By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

It has been a wild end to the 2006 calendar year and before we downshift completely into a week of R&R on the shores of Nantasket, we figured it must be time for a visit from Santa Shots, the persnickety old soul who hands out naughty and nice accolades to some of those in his Boston Media purview.

Before we get into that list, we will remind you that ‘Regular Shots’ (not our red-suited alias) will be making another appearance on CN8’s “Out of Bounds”, 11 p.m. edition, tonight (Friday, 12/22). If you’ve tuned in before, you are well aware of the potential pitfalls that occur with each opening of the Shots’ yap. It’s always worth the flip-over - just to see how big the eye-bags are on this particular night and to hear what blasphemy the Shots will speaketh. Just as a tease, I’m hoping to call out David Stern for his blatant hypocrisy.

The ’07 All-Star game, need we remind you, is in Vegas. Lucky seven, indeed.

Now, without further doo-doo, we present the “Santa Shots’ Naughty and Nice” list for 2006 (It’s soooooo much easier to find naughty, but we did strive for some level of equity – gender and otherwise):

Naughty
Patriot Paranoia

Richard “Big Sey’ Seymour pulled a complete Drew Rosenhaus at this past Wednesday’s Foxboro press conference held to discuss his Pro Bowl selection.

But SeyBaby did his ‘Rosenhaus’ only once and only to ESPN Radio 890 AM’s (and the Herald’s) Mike Felger. The scene took all of about a second, but we were just alert enough to witness the Seymour diss. It went something like this:

Felger was a couple of words into to asking a question, when Seymour looked straight ahead, saw it was Felger and said “Next question.”

The next question was then fired and Felger was left to try and figure out what hornet’s nest he aggravated this time. Felger is/has been becoming persona non grata with a few of the Pats players, chiefly Corey Dillon (who again called Felger out during an interview with Stammering Steve Burton which aired on last Sunday’s “Sports Final”) and now, it appears, BigSey is piling on Mr. FelgerWood.

In all fairness, Felger had written, in the Wednesday Herald, that Ty Warren was a more deserving Pro Bowl pick - but was careful to point out that “Seymour is one of the best, if not the best, defensive lineman in football. . . But the truth is that, for a variety of reasons, Seymour hasn’t even been the best defensive lineman on his team this season. . . we stress the this season part of the equation.”

Pretty innocuous stuff, from what we can tell. Evidently Seymour didn’t see it that way and he’s trying to freeze out the region’s best triple-media threat (print, TV, radio). It’s not exactly what you would call “becoming behavior” from a multi-millionaire who relies on media members to increase his market value.

Add this to the fact that the majority of the Pats’ offensive linemen don’t appear to be talking to ANYBODY, and you have the makings of a Media/Team War unlike anything the Krafts have experienced – especially if there is a first-round (or worse!) flameout.

Remember this friends: As the games dwindle, the asses do pucker. Put another way: the stakes are being raised from here on out and it’s not far fetched to think a boiling point is near.

(Although Alan Greenberg of the Hartford Courant did have a bit of witty repartee with The Head Coach on Wednesday as well. Belichick even went as far to offer the touché gesture to the persistent Courant scribe.) Ed.’s Note: Shots was out at Foxboro for Wednesday press proceedings, live and in-person.

. . . Further festering in Foxboro is the egg-shell walking that the Pats press corps needs to constantly engage in with Belichick. And now that Belichick has become (at-least) monthly fodder for the Track Gals, you never do know when Bitty Bill will blow his stack at a representative (likely to be from) the Herald (even if that rep or reps have ZERO to do with the gossip-mongering engaged in by often-sloppy Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa).

Patrianoia is very real folks and things are tightening up all across the Good Ship Kraft. If a few more players freeze out Felger, we will have the makings of a very interesting playoff run, indeed. (Oddly, the freezeout would inevitably winding up doing more good for Felger than bad - especially on the radio side.)

Nice
Rosevelt Colvin

On the flip side of all that is Colvin, the consummate professional who answers every question, looks every inquisitor in the eye and offers insightful, well-thought-out replies. Colvin says he doesn’t have any grand plans for a career in TV after his playing days are finished, but we’d like to suggest he should.

Naughty
Butch Stearns

Forever searching for the answer to the question of Who is Better than himself, Stearns would be better served searching for a clue.

During the final days of the Dice-K saga, Stearns was freely quoting sources (on that Sunday) who were telling him that things were progressing smoothly in the talks. The after-accounts seem to indicate that was as far from the truth as anything could be.

Then, this week, Stearns was quoting more “sources” about the Boston College head coaching job, saying that he had been told it will be Jeff Jagodzinski. This was hours after that had been widely reported elsewhere by actual reporters with actual sources.

Listen, I know it’s TV and the pretty faces get some lee-way because, well, they’re pretty faces. But there’s no excuse for the shoddy pseudo-reporting that Butch (and others like him) perpetuate on an un-witting public.

Naughty
FSNNE’s Odd Fill-in Choice for Tommy

A herniated disk will keep Celtics legend, apologist and loudmouth, Tommy Heinsohn from making the upcoming West Coast trip with the Green. In Heinsohn’s place on the seven day, five-game western swing will be Greg Dickerson, the regular home, courtside reporter for FSNNE.

The choice of Dickerson (to join Mike Gorman) instead of the more polished and hoops-informed Donny Marshall (who recently had a banner night with Gorman and Heinsohn on a game at New Jersey) is a peculiar one, but explained away by FSNNE spokesman, Skip Perham thusly: “As you can imagine, it is not an easy week to find a last minute fill in. We looked at all our options, including Donny and (sometime at-the-game analyst) (Bob) Cousy, and Greg could make the adjustment in his schedule. He also knows the team as well as anyone.”

We’ll have to see about that. (Although Dickerson was, it appears, first with the Paul Pierce injury news. Good start, GD.)

Perham said Dickerson filled in on color commentary once before, for a Celts’ game three years ago in Milwaukee.

“Our expectation is that Greg will be bringing a lot of the same type of insight to the telecast as he does as the courtside reporter during home games,“ said Perham. “He will be attending practices on the road and conducting player and coach interviews.”

Yeah, but will he be giving Tommy Points or Greggy Goals? (Let’s hope not.)

Perham was not yet clear on how Heinsohn’s bad back will affect his work schedule following the C’s Left Coast journey. Heinsohn will, however, call in to the broadcasts from the Redhead’s Home in Needham for the telecasts which include: Tuesday, December 26 @ Denver – 9:00 p.m.; Wednesday, December 27 @ LA Clippers – 10:30 p.m.; Friday, December 29 @ Golden State – 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, December 31 @ Seattle – 10:00 p.m.; and Monday, January 1 @ Portland - 10:00 p.m.

Nice
Doc Rivers

After a recent visit to Celtics practice (yep, Shots has been out and about a bit this week) we came away with one conclusion and one conclusion only: Rivers is the most media-savvy head coach in the modern history (Internet Age) of Boston Sports.

Doc ducks no questions and even his canned responses seem genuine. You can not underestimate the importance of Rivers’ favorable working relationship with the folks who cover his team. It has, some may argue, saved him his job - at least for this season. No one who needs good quotes and sound bytes would ever want to lose Rivers presence on the Parquet, and therefore none of those media members would dare try to run Rivers out of town.

Naughty
WEEI’s Holiday Time Programming

Oh my. It’s shocking sometimes how awful Pete Meat Sheppard is in any role other than his barely-tolerable Flash Meat Boy. The most recent reminder came on Thursday afternoon when, from the Big O’s chair, tried to lead a three-way interview with Danny Ainge. Steve Buckley completed stopped asking questions and Tom Curran seemed too tentative in his delivery to be a convincing hoops inquisitor.

We’ve never longed to hear Glenn Ordway’s voice more than during the grunts and groans of the fawning approval from Meat and his softball, ill-stated Al Jefferson question.

Nice
Mike Reiss

Just a great nugget from the Pieces Man.

Nice
Hey, Skip: “You Suck!”

On a Special Edition of Mohegan Sun Sports Tonight Presented by the Boston Herald, which will premiere at 6:30 on Monday, December 25, Terry Francona, Mike Vrabel and Paul Pierce have some worthwhile comments, including these two keepers:

Francona on managing in Boston…
“I thought my last name was you suck…As a manager you don’t expect to walk out to the mound and get applause…You are here to help the players win games.”

Pierce on life off the court…
“You are a sports figure and you are a target when you leave the house.”
The special will also air at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. on Monday, January 1, before the Celtics tip-off against the Portland Trailblazers at 10.

Nice
Lost and Foudy

ESPN announced this week that longtime Shots fave, Julie Foudy, “former captain of the U.S. Women’s National Team and one of the most accomplished female soccer players in the world, has reached a new agreement with ESPN that gives her expanded on- and off-camera responsibilities through 2009.

“Under the new deal, Foudy, who joined the network fulltime in 2005 as a U.S. Women’s National Team game analyst and FIFA World Cup studio analyst, will serve as an analyst for the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup in China and will also have a role on ESPN2 and ESPN on ABC’s coverage of Major League Soccer. In an expansion of her current role, she will also provide personality driven features for ESPN studio programs – SportsCenter, Outside the Lines, Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown, et al. – and serve as a spokesperson for select company initiatives.”

Naughty
Mason-ry

Of course we loved Bob Ryan’s George Mason piece on Wednesday, but we have to ask why the Globe didn’t then follow up the Ryan piece with someone in the house for the Holy Cross-Mason game on Thursday night – an HC loss which Shots live-blogged (kind of) for CSTV.com’s Hang Time blog.

Nice
Communitizing the News

GateHouse is getting creative. Creative common, that is. I can’t begin to understand the ramifications of this experiment, but here’s a good place to start if 
you’d like to ruminate over it a bit. Wild, progressive and potentially ground-breaking stuff – all of it.

And, get this: GateHouse is actually HIRING! HIRING!. No, 
 
really

Naughty
Overworked

Despite what appears to be an effort to add staff, GateHouse has thus far given the royal shaft to existing newspaper employees, who are now required to - after putting the day’s paper to bed - post their individual department’s stories to the new website.

It’s an added task that can add another hour to what are already very long days for most of the staffers and it doesn’t appear GateHouse sees any problem with piling on more work to editors, writers and the like, who are already waaaaaaay overextended as it is.

Nice
Sean McDonough

McDonough’s charity this year raised just under $400,000 and was able to distribute funds to 60 different charities (try and watch that video without crying – I dare you).

That means that in five years, McDonough and his tireless cadre of relatives, volunteers and big-hearted friends have raised $1.6 million which has benefited more than 90 different Massachusetts children’s charities. (The Foundation’s annual marquee event is a golf tournament, where players compete for the Will McDonough Memorial Cup).

. . . McDonough, by the way, will have ESPN TV duties on a couple of upcoming bowl games, including the New Orleans Bowl (The battle of Four-letter schools Rice and Troy) and the Alamo Bowl (Iowa and Texas). He’ll also call the Rose Bowl on ESPN Radio.

Nice
Yahoo!in’ Em All. . . Again

Once again, ex-Los Angeles Times ink-stained wretch, Dave Morgan’s imprint is felt and his staff delivers in large ways. Great investigative newspaper sensibility, coupled with the resources of a MAJOR Internet player is equalling a major step forward for Y! Sports.

. . . Happy Holidays to all and we’ll be sure to get back with you on the first Friday after the New Year (or sooner if media news breaks).

As my people say - “A Happy and A Healthy. . .”


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