By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

Scott’s Shots has confirmed the rumor that the vacant Ron Borges position at the Boston Globe will be filled by an NBA writer, Marc Spears of the Denver Post. The move would seem to indicate that current Celtics beat writer, Shira Springer, will be removed from her Celts’ duties and re-assigned within the sports desk (most likely as a sports features writer). Spears accepted the position last Friday and his writing days for the Post are over, although his official last day is September 4th.

We will have more on the pending move for Friday’s edition of Scott’s Shots - including comments from Spears who is positively giddy over the move - but for now, here (scroll down to last question) is a little background on the San Jose-native, Spears, for your perusal. His work has also appeared on ESPN.com and at AOL.com.

Spears will join Christopher L. Gasper as the city’s only minority African-American sports writers. (Gasper is technically bi-racial with a white father and African-American mother.) Spears is the first new minority hire since Jerome Solomon left the Globe to return to Houston after one year on the Patriots beat.

No word yet on his official start date with the Globe, but it’s looking like mid-September.

. . . By replacing an NFL/Boxing position with an NBA writer, the Globe is seemingly acknowledging both that Mike Reiss and Gasper are doing commendable, capable work on the NFL beat AND that Springer was not carrying her load on the Celtics beat.

Peter May’s NBA columnist role for the Globe is not believed to be affected by the Spears hire.

. . . The Spears hire is already official and has already been made public by the National Association of Black Journalists at their Sports Task Force website. Globe senior assistant sports editor Gregory Lee is the task force’s Chairman and evidently, a quick updater of its website! Spears in the task force’s Vice President of Print.