

Even Ginny Buckingham chimed in , albeit with a clunker of a follow-through on the idea.

• There are so many colored lines on any given football broadcast – between the line of scrimmage line, the first down line, the kicker’s maximum distance line. . . – it starts to look a whole lot like Fruit Stripe gum. (The most underrated chewing gum ever made.)

• Did I miss the part of Shaughnasty’s Sunday column where he asked the Red Sox organization what number they planned to give Josh Beckett? Or when he asked the club if No. 21 was even available?

Guess that would have gotten in the way of the premise, eh? It’s just odd to us that Danny Boy he has such deep, insider information on one Sunday and such a loose foundation for his missive a few Sundays later. One call to Doc Chuck could have probably determined whether or not No. 21 is even up for grabs.

• A big miss by both the Herald and the Globe in their Thanksgiving day score provision. Danny Varsity Ventura over at the Herald did a semi-comprehensive update at 1:43 and then never again. The Globe did about the same, but formatted their scoreboard page to make it look pretty.

That’s a unique day of the year that would be a perfect One-shot for advertisers who want to sponsor the Turkey Day Scoreboard. Does anybody pay attention to these ideas? Ever?

(Now is as good a time as any to fully disclose that Shots has been working in conjunction with one of Herald Media’s spin-offs, titled “Hot Shots”, a specialty mag geared to Eastern Mass. high schoolers. I still can point out faults even for a company that covers a few expenses at the Shanty. And, in that I’m disclosing it – ala the 17 Percent Disclaimer at El Globo Loco – you can be certain I will be called on the carpet for it, most likely by a kind-hearted, anonymous, message-boarder.)

• One of the highlights of the many recent farewell pieces from ink-stained wretches came from Bill Lyon’s departure from the Philly Inquirer. Even now, after four total titles in four years, it could just as well have been written by a Boston scribe: “One thing we do really well in this town is suffer. We have a threshold of pain that extends into the heavens. Our capacity for hurt is matched only by our capacity for loyalty. We keep standing there on the street corner certain that one day, some day, just you wait and see, there’ll be another parade to happen along. Like the man said: “I bleed Eagles green… I just wish I didn’t have to bleed so much.” This town endures, you see, and its people keep coming back for more. How can you not fall in love with that?

We are truly two cities separated at birth and united in self-pity.

• Lastly, speaking of Philthadelphia, it will serve as anchor-site for Shots College Hoops Roadtrip this weekend as we attempt to witness, in person, three college basketball contests in a 30 hour period: Saturday at noon we will revel in a trip to the Palestra for a noon tip between those feisty Drexel Dragons and the LaSalle Explorers. Saturday at 5 p.m. will bring us on campus to Villanova for a major, major tilt between Top Five clubs (Wildcats vs. Oklahoma) at a completely wacky Pavilion with Dickie Vee in the house. Then, on Sunday, as a rest stop/recovery destination for the journey home, Shots will take in the tremendously talented ’05-’06 Iona Gaels squad against the Tom Brennan-less Vermont Catamounts.

With any luck we’ll sneak in a few cheesesteaks, a strawberry smoothie at the Palestra and some slices from Sal’s in Mamaroneck, just up the road from the Idiots on North Ave. in New Rock.

Your jealousy is showing through. . .

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