By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

A spokesman for ESPN defended his network’s practice of not fully disclosing the location of its broadcast’s talent team, specifically as it pertains to the on-going FIBA World Championships.

As a follow up to Shots’ much-circulated post from last Saturday (see international note below), ESPN spokesperson Nate Smeltz wrote in an email: “During the live telecast, our commentators are not misleading our viewers into believing they are present at the arena. We are focusing on what is transpiring on the court in Japan. They are making game observations as they would in any scenario, whether on site or in the studio.”

However, there is never a disclaimer or mention whatsoever that play-by-play man, Jim Durham and color analyst, Fran Fraschilla, are not in fact courtside in Asia, but instead, stateside, at ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut.

“We have been upfront about our approach from the beginning,” said Smeltz, who then referenced the USA Today note from last Friday.

(That story, while appearing in a the “Nation’s Newspaper,” in no way would serve as proper notice to the millions of viewers who are watching ESPN2’s broadcasts. ESPN’s “approach” may indeed be “upfront,” but it’s hardly transparent.)

Smeltz also confirmed (as pointed out by many Shots’ Loyalists and UEFA-watchers) that the technique is nothing new in international event broadcasting. “ESPN2 is using the world feed, which is common practice when covering international events,” he wrote. “This has been the approach for several events, as recent as Spring 2006 during the inaugural World Baseball Classic (for games played in Japan).

“ESPN is aggressively covering USA Basketball, including all of the team’s telecasts live on ESPN2 throughout the tournament plus coverage within SportsCenter, ESPN.com, ESPNEWS, Mobile ESPN and other news and information outlets.”

The simple fix, of course, would be to just have a few on-screen graphics and maybe a couple of oral drop-ins that inform the viewer that while Jim and Fran are well-prepared and in-tune with the game, they are not, in fact AT the game.

Isn’t there something to be said for transparency, especially when something is so easily remedied? Viewers won’t tune out, but they will understand why, as was the case during one game last week, the talent in Bristol was confused by an official’s call made in Japan. Fraschilla couldn’t very well get courtside clarification, as he would under normal, at-the-game circumstances.

A disclaimer would rectify the whole situation. Apparently though, the Worldwide Misleader, doesn’t see a problem with the practice.

“I’ve shared our outlook…feel free to disagree,” Smeltz wrote after Shots returned some follow-up questions.

Meanwhile, NBATV is giving every indication that its talent is on-site for SternTV’s coverage of non-Team USA contests ( with some games seen locally on Fox Sports New England).

[A phone message to NBA TV in New Jersey was not returned as we sought confirmation that PBP man, Rick Kamla and all-underrated analyst Tim Capstraw are, in fact, in Japan. Their words give every indication that they are indeed in Sapporo with the Group D games, but now we’re starting to question everything we see. Is Musburger even in Williamsport? Was Linda Cohn really at the X Games?]

David Stern’s broadcast unit also runs a studio show (hosted by solid Matt Loughlin (pronounced: Lock-linn) from the ‘Net’s Secaucus storefront, something ESPN doesn’t deem worthwhile for its Team USA coverage.

It all seems a bit incongruous. Shouldn’t ESPN be force-feeding these games down our throats to enhance their NBA connection?

(Yes, we’re begging for the Worldwide Leader to be more overt and boastful – and no, we haven’t lost our minds. I really, really, really want to be a Lebron/’Melo/Dwayne fan but if the league’s partner network barely cares, why should I, the viewer?)

Smeltz’s logical response to the lack of an ESPN2 studio show was this: “Are you suggesting we should produce a pre-game show at 6 a.m. (3 a.m. PT)? We have been providing halftime highlights during our game telecasts, along with analysis from our commentators.”

. . . One of the chief problems the non-disclosure of talents’ whereabouts, form this perch, is that it opens up the possibility of ESPN never having to send another talent and production team on the road. Everything could be done from Bristol and there would be no interaction whatsoever with the talent and the players/coaches/fans. And we might never know it.

. . . Some semi-technical side leftovers from the responsive and helpful Smeltz: “No special technology is utilized (to pipe in crowd sound seamlessly with Jim and Fran’s voices). It is customary for any world feed to provide a natural sound coming from the venue with an opportunity to voice over. The commentary of Jim and Fran is synchronized with the sounds from the arena in Japan, as provided by the host broadcaster.”

. . . NOTE INTERNATIONALE Le Shots du Scott: Once in a great while, something we write gets some widespread attention. That’s nice to see, admittedly.

However, it’s the little things, like this, that truly warm the cockles of my, ah, wherever my cockles are. It comes from my new favorite, French-language, basketball site:

“Apparemment les commentateurs d’ESPN font croire aux téléspectateurs américains qu’ils sont au Japon alors qu’ils sont tranquillement dans leurs bureaux.

Nous on vous jure que Yann n’est pas dans son appart, devant son PC….”

Shots’ Monsieur Cavanaugh, PVMHS-certified mastery of the French language only allows for clear translation on the first sentence, which essentially summarizes and links to last Saturday’s post.

So we went to our handy-dandy Babelfish and got this somewhat logical translation: “Us one swears you that Yann is not in its appart, in front of his PC”

In more common English, Yann (the blogger) is keeping it real from Japan and not from his home HQs.

Howard Bryant Back on His Home Turf

Howard Bryant, now covering the Redskins for the Washington Post will be back in town this weekend for Saturday night’s third pre-season game.

When he left the Herald at the end of 2005, Bryant had just begun to hit his stride and was emerging as THE sports voice of the scrappy tabloid-that-could. As he returns some nine months later, he finds a city with not a single black sportswriter at either of the two dailies and a former cross-town rival (the Globe) that has lost three major beat writers in a little over three months.

As always, Bryant offered up some valuable perspective on all things Boston. Here, culled from emails throughout a four day span, are some of Bryant’s views including those on race, Seth Mnookin and his current book project on Hank Aaron:

On the lily white Boston Sports Press Corps:

“I think when you talk about race in Boston, from a journalistic perspective, it has to be parsed into a couple of different categories. The first is how what you do is received, and the second is in the opportunities that exist for you in Boston as a professional.

“The first, to me, is very difficult to deal with. When I was at the Herald, it took a while to accept the degree of hate mail (I still have what I call my “go back to Africa” file. It is quite extensive) that I received over innocuous, many times non race-related, topics. That is the part of the job that is most difficult, and I think is very effective in keeping the few African Americans who have had column-level or key writing jobs at the big two papers from taking on hard subjects.

“You essentially self-censor yourself to keep the rednecks off your back. It was a painful part of the job, but I stopped caring. My position was this: Will McDonough, Gerry Callahan, John Dennis and everyone the rest have for years said and written whatever they wanted.

“I didn’t think the world would collapse by offering a different view once in a while. If the city is so smart, so tough, and so open, it should be able to handle an occasional difference of opinion.

“Moreover, I think something has been lost in our mission. For me, part of being in this business was the underdog element, to give voice to people who believed they did not have one. For me, that is the black population in Boston, because no one speaks for them. But I think the few black people who do have a voice in Boston are so often afraid of being attacked by the angry white man element, they have done the exact opposite of the mission: instead of speaking for people who can’t, they simply mimic the attitudes of people who already have the power, who have been doing all of the talking for decades.

“The second (perspective) is equally dangerous, but is more an indictment of the business. The Globe has had exactly one black sports columnist in its history, as has the Herald. That suggests to any young writer that the Boston papers have a ceiling on what they will allow you to do.

“Neither paper’s sports sections employ an African American on a major beat or column. That speaks for itself. I imagine the good news is that race had nothing to do with my departure.

“It also suggests that neither paper is particularly interested in better connecting to its black population. I remember when the Globe offered me their Red Sox beat job in 2004. I was a columnist and to me it was a demotion. Their position was that they already had “enough voices.” That was, to me, the most out of touch (view), for it suggested that they are currently serving their entire readership. They aren’t.”

On leaving Boston:

“Professionally, leaving was bittersweet in that I very much enjoyed working for the Herald. It gave me the best working opportunity of any paper I’ve ever worked for. It was the only paper that said, ‘Here’s what you do best, go and do it.’ No questions asked.”

On how much he still follows the Boston sports scene:

“Well, I’m a baseball guy at heart, so I’ve kept in touch with the Red Sox, and Sox-Yankees, naturally. There’s no place like it. I thought the whole circus surrounding Seth Mnookin’s Feeding the Monster was laughable, especially Seth’s seeming belief that the book was credible because he said the Red Sox did not have any editorial control over the finished product. How naive is that? The Red Sox had editorial control of that book the millisecond he accepted office space from them, whether he admits it or not. Does he really believe that he could accept their access and still be impartial? I also found it very interesting that he wrote their version of the sale as fact, and expected it to be unassailable, just because he wrote it as they recalled it. Nor do I think it is a coincidence that each player the Red Sox management tired of – Nomar, Millar, Manny, etc. – did not come off well in the book.

“I watched those (Boston Massacre ’06) games and thought about how I would write them and what I would say and the whole thing made me miss the circus. I was a big Johnny Damon fan that weekend, because the ‘Never underestimate someone with something to prove’ storyline is one of my favorites.

“Teams definitely revel when guys they get rid of do nothing because it justifies the move, and I like it when a player shows getting rid of them is a mistake. You see it all the time, in sports and in the corporate world. Management decides what a person is capable of, and it’s great to prove them wrong. When I was in San Jose (Mercury news), my employers threw me in the garbage. My career took off afterward, but you still remember that they said you were no good. Or maybe it’s just the socialist in me. I kinda like it when the worker wins.

“It also made me think about just how remarkable those years 2003-05 really were. We all got to witness an amazing period of time.”

On the Redskins’ beat vs. the Sox beat:

“. . .{W]hen I came down here, everyone said that covering the Redskins was like the Red Sox in terms of intensity. No chance. The Boston animal is a species all its own.”

On a bit of what he looks forward to with his Hank Aaron book:

“I think along with Frank Robinson, he’s the most underrated player in baseball history because of many factors I look forward to investigating. Aaron was the last major player to come from the Negro Leagues, and was the handpicked heir to the Jackie Robinson mission. I think when people think about Aaron, they think 1974, but very little else is known about him.

“. . . [C]learly there will be a Bonds element, once that story reaches its conclusion, but writing about Aaron through the eyes of Bonds is committing the same offense of underestimating him I’m trying to avoid. Aaron has said that records were meant to be broken, but I think it is particularly damning that virtually every important home run record has been set since 1996. It is my hope that instead of diminishing the legend of Aaron, having his record broken during a dishonest and questionable era enhances it.”

On the differences between the Post and the Herald:

“ The Post is a dominant, national-international paper with remarkable resources (we have our own library researcher in Sports, for goodness sakes), while the Herald for the past 45 years has lived increasingly in the shadow of the Globe, carving out a place for itself in a two-paper market. . . But as much as I enjoy the power of the Post, I miss the Herald. Outside of my own book projects, it was the best job I ever had.”

(Shots aside: Just look at the Post’s Redskins page and tell me they don’t absolutely blow away all of the local entrants COMBINED – That’s great web design, coupled with great content and user interactivity. So simple, yet so complicated.)

On whether he will write in Boston again for a Boston paper or website:. . .

“Based on my comments about those papers, I doubt I’ll get another
offer!

“Who knows? When I was a kid, my dream job had been to write for the Globe, to follow in the columnist tradition of Gammons, Montville, Shaughnessy, Madden, etc. . . But as an adult, I’ve never been quite the right fit for the Globe. We danced for a bit in 2004. They wanted me to be a beat writer. I was tired of being on the road 185 days a year for a job I’d already done for six years.

“I certainly don’t think I’ll change papers again unless it is for a columnist-level job (if it isn’t too obvious, I miss my column tremendously), although at times I do feel myself drifting farther away from daily journalism hopefully one day to write books full-time.”

AND, in other items of interest:

• With Tom Curran’s departure from the Providence Journal for the fledgling NBCSports.com, it appears the paper and sports editor Art Martone is ready to go with a two-person beat that will feature Joe McDonald and Shalise Manza Young.

McDonald, via email, confirmed the move: “The first week of (September) I will be taking over the Pats beat at the Journal. I am replacing Tom, who will be very difficult to follow, but I’m up for the challenge. Shalise (Manza Young) will be helping out.”

McDonald, who recently was all over the under-the-radar pending sale of the Baby Bruins, has been at the ProJo for 15 years (starting in circulation, the last 11 in sports) and has had experience on the beats of the PawSox, the Providence Bruins, the Boston Bruins and the Red Sox. He was a mid-90s graduate of Roger Williams in Bristol, Rhode Island and, like Keepin’ it Rheal Cormier, a former CCRI baseball player. He started out on the darkside, as an intern at WCVB 5, but quickly smelled the newsprint of the ProJo.

Manza Young, who proudly claims her Afri-talian-American roots (a black mom and an Italian dad), was born in Franklin, Massachusetts and raised in Pawtucket from the age of eight. A 1999 Syracuse graduate, she has spent her nascent career at the ProJo, after starting off in a national high-school program called Minorities in Media.

If used in tandem, with one reporter focusing on the Web and one focusing on print, the ProJo can remain a player with the big boys. But Curran, we may discover, was above average on the beat, especially with his TV emergence in recent months, something we have yet to see from either JMac or SMY.

. . . Progress is being made at the Globe in their search to replace Jerome Solomon, but as one interested party surmised this week: “It’s the same list they drew from when they wound up going with Jerome. And in 18 months to two years, they’ll have the same problem and lose the writer to a better opportunity.”

• Former WEEI producer, Chris Eno, sent along this gem from the show he now executive produces (impressive!) for XM Satellite Radio’s “MLB Home Plate” – a 24 hour, year-round talk channel dedicated to nothing but baseball:

Johnny Damon was on XM Satellite Radio's MLB Channel 175 before the Yankees' game in Seattle on Wednesday night and had this to say about the difference between the Yankees and Red Sox:

"[T]he biggest thing for me is having the opportunity to go out there and win and I know New York is going to do that. If we need a player, Steinbrenner is going to get him. That’s not the case in Boston. They’re a little strapped financially, so they say, and they just don’t pull the trigger. We needed Bobby Abreu and Steinbrenner said “do it.” I like the fact that every day I take the field my team has a chance to win and that’s a great feeling.”

• Nick Cafardo went to Seattle to ask Jeter about the error on Manny’s ball last weekend. We hope he was there for other things too, otherwise we’re going to start wondering about fund allocation choices by Joe Sullivan.

• Wow – pipes and words melded together – amazing what Frank Deford can still deliver for Never Poor Radio (NPR).

• Ladies and Gentlemen, the most-commented-upon post in Deadspin history – one year into the Mad Leitch Scientist’s creation. Impressive.

• We should all be paying attention to the beta site of FOX25, which is looking pretty sweet as far as the locals' offerings go.

. . .That specific link, last week anyway, included a package on the Bruins signing of Phil Kessel and an ambush on the teleconference by an intrepid FOX 25 reporter who was riding the coattails of an affiliate’s underage drinking package. You might to surf around for it now.

• A nice bump for ESPN Radio Boston with their Patriots Friday rights deal but what interested us most was the contacts listed to get further information on the deal. One, of course, was Pats PR maven, Stacey James. The second was a familiar name to longtime Boston media observers: Janet Prensky, who was pubbing the announcement for ERB through Allston-based Aigner Associates.

. . . One Shots Wag of Merit opined, “ESPN Boston is relevant now, I believe.”

To which Shots retorted: “They have a pulse. A weak pulse to match a weak signal. But it is a positive step – but let’s see how they make it different from Patriots Monday. And where’s radio-ready Josh Miller, anyway?

• I don’t even have a fantasy team and I still just drafted DeAngelo Williams from the Panthers. The early rookie of the year balloting from the Shanty (it’s not too early) goes Our Guy Maroney, Williams and someone else who I will soon “discover.”

• We hear that this TV Azteca talent was prowling the Pats practice field this past week.

Her name is Ines Sa'inz and you can thank me later. Or now AND later. Whichever.

(That was to make up for a misstep last week where I unintentionally ruined Friday coffee/lunch/snack time with a grotesque female eating cake. With Ines, I come in peace.)

• We’re told to expect a major local sports talk radio guy who will be announced as a regular contributor to the new CN8 sports offering at 11 p.m., starting September 5. CN8’s people say they’ll be announcing show specifics over the next week – just in time to get lost in the shuffle of the final long weekend of summer. Seems that some things – the marketing and buzz-making – are not quite ready to change at CN8, even though the time slot is different.

Without a bit more muscle behind the local edition of “Out of Bounds,” the Philly CN8ers are going to be at an immediate disadvantage as they go against long-established 11 p.m. news casts at the Big Three, and a respectable offering from sister operation, NECN (“Sports Late Night”). The time slot is no easier than the one they left and the feeble prior attempts at buzz generation (when Easy Ed Berliner was roaming the halls) will not get eyeballs. I can almost guarantee that.

• Golden Boy Tom Brady took inside, front cover spread honors in Sunday’s New York Time’s quarterly Play magazine with a Movado Series 800 ad. Wrist Watch Review’s “John” gets a bit snotty about the timepiece (and Brady).

The Sunday NYTM ad had copy reading, in e.e. cummings-style: “the art of performance – tom brady. Strategist, athlete, mvp. Series 800 watches. Powerful, rugged, precise. The ultimate in form meets function. Series800.com.

• Finally! The one stop shop for all my NESN clothing needs.

How Hazel Mae isn’t in that pink number (size small) on the site’s front page, is a little beyond us.

. . . Speaking of NESN: We caught a few segments of newcomer Kathryn Tappen this week and our Rhode Island spies were right – she’s got the goods. Some seasoning and some more reps and she’ll be national-ready, probably before Hazel even.

• Son of Joe, Duke Castiglione checked in with Shots from one his myriad ESPN assignments. He wanted to let everyone know how much he is enjoying his fill-in role for NBC7’s sports desk (during “Operation Replace Wendi Nix”):

"I am having a blast working with my good friend Joe (Amorosino),” Lil Stick Blackberried to Shots. “Personally I think he's one of the best around – not just as an anchor/reporter but as a person. The people in his department, from top to bottom, are also great. It's been a blast covering teams I grew up watching. How long it lasts? Who knows, but I am having fun."

Duke starts getting real busy in the coming weeks as college football starts up and baseball heats up, so be ready for what will seem like more National Duke and slightly less Local Duke.

No word if he’ll be working a Duke game at any point. We can only hope: ”And now down to Duke on the Duke sideline with some Duke injury updates from the Duke medical staff. . .”

• NESN’s Tina Cervasio hung out with Red Sox Nation West, arrived a bit late to the park, but surely got some priceless footage of a group of LA’s craziest Sox fans. The trip included a stop at BoSox West HQs Sonny McLean’s. Hey Sonny! Link Boston Sports Media Watch, will ya, buddy?

• Yeah. Too many words. I know. But I got rolling there with HB’s return and the whole ESPN thing. No one says you gotta read it all in one sitting. . .Hater.

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