ANALYSIS

While his agent, his employer (Entercom) and undoubtedly his lackeys who ride his coattails are rejoicing over the news of Glenn Ordway’s re-signing with WEEI 850 AM, the move is far from the “landscape” altering event Ordway’s agent George Tobia would like us to believe.

Instead, it means there will more of the same juvenile, inane and insulting sports talk radio that Boston listeners have been subjected to for much of Ordway’s lengthy tenure. The only saving grace may be that since Entercom opened the purse strings for Ordway that they may be cash-poor to retain the collection of meatheads that populate the WEEI studio during afternoon drive time. But even that is a longshot because the Pete Sheppards, Fred Smerlases, Steve DeOssies, Butchie Stearns and Brian Daubachs of the world know better than to bite the hand that feeds them, lest they be exposed as the frauds they are. Those elephants would work for peanuts because no other circus would be foolish enough to pay them.

As for those who continue to think Ordway was able to get a deal on par with what John Dennis and Gerry Callahan finagled last year from Entercom, I’d ask you to look no further than the Entercom stock price. On Monday, it was trading near a buck-and-a-half and has plunged to as low as half-a-buck over the past 52-weeks. There is no way a sane-thinking business person could ever suggest that Ordway didn’t have to take some kind of “hometown discount” because of the current fiscal crisis facing the nation. Ordway and Tobia read the tea leaves and knew there was no sense in playing hardball with a media company dangling by its frayed wires and they decided to get the most they could without ever seriously risking Ordway’s Big Chair spot.

In fact, there’s probably even some respect that needs to be paid to both Ordway and WEEI for not milking the re-signing as a way to temporarily boost ratings (although with the fill-ins available, that would have been a risky proposition). [Interestingly, Shots is told that Dale Arnold was the fallback plan to take over for Ordway if he bolted.] The D&C saga last year had a whole lot of contrived elements and anything of similar odor would have been frowned upon – even by the dolts who continue to fawn over Ordway and his assemblage of blabberers – especially with layoffs and cost-cutting affecting even the most rundown of regular WEEI listeners.

Shots is also told by well-placed Entercom and media sources that the reported $1 million per year is more of a “max-obtainable” figure than what Ordway’s base pay will be. While he will continue to hit ratings incentives, the insiders say, it will be difficult for Ordway to reach other performance-based thresholds, especially any that pertain to TV and/or the Web.

Still, whatever the lofty six-figure amount of money Ordway will be paid, it will, without question, make him the country’s highest-paid babysitter. If Ordway were ever able to silence his peanut gallery for good, then – and only then – would he achieve the “legendary status” of which Jason Wolfe gushed about.

• As for the TV component, we’re just not seeing how four hours of watching feeding time at the zoo is going to play for Comcast SportsNet or anyone else. (We strongly doubt snafu-suffering NESN is a serious player in the “Big Show on TV” sweepstakes and if there has to be any investment at all made by the McGrail/Feld group, it’s a non-starter.)

The WFAN simulcast that is so often cited worked because Mike and the Mad Dog were intelligent, entertaining and informative. None of those words come to mind when thinking of Ordway’s posse. A couple of options that may work would be a one-hour live-simulcast (maybe in the 5 to 6 hour) when the day’s premier guests could be featured and/or a one hour “Best of” re-cap later in the evening. (Heaven help the producer who has to mine for 50 minutes of gold from that show on a daily basis).

Similarly, we’re not seeing how well a web video simulcast would work unless there are in-studio guests that will be featured.

• Some housekeeping to tend to. . .

No, the return of Shots over the past week is not an indication that I’m back in full service operation of Scott’s Shots or it subsidiaries. I had promised at least one more 2008 post and I delivered it. (Wow, am I starting to explain myself in Simmons’s tone? Yikes.)

Then, NESN made a major mistake during the course of broadcasting an unexpected national story (BC’s upset of No. 1 UNC). I couldn’t just stand by and not delve into that a bit.

[As a minor follow-up to our earlier reporting on the incident, a national Fox SportsNet spokesperson had not heard of the situation, even after NESN had posted its Monday, "blame-FOX," non-explanation.

Shots' early afternoon phone call was, according to the spokesperson, "the first I'm hearing about it." As of the close of business Monday, FOX Sports Net was still looking into the matter.]

. . . Big ups to the Herald Dave Wedge’s better half, (Jessica Heslam), who did a nice job of cobbling together a NESN flub sidebar for the Monday print edition of the Herald. The sidebar drew heavily on Heslam’s prompt Sunday night post and included official comment from a NESN spinster.

. . . I will say it’s been nice to realize that some of you really do miss having us around. Okay, not “some.” But at least “one” of the crowd. Keep the clean comments coming and thanks for being there. I’d forgotten how passionate some of us are.

That said, some random observations:

• The ESPN.com re-design is solid. Nothing more. Put it this way, the one thing that I needed (Monday’s PTI episode) was no where to be found from the home page. Come on, People. You have a great product with PTI and you consistently under-promote it. Ride those two the way that Cardinal rode his pardner on Saturday night.

• Enough with college football already. Saturation point passed about a month ago with that whole traveshamockery.

. . . Then again, the Texas-OSU finish was compelling – except for you know, the non-compelling part where it didn’t mean a damn thing.

• Mariotti? One trick pony and he used his lone trick in the first column for AOL. I’ll never understand the recylcing that occurs in the business, but I do acknowledge there’s no stopping it. Lots of guys owing lots of other guys favors from wars gone by. Never gonna change in coaching and never gonna change in sports journalism.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009 and is now available for pre-order.

UPDATE: NESN has posted an “explanation” of its broadcast blunder as well as information on two scheduled re-broadcasts set for today at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. (The 1 p.m. re-broadcast is oddly void of a regular game clock, using only a score graphic in the lower right-hand corner. This was not the case in the original broadcast, so it seems even in trying to correct their error, NESN fell short.)

The posting at its website states, “NESN experienced a transmission problem at the end of last night’s Boston College basketball game that originated with the feed we received from Fox Sports Net. We apologize to all of our college basketball fans and will look into this problem to ensure that it does not occur again.”

Shots has left a phone message for a FOX Sports Net’s Director of Corporate Communications to get the FSN side of the story, but as some readers have already pointed out, the NESN explanation falls short when you consider that Fox College Sports Atlantic was able to stay with the game in its entirety (Channel 262 on some Comcast line-ups, including Shots’). NESN also does nothing to explain why there was no scroll or alert given to viewers when the snafu occurred. Shots is still awaiting reply from NESN spokesman Gary Roy on the incident. An email was sent to Roy last night at 8 p.m.

A Boston College athletics department spokesman had no comment on the matter when reached by Shots via email.

If a college basketball upset of mammoth proportions unfolds in Chapel Hill with BC dumping No. 1 and undefeated North Carolina, but the Boston market is deprived of seeing the end of said game, does the game really happen at all?

NESN viewers were left to ponder that very question after a gargantuan glitch prohibited anyone watching Sunday night’s game on the regional network from seeing BC put the finishing touches on its biggest regular season win in many a moon. The game was part of the ACC Sunday night hoops package and did remain on-air, in its entirety on FOX College Sports Atlantic (Channel 262 on some Comcast systems).

The final minute-plus of the game – which was still very much in doubt and hovering near a one or two possession game – was completely missed by NESN and viewers were not brought back to the contest until the teams were exchanging handshakes.

An email from Shots to NESN spokesperson Gary Roy on Sunday night seeking clarification on the bungle was not immediately returned.

The broadcast was doomed from the start as it was slated to start at 5:30 p.m., but NESN joined the game later after using a Program Alert scroll to inform viewers to stay tuned for the BC-UNC contest. Although NESN didn’t miss much of the start of the game, the first four minutes of game action were delivered without audio from Ron Thulin and Dan Bonner (and with no explanation).

While that issue was resolved by the first media timeout, it did nothing to prevent the switch from end-of-game action at 7:40 p.m. to an extended roll of NESN commercials, most of them in-house, hockey promos – talk about Instigators! BC fans were outraged for sure.

NESN offered no scroll explanation at all, no apology and no mention whatsoever at the network’s all-fluff website of the infuriating, embarrassing and unforgivable screw-up. Then, to add insult to injury, good soldier Heidi Watney prefaced the BC highlights on Sunday night’s “SportsDesk Lights Out” by bragging about, “a game seen right here on NESN.” More accurately, Watney should have said, “a game not seen in its entirety right here on NESN.”

Boston viewers will remember a similar snafu during the MLB playoffs on TBS in October. While this BC boo-boo is no where near as impactful, it is a stark reminder of just how little BC matters in this market. The ACC and BC Athletic Director Gene DiFilippo need to demand an explanation from the Red Sox broadcast arm and there needs to be compensation made – perhaps in the form of a re-broadcast of the game on NESN.

Beyond that, NESN has to develop a better system for alerting viewers of technical issues they are experiencing. Before the NESN apologists can get their excuses/spin out for this one, let’s all remember that the game remained live and uninterrupted on another regional’s delivery of the game.

• The gaffe was immediately noted (of course) on the BSM message board and at Jessica Helsam’s Boston Herald blog, The Messenger delivers what sounds like a sad tale of hoops watching in the Heslam household. The Eagle in Atlanta also entertained some irate BC folks in its comments section. Expect more of the same on Monday as people talk about the upset around the water cooler.

Happy New Year, Joel Feld (and Sean McGrail). Way to get ’09 off to a rocking start at NESN.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009 and is now available for pre-order.

In truth I can’t really afford to be coming out of my “book nook” for any amount of time, but two ongoing stories in Boston sports media need some assessing and Shots realizes it’s our official duty to analyze both (and some bonus topics for the new year).

To spice things up a bit, we’ll present those two stories (Globe v. NESN; Ordway v. Entercom) within the 2008 Shotties, given sporadically since 1990 for outstanding achievement in the realm of Boston sports media (and slightly beyond). As always, we welcome your intelligent comments and insight – buffoons need not apply. Have a happy new year and we’ll do our best to come back strong in the Spring time after we put our baby to bed.

The Shotties: A look back at the calendar year of 2008 in Boston sports media.

The Shotty for Least Stable Sports Media Relationship
TIE
A. The Boston Globe and NESN
B. Glenn Ordway and Entercom

The quiet cancellation of NESN’s “Globe 10.0″ in late December and the curious, semi-sign-off of Glenn Ordway were significant on many levels. By this time next year, we will likely look at both “events” as monumental days in the shaping of Boston Sports Media 2.0; hat’s how big the players in these two soap operas are and that’s how impactful the two stories will be on 2009.

First, the Globe’s battle with NESN:

A. Even before the Christmas Eve bombshell about the 17 Percenters looking to dump their Red Sox stake, the rift between the Boston Globe sports department and the Red Sox sports department (NESN) was widening – almost by the day. [For more confounding and confusing looks at the Globe's woes, we'd ask you to check here and here (for the astonishing Barclay's report).

The end of "Globe 10.0" got neatly buried in this Boston Globe's space-wasting, so-called "Media Column", with a two sentence explanation, saying "NESN announced. . . it will cease production of its original programming of "Globe 10.0" by the end of the year. The half-hour show, hosted by columnist Bob Ryan and featuring Globe writers, premiered on the network in June 2007."

Incredibly(!), NESN neglected to post the announcement on its own, pathetic press room page (and the network's oh-so-professional PR arm has long since stopped sending releases of any kind to Shots).

The move, initiated by NESN's higher-ups and delivered (awkwardly and clumsily, according to multiple sources) by Joel Feld, the network's executive vice president of programming and executive producer, was yet another sign of an eroding relationship between the Red Sox broadcast unit and the New York Times Company (dba here in Boston as the Boston Globe). It's a deterioration that was first made public when NESN severed its ties with the Globe on Boston.com, where its on-line presence had lived, and began its own mediocre site at NESN.com.

By dumping the Globe-branded thrice-weekly, half-hour show Feld and and Silent Sean McGrail further bruised egos on Morrissey Boulevard. The tension, Shots is told, has been escalated by the more frequent appearances by Globe personnel on Comcast SportsNet, NESN's direct competitor. We are told it also didn't sit well with Globe folks that both WEEI (Mike Adams) and Boston Herald (Steve Buckley) contributors were being used by NESN.

It's never been a secret that the paper's writers have had discomfort with the NYT Co.'s partial ownership of the Local Nine, but the mistrust and mis-communication between both sides has boiled over in recent months and the end of "10.0" can be seen as the water roiling over onto the stovetop.

For his part, when Shots spoke with Bob Ryan a couple of weeks back, Basketball Bob took the diplomatic approach to the 18 month run he was given. He said the powers-that-be informed him and his producer, Alan Miller, of the show's termination during the course of the week of Dec. 8.

Quite simply, Ryan was told, the move was purely financial. The show debuted in the summer of 2007 with Verizon as the presenting sponsor. That deal with Verizon expired in May, and neither NESN nor the Globe was able to lock down a sponsor to offset the costs of the largely in-studio production. [Ratings for the show were never spectacular, said one NESN insider, but on the days it served as the lead-in to Sox pre-games, it showed promise.]

Neither entity ever put the marketing muscle behind the project that was deserved to give it a legit shot in a difficult time slot (against local news and PTI on ESPN).

Ryan had evolved into a more-than-capable host within about six months of his debut. He – and Miller – used “PTI” and “Around the Horn” as their inspirations and created an enjoyable and informative 30 minute show that deserved a better fate. Ryan’s rapport with Charlie Pierce, Christopher L. Gasper and Lou Merloni began to take on regional similarities to the magic Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon create with “PTI” and the show really hit its stride over the past 10 months.

The much ballyhooed virtual set was never utilized to its full potential (although it is getting new life with “The Insitigators,” where three bartenders stand behind a counter and appear ready to serve drinks. Why are they standing? Why?) Whether it was technical snafus or a lack of commitment to the set, NESN certainly never gave the show all the resources it needed to succeed. They could have created a cornerstone original program, instead they played footsies with it and never gave it a real shot at succeeding.

The upshot is that Ryan will slide back into a 3 times weekly general columnist for the paper and told us he will continue to update his blog for Boston.com.

“I let the column slide,” Ryan admitted. “I haven’t been able to focus as much on the writing and I look forward to getting back to that.

“Listen, I’m a big boy about this,” he said. “This is why I always say that i would never have TV or Radio be my primary gig.”

But the blame does not lie with Ryan on this one, it lies with penny-pinching NESN and its continued curious decisions (vanilla “SportsDesk” anchor John Chandler and overmatched newbie Cole Wright come immediately to mind when thinking of other NESN missteps in ’08).

NESN wants everyone to think its New England’s version of ESPN, but the truth is, it’s a far cry from anything that is being done in Bristol.

And now, to The Big O. . .

B. If it wasn’t for bad timing, Glenn Ordway wouldn’t have no timing at all. With his contract expiring at Entercom, Ordway finds himself in a precarious place as the host of WEEI 850 AM’s afternoon drive, “Big Show.” Long-praised as the cornerstone of the ‘EEI Empire, Ordway and his representative are reportedly locked in delicate, drawn out and precarious negotiation with Entercom Emperors.

The problem is, Ordway has virtually no leverage. Sure, there are still Beantown rumors about an all-sports entrant on the FM dial hoping to nab the Big O and build a station around him. There has even been murmurs of a satellite gig for Ordway, but I think we can all agree he is a regional talent at best. Ordway’s lone, best option is to remain in the big chair with the Big Meatheads he babysits five times a week and get paid handsomely for doing just that.

Time and again, the people Shots has polled on the topic continue to point out that Ordway has no chance of getting what one insider termed “Dennis and Callahan money” in the current marketplace.

So Ordway has to decide whether he can take a “pay cut” from what he might have been able to land had the economy not gone in the dumper and whether his ego will allow for him to be, what he would probably term, “slightly underpaid.” If he’s banking on playing satellite radio or other terrestrial radio off of Entercom, he might as well give up now. No one can justify overspending for a “name” in this economic climate and Entercom has a very realistic replacement waiting in the wings at WEEI.com in Mike Felger.

Ordway is going to need to eat some humble pie and that’s never been a big part of the big fella’s diet. Still, Ordway never struck us as a dumb man and he surely knows what is at stake for the final chapter of his broadcasting career. Will he get STOOPID money? No. But he will have no problem maintaining a lifestyle befitting the King of Boston Sports Talk Radio.

The Tom Ellis Shotty for Overstaying Their Welcome:

Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti, WBCN 104.1 FM, The Patriots Rock Radio Network

The only thing sadder in local broadcasting than Tom Ellis’s NECN farewell last Saturday night is the fact that the earnest Ellis doesn’t realize how far removed he is from his glory days at the anchor desk.

Gil and Gino appear to be similarly delusional about their broadcasting chops.

WBCN and the Patriots (read: The Krafts) need to begin transitioning out of Gil and Gino and into more capable play-calling and color commentating. It’s no longer a matter of IF the Krafts need to initiate a change in the radio booth, it’s a question HOW they handle it. Even with the deep appreciation Shots has for the history of the duo, it’s painfully obvious that they are doing a disservice to the listeners, not to mention advertisers and the organization.

Look for the names of Mike Lynch (PBP), (hopefully) Sean McDonough (PBP), Gary Tanguay (PBP), Scott Zolak (color) and cerebral Tim Fox (color) to circulate WHEN the change is made. It would make sense if the Pats and ‘BCN do it quietly over the off-season.

(By the way, Tanguay’s turn on Celtics games as PBP man in Mike Gorman’s absence probably wasn’t the best audition tape for a potential booth job with the Pats. Tanguay is steady and suitable for studio work – not so much for PBP.)

[One note on the Tom Ellis farewell: NECN mainstay sports guy Jimmy Young tried to soften the shakiness of Ellis's farewell, and Young's knowledge of the market and Ellis's place in it, was sincere.

But the simple fact of the matter is that the Locals (or regionals) don't have room for the Tom Ellises, the Bob Lobels and the Joyce Kulhawiks. That list will surely grow in 2009, as WCVB looks to get younger and leaner, the way its competitors already have.]

The Shotty for the Worst Kept Sports Media Secret

An easy call, as this has to be the not-so-hush-hush departure of Jessamy Tang from almost-also-ran ESPN 890. Tang, it turns out, was well into in her second trimester of pregnancy when she quietly announced to the 890 staff in late Fall that she would be leaving the station all together. Apparently, employees had no clue of the baby bump.

Launched in the Fall of 2005, ESPN 890 has made very little – if any – headway in denting WEEI’s armor but Tang had weathered some storms, some departures and kept investors and ESPN interested enough to let her continue to putter with a weak signal and barely any marketing dollars.

Now, it will be the full-time function of WallerSutton’s WS2K Media to oversee 890, removing Tang and her J Sports from the equation.

Schrafft Building moles tell Shots that Route 81′s CEO, Ira Rosenblatt who will be the “new” Jessamy. You would have to think this is sink or swim time for the station and it’s a heck of a time to be trying to do either in these rough waters of the Second Great Depression.

Safe money says that 2009 will finally be the year that 890 admits it is nothing more than a tin can and string operation that embarrasses the national ESPN brand with each passing week.

The Shotty for the Biggest Waste of Weekly TV Air Time during Patriots Season

Awarded to any of the awful pre- or postgame offerings from WBZTV Channel 4 where Stammering Steve Burton and Steve “DeAwful” DeOssie are paired together. It’s car crash TV at its worst with every potential utterance a frontal assault on the English language. Add in the station’s insistence on using a constantly shaky handi-cam from the company-owned restaurant/bar in Foxborough and the end result was 16 weeks of unwatchable local football coverage.

The Shotty for Most Pleasant Surprise of 2008

WEEI.com

By any sensible standard, the initial months of the website built by Tim Murphy and Rob Bradford were a success for Entercom and even the hiccups have been forgivable. Do not underestimate what the “acquisition” of Curt Schilling meant and you can be sure that 2009 will have even more innovation and exploration by the MurphFord combo.

While I was quoted in the above-linked Phoenix story by Adam Reilly, I think it’s probably worth including some of my (long-winded replies) to Reilly’s questions that didn’t make his article. His questions are marked by “AR” and my responses are after “DS”:

AR: What do you think WEEI.com has done right?
DS: Let’s look at it this way: In less than half a year they have assembled a diverse and provocative line-up that includes Rob Bradford, Alex Speier, Curt Schilling, Will Leitch, Mike Felger and, incredibly, “Fitzy” (I don’t see his appeal, but I’m probably not supposed to).

That doesn’t even mention the in-the-trenches crew they’ve cultivated (Joe Haggerty on hockey was a GREAT freelance hire as was Paul Flannery on the Celts and more than I ever imagined, Mike Petraglia as a jack of all trades).

The web site has been able to inform, entertain and extend the WEEI brand into a space – The Web – that it desperately needed a presence in. They’ve had some some hiccups (design/layout/navigation is still a mess) and I still question that initial hire of Ron Borges, but if you’re asking for a grade on what they’ve done in a short period of time, in a marketplace that is trembling with fear, I’d say it’s a solid B-Plus. Even that should probably be grade-curved up because they’re doing it all under the direction of Entercom’s notoriously fickle regime. The Big E is making cuts all over, but they have been solidly behind the venture at WEEI.com and they need to be commended for that.

And don’t forget, Murphy and Bradford have consistently pointed to January/February as when they will be fully up and running with bells, whistles and maybe even a few more “big name” additions. You can’t give a true judgment until at least 9 or more likely 12 months. They started with virtually nothing as a foundation and now have a very sturdy base (including some eye-catching story art to tease the content).

AR: Where, if anywhere, do you think they’ve been less impressive?
DS: It’s not really “less impressive,” but some of the execution has been lacking because they don’t really have a full-time “Big Picture” guy. Rob and Alex are writing and editing a good deal and that takes time away (understandably so) from thinking about how to package and present stories and use WEEI’s multi-media resources. Instead of bringing on more out-front folks that don’t quite fit**, I’d like to see them bring in a dedicated content configurer who could focus on gaining eyeballs and increasing the site’s visibility. [NOTE: The addition of Christopher Price is an encouraging sign that could help in the area of big picture planning as Price will have editing duties.]

**Just as an aside, I haven’t seen the Leitch presence pay off. I emailed with Will early on about finding his groove within the context of both Boston and WEEI and he admitted then it would be a process. Mailbags have been weak and the columns haven’t quite knocked my socks off. The thing(s) he did with Flannery fell way short and he’s almost too timid as the “Outsider” – like he doesn’t want to offend the good people of Boston? Please. These people deserve to be offended with their boorish behavior.

I am leaning toward his shortcomings in this market being a result of WEEI’s Meathead Factor. There’s just too many Pete Sheppard worshippers that don’t understand the innate genius of Will and he may be trying to cater to them too much.

ALSO, From what I can gather, a good deal of the radio guys aren’t very receptive to being “used” on the web without compensation. Pretty ludicrous from a crew that should just be happy to be employed at all.

AR: And how much of a threat do you think they pose to the Globe and the Herald?
DS: They’ve already done loops around the woeful Boston Herald’s sports-web presence. That wasn’t even a contest. And, to their credit, they’ve certainly pushed the Globe on several fronts (live-blogging, for instance) but for now Boston.com’s reach and established name are too big and too entrenched to allow for a start-up like WEEI.com to truly register. If Entercom stays the course and lets Bradford manage his personnel and find a nuts-and-bolts overseer, it will be the Globe and WEEI.com duking it out for the No. 1 spot in the region’s sports infotainment delivery.

The Shotty for Most Frustrating Re-Design of a Sports Section

The Boston Globe (specifically Sunday notes columns)

Amid all the turmoil and comings and goings that Joe Sullivan has had to deal with for the Globies, it’s the static, glacially evolving sports page that may be the most egregious error of the past year. Instead of figuring out more and better ways to integrate the print product into the electronic copy, Sullivan’s crew continues to tiptoe around making bold changes and instead settles for inconsistent and incomplete moves. The print needs to drive the web and the web needs to drive the print and right now, that synergy is still lacking.

As for the debacle that is the Sunday notes columns, Sulivan allowed for some new designs and elements, but not all of them are treated equally across sports and the result is hard to follow, sloppily laid out notebooks that frustrate more than they inform. I’d like to see them blow up the notes entirely and figure out a way to make them relevant and newsworthy again. As you’d assume, I’ve got tons of ideas, but no one’s asked me for them. Yet.

The insistence on giving Stan Grossfeld space for his Sunday photo play of “What they were thinking?” is a Sully stubbornness at its worst. Each Sunday we ask, “What are YOU thinking by continuing with this feature?”

On the web side, there seems to have been a reluctance to embrace the Cover It Live software for live-blogging, something WEEI.com continues to experiment (successfully) with.

Sully is probably looking at one more major defection in the next calendar year (Rookie of the Year Marc Spears has drawn national interest, according to industry sources), but after he deals with that, he needs to get everyone on staff thinking about one thing and one thing only: Making the Globe sports page come alive on the web every hour of every day.

The Shotty for the Region’s Most Complete Media Talent

Mike Reiss, Boston.com/Boston Globe

Retire this award and call it “The Reissy.” We’ve long been unabashed and unyielding advocates for the work of Reiss, but this past year he took everything up a notch to a point where larger, more significant, national job opportunities are surely in the offing for the Umie stalwart. His blog skills are legendary, but he has spread his wings more on TV reporting for NESN and offering astute, measured and reasonable commentary on any number of outlets (chiefly for undeserving WBZTV and the passable WCVB “Patriots All-Acccess”).

The best part? Reiss still remains one of the most liked, most humble and most respected media members in the entire region – no easy task with the piranhas that populate the local scene.

• And finally, some quick Shotties in various categories:

Best New Blood in the Market
Adam Kilgore, Boston Globe – His baseball coverage has already been fantastic, but we’re actually looking forward to having him spice up the college hoops coverage in the region, especially with Boston as a host site in March. Sully can’t hog all the college hoops for himself.

Worst Old Blood in the Market
Pete Sheppard, WEEI – Sheppard will have to accept this on behalf of his fellow unqualified morons who he shares studio space with daily. It really is a group honor for the Meat Men, who continue to exemplify the very worst elements of sports coverage in the region and indeed, the country. When Sheppard appeared at the “VIP table” of a recent Phantom Gourmet episode with one of Eddie Andelman’s annoying offspring, we were left to wonder what exactly the VIP stood for? Very Ignorant or Virtually Incompetent Person?

Oh, and of course, Butch Stearns.

You’ll Be Missed Shotty
Take your pick here. The market lost Jeff Horrigan from the Herald when he abandoned the business and the city. Likable Laura Behnke, who shone for NECN and Comcast SportsNet headed west. The talented and capable folks over at CN8, where Shots always enjoyed playing TV dude, got discarded. Jeff Goldberg also got bumped at the Hartford Courant and Steven Krasner at the crumbling ProJo sports desk. Those are some tough losses to overcome for any market, but especially one that values quality people doing quality work.

Maybe the biggest loss of all was the little man from down South Coast way, Danny Pires. I still find myself wanting to hit Dan with a wise-ass email or phone call and long to read and hear his wise-ass response. Rest peacefully, DP.

You Won’t Be Missed Shotty
Hazel Mae, NESN – The power of a very good agent at IMG helped Hazel land a job with the January 1-launching MLB network but we stand by our assessment that Mae is far from a national talent. She will need a strong producer and good behind-the-scenes folks to make her a marquee talent for Tony Petitti’s gang.

Let’s also throw Babbling Bob Lobel into this category, although he will never fully go away, no matter how much we wish for it. And of course, despite a re-appearance this week, we say a hearty farewell to Mustard and Johnson.

And, for other reasons entirely, Bob Gamere.

Lastly, this is probably a good place to put the former Boston Sports Guy, Bill Simmons. What? He hasn’t gone anywhere? Oh. My bad. All those hissy fits and Shawshank rebellions during 2008 had me thinking Simmons just had to get out from under the wrath of the Mouse Ears.

Guess it was all just artistic differences. Maybe in Ought-Nine, Simmons can just appreciate how good he has it and focus on the writing that he can still do so well.

Most Questionable Moves by One Newspaper
The Boston Herald – From the (mis)handling of the John Tomase affair and the (mis)hiring of Ron Borges, the Wingo Wayers did some very tabloidy things over the course of 2008, but the payoffs have not been substantial and the paper continues to lag far behind in Web presence. They are the little train that could and we always like rooting for the underdog, but the Herald needs to start making some serious hay on the web side and spicing up its back page if it wants to have relevance in this town. The Herald hired Borges to be his provocative, bombastic self and instead they’ve been given Timid Ron – and they still have never addressed Borges’s boxing connections, despite still using him for coverage of fights put on by his former employer, Oscar De La Hoya. Readers deserved explanation when Borges was hired and they still deserve one today.

Funniest Oversight by a Local Media Organization.
The Tiny Member photo, Boston Globe.

Some other favorites from 2008 in Shots’ coverage:

Callahan v. Simers

Kimball v. Halloran

Sad exit from ProJo for Sean McAdam

Wilbon takes on Kimbo

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009 and is now available for pre-order.

Long-time Providence Journal writer Sean McAdam is headed north on 95 to become a baseball columnist and writer for the Boston Herald.

Early Thursday afternoon, McAdam confirmed to Scott’s Shots that “[he and the Herald] are talking, but nothing is in place.” That changed later in the day and a memo confirming the departure was sent to ProJo staffers late Thursday afternoon. A separate source close to the negotiations also confirmed to Shots that McAdam will be on the Herald staff, possibly as soon as the start of the playoffs.

McAdam could not be reached for comment on Thursday night, as of post time.

Sources have confirmed to Shots that McAdam has been looking for new employment after the ProJo squashed McAdam’s outside work at WEEI 850 AM and ESPN.com over the summer. At least one upper management ProJoer, Shots is told by industry sources, found fault in McAdam being on-air at WEEI during the afternoon drive on baseball’s trade deadline day. That person – not directly associated with the sports department – evidently had a problem with where McAdam’s allegiance rested and subsequently put the kibosh on McAdam’s outside gigs (the very same gigs that provided exposure for the buzzless, sagging Belo Corp. property).

(McAdam’s last ESPN.com column appeared in early August and that coincided with his last WEEI appearance. There has also been a dearth of McAdam at other outside media outlets in the area, although he did remain a guest at Comcast SportsNet.)

In fact, the day after the trade deadline, an ESPN ticker item was giving credit to the ProJo (thanks to McAdam) for information about veteran players meeting with Sox management over the Manny situation. The amount of traffic that kind of mention (and others) can generate for a website is substantial. It’s the ProJo’s fault for not maximizing McAdam – not McAdam’s fault for earning some extra income the same way most of his competitors do.

McAdam, a father of two, who turns 49 in November, has been with the ProJo company since the early 1980s (first, in a radio role) after he graduated from Providence College (Class of 1981). (Scroll down here for a good bio on McAdam from his off-off-Broadway gig of a couple of summers back.) He’s been on the Sox beat since 1989 and is one of the most-respected (and connected) baseball men on the East Coast.

If the reason for his pending departure from the ProJo is because some tyrannical, Stuffed Suit doesn’t understand the inherent benefits of multi-media-platform guys like McAdam, then it’s probably time to start digging the grave for that paper’s sports section – if not the entire operation.

. . . The Herald, Shots has been informed, has no problem with McAdam’s WEEI work or his contributions to ESPN.com. “They’re fine with it as long as he keeps his first allegiance to the Herald,” said one source with direct knowledge, “the way he did all those years for the ProJo.”

. . . The move to the Herald for McAdam makes sports editor Hank Hryniewicz 2-for-2 on his replacements for the Goodbye Four (Mike Felger, Rob Bradford, Tony Massarotti and Jeff Horrigan).

Earlier in the week Hank Herald tapped lightning rod Ron Borges, who was born to write for a tabloid, and now he nabs McAdam, whose breadth and depth on the Sox certainly offsets the Tony Mazz loss (who, by the way, may be most valuable for the Globies on the TV side). McAdam will take over the baseball notes column and also have some type of web presence for the Herald.

Hryniewicz still has one more slot to fill and Shots is told by several informed insiders that a New York tabloid baseball writer is in the lead for that slot. However, there is still a movement afoot on Hank Herald’s desk to go with a football specialist and move John Tomase off the Patriots and back to the Sox. That hire should be made in the coming week.

The key now for Hryniewicz will be maximizing the content delivered by both McAdam and Borges to prop up the sagging Sports section of BostonHerald.com. Neither Borges (at least at his own personal blog) nor McAdam (at the ProJo) have been what you would call “prolific” bloggers. But both are surely capable of breaking stories through the Internet and reacting with voice and authority when stories are broken. Problem is, the Herald’s website has shown little in terms of audio and video content on the Sports side, leading many to surmise they don’t have the manpower to fully implement such rudimentary Web accessories.

But make no mistake, the success of these hires will be determined on the Web page, NOT the printed page.

. . . The “McBrothers”, Joe McDonald of the ProJo and Kevin McNamara will probably be leaned on a bit more to make up for the missing McAdam coverage by ProJo sports editor, Art Martone. Martone has now lost Tom Curran and McAdam – two of his stalwarts – in the course of 24 months. It’s quite possible there won’t be a McAdam replacement made until late Winter, Shots is told.

• Heck of a Thursday night football game for ESPN. Jacked, pumped and totally blindsided. If only college football mattered around here.

• The Herald trumpeted its hiring of Borges as a general sports columnist with an eight paragraph announcement on Page 68 of Wednesday’s paper with quotes welcoming Borges from both Hank Hryniewicz and the paper’s editor, Kevin R. Convey.

However, neither of those veteran, grizzled journalists addressed plagiarism charges leveled against the ex-Boston Globe writer by his former employer.

Instead, the un-bylined announcement/celebration touted Borges for his “in-your-face coverage” that has both “entertained and aggravated” - they seem to have omitted “ethically violated a peer” - “local fans for almost 25 years. . . ”

An email to Hryniewicz on Wednesday afternoon seeking comment on Borges’ past plagiaristic ways was not returned. The email requested comment from either Hryniewicz or Convey.

Convey, who recently whistled in the wind about a sacred bond between the Herald and its readers in the wake of the embarrassing John Tomase affair, crowed in the Wednesday announcement that, “Borges’ arrival is one more reason why the Herald’s sports coverage is a must-read in this town. I’m looking forward to having him on the staff and watching him shake things up.”

Hryniewicz gushed, “I’m thrilled to have him on our team. . .what intrigues me most about adding him to our staff is the idea of turning Ron loose on this town and giving readers a dose of his unique take on the local sports scene.”

According to the announcement, Borges will start writing for the Wingo Waywards from San Francisco for Pats/Niners next weekend.

. . . The Herald was never overly hard on Borges during his tribulations at the Globe. But it was fairly diligent in following up. And, of course, Borges’s new bully teammate, Howie Carr, took a nice swipe at the time of the suspension. This is from Carr’s March 16, 2007 column, titled “Pols’ St. Pat’s time nothing to laugh at”:

. . . It’s sad, though, that none of these hacks who’ll trek to the Convention Center on Sunday can write their own lame stuff anymore. And by the way, if any of my material sounds familiar, take it up with my joke writer, the Globe’s Ron Borges. He has assured me everything came off a joke Web site that everybody has a right to steal from. . .

. . . We’re still waiting to hear if Herald part-timer and Cold, Hard man Kerry J. Byrne will be at the “Welcome to the Building” party for Borges.

. . . Borges will likely be asked to give the Herald some boxing coverage – and every tabloid worth its weight needs outlandish coverage of the outlandish sport – but it better keep a close eye on who and whom, Borges is still in cahoots with.

EVERYTHING that Borges does needs to pass the smell test in order for Hank Herald’s (and Kevin R. Convey’s) risk to pay off.

• As with all start-ups, we are willing to give the Boston Globe’s new weekly sports offering, OT some time to crawl before it walks.

Still, for the sake of maintaining my cranky ways, there have already been three noticeable missteps:

1. How about NO BUZZ whatsoever? Shouldn’t NESN have been promo-ing the bejeezus out of this launch? I mean, the inventory is there during the games, wouldn’t you think? What’s one more product for Jerry Remy to read? Were there any Globe in-house ads?

That wouldn’t have even taken an investment. [This leads to the bigger question of branding. It would have been a lot more sensible to name the magazine "Globe 10.0" and tie it in directly with the Bob Ryan show and maximize the year-plus already invested into "10.0" - which, by the way has OT's Charlie Pierce as a regular foil for Ryan. Now, OT could be part of a larger plan with expansion in other cities, but still, the "10.0" brand has already developed some cache here and it would have made sense to leverage that.]

2. (Bruce Allen pointed this out already, but it bears repeating:) The line about Sports Illustrated from the Globe’s Jay Fogarty in the Thursday story about the launch. What did he even mean? There shouldn’t be a single new media venture that tries to emulate SI because SI doesn’t even know what it is right now. Fogarty needed to emphasis the additional avenue that OT gives advertisers to get into people’s homes – and stay there for a week. The Globe’s ability to package its print and digital offerings is what will ultimately decide whether “OT” has a sudden death or a long life.

The only thing SI is these days is very thin and very disheveled – with a readership that is dying off or jumping ship to the Internet. Is that what Fogarty wants? Doesn’t sound like the best business model to me.

. . . (I knew the name sounded familiar and there’s good reason. I used to contribute to a magazine named OT. Failed miserably as I recall. But that happens with just about every place I’m at. Trend? I think not.)

3. Competing with thyself. How many different sections of the Boston.com site can Chad Finn appear on? When someone asks me if I read Finn today, I am going to have say “Which one?” There’s a point of diminishing returns with over-content and the Globe is now perilously close to that point.

. . . ON THE OTHER HAND - the early staff roster for editor (and ex-Herald writer and current Emerson lecturer) (NOTE: Cofman is actually lecturing at Endicott College – although he did graduate from Emerson in 1979) Mark Cofman is very strong. I’ll probably plunk down two quarters just to read Charlie Pierce (he of the 120 somewhat-related comments in his first offering), Tony Mazz and Finn. But the supporting cast includes ever-steady and under-appreciated Maureen Mullen, Celts’ stalwart Scott Souza, Tom Wilcox on the Patriots and a newbie Umie with whole lot of Kevin Cullen’s pluck in him, Danny Picard on the Bruins.

That right there is a solid justification for $26 bucks a year (assuming they go every week through holidays). Everything else is gravy.

So it’s priced right and the bylines are respectable.

Now let’s see what it can deliver as far as content, originality and – this is where it all shakes down – ad revenue.

. . . We were able to catch up with Souza on Thursday and he indicated by email that he will maintain his full-time role at Gatehouse Media’s MetroWest Daily News and the Daily News Tribune of Waltham (the latter of which he has been the sports editor for since 1999) as well as with the rest of those papers.

“One of the editors of (“OT”) was apparently a fan of the way I have covered the team the past three years and emailed me about the chance to write a weekly notebook and occasional feature for (the magazine),” Souza said. “With the volume of sports copy floating around out there these days, it was nice to be noticed. The folks here thankfully understood that it wouldn’t affect the amount of effort I dedicate to both the Celtics and local sports coverage I provide at Gatehouse.

“I was most impressed at the concept of trying a new print publication in this media climate. With all the bad news that comes out of the industry these days, it is intriguing to be a part of something aiming to buck the trend,” he said. “Hopefully, any success it enjoys will be a positive sign for print publications in general, which I have always felt still have a rightful place in the media environment even with all the advances and benefits of Web reporting and blogs. . .The editors seemed very upbeat about the potential to tap into a different demographic and it would be satisfying to play a small part in helping them do that.

“In a way, the idea of it reminded me of the very impressive publication Jerry Spar used to produce at Boston Sports Review, which I know you were involved with . . . Hopefully, with the corporate backing this will have the legs to keep going.”

RIP, BSR. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

• Been following the YouCastr evolution and the Paul Shirley show may be the first development that keeps us coming back for the foreseeable future. Dude’s funny and irreverent and we did enjoy the book version.

• Rob Bradford confirmed to Shots that WEEI.com’s Celtics coverage will be anchored by contributors Jessica Camerato and Boston Magazine’s Paul Flannery.

• An experiment in sports blogging with the PawSox.

• The movie, “American Pastime” will air on ESPN Classic this Friday night at 9 p.m. ET. Kerry Yo Nakagawa is a big Sox fan and was the associate producer for the film (in addition to having a cameo role). Compelling story indeed.

• Sounds like the return game for this one could be headed to the Boston Garden. That would be very sweet, indeed. And we’re guessing the Tigers will sneak in a meal at Coach Calipari’s new-found North End favorite, Pizzeria Regina.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.

WEEI.com editor Rob Bradford has confirmed to Scott’s Shots that part-timer Ron Borges is leaving the site for a full-time gig at the Boston Herald.

When reached on his cell phone Tuesday night in the 7 p.m. hour, Borges hung up on me after I identified myself. I took that as a classless way of saying “no comment.”

But Bradford indicated Borges would be done with WEEI.com on or about October 3 and that it is likely Borges will be writing for the Herald when the Patriots return from the bye week in San Francisco.

“The Herald is getting a guy who is being read and I have the numbers to prove it,” said Bradford, who declined to be specific on page views. “He was living up to the investment we made in him. I would encourage anyone to go back and look at the 14 (pieces) he has done for us (so far) and they will see exactly the reasons we hired Ron: (among them were) his NFL sources, his strong voice and his writing.”

Bradford said he has no regrets in what turns out to be a month-long rental of the former Boston Globe writer who “retired” after his suspension from that paper for what the Globe termed plagiarism.

Since then, Borges has been on a road to redemption with frequent, paid TV spots and several writing gigs, in addition to a weak attempt at personal blogging. His short, but effective stint at WEEI.com may have helped remind locals what “Good Ron Borges” can offer in terms of expertise and insight. It’s the “Evil Ron Borges” that adds the intrigue to the whole package.

“That was a defining moment in getting Ron and it gave us some momentum that we haven’t relinquished,” Bradford said. “We are grateful to Ron for what he did for us and I think he was grateful for the (opportunity). What he did for us, I think, helped his position in the eyes of the marketplace and that’s good for him.”

It’s unclear whether the move will wind up being good for the Boston Herald and sports editor Hank Hryniewicz. The hire comes at a pivotal time for the scrappy tabloid, especially on the sports desk where recent defections have left the ranks of Hank’s Heroes very thin. Beyond the personnel losses, the Borges hire signifies a calculated risk by Hryniewicz, who finds himself only four months removed from the mid-May maelstrom over the John Tomase matter.

With Tomase and Borges on his staff, Hank Herald now holds two of the most notorious sportswriters in the city’s history on his roster. In reality, it amounts to a cross-highway trade of Borges for Tony Massarotti – a swap that would seem to favor the Globe.

The falling dominoes were set in motion over the course of the summer as the Herald lost valued contributors Bradford (WEEI.com), Massarotti (Globe), Mike Felger (WEEI) and Jeff Horrigan (lifestyle change). Hank Herald is in the process of filling three vacant spots and Borges appears to be the first move that has been locked down, with the two other spots likely going to baseball writers.

Last week, Hryniewicz told Shots in an email that he would have “no comment on any ongoing interviews or negotiations. I will say, however, that I continue to speak with a number of impressive candidates for the three positions and I am quite pleased with the quality of the individuals who have shown an interest in coming to work for the Boston Herald.”

Bradford said he knew there was a possibility that a full time offer would woo Borges away from Entercom’s fledgling webiste, “but it was still a good move for us and for Ron. I told him, ‘I’m happy for you and I’m also happy for Hank and the Herald.”

. . . It’s also unclear how the new job will affect Borges’s other multi-media affiliations. He currently averages about two nights per week on the CN8 7 p.m. edition of “Out of Bounds.” [Disclaimer: Shots also appears on that and the 11:30 p.m. OOB.] But Borges – who will likely be traveling more in his Herald role – also recently appeared on Comcast SportsNet and those appearances likely require less time at a similar payscale to the CN8 spots. Alliances such as the one with Golden Boy Promotions would clearly have to cease if, in fact, they are still in place (as they appear to be according to Dan Rafael). Other part-time gigs would also likely be out for Borges per terms of his Herald deal.

. . . Bradford has already begun the process of filling the soon-to-be vacant Borges spot and said “there is no shortage” of candidates. He also indicated the site is close to filling two part-time Celtics slots after having already posted some of new Bruins’ contributor, Joe Haggerty.

. . . Not sure if we should expect a “Welcome to the Paperhood” note from Kerry J. Byrne or not?

• SHOTS’ INSTANT ANALYSIS OF THE BORGES HIRE:

Bradford is right. The Herald is getting a voice. But at what cost?

Borges is both polarizing and abrasive – two traits that usually make for excellent tabloid journalism. But he’s also never fully explained his departure from the Globe and the lingering questions are something Hryniewicz needs to have answered before Borges can effectively do his job. The Tomase situation was handled with some very sloppy direction from above which makes it imperative for the re-birth of Borges at Wingo Way to be handled with glasnost and transparency by ALL involved.

I don’t want to get too personal on this assessment of Borges, but I do thing his reaction to my Tuesday call is quite telling. How hard is a “no comment” or an “I’m not talking to you,” instead of simply hanging up?

There’s no question I have been critical of the former Broadsheet Bully (turned Tabloid Tyrant), but I have also made every attempt to balance my coverage of Borges since his odd separation from the Globe. When his Brady scoop from earlier in the month happened, I – and others – gave Borges credit. When he started a personal blog and infrequently updated it, I called him out on it. When it was apparent that Borges was in cahoots with Oscar De La Hoya, I pointed it out. And when WEEI.com hired him, I gave both the pros and cons of such a move. In other words, I’ve covered Borges the way he covers his subjects.

Would I hire Ron Borges if I were Hank Herald. Probably not. But maybe that’s because I don’t know Ron’s side of things from the plagiarism examples that were unearthed while he was at the Globe. He once suggested that the Lord would have a role in dispersing the true story, but as of yet the Almighty has not deemed it a worthy topic. Perhaps He should.

There is, as a trusted reader reminded me recently, only one mortal sin in the business of professional journalism and that is the act of plagiarism. Even if the industry has long forgotten that tenet (Witness: Barnicle, Mike; Davis, Ken; et al), it is still the duty of reputable news organizations to have the decency to ensure readers that the highest level of journalism is being practiced. If there is someone on staff who has had blemishes on his past works, it would seem only proper that those blemishes be addressed before the writer begins earnestly trying to gain our trust again.

Especially at a paper where the “bond” of trust is so valued.

• The Papelbon-fueled post-game celebration from Fenway on Tuesday night gave a telling glimpse into how the NESN people are considering using their sideline talent as the season wends into October. Using both Heidi Watney and Kathryn Tappen for post-game reaction, the network leaned much more heavily on the more polished Tappen for interviews (including Terry Francona’s). Watney was caught unprepared with follow-up questions several times (with a very patient Theo Epstein once) and was clearly asked by a producer to fall back on the catch-all “greatest memory of the season” question.

It’s worth monitoring who NESN sends on the road with the Sox in the playoffs as it might behoove the in-house network of the team to have a more seasoned and ready reporter (Tappen) under the pressure of post-season pre- and post-game duties.

. . . “It never gets old,” but then again, it gets old pretty quickly. I mean really, WHAT have they accomplished? I hate to be cranky, but it’s just a little too much champagne spraying for September 23. Save the bubbly for October wins of note.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.

Numerous reliable Scott’s Shots’ sources are confirming that ex-Boston Globe writer, Ron Borges, is in discussions with the Boston Herald about filling one of three vacant spots on sports editor Hank Hryniewicz’s desk.

If true, a Borges hire would indicate the Herald is either very bold or very desperate, as the scars from the John Tomase Saga still linger at the city’s struggling second fiddle news gatherer. At the very least, the paper’s editor, Kevin R. Convey, would be stretching his promised “bond of trust” with readers to the limits if his sports department scoops up Borges, the crosstown rival’s ex-plagiairst.

When asked specifically about Borges via a Monday afternoon email from Shots, Hryniewicz would only say, “I’m still in the interviewing process for all three openings on the staff and I’m quite happy with the way the process is moving forward.”

Borges, it appears, would be in line for the general columnist slot left vacant by Tony Massarotti’s departure to the Globe. Borges would obviously have a heavy football bent to his columns, the way the now-branded “Mazz” leaned toward baseball and as the Brady injury showed for WEEI.com on Sunday, Borges does have a lot of bulldog left in that bully persona of his. (Traffic soared at the site Sunday night and into Monday, according to a WEEI.com operative.) For his new part-time employer, Entercom, Borges was ahead of the Brady-out-for-season story (with Yahoo!’s Michael Silver, it should be noted) as his deep and well-placed league connections were once again on display while the competing locals struggled to gain confirmation of the ACL injury.

• The other two slots – a baseball position and a football opening – have seen local names filter into One Herald Square for sit-downs, as well the inclusion of at least one tabloid baseball writer from New York, according to several sources.

Depending upon how Hank Herald chooses to use his tool chest, the combination of the three hires will go a long way in deciding whether the Herald Sports department is going to be a ‘player’ or an ‘also-ran’ in the rapidly evolving Boston sports media landscape. The paper lost Mike Felger, Rob Bradford, Jeff Horrigan and Mazz in what felt like one fell swoop over the summer. Those were some major contributors across the board for the Heraldos and the hires to replace them will be significant ones for Hryniewicz as he attempts to feed coal into the Little Engine That Could.

There has to be a heavy Internet presence as the paper moves forward and despite the Herald’s site being woefully outdated, the infrastructure is, in fact, in place if the “replacements” are allowed to capitalize on 24-hour drop bin that the is the World Wide Web.

• Borges, is in the midst of a remarkable renaissance after his “retirement” from the Globe, which followed a company-mandated suspension when it was revealed that Borges had taken Mike Sando’s work and passed it off as his own. But like Mike Barnicle and Ken Davis before (and many others surely to come), Borges has found a journalistic second life and is now drawing paychecks from respected media giants, Entercom and Comcast (locally on both CN8 and Comcast SportsNet). So, the Herald wasn’t necessarily first to the Borges re-birth party, but it would be taking the largest risk by putting him on full-time staff and opening up all sorts of scrutiny and, perhaps, unwanted attention that will come with hiring such a polarizing figure.

Still, there is a part of me that thinks Borges would be perfect for the Herald, in that he has always had that “tabloid edge” to his writing and his personality in general. The biggest question is: “Are we still too close to Tomasegate to trust the Herald’s judgment on Borges?”

The coming days and Hank Herald’s ultimate moves will decide all that.

• Speaking of that tabloid edge, Howie Carr once again says what most are too afraid to utter in this town. We do need to get over ourselves a bit.

• Yet another nice get by Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski who beat everyone on the new Doc deal. Can’t imagine why shoehorned Globe Celts’ beat man Frank Dell’Apa didn’t have that one!?!?

• A tease of tonight’s comical Jonathan Papelbon Video that will be shown on Comcast SportsNet:

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.

The rapid evolution of WEEI.com continues and we’re not even a month into the new incarnation. Content has been bountiful, integration with the radio side has been almost seamless (see: the John Dennis ‘scoop’ from Wednesday AND the dot-com branded Saturday morning show) and there’s even big-name sponsors already jumping into the fray with the big bank backing of WEEI.com’s blogger contest.

That doesn’t even take into consideration the incredibly lively and enjoyable City Hall offering from Red Sox Mayor, Sean Casey. We’ll whet your whistle with 90 seconds of Big Papi At the Movies:

As one respected observer commented over the Holiday Weekend on the shores of Nantasket, “Look at what WEEI.com has done in a few weeks and look at what NESN.com hasn’t been able to do with,” the “Hit It” campaign for its website.

Point being, NESN appears to only be promoting itself and its programming, while WEEI.com is establishing a voice and an identity. (That’s a broad overview and certainly, some portions of NESN.com are equal to or better than those of WEEI.com, but it’s safe to think that ‘EEI.com is on the express route to No. 2 in the market for sports information delivery – to Boston.com.

• Erin Andrews appeared to be sporting some Paulie Walnuts highlights and streaks in hair during her 6 p.m. hit from Vanderbilt on Thursday’s SportsCenter, and for the first time in our natural, Andrews-born life, we went, “Ewwwwwww.”

• Finally, it appears we have closure on the Gordon Edes exit from the Boston Globe – a saga that took the better part of one-third of a calendar year to unravel. Edes confirmed to Shots last week that his ERISA appeal of the Globe’s buyout offer was denied.

“So the Globe saved themselves the equivalent of 80 bucks a week for the 12 years I busted my butt for them,” said Edes in an email correspondence over last week. “It took them just two weeks to replace me w/(Adam) Kilgore/promoting/Amalie (Benjamin). . . their decision cost me thousands. . .”

(If Edes’s math is correct, the denial cost him nearly $50,000 [calculating $80 per week at 52 weeks in a year = $4,160 annually; then, 12 (Edes’ tenure as a Globie) at the yearly rate for a Total of $49,920. Edes used an attorney as well, so he also had legal costs to bear.

The buyout application was denied, according to Edes, because Sports Editor Joe Sullivan deemed Edes “indispensable” to the paper.

More likely, however, Edes ruffled some feathers on Mo Boulevard by letting it be known he was leaving for the big Y! in the Sky, Yahoo! Sports. When the higher-ups got wind of Edes’s plan to “double-dip,” the paper dug in its heels.

Bygones are now bygones and Edes is in a better place with greater exposure; and the Globe has snagged Tony Massarotti to soften the blow (his debut with Bob Ryan this week on “Globe 10.0″ was the show’s most promising pairing since Bob Neumeier teamed with Ryan for Battlin’ Bobs).

The whole Edes episode is a cautionary tale of just how precarious the waters of the Newspaper Downsizing ocean have become.

At least one other recognizable local sports scribe is currently experiencing his own drama over an impending separation from his employer and the positioning and posturing currently at play are so similar to the Edes scenario in several ways. Maybe most of all, the circumstances mean that another domino in the Old Media/New Media universe will fall and more shifting will take place in the marketplace.

. . . The Eagle Tribune layoffs will hit the sports desk, but it still hasn’t been divulged who, specifically, will be affected at the paper. (One visit to that website tells you all you need to know about how far behind the Eagle-Trib is. Jeesh. Worst. Sports. Landing. Page. EVER.

• Couple of add-ons to the now-must read and must visit Jessica Heslam from Thursday’s Boston Herald:

1. Owned and operated, Fox 25′s newest fox, Sara Underwood is, of course, married to multi-media man Mike Felger (WEEI, WEEI.com, Comcast, et al). The duo is once again the No. 1 media couple in Boston, and they have the potential to rival the city’s all-time media power couple, Nat and Chet. Mike’s going to burn out on sports at some point and some creative sort at one of the locals (and FOX 25 is a prime candidate) will pair Felgie and the Missus as news anchors and they will make a run at WCVB’s all-timers, C&N.

2. The re-signing of Kathryn Tappen extension at NESN could be the equivalent of a “bat signal” from the Watertown satellite dishes. Foremost, it signifies that NESN has liked the progress Tappen has made in her two years and rightfully so. Tappen, who is engaged to a hockey journeyman, Jay Leach, has improved in every facet and is probably ready for a call-up to the No. 1 property on the network – the Red Sox.

Shots is told there might even be the temptation to swap Heidi Watney with Tappen and let Watney go the route of Bruins studio host until she becomes steadier in all areas. Watney, it’s safe to say, has not enamored herself to all the NESN suits in the early going, and the Jason Varitek murmurs haven’t helped things.

. . . Heslam forwards the salacious Julie Donaldson story a bit with this update. The smoking gun (and potential bargaining chip, it would seem) is the supposed existence of a sex tape. Heslam has been on top of the sad tale from jump street.

But I’m still not convinced Lattimore is currently a Slamball player because I’m not convinced Slamball still exists!

• Had to like the ESPN counter-program to McCain on Thursday night: No. 24 South Carolina and the Ole Ball Coach taking on feisty Vandy.

That my friends, Red State conundrum for thousands upon thousands.

• Pats Mania is sweeping all outlets and Comcast SportsNet has some guns-a-blazin’ with, as their release touted, “New England’s top football writers and sports personalities such as Former Patriots Christian Fauria and Steve DeOssie; NBCSports.com’s Tom Curran; WEEI.com’s Ron Borges; Sports Illustrated’s Don Banks; The Sporting News’ Albert Breer and ESPN’s Andy Gresh share their Patriots insight.”

Breer will also be the regular co-host with Kevin Winter on 890 AM’s “Monday Night Countdown” (7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.) live from a West Bridgewater establishment. That show would seem to have a more realistic shot to register a blip for ESPN Radio than the Sunday morning (10 a.m. to Noon) show with Winter and Boston Metro’s Christopher Price that will do battle with established, strong-signalled offerings from BOTH flagship WBCN 104.1 FM and WEEI 850 AM. During home games, that show will be live from a car dealership on Route 1 in Foxboro.

• A very close – and very astute – Friend of Shots stumbled across a gem from Gerry “Scooter” Callahan that ran in the Boston Herald 17 years ago (this week the station celebrated its own “banner 17″ as an all-sports outfit).

It ran – at a now-unheard of 933 words – on August 7, 1991 in the Herald. My favorite portions are in bold.

© 1991 Boston Herald Library. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.

In a little less than a month, WEEI-AM will become the first all-sports station in the Boston radio market. The station is owned by the Celtics and already carries both Bruins’ and Celtics’ games during the winter. The rest of the air time will be filled with the occasional out-of-town or college game as well as a wide variety of talk shows and syndicated sports programs. Formerly the only all-news station in Boston, WEEI is now busy laying off everyone who doesn’t wear a baseball cap to work.

The Celtics somehow squeezed Eddie Andelman under their salary cap, so in the afternoon the station will feature the most established talk show host in the city. It is assuring to know that for at least a few hours a day the station will not be taking sports too seriously. Along with Eddie, Andy Moes will probably hold his own in the morning, and veterans such as Craig Mustard and Glenn Ordway will not embarrass themselves in their respective slots. Unlike WEEI under its present format, the station may soon be worth listening to even if a war hasn’t broken out in the last few minutes.

What about the other 10 or 12 hours a day? Will they hire generic hosts with cute nicknames who talk about hockey in the summer, subscribe to USA Today, and rate Bill James as their favorite author? Will they have same dozen callers who become close, personal friends with the host? Can they go around the clock with jock talk and not wind up sounding like this?

“It’s 2:27 a.m. and it’s time to take a call. Charlestown, you’re next on Sports Spew with the Scooter!”

“Hello, Scooter? Am I on the air? Hello? ?!”

“You’re on the air. Go ahead, Charlestown.”

“Yeah, Scooter, I’m calling from Charlestown. I’m a first-time caller, and like I was telling you last time I called, I’ve been a season ticket holder for 37 years and … Hello? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you. Turn down your radio, you moron, and make your point.”

“Who you callin’ a moron, moron? Me and my boys will come down there and kick your scrawny &*%$#@ …”

“And you’re next, on WEEI! Go ahead, Boston.”

“Yo, Scootman. We’re, like, over here at, like, Northeastern University and, like, we’re partying, dude. Yeah! Paaaaarty!”

“Good for you, Northeastern. Now what’s your question or comment?”

“Comment? Well, like, I only got one comment: Kick butt in the Beanpot! Yeah! Paaaaarty!”

“It is 2:36 at Sports Spew and next up, we have a call from a stolen car that is being chased the wrong way at high speed down the Mass Pike. What’s on your mind, stolen-car phone?”

“I don’t know about you, Scooter, but I’ve had just about enough out of Irving Fryar. The guy’s nuts, man. He’s got a death wish. They gotta trade the bum.”

“We’re losing you, stolen-car phone. Thanks for the call and good luck in prison. Let’s take one more call before we bring you go to our first guest. It’s our old friend, Ngxyeeb, at 7-Eleven in Chelsea. What’s on your mind, Ngxyeeb?”

“Hello, Mr. Scooter. I think Uruguay will win the World Cup. What you think?”

“Well, Ngxyeeb, I think you’re right. Brazil and Italy have some talent on the back line, but Uruguay has better corner kickers. Thanks for the call and save me a cheese Danish, old buddy. Let’s see, it’s 2:48 a.m. on Sports Spew, and it’s time to welcome our special guest. His name is Bobby “Bentnose” Boyle and he’s a scout for the Winnipeg Jets. Welcome to the show, Bentnose.”

“Thanks, Boomer. It’s great to talk to the people back in Austin. I grew up in Montana, and I think that’s right near Austin.”

“That’s BOSTON, Bentnose. Anyway, let me ask you first about the Jets. A lot of our listeners are wondering who might step up and help the Jets win the tough Smythe Division?”

“Well, Skeeter. We’ve got a kid named Sal out of Saskatoon and a guy named Frank from Frostbite Falls. They’re both tough cookies. I look for big things out of both of them.”

“Thanks for joining us, Bentnose. We’ve got to take a break now. When we come back, we’ll try to think of something a little more interesting.”

Did you know there are only 44 sounds in the English language? Did you know they only use three of them on this show? Did you know you’re brain is turning to Maypo? We could teach you to read, but, hey, why bother?

Are you down, depressed, lonely? Are you considering suicide? Well, we’d like to tell you to call their Samaritans, but since you are listening to hockey talk at 3 a.m., you’re probably a lost cause.

“OK, welcome back to Sports Spew with the Scooter, and in the next hour, we’re going to discuss a real hot topic in sports today: Golf ball dimples – do we really need 360 of them? Back to the phones, and you’re next, Charlestown.”

“Hello? Scooter? Am I on the air? Hello?”

Six years later, Callahan got his morning show with John Dennis. Now, eleven years later, Callahan’s farce is THE force in a city that used to be run by the newspapers.

• Lastly, I have taken a lot of heat in certain circles for first advocating for and then defending the choice of Dick Vitale as a Contributor to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. This is not the day to lose that argument again. Instead, let’s just congratulate the Jersey kid done good and we can agree to disagree on his contributions to the game of basketball.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.

Enough already with the Olympics. Finish the hoops re-coronation, stow away Costas and give us now our college and pro football. BMX? Are you serious? And we don’t even dominate.

[And what have we here?, a fresh take on an old scandal to cap things off in style! As if Jacques Rogge wasn't embarrassing enough.]

Anyway, we’re in another of the Summer Lulls as folks start the final exodus of the season and local sports media players scatter up North, down South and generally “away from the office.”

That in mind, we go real light today (but WEEI.com-heavy) and urge you to re-join us for the next scheduled Scott’s Shots on September 5 (barring any pertinent breaking news between now and then).

• Need an example of how speedy the flow of information is in 2008? Check out this informative reply from the inaugural “D-Bag’s Mailbag” by Mike Felger at WEEI.com.

Hi Mike,
I loved how you stood up to Trey Wingo Wango (On ESPN the day Matt Walsh testified before the NFL and cleared the Pats of taping the Super Bowl walkthrough). I can’t stand that guy. A lot of those guys at ESPN hate the Patriots. . .
Take Care,
Spud

A: A lot of people have asked me about that exchange (It’s been taken off YouTube. If you’re interested in it, search around. It shouldn’t be too hard to find [it is, sadly]). I don’t know Wingo. Never met him. Have no problem with him. But it was clear they wanted me to be the spokesman for the paper, and that’s not (wasn’t) my job. There’s also a little background that’s relevant to what happened: Just before the interview, I was on hold with their control room when my call-waiting beeped. It was my editor at the Herald. I clicked over.

“Are you about to go on ESPN and speak on behalf of the Herald?” he asked.

“No, they called and asked if I’d give my opinion on the story,” I answered. “Why?”

“Because they just went to commercial saying you were coming on next to defend the paper and give our position,” he said. “Let me make this clear. You will NOT speak for the paper. Let us handle that.”

“No problem.”

So that was the backdrop. Next thing I knew, 30 seconds later, ESPN put me on air and asked me to speak for the paper. So that was the result. As for ESPN and the national media hating the Pats – yup, that exists. It’s very real. But don’t think it’s just a media thing. League personnel. Opposing team personnel. Operations people. Fans outside of New England. You name it. We’re wearing the black hats. . . .

• While we’re on the subject of Felger, we’ll go ahead and give him the Week One WEEI.commer of the Week honors. His Thursday bag was chock-full of nuggets (many 890-related, too) and his Monday intro was also worth the time investment. (The Thursday radio discussion, however, of guys he’d do, was completely un-necessary and beneath the should-know-better Felger.)

[Before we go any further, let's agree that the "WEEI.com Factor" has the potential to be a radical influence on the way sports infotainment is delivered to this region of rabid sports. Because that's exactly what the Entercom-supported venture is shaping up as.]

The lows from the first week would have to include a glaring fonts problem – as a Shots commenter and several emailers pointed out. The typeface on most columns and blogs is simply atrocious. That’s a pretty easy fix and something that should be undertaken sooner, rather than later.

We’re also not sold on the idea of a rotating Stories box as the banner across the front page. Designer Intertech Media’s forte seems to be radio station websites and the WEEI.com creation is not quite as static as some of the other sites InterTech is responsible for. WEEI.com is not using its site to solely market itself, it’s trying to be a news-gatherer and a “must-bookmark” site that users will turn to several times per day. Because of that, the slide-show presentation of current content is a bit counter-intuitive (although it will increase Time Spent Viewing, we suppose). Go with the time-tested listing that ESPN.com uses in its right gutter and highlight feature columns and fresh content through other, smaller boxes.

The last of our three largest complaints of the first four days of the site is, surprise!, Ron Borges. On the day of the site’s debut, Borges needed to address his past in some way, shape or form. He still could have done his adequate dissection of the Brady-less pre-season game, but he also could have silenced some critics by addressing what he once said “will come out, frankly, how the Lord wants it to come out. That’s how it will come out.”

Apparently neither the Lord nor the overlords at Entercom wanted it to come out with Borges’s re-birth as a Boston writer. Which is too bad, because his second offering on Gene Upshaw was also lacking in some transparency. Borges went to Art Shell for some Upshaw perspective, but neglected to inform the gentle reader that he is (or was) working on a book with Shell.

It would be a little thing for most other writers, but Borges is a different situation and there has to be efforts made to re-gain the trust of former Borges readers who may have strayed after his less-than-glorious end at the Boston Globe.

. . . There were also some glitches on the editing/posting front that a Wisconsin-based Shots’ loyalist pointed out, and they should serve as cautionary lessons for the start-up.

First, the Yaz news on Tuesday was butchered with this sloppiness in the “This Just In. . . ” box: “Yaz administered with chest pains Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski has been administered to Massachusetts General Hospital after suffering with chest pains and discomfort. The Hall of Famer will turn 69 in three days. More to follow on the Bradford Files blog. — Rob Bradford (Aug. 19, 1:35pm) (For the record, the blog entry itself, from Bradford, included the proper word, “admitted.”

(Administered, gives the suggestion that last rites were performed.)

Another more forgivable and less harsh oversight was found in the Planet Mikey list that promised nine righty hitters better than Manny but only delivered eight.

These are little things but they show an initial bumpiness in the nuts and bolts that will need to be smoothed over – especially as breaking news plays out.

. . . Personally, we’ll always remember the first week for Blair Witch Rob Bradford and the Orange Couch.

• Most interesting rumbling of recent days suggests that Entercom isn’t afraid to play Felger against Glenn Ordway when they get into the nitty gritty of re-signing The Big O for some Big $. Ordway still sits in a position of strength, but Ordway would be wise not to price himself out of one of the cushiest cushioned seats in Beantown radio. (And there’s no Mad Dog, stupid money option out there for Ordway on satellite radio.)

• Jimmy Myers rides again! Not sure it’s must-listen audio, but we’ve always enjoyed the work of Jimmy Young, so we’ll give it a looksie on his merits alone. And you know Myers is a radio-moment-in-waiting with every utterance.

• And lastly, say hello to the Big Man in Philly. Celts-Sixers in Boston just got a whole lot more interesting. Someone alert the North End eateries!

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.

As if to show just how serious they are about being an Internet player, WEEI.com today (8/18/08) announces the addition of Deadspin founder, Will Leitch, to its rapidly expanding line-up of writers. Leitch – tabbed as “The Outsider” – will write twice-monthly (every other Wednesday) for the site and offers up a “Hello, Boston” piece today. In short, Leitch told Scott’s Shots joining the WEEI.com team was an easy decision, as he had previously felt the power of ‘EEI and it shook him to his soul. Sort of.

“When I was on the book tour,” Leitch explained via email over the weekend, “I bet I did 8 to 10 radio interviews a day for the first three weeks. Only one of them earned any appreciable traction: WEEI.

“Every Boston friend I have is oddly meticulous about the station; they know who’s on at pretty much every hour, and can psychologically break down every broadcaster for biases, weaknesses and favorite in-break snack,” said Leitch. “It’s pretty difficult to find any community like that anywhere. Plus, you know, they asked.”

Doing the asking was Rob Bradford, the site’s content overlord as well as a featured writer. Bradford had never met nor spoken with Leitch, but he recognized the slightly deranged Midwesterner as one of the most important Internet sports voices of the decade and figured, “. . . you never know. Couldn’t hurt to ask,” said Bradford in an extensive phone interview on Friday. “The goal for WEEI.com is to get the best people, to be creative and to be ahead of the curve. Will has built his reputation with his creativity.

“He will provide an outsider’s view on Boston sports,” he said. “We sometimes lose ourselves in our own little world here. He’ll bring perspective as to how we’re being perceived from (beyond Route 495).”

Leitch, who left Deadspin this summer for a spot at New York Magazine, is also contributing to The Sporting News and working on another book “about baseball.” He is well aware of the sharpened fangs (and unique users) that will surely accompany his arrival at WEEI.com.

“Oh, I’m certainly not counting on any sort of acceptance. I honestly have no idea how this will work,” he said. “They’ve given me pretty free reign with it, but, from the get-go, I’m making it as clear as possible that I’m no expert in Boston sports. That’s why I hope it will be fun. I think when you’re in the middle of the maelstrom, it can be difficult to fathom how the rest of the world sees you.

“Right now, Boston is the most compelling sports city in America; it’s not even close,” he said. “I’m hoping to tap into that. Look at the Manny situation. When he started acting up, the rest of the planet was like, ‘Well, there he goes again. They’ll figure it out, like they always do.’

“Boston fans knew better; they knew the atmosphere had changed. That’s amazing to me. The city’s fandom is a palpable, breathing thing; it’s fascinating to watch,” said Leitch, 32. “I want to try to figure that out. I’ll probably fail. But hopefully it’ll be fun trying. And hey: I’ve been writing online for a long time. I can certainly take whatever criticism comes my way; I’m sure I’ll deserve just about all of it.”

With Leitch joining the ranks of Boston’s bloggers, the city will now have claims on both the Grandfather of New Media Sports “coverage” (Bill Simmons) and the Godfather of the genre (Leitch).

“I’d be pretty honored to be compared to Simmons, until you realize how poorly one measures up to Simmons, and then I’m screwed,” said Leitch. “Simmons oozed Boston sports from his pores back in the day; I won’t be doing that. I couldn’t if I tried. But hey, nobody wants a St. Louis Sports Guy. If people are expecting me to be a new Simmons, they’ll be sorely disappointed. But I don’t think anybody expects that.”

Mostly, as Leitch will learn, the Boston sports media consumer wants full effort and full interest in the topics. Leitch seems to know that and appears to be reaching a tipping point for side projects.

“My plate’s pretty full right now. I’m working on the next book. . . I’m writing a page for The Sporting News in every issue and, of course, working at New York mag, which is more fun than I could have imagined.

“Everyone here is so freaking smart; I’m honored they think I could possibly keep up. (I can’t.),” he said. “And, of course, I’ll keep popping by Deadspin whenever (Leitch’s replacement) AJ (Daulerio) lets me.”

• Okay, now that you have digested the Leitch role for fledgling WEEI.com. it’s probably a good idea to do a little re-set here before we get too deep into all of this. The web site is on the verge of announcing several hires in addition to this list we have already compiled in prior posts:

– Rob Bradford (Full-time, content editor/writer)
– Alex Speier (Full-time, editor/writing)
– Mike Felger (Weekly Patriots Report Card and Mailbag)
– Ron Borges (A post-game column and a Friday offering)
– Jeff Goodman (Basketball offering)

Shots has also confirmed through WEEI.com that the website is also bringing aboard:

– Mike Petraglia (Contributor with audio and writing)
– Carlson Mozdiez (Full-time – was Webmaster/Marketing/Promotions and will add blogging and continue with technical side expertise)
– Gary (Marbry) From Chapel Hill (Contributor of Nuggetpalooza)
– Kirk Minihane (Contributor, Fantasy Football writer)
– Some type of “Onion”-like Boston-focused contribution
– Sean Casey of the Red Sox (likely for video-logging)
- An offering from ‘EEI producers.

Also, there will be some special debut Monday introductory offerings from Leitch, Felger, Borges et al.

(The transition to some new content will take time, as you’ll see in cruising the site – best bet is probably to go to the “Columnists/Blogs” tab.)

The immediate result of all this is what launches today at WEEI.com, but both Bradford and Vice Prsident/General Manager, Tim Murphy, emphasize this is only a beginning of what they both ultimately envision as a major destination site for Boston Sports Fans.

“This is a ground-breaking, not a ribbon-cutting,” said Murphy in an exclusive interview with Shots last week. “Hopefully by the end of January, we will be (at full capacity). First, we have to become ‘must-bookmark’ and I think we’re well on our way to that (with this first round of development).”

For now, the Entercom entrance into the arena has set off a slight flurry of shuffling at the Globe.

“I want to make this point clear,” said an invigorated and fiery Bradford. “These initial moves weren’t done just to have people talking about us for a day or two. I believe Ron (Borges) is amongst the best at what he does. His game column in the Globe was always must-read. The day he left that paper, it became a worse paper.

“We approached Will because he is one of the most creative and talented writers out there today,” said Bradford. “We’re getting the best people at what they do and that will mean a combination of old school journalists and new media people as well.”

Tempering the simmering competition a bit, Murphy is presently content with sharing the market’s Internet pie.

“We’re not trying to emulate Boston.com or BostonHerald.com and we don’t necessarily have to beat them or replace them,” said Murphy. “We’ll offer a unique perspective and be a source of both news and entertainment and we’ll do it with a new cast of editorial voices to add to the compelling and informative audio content we already have from WEEI.”

As for the early controversy that accompanied news of the Borges acquisition, Bradford is steadfast in his belief that Borges is committed and, quite possibly driven to silence his detractors.

“When I talked to Ron, the only thing I needed to know from him was whether he was ready to kick some butt,” said Bradford. “He is. Some people will forget (about his past) and some won’t and I get that. But I think he is motivated to put some of that stuff to rest and that motivation serves us well.”

(A Scott’s Shots attempt to interview Borges was rebuffed by WEEI.com’s PR agency of record.)

The all-in approach to the web-side is a new one for an Entercom entity, but as Murphy pointed out, WEEI is a pretty advanced laboratory to experiment in.

“In many ways, WEEI is an anomaly in the radio world,” Murphy said. “The depth of penetration in 25-54 year old male demographic is incredible. It’s the model for (this segment of) radio in many ways.

“Any media company that reaches a broad segment is at a point now where they have to act quickly to leverage these assets they have,” said Murphy. “That’s what Entercom – and David Field – is doing by investing in the web. This is the way broadcasting in general is going.”

Murphy said the WEEI.com is generating 250,000 unique visitors per month now (8,300 per day, which seems high for a mostly static site) and he hopes to have that number at 1 million per month by the end of 2009. The task is daunting, but Murphy thinks he’s got a leg up.

“What scares me is that there’s a large graveyard full of the web entries that had huge traffic but couldn’t monetize it,” said Murphy. “WEEI has already done that and this will allows us to further that. The site as it is, is currently profitable.”

. . . Murphy promised an updated look and feel for the site, an optimization of the audio search feature and easier navigation.

. . . Murphy on Borges and Felger: “Ron and Mike will perspective that will be somewhat in contrast to a lot of what is on the air and that will help give a 360 degree perspective on the Patriots.”

. . . Murphy on Borges: “We’re very comfortable bringing Ron on board and he’s eager to re-establish himself. He was must-read in the Globe. We’re aware of his past and he’s excited to move forward.”

. . . Bradford on what appeals to him about the opportunity at WEEI.com: “It’s a clean slate, we can mold things the way we want. We’ve got resources, we’re not doing this on the cheap and we’ve also got all this amazing audio to use, which no one else has.”

. . . Bradford on the reaction from people who discover he left an Old Media stalwart for a New Media start-up: “People get it. They know what this opportunity is. It’s cool that people are seeing what I saw when I took the job.”

. . . It’s reasonable to expect a Celtics columnist to be brought on in the coming weeks. Shots confirmed that Jackie MacMullan was pursued aggressively but currently she is too busy on her own book project to contribute to WEEI.com. That likely is a fluid situation and could change at any time. Peter May is probably also in the mix, but we’d rather see an up-and-comer grab the Celts spot.

. . . Bradford will be with the red Sox in Baltimore on his first official WEEI.com road-trip.

• Here are the Next Three Things, WEEI.com should seriously consider doing (in order of import):

1.Get an exclusive deal with a video partner, preferably Comcast Sports Network. There are already logical tie-ins with the regional network (Felger, Bradford) and a partnering would benefit both sides (especially CSN, which has yet to deliver on its promise of a “news-gathering” division). It allows for even more cross-promotion and gives the station another good Celtics tie-in.

2.Get a woman. Yahoo! Sports has done wonders with its morning Sports Minute update featuring a competent, attractive young lady. WEEI.com can do the very same things on a local level and probably use the very same sponsor already supporting the Y! offering – Dunkin’ Donuts.

3.Get an on-air show that prominently incorporates WEEI.com. This will have to be a “test kitchen” type of experiment, but one that could pay big dividends. By using a block of programming (weekend or late night, we’d guess) the station would be able to simultaneously promote the website and engage users with polls, email questions and on-line interactivity. Let Bradford and Speier have run of the studio and see what they come up with. It would have to be better than the current Saturday offerings of Musty, The Tracer and Butchie The Mayor, right?

• John Dennis admitted last week that he – and others at WEEI – were, at first, skeptical of what WEEI.com would actually be. The cynics rolled their eyes, Dennis said.

“But we were dead wrong,” Dennis said. “This is not out of altruism that they are doing this. This is the next revenue stream and they see that.

“It’s not unlike what the Red Sox have done,” he said. “They saw they could earn revenue from putting signage on the Wall. They saw they could get naming rights money. You drill holes and see what comes up from (beneath). For WEEI.com, they aren’t cutting any corners. I think it has potential to be (a game-changer).

“I think, in their wildest dreams, they probably see that it could become as a local version of ESPN.com, with all these ways to cross-promote and sell,” Dennis said.

He laid out a scenario where he could envision an existing major sponsor at the station expanding its reach by sponsoring some exclusive “Dennis and Callahan” audio at WEEI.com

• LEITCH LEFTOVERS:

. . . We couldn’t help but notice that Leitch now has slices of New York and Boston in his repertoire, we asked if LA was far behind?

“Well, all columns about LA would start three paragraphs in and end four paragraphs early. And those would be a bitch to edit,” he said.

Hear that Manny? Will Kills L.A.

. . . We let Leitch “out of here” with a closer that asked him to name three ways St. Louis (he is a lifelong Cards diehards card-carrying member) and Boston sports fans are alike and three ways they are different.

His reply:

SIMILARITIES:
1. Fans are extremely knowledgeable, devoted and respectful of history.
2. You get the sense that every fan at the home stadium would never want to be anywhere else than sitting in those stands.
3.The football team can do whatever it wants, but it’ll never compare to the baseball team.

DIFFERENCES

1. Cardinals fans STILL lustily cheer a groundout to the second baseman if it moves the runner to third. Boston fans are not that lame.
2. It is still possible to get tickets to a game at Busch Stadium.
3. Your signature city beer is still brewed and owned by Americans. (If Cincinnati still counts as “America.”) Ours? Not so much.

• According to the Boston Globe review of GSTF, Leitch has termed some of local sports figures thusly:

“. . . he describes Manny Ramirez as a ‘dingbat Red Sox slugger,’ Sox pitcher Curt Schilling as not ‘satisfied until he is deemed king,’ and Bill Belichick as the ‘Napoleonic Patriots coach’ hated by ‘anyone who happens not to work for him’. . .”

• Asked by the New York Post’s always-entertaining Lenn Robbins to name his “(f)avorite sport other than football,” Boston College linebacker Brian Toal answered, “Beer pong” in a Sunday Q&A with New Jersey LBs. Funny, or a trend or both?

• Herald Sports Editor Hank Hryniewicz responded to an email from Shots regarding the recent departures on Wingo Way by saying, rather defiantly, via email, “I’ve known Tony (Massarotti) as a friend for nearly two decades and as a co-worker for almost as long. Although I will miss the daily give-and-take I’ve enjoyed with Tony along with his contributions to the Herald, we’re already in the process of interviewing candidates to fill the vacancies on our sports staff.”

• The WEEI/NESN Radio-Telethon for the Jimmy Fund really knocked it out of the park by surpassing it’s $4 million goal by $800,000. Well done, folks. Especially the NESN people who were able to let the pictures tell so many stories.

• The WEEI.com press release on the “ground-breaking”:

WEEI.com Announces All-Star Roster Additions

Deadspin.com founder Will Leitch and former Boston Globe sportswriter Ron Borges headline latest additions to WEEI.com

BOSTON (August 18, 2008) – WEEI.com announced today the additions of six first-rate journalists joining its staff, along with the first upgrade to the website’s content and design. Joining WEEI.com editor Rob Bradford and columnist Mike Felger are a collection of top print and online journalists with excellent experience and reputations both in Boston and nationally.

Will Leitch, the founder of popular sports blog Deadspin.com, will be joining WEEI.com to provide an outsider’s look at Boston sports and its fans. Leitch has authored three books, including “God Save the Fan” and is currently a contributing editor to New York Magazine.

Ron Borges is a 24-year veteran of the Boston Globe, serving as the Patriots beat writer, national football writer and boxing reporter. He will serve as a columnist for WEEI.com covering the Patriots and national football news. Borges has received many awards and praise throughout his writing career, including being named Massachusetts Sports Writer of the Year by the National Association of Sportswriters and Sports Broadcasters five times since 1999.

Baseball writing veteran Alex Speier assist in handling the Red Sox beat and serve as Online Content Manager for WEEI.com. Speier is a graduate of Harvard University and has covered the Red Sox for several local and national publications, including the New Hampshire Union Leader, Boston Metro, Boston Herald and Baseball America.

“We’ve assembled a great new team at WEEI.com,” said Bradford. “It is an amazing collection of talent and I think that New England sports fans will enjoy the new voices and content our website is putting out. WEEI.com will be a great complement to the best sports radio station in the country.”

Also joining WEEI.com are Mike Petraglia, Jeff Goodman and Gary Marbry. Petraglia has more than 15 years experience covering Boston sports and will be contributing real time updates and breaking news to the site. Goodman is a basketball writer for Fox Sports and will write a column on professional and local college basketball. Marbry, better known as “Gary from Chapel Hill,” is WEEI.com’s stat geek. He’ll contribute to the site regularly examining sports through a number cruncher’s perspective.

WEEI.com will work as a complementary medium to WEEI Radio Network, taking the market’s top audio content and having it readily available online, while using the radio station to drive traffic to the website. Audio content, including weekly interviews with Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Terry Francona, will be easily available for users. WEEI veteran Carlson Mozdiez will handle this aspect of the site, shifting from the marketing and promotions department to take on the role of Digital Radio Content Manager.

“This isn’t a ribbon cutting, it’s a ground-breaking,” WEEI.com Vice President and General Manager Tim Murphy said. “These are just our first steps in creating a website that will provide the more local sports content than anyone else in Boston. Our aim is to, over time, make WEEI.com a must-bookmark site for news, opinions and fun features about the local sports scene.”

Among the new content today on WEEI.com is “Patriots 360,” a complement to the radio station’s Patriots Monday and Friday. Felger will grade the Pats every Tuesday in his report card and also answer questions in a weekly mailbag. Borges will write a GameDay column, as well as other pieces centered around the Patriots throughout the week. In addition, Patriots 360 will feature updates from Gillette Stadium throughout the week and a collection of links to stories, statistics and features to make WEEI.com a must read for Patriots fans.

WEEI.com is also creating a dedicated Red Sox area on the site as the team drives toward the playoffs. Bradford and Speier will provide original content throughout the week, along with audio, links and other features. WEEI.com will also have exclusive content from Red Sox first baseman Sean Casey and other players, offering insight from the clubhouse and showing behind the scenes look at the defending World Series champions.

Log onto WEEI.com to see the website’s first upgrade and for all new content and contributors.

Entercom is one of the nation’s largest radio broadcasters with operations in San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Sacramento, Cincinnati, Portland, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Austin, Norfolk, Buffalo, New Orleans, Providence, Memphis, Greensboro, Rochester, Greenville/Spartanburg, Madison, Wichita, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Springfield and Gainesville/Ocala.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.

In yet another stunning blow to the battered Boston Herald sports section, general columnist and Red Sox specialist, Tony Massarotti is leaving One Herald Square, crossing over Route 93, will land smack dab on Joe Sullivan’s sports staff at the Boston Globe/Boston.com. Adam Reilly at the Phoenix had the inter-Globe memo announcing the move on Thursday evening and Bruce Allen did a nice follow-up as well (including bumps for Amalie Benjamin and Chad Finn) and so did Dan Kennedy.

Massarotti, who was at Fenway last night for the Herald, spoke of the move to Scott’s Shots in the 9 o’clock hour.

“I gave my notice (Thursday) to Hank Hryniewicz,” said Massarotti. “I’ll still do the Baltimore and New York series for the Herald and should start with the Globe at the beginning of next month.”

Massarotti, who has danced with the Globe before, will fill a mainly on-line role for Boston.com’s Red Sox coverage, but there is also a print element to the job as well.

“The idea is to have a bit of a hybrid position between the web site and the paper with an on-line emphasis,” he said. “It will be largely baseball to start but there’s no real restrictions on this position. There are million things to do with it. There will be a lot of trial and error.

“This issue of what my job title would be came up during (talks with Sullivan),” Massarotti said. “I don’t know if there is one for what I’ll be doing and I don’t care if there isn’t.”

The switch mean that Mazz’s relationship with WEEI 850 AM will have to cease (due to Globe policy forbidding appearances on the station, in place since 1999) and it will also diminish whatever role Mazz had on Comcast SportsNet, as he will now be have to give first dibs to NESN.

Interestingly, Massarotti confirmed to Shots that he had been in “extensive” discussions with WEEI.com as well. “Eventually, I had to look at it and say that WEEI.com is a start up. The Boston Globe is a long-established media outlet and they’re not going anywhere,” he said. “I couldn’t see leaving a place I had been for almost 20 years, to go to what is basically a start-up.”

. . . In one fell swoop, Sullivan continues Wingo Way’s Summer of Discontent by stealing another of Hank Herald’s Top 3 talents AND enhancing his own staff’s recently-diminished Sox coverage. This is the media world’s equivalent of losing a superstar within the division and for Hank Herald it is another is a series of blows that leaves his already-thin staff looking gaunt.

Mazz, a 1989 Tufts alum, has been at the Herald since 1989 and has blossomed during the rise of Boston’s Big Three, frequently appearing on ESPN (which will continue) and somewhat regularly stirring up the masses. In 2001, he was named the best sportswriter in Massachusetts, according to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, becoming the first Herald sportswriter to win the honor over a decade. He covered UMass basketball during the Calipari days and in 1994 slid over to the Red Sox beat for the paper.

“I’ve literally known (Hank Herald) since I was 17 years old,” said Mazz, who grew up in Watertown and Waltham. “The hardest part of this whole thing was leaving the Herald. Hank is a friend of mine, not just my boss. But (the Globe position) was a unique opportunity and I couldn’t say no to it.

“This is a progressive and proactive attempt to integrate the paper and the web,” he said. “Too often at papers, there is a segregation between the two sides. Hopefully this will erase that line.”

. . . One Globe mole summed up the news this way, “It’s nice to be talking about an addition (for a change).”

True dat. In these days of lay-offs, buyouts and paper sales, it is interesting to note that the Boston Globe is finding a way to hire high-level talent by putting them on the web side and simultaneously buoying the print side (and TV) AND weakening the immediate competition.

. . . ANALYSIS OF GLOBE HIRING MASSAROTTI:

Gordon Who? After a prolonged separation from Gordon Edes, Joe Sullivan moved relatively quickly in filling the spot vacated by Edes and turning it into a web/print “hybrid” as Massarotti called it. He also set the wheels in motion to provide a young, eager back-up for Private Benjamin while leaving Nick Cafardo in place to continue his “On Baseball” (and other) role(s).

Mazz hasn’t exactly been a blogging maniac at the Herald, but he has shown glimpses and the enthusiasm in his voice on Thursday night at the Globe opportunity would indicate he’s ready to make the most of his new job. There’s no question he’s got the voice and gumption to make his presence felt.

Sullivan’s enhanced use of Finn is also encouraging and the ambiguity of his new title “sports news reporter” allows for a vast use of his considerable talent – from blogging to storytelling to “list”ing.

Overall, Sully had himself a day and the war between Boston.com and WEEI.com can now be advanced to a combative stage because. . .

• Scott’s Shots has confirmed the emerging rumor that ex-Boston Globe and accused plagiarist Ron Borges will be part of the re-launched effort at WEEI.com.

“I think (it’s) a pretty bold move,” said WEEI’s Gerry Callahan via email. “I know I look forward to reading him.”

“He’ll make the Patriots nervous and I’m sure Bill Belichick will be pissed off having him back around,” said Callahan’s co-host, John Dennis. “(Borges) is someone who compels you to log on and read what he has written. Yeah, he’s stubbed his toe a few times. But he knows what he’s doing and he’s still extremely well connected throughout the league.”

Although neither Dennis nor Callahan were sure on the specific role that Borges will play for the website, a separate WEEI.com source confirmed Borges will be writing a Patriots-centric column, twice weekly for the site (one post-game and one later in the week). Borges and previously-announced acquisition Mike Felger, will anchor the site’s Pats’ coverage. It’s still not clear how much – if any – air time Borges will receive on WEEI.

“I’m not sure how much cross-pollenization there will be,” said Dennis. “But I would have him on our show, sure.”

Shots has also confirmed two other “gets” for WEEI.com’s editor Rob Bradford: The first is a full-time hire in Alex Speier, the Union-Leader writer and Boston Herald contributor, who will – like Bradford – both edit and write for the site exclusively.

Also joining the roster will be Foxsports.com’s Jeff Goodman who will do for WEEI.com what he had been doing for the Herald during college basketball season, namely providing a national notes column. Goodman is allowed, per the terms of his deal with Foxsports.com, to provide content for another outlet and it appears he will now do so for ‘EEI.com, instead of the Herald. (The move is thus a double-blow to the forever in-flux sports pages of the Little Tabloid That Could.)

More staffing and contributor names are expected to emerge in the coming days. The WEEI.com site will gradually roll out its new elements and design over the coming months and hopes to be fully operational by the end of January 2009.

. . . ANALYSIS OF WEEI.COM TAPPING BORGES:

Well, WEEI.com’s Vice President and General Manager, Tim Murphy, continues to make eye-opening and “sexy” hires as he ramps up his website to do battle with the big boys in Boston sports media. In grabbing Bradford, Murphy immediately gained a popular and New Media-savvy captain to steer his ship content-wise. Felger, too, was a wise and relatively safe move and served the dual purpose of puncturing the (ahem) competition (890 AM ESPN and the Herald) while fortifying the site’s Pats’ analysis and click-worthiness.

As for Borges, Entercom is going to get a quick bang for its buck, but the true test will be whether Borges can be consistent and controversial without going too far over the edge (as he clearly did with the Globe).

Leopards rarely change their spots and Borges has shown almost no commitment to the site that bears his own name. Why should we believe he will “get after it” for a new employer? Better yet, what kind of statement does it make when one of your top five hires is associated with such an inglorious moment in Boston sports media history?

But a lightning rod drives traffic and Muprhy and Bradford apparently believe they can control Borges and use him to their advantage. There’s no question he will draw attention to the site.

We will – as always – reserve full judgment until Borges and WEEI.com have had some time to prove themselves, but for now count us as a skeptical observer at best.

. . . For all the bluster, bullying and bravado that can accompany the Borges hire, it is the full-time position given to Speier that will most likely be the biggest benefit for Entercom. Long-considered a rising star in the market, Speier had maintained a full-time job at a local university in addition to his myriad writing gigs. Like Bradford, he has never been afraid to go outside the box and the pairing of the two on Red Sox coverage puts WEEI.com on near-level footing with almost every outlet in the region, right from jump street.

. . . Foxborough frequenters can’t remember the last time Borges has been seen at Patriots Place, but surely with this new gig (in addition to the other work he has been doing), Borges’ return to The Razor will be forthcoming. That will be must-see video of the HC’s presser when Borges makes an inquiry to B-sqaured. Hope WEEI.com is wise enough to get footage of it!

To paraphrase Rick Pitino, the negativity on this blogs SUCKS!

In recognition of that (but in no way abandoning my inner-bitter), we give to you a brief, final feel-good Scott’s Shots entry for this day in which we urge you to completely ignore us in favor of reading (or re-reading) this from WEEI and the Boston Herald’s Gerry Callahan. And then by filling out this donation form as we did in honor of “Papa,” who was served righteously by the good folks at the Pawtucket Dana Farber facility:

“I deny it if any one asks,” said John Dennis on Thursday afternoon, “but I missed him. I compare it to a double play combination that gets separated because of injury or trade. You lose that comfort level.”

It was last summer around this time and Dennis’s co-host on the 6 a.m. to 10 .m. “Dennis and Callahan” show at WEEI 850 AM was in the midst of dealing with what we now know was a malignant polyp on – of all things – his throat. (It was also during the time that D&C were in a tumultuous negotiation process with Entercom.) From April through September, Dennis’s Joe Morgan had lost his Dave Concepcion in Callahan, and Dennis was one of the few to know the full details of his partner’s absence (which, among other things, resulted in the duo missing what Dennis called, at the time, “the most important thing we do all year long, the Jimmy Fund Telethon.”)

Now, a year removed from the contentiousness and posturing that dominated the ultimate contract renewal for the powerful pair, Dennis realizes he learned more about his sidekick during that four-month hiatus, than he had in ten years on air at ‘EEI.

“More than anything it exposed a human side of Gerry – and I don’t mean this derogatorily, but there is the tough, gruff exterior than accompanies Gerry on the surface,” said Dennis, after just completing an emcee role at Thursday’s “Trophy Talk.” “He was scared to death and was facing mortality and everything that comes with it.”

As for Dennis, he felt the best thing he could do was to shepherd the show through Callahan’s absence. “That was actually a good distraction for me from Gerry’s situation,” said Dennis. “I still had to make sure that no matter who I was on with, that we were doing a good show.”

. . . Dennis acknowledged that this year’s goal of $4 million goal is ambitious but the way the now- two-day event has become a part of the summer in Boston sports is helping – even in a fluctuating economy. “People now expect this event, there’s no need to explain it to people any more. They know it, they look forward to it and they realize what it’s about.

“It will be tough to reach that goal with the gas prices are, the political climate, the on-coming concern of winter heating bills,” said Dennis, who lost his father to the disease in March of 2005. “But this touches EVERYBODY. During the kick-off on Thursday, the phones were ringing off the hook.”

Let’s keep ‘em ringing folks.

Thanks,

Shots

• In celebration of Chad Finn’s promotion, we offer a tribute in the form of a Completely Random Olympic YouTube video, complete with dancing girls in bikinis and trashed Westerners. (Hint to Shots’ Journalist friends in Beijing – Get thee to the beach volleyball venue, QUICKLY):

• Oh, and the end of an era. Best sports talk radio tandem EVER.

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

Scott’s first book, with Memphis Coach John Calipari, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2009.