By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

The loudest silenced voice during these five days of Moss Hysteria will be back on his soapbox this coming week as Ron Borges’ suspension from the Boston Globe ends.

Borges is scheduled for his first appearance on the 7 p.m. “Out of Bounds” at CN8 on this coming Wednesday and may also appear on the 11 p.m. edition during the week. (As part of his suspension, Borges was forbidden from broadcast appearances for two months.) It is believed he will re-start his writing as well, although we still hold out hope that sports editor Joe Sullivan will not immediately give Borges his Sunday notes column back.

For one thing, Mike Reiss has been stellar in place of Borges. And for another – and more importantly – Borges needs to regain EVERYone’s trust before he resumes his “normal” duties. We’re not saying he should be filing high school lacrosse stories, but we are saying he needs to be eased back into the rotation.

And for the last time, we beg of the Globies: Have an airing of the grievances and allow Borges to tell his side once and for all. If Sully were to offer some public explanations, that would also serve the section well. And then make it clear that neither Borges nor the paper will ever discuss it publicly again.

The result is a win-win for the Globe because it would both increase awareness of Borges’ return (that’s called buzz) and it would show some level of transparency from the cloak and dagger sports desk that shifts, shuffles and rearranges with regularity (see: the Sunday Picture of the Week feature that has appeared from nowhere).

(Shots sent an email request to borges’ AOL account for an interview, but there was no response.)

• The sampling has now been broad enough that we can accurately say the Jerry Trupiano for Dave O’Brien/ Glenn Geffner trade that the Sox made this past off-season is a push – at best.

Trupiano, the long-time partner of Joe Castiglione was not renewed and in his place came ESPN’s O’Brien and Larry Lucchino’s Geffner. The response has been overwhelmingly in favor of O’Brien and somewhat anti-Geffner.

The surging, emerging and ubiquitous Chad Finn (who shares a vested interest in Geffner as a 17 Percenter himself) recently opined:

. . . Actually, I’m still trying to give Geffner the benefit of the doubt, if only because I was so anti-Trupiano that it probably wouldn’t be good form to rip his replacement so soon. So I’ll leave it at this for now: I think Dave O’Brien is outstanding, and I wish his ESPN commitments didn’t keep him from doing all of the Sox games. As for Geffner . . . well, the less said the better, I suppose, and that goes for him and his excessive dependence on the media guide as well as me. Assuming (he) settles down, talks slower and less often, and lets Castiglione lead the way, he should at least be tolerable. Hey, at least he’s not Troop.

There has been similar sentiments throughout the blogosphere where, as you know, things tend to get mean-spirited. ( 38cliches has been especially merciless right from Jump Street.)

The Sox had to have anticipated this when they made an in-house guy the third man and it’s not likely to be a situation that is corrected this season or maybe even the next. For now, it’s safe to say that the preferred pairing is Stig and Obie and that Geffner’s going to take a lot of “getting used to.”

It’s of no help to Geffner that O’Brien’s pipes are platinum lined and that he has Big Game echoing in every one of his calls. The contrast between the two Sox Network rookies is perhaps the most detrimental thing affecting Geffner’s work.

• This has been coming for a while and is about to spread like wildfire, as SportsCenter will now contain a right hand “Rundown” (debuting May 7) “as a new element designed to give fans a sense of upcoming segments and topics. The “Rundown” will provide fans a constant graphic along the side of the screen listing all the upcoming elements of the show.”

It’s the PTI-zation of everything sports media, and I for one don’t have a big problem with it. I just wish everyone would hurry up and get the copycatting over with so we can all be on equal footing again.

• Last Friday night gave us what we believed to be our first confirmed violation of the Sox highlight rules when NECN led their “Sports Latenight” show with highlights of the Sox-Yankees game that had yet to go final. With the Yankees still batting in the bottom of the ninth, Chris Collins was reporting the game was over by an 11-4 score and posted the final score after showing full highlights.

The game, in fact didn’t end until 11:04, so at the very least, NECN made the error of reporting the final score a bit too early.

However, NECN’s VP of News and Station Manager Charles Kravetz confirmed via email to Shots that: “We used the video to which you refer correctly and without violation. The use fully complied with NESN’s contract.”

NESN’s Gary Roy would only say, “NESN’s policy is not to comment on the terms of our partnerships.”

Putting two and two together, it’s safe to assume that NECN is in “partnership” with NESN (through either a payout or barter of ad inventory or both), thus allowing footage to be shown at any time.

You’ll recall that NESN caused a bit of a stir when it made it known, in no uncertain terms, that they would be enforcing usage requirement strictly this season.

• Pamela Anderson and Pepperdine Baseball – What a Pair! My boys from CSTV.com have considerably more success than Borat did.

• Basketball Bob Ryan had some good company on Monday night at the Nassau County (NY) Sports Commission’s awards dinner on Monday night. Ryan, we know, was quite humbled to be honored as the 2006 Dick Schaap award winner. “I’m very honored to be in that company,” said Ryan of the former winners who include: Jim McKay, Frank Deford, Bob Costas and Dave Anderson.

• We’re a couple of weeks from the awarding of the 30th New England Emmys and a few up-and-comers have caught our eye in some of the sports categories, including Jason Eich et al (with Tom Caron as anchor???) for NESN’s “SportsDesk”; Joe Giza’s production work on the Dan Roche Red Sox Cookie-Off for WBZ (News Specialty reports-Sports News) as well as Giza’s “Rise & Fall of Keith Foulke” with editor Brian Fox; and a posse of my boys at CN8, where Brian DiBello, John Carchedi, Scott “Seven Days of” Losinger (for a very cool piece on the “History of Converse”) and Gregg Murphy are all nominated across the gamut of categories.

The Remdawg, Jerry Remy, from NESN is up against David Wade (FOX25), Barry Nolan (CN8), Fritz Wetherbee (WMUR), Jon Keller (WBZTV) and Steve Aveson (WPRI) in the On-Camera Talent-Commentary/Editorialist category. I guess huckster wasn’t one of the requirements, but Remy fits that bill too. Gotta give the nod to Keller, if you’re asking me to call the Shots.

. . . Random favorites that we’d like to see win: NECN’s Anya Huneke in the Feature News report-Within 24 Hours category; The Voice of Jack for the News Promo-Campaign; The FSNNE “Tommy Forever Green” Sports One-Time Special; “It’s Your Call With Lynn Doyle: Why Do Men fall Asleep After Sex?” in the Interview/Discussion Program category.

Why, Lynn? Why? ‘Cuz, we’re tired. That’s why.

• Shots took some direct hits from the anti-Schilling crowd regarding my comments last week and the ones at the tail end of this fine, Mike Fine piece has given some people the impression that I’m a Curt Schilling apologist.

Closer to the truth, is that I’m a Curt Schilling appreciator. This is a guy who could – if he really set his mind to it – completely alter the athlete-writer dynamic forever more. Why wouldn’t The Big Schill parlay his success at 38picthes.com into some type of business venture with other blog-inclined athletes? Why couldn’t he arrange a stable of superstars who would communicate with the fans only through their own, group-owned and operated site? Why wouldn’t Schill cause a sea change?

It’s exactly the kind of thing a big “blowhard” would try to do.

And exactly the type of thing that would once and for all prove that sports journalism ain’t exactly rocket science the way some may think it is.

• Don’t forget the Boston Sports Review Show on ESPN Radio 890 AM on Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. when Mike Salk, yours truly and producer, Dangerous Drew Brooks will mix it up for a couple of hours of hilarity and ACTUAL sports talk. There might even be a brief re-cap of the BSR Bar Crawl that some of you were kind enough to participate in. So tune in while you tool around on the Saturday morning errands and give us a call at 866-ESPN-890. It’s not the only alternative, but it is the best one.


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