By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

• Let’s give more than a little credit to MetroWest Daily News reporter, Albert Breer, who was first to report the Laurence Maroney signing on Thursday night. (The Pats declined comment on the scoop.) Breer’s own paper wasn’t able to get the news on its own site, but John Tomase at the (still, for now) sister-publication, Boston Herald, had it for the Point After just before 10:30 p.m. It was posted at the Herald’s site (the first link above) right around that time as well.

(The Globe’s Mike Reiss had this just after midnight, which linked to a Jerome Solomon report with a Thursday July 27 dateline that cited “sources” confirming the deal, but did not have the Maroney’s agent’s comments like Breer’s story did. Solomon did have a peculiar line saying, “Maroney, a former University of Minnesota star, said last night he is in the Boston area and was eager to hit the practice field.” If Solomon had spoken with Maroney about the signing, why wouldn’t he use a direct quote which would have been much stronger? The Maroney item appeared to be Solomon’s attempt at a late add-in to the Deion Branch update. Later in the piece, it also stated that camp “begins today”, despite the Thursday dateline at Boston.com. Solomon, it would seem, was scramblng to play catch up and doing so poorly. The little clues, go a long way in deciphering how behind Solomon sometimes is on the Pats’ beat.)

Breer had clearly developed a relationship with Maroney’s agent, Vance Malinovic, over the past couple of weeks when some un-filed paperwork left Maroney agentless, technically, for a short time. It was Breer who wound up reporting that Maroney had not dropped his agent, but in fact had some paperwork to take care of. (Or whatever the REAL story behind all that was.)

Breer’s “get” is just a reminder that with training camp beginning today (Friday) – the competition on the Pats beat is starting to get just as heated as the weather, and that should mean great information options for all of Patriots Nation. It’s at the point where the blogging and print wars on the Pats beat are starting to overshadow anything happening on the Red Sox beat. We’ll see if the trade deadline tilts that battle back to Fenway and away from Foxboro, but there’s no question that media battles are brewing all around Camp Belichick.

• At its most rudimentary level, the Globe’s big, three-part summer series– something they chose to call “Sneaker Wars” – was a passable package of anecdotes, quotes and sketchy characters. If you invested the time in reporter Bob Hohler’s efforts, you probably weren’t disappointed. But you were deprived.

You were deprived of something that could have advanced the topic at hand – shady AAU recruiting and all that it encompasses – but instead gave a re-hash of an old story with familiar players.

The Globe also deprived its readers of interactivity and Web-friendliness. The Hohler slideshow/audio production was below par and much of Hohler’s explanation for the series wound up confirming how far off the trail of the real story, Joe Sullivan’s staff actually was.

Hohler said in the audio slide show, “. . . last year, we got a tip about this fella, this basketball recruiter (TJ Gassnola). . . we were told (he was) raiding teams in Boston. . . so we launched an investigation into him. . .”

Good reason to launch an investigation. Who’s next, Monster.com for getting people better jobs?

If you followed the series you can damn well guess that the “tip” came from Leo Papile, one of Basketball’s great conundrums – an AAU guy with NBA cred. (Papile as you may know, does legit, corporation-type work for the Celtics while also maintaining an elite level AAU program (the BABC) in the land of dirty deed doers and flesh peddlers. There is almost no one like him within the hierarchy of NBA team management – Leo is unique in many ways.)

In the series, Gassnola proclaimed that he was aiming to take down Papile, and in many places, that’s taken as blasphemy. Apparently, the Globe is one of those very places.

Hohler went on to explain in his part one audio that Gassnola was believed to be: “Offering free sneakers to a parent” and that “One parent thought he was making inappropriate offers of money to his kid. . .it’s a very unregulated subculture in which they operate and at this point he’s still operating. . .,” said Hohler.

Of course he’s still “operating.” The loudest, the brashest and the most Street Smart are the ones that win the recruiting game. Gassnola is simply marking his territory and teasing the big dog.

Before I get into any further merits and de-merits of the Hohler-authored series, let’s make pretend that I’ve been around college basketball for the last 15 years (which of course I have in varying durations and degrees). I may not know everything like an Andy Katz, but I do have a bit of perspective and access.

Safe to say, Bob Hohler is not tied in on almost any level. What happens when that is the case for an “investigative” series, is the outsider winds up delivering less of package than an insider would have been able to put forth, thus making the package less impactful than it set out to be. Ideally, the paper’s college basketball beat writer would have been on-call to help navigate some of the shark-filled waters - but Mark Blaudschun doesn’t a) have that kind of expertise, or b) the time/energy to collaborate effectively on such an enterprise piece. (Basketball Bob Ryan, also could have been of help, but what’s Bob supposed to do? Save every damn story/column that gets into the section? The man can only do so much as the page’s anchor.)

The first two parts of the Sun/Mon/Tues package were almost entirely about Gassnola. A guy, who it seems, has done some bad, done some good, and has a lead foot and a big mouth. There is, AT LEAST, one TJ Gassnola in every state/region of the country where AAU basketball, high school basketball and playground ball are endeavored. Trust us on that one.

Fact is, he’s trying to be the new Papile and Papile (and Leo’s peeps) tried to use some power of the Celtics name to legitimize their guy and piss on Gassnola. But Gassnola is no slouch in his own unique way. However, everything we had to know about Gassnola was done after the Sunday piece. On Monday, more of the same came, with some flimsy allegations and/or violations. A coach giving money to a kid in this day and age is not exactly ENRON.

What probably irked us the most was the Tag for the series – “Sneaker Wars.” Put aside the fact that the story has been playing out for over a decade all across the country (See: “Sole Influence,” circa 2000), the Globe’s spin on a system that is surely spinning out of control, shed almost NO light on the actual “sneaker” wars, as its tagline suggests.

Hohler followed the pack and went to the Father of All Grassroots Basketball Storytellers, the ever-quotable, Sonny Vaccaro.

Hohler provided some he said/she said between business enemies (Leo and TJ) with money at stake. Leo Papile comes off smelling like lilacs and TJ Gassnola comes off looking a little shady, but (oddly) gaining street cred.

The truth, as we all know, is somewhere in between.

But Hohler didn’t know where to look to find it. While Sonny is a great source, tremendous quote and an insider’s insider, he’s also in the twilight of his storied career. And the plain fact is the shoe companies are not the sole (or often even the largest) funder of these AAU teams these days. That’s left to agents hoping to cash in on the next LeBron and school boosters trying to create pipelines from AAU programs to college programs. The shoe companies are basically third on that totem pole.

Hohler’s work would have been fine for 1999, but we’re seven years past that wave of AAU corruption. There’s a whole new wave that Hohler didn’t even come close to unearthing.

There are more than a few emerging players that Hohler never even mentions, chiefly the Pump Brothers, who some of you may have seen or done business with on Yawkey Way at one point in time. Or how about Hohler riding the coat tails of the sister pub.’s stellar efforts on the Diploma Mill story (by Pete Thamel) and focusing on some of those mills’ shady coaches? Weren’t there some New England connections there that Hohler could have dug up?

The package didn’t seem to generate much buzz and quite frankly, it could have been done in half the space over two days and it would have been just as effective. Hohler did some respectable reporting, serviceable writing and he even tried to go New Media with his audio slide show.

But instead of a “What’s Next” investigation; we got a “What’s Already Been Going On” re-hash. As dirty as the Globe wanted you to see Gassnola, and as fortunate as they were in having such a legal-system-familiar gentleman in their coverage area (Springfield), the story Hohler and his paper missed is the one that would have required more digging, more connections and more forethought.

There was surely enough local angles to sidebar-up a more creative and eye-appealing package if it were anchored by a big picture, national piece that could have some countrywide resonance (the way each of Thamel’s investigations seem to). That’s what the Old Globe would have had, in the good ole days, before they got fat and complacent.

Now they just expect us to swallow thousands of words that say very little.

. . . Other nitpicking:

One of the Globe’s long-time, favorite whipping boys, John Calipari, took a few hits within the course of the series. Gassnola has been “in” with Calipari for a long time, aided largely by Springfield’s Derek Kellogg’s relationship with TJ.

On Sunday, Hohler made a passing swipe at Calipari and never mentioned whether he tried to contact the coach or not. In Monday’s piece he wrote that neither Calipari nor Kellogg would return calls. He also mentioned a letter of support from John Robic that was involved in one of Gassnola’s court appearances. We’re guessing Robic wasn’t the only coach to ever offer up support for Gassnola – Hohler just figured he could lump him in with Calipari and Co.

. . . Hohler mentions that Bob Lanier is a sponsor of Gassnola’s team, but never followed up with Lanier to see if the Hall of Famer was aware of Gassnola’s past and whether he was worried to be associated with such a figure. That would have been what, one, two phone calls at the most?

. . . Correct me if I’m wrong, but BC basketball has had its share of “incidents” over the past few years. Maybe the Globe could have dug a bit over there? Or how about the marquee program in New England, UConn, that has seen its share of trouble in recent times?

No, of course not – that would require lots of legwork, sourcing and actual Inside basketball contacts. It’s a lot easier to play on the familiar theme, focus on a small-time thug and paint him to be the worst thing since Osama Bin Laden.

. . .The final straw of the swing-and-miss series by Hohler came on Wednesday night on CN8’s (transitioning) “Sports Pulse.” Instead of the writer of the series, the Globe sent in assistant sports editor, Greg Lee, who we are to assume worked on the package. Lee was vague, difficult to understand at times and by far, not the best choice to sit and talk with Phil Burton on the topic at hand.

The fact that the conversation came a full day after the series had finsihed running, only goes to show how un-prepared (or un-committed) the Globe was to publicizing the story and generating discussion. It was the half-hearted culmintaion of a half-hearted effort to provide important sports journalism, the way the NY Times is again doing. The kid-sister Globe sports division, it appears, has a long way to go.

. . . Lee, by the way, is becoming a go-to quote guy on the minority hiring practices throughout the industry. He serves as the National Association of Black Journalists’ Chairman of the Sports Task Force. Might be a good idea to look at his own desk’s dearth of minority writers and especially, columnists, which we’re guessing he’s already noticed.

. . .If you really want a good recruiting read, try this from the Seattle Times’ newest columnist,

Jerry Brewer (a hugely talented writer) now in his final days at the Louisville Courier-Journal . He took a look at some MODERN day recruiting tactics/violations. (Of course the Globe sports folks would then have to know what Myspace.com actually is.)

Give Brewer a year or two in Seattle and then the Globe should look to snag him. And that’s Shots’ columnist recruiting tip of the day. . .

• We’re thinking NESN’s/ESPN’s Charlie Moore might have OD’d on fish oil pills. Check out this quote from the Mad Fisherman in the August “Best of Boston” Boston Magazine (Dunkies cup on the cover) in a top-notch story done by associate editor, Geoffrey Gagnon:

“This is not a fucking fishing show; fishing shows suck,” Moore says. “I’m out to make a great television show; I’m out to make people’s TiVo lists. The show works not because I’m a better fisherman than other people on TV—which I am—it works because I’m flat out more talented. I’m Jim Carrey on a bass boat.”

Right – and I’m Ernest Hemingway with a blog.

Later, Moore says,

“Everybody wants to be famous, but you gotta be willing to pull down your pants and put your balls on the fucking table, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Must be a fishing term, eh?

There’s a lot more, too. You may actually start to hate the Angry Angler a bit, if you didn’t already. Which, we suppose, will only make him more popular and more wealthy and more crazy.

• Wow, so progressive!

If it were three years ago, that is.

Never mind the front of the sports section, can you please sell the back – the much-read “Scorecard” page – and the League Standings pages? Aren’t those naturals for beer, car and electronics sectors?

. . . Three inches is a goodly sum of print real estate, as a look at the Times’ Biz front reveals. There will surely be some outcry from the old fogies about how slippery this slope is sure to be for the Globe, but those old fogies won’t be alive when the future of newspapers and the like are resolved. Sad, but true.

• Tom Brady designs watches too!

Is there anything this guy can’t do?

• Say good bye to to Teen People, and let’s hope that Shots’ all-time favorite young adult title, Sports Illustrated for Kids doesn’t suffer the same fate. We fear it could.

• This, is by far the best, Shipbuilder summation we have seen in quite some time, if not ever. It ran in this past Sunday’s Time’s Business section.

• Oh, and another Globe issue: what are we to make of the fact that the regional Leader’s desk was running AP stories from ACC football Media Kickoff and the Also-ran, Herald was using old chum, Mike Shalin. No Mark Blaudschun, no Michael Vega – not even a Fluto to be found. That can’t make the loud and proud BC Globies very happy.

• How are you all liking the new NESN ticker?

• Some good news emanating from the soon-to-be-cozier-with-the-Globe-print-side, Boston.com – the site has hired Auburn, Mass.-native and Northeastern alum (’03), Chris Forsberg, as its newly-created Boston.com High School Sports Editor. Forsberg, 26, leaves the Fitchburg Sentinel, where he was a jack-of-all-trades for the past 19 months.

Forsberg co-oped on the Globe sports desk from 1999-2003 and has continued to serve as a correspondent for the paper’s NorthWest section.

We’re guessing that Forsberg will be able to give the Globe a legit, consistent challenge to the outstanding high school coverage spearheaded by the Herald’s unshakable HS editor, Jim Clark and blogger/reporter Dan Ventura. Boston.com had tried to do some high school blogging this past season, but the effort fell short, despite some in-house publicity behind it.

Said Forsberg in an email to Shots: “I’d like to think I’ve become a high school sports junkie over my brief Journalism career and part of my goal with the new position is to help the Globe beef up its coverage of varsity athletics through the online medium.”

We wish Forsberg all the best and take this hiring as a good sign for the future of Boston.com’s evolving sports unit.

• Looks like it’s going to be Duke to the Rescue for (wo)man-down, NBC7. Joe’s kid, Duke Castiglione, is scheduled to do some temp. work with his old pal, Joe Amorosino while the 7 folks decide on a permanent replacement for Wendi Nix, who will be starting up soon with ESPN. (Note to Wendi: If you see Harold Reynolds in the Bristol area, resist the urge to hug him.)

Castiglione will chip in wherever he is needed to help out JoAm and Dave Briggs, but will continue his heavy rotation of national ESPN games and other duties for the Worldwide Leader.

According to Duke, both ‘Lil Stick and JoAm broke in the biz together in Yarmouth at Cape 11 News, a decade ago, where their boss was former Bruin great, Fred Cusick’s daughter, Martha.

• It appears, Red Sox Nation’s first Civil War is either over, or on hiatus.

Last week’s edition of Shots, combined with a whole lot of grassroots, Internet buzz culminating in Lori’s solid follow-up earlier this week, seemed to get the message out that out-of-market Sox Nationers were a bit outraged.

Not surprisingly, a few of the locally-based Shots’ emailers wondered why we’d dedicate so much space to an issue that affected so few, relatively speaking.

The answer I came up with, and fully support, is this:

You can’t claim to be Red Sox Nation and only be able to serve the New England citizens. The bulk of marketing concept for the “Nation” (and Youth Nation, too) is that borders don’t exist in Red Sox Country.

But even an alien like Shots knows that nothing in broadcasting and big business is ever about anything other than MONEY.

M-O-N-E-Y. Rhymes with “honey” and that means “funny.”

The behind-the-Green Curtain maneuverings last week are probably worth a Seth Mnookin sequel. NESN (and we’ll presume head honcho Sean McGrail) apparently had the audacity to think that some “out-of-market” customers wouldn’t notice some programming cut-backs.

One valued Shots reader, Mark V., in fact, passed along this interesting note he discovered here illustrating, some of the NESN Doubletalk from a week ago:

There’s one intriguing little detail to this story that I’m not sure if you saw; NESN president Sean McGrail is personally on the record advocating that out-of-market viewers subscribe to the DirecTV Sports Pack specifically to get the pre/postgame shows; check out his answer to the third question in the “Executive Mailbag” at thsi now-dead link

Vita, last week, got this reply from NESN MVP of the Civil War, Karen Verzone:

Mark,

You have done your internet research—I can respect that.

What I have told other viewers is that paying for the DirecTV SportsPack only gives the subscriber access to the 2 dozen or so networks included in the pack. The $12 fee you pay per month does not override the regional broadcast agreements each network holds with the teams and leagues represented in their programming. So although NESN, the channel, is available to outer market viewers, some of our programming i(s) unavailable per league regulations (MLB, NHL, NCAA, etc.).

I can recall one response I gave to a viewer that I think you may have see and are misunderstanding. This particular viewer worded his response in a way that led me to believe he thought paying for the SportsPack automatically gave him access to all NESN programming in the same way that paying for MLB’s Extra Innings gives him access to baseball games.

The two situations are not related and fall under different restrictions.

I hope that clears up the situation.



Karen

That helped, we guess. But lifting the pre- and post-game blackouts made the most sense, a move that was confirmed this week by Larry Lucchino, during the Tuesday pre-game. If that’s the compromise (with no access to non-news shows like “RS Rewind” being the customer’s concession), it would seem to be the best for all parties – right now.

. . . A bit more on the Civil War: Clearly, this mess is only getting more tangled with the speed and increased reliability of on-line streaming and viewing. The Piracy that can now be perpetrated on ALL of the leagues and collegiate conferences is almost mind-boggling.

It is, from what we can tell, the Wild, Wild West and ESPN’s not the only one gun-slingin’ like a coked-up banshee.

• Due to some inclement weather conditions at the Shanty last weekend, we caught a little bit of Jon Meterparel on the FSNNE Fastpitch softball game of the week. Playing the Chinese National team gave Meter all sorts of odd discussion of Ying, slap bunts, Yi and Yang.

Meter’s got good pipes and you almost think that the softball gig is beneath him at this point in his career. BC football is a respectable gig, because it’s an ACC job. But a pre-taped advertorial for women’s softball?

Meter’s better than that – we’re sure of it.

• I don’t think I’ll venture in to the big city for the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk, but I’ll walk a few extra blocks in Hull if anyone wants to join me. I’ll donate a buck a block if you will.

. . . See, I do have a social conscience of some sort.

• Even more progressiveness from the Pats:

Are you planning on attending a public practice at Gillette Stadium? Patriots Training Camp begins July 28th and Patriots.com has you covered with in-depth coverage of each practice. . . . Plus, we are pleased to announce our newest podcast, the Patriots Training Camp-Cast, where we break down the best and worst of the day’s practice into a quick 5-minute synopsis which can be found online in our camp section and also by calling our Training Camp hotline at 508-549-0001. Camp-Cast will be available each day there is a practice. And don’t forget you can subscribe to all Patriots Podcasts now through iTunes.

Shots checked out the July 21, 15 minute edition. A bit of a rough intro and then some predictable banter from some PFW guys. Like any new venture, it will be a work in progress, but at least they’re trying. It will surely have some appeal, especially to out-of-market folks jonesing for some Pats info.

• Makes sense for the FSG on most levels. They sure do have their sights set ALL over the place.

• More Schilling in enemy cyber territory.

Shots is extending the offer of a full length email interview with Schilling, strictly on media matters and not entailing any more than two give and takes (more if he deems it necessary).

I’m available at the contact info below. Could be fun. . .

• Mnoday is for Mnookin in Shots’ world. We hope to bring you some sort of report from the Hingham event on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Mnookin has a list of “corrections” from “Monster” book – a nice way to get any of the haters off his back.

• Stay hydrated this weekend, keep away from my Lorna Dunes and whatever you do, don’t believe the hype about Aloe Vera Juice.

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. And can be reached at shotsATbostonsportsmediaDOTcom