Hall of Shame Bakeoff: Joe Fitz vs. Dan Shaughnessy

January 12, 2013

No Hall of Fame inductees for you!

And – wait for it – very different takes in the local dailies.

Dan Shaughnessy’s Thursday Boston Globe  column:

46171382H6239713A Hall of Fame ballot without a whiff of PED usage

The poison ballot remained on my desk, unopened until Dec. 31.

I knew what was in there. Hardball anthrax. Nothing could be gained from tearing it open. Only bad things could come of it.

But I am a card-carrying member of the much-loathed Baseball Writers Association of America. I’ve been honored with a Hall of Fame ballot since 1987. It’s the most important responsibility that comes with membership.

And it has become the worst exercise of the year.

On Wednesday, one day before the Oscar nominations are announced, the BBWAA will announce the results of this year’s Hall of Fame election. It’s going to be another dreadful day for the BBWAA, for baseball, for Mom, apple pie, and America.

I voted for Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, and Curt Schilling.

I did not vote for the greatest home run hitter of all-time. I did not vote for a guy who won 354 games and seven Cy Young trophies. I did not vote for a guy who hit 60 or more homers in a season three times. I did not vote for a catcher who hit 427 home runs. I did not vote for a first baseman who hit 449 home runs. I did not vote for a guy who hit 569 homers and cracked 3,020 hits. I did not vote for a guy who hit 70 homers in a season.

 

Joe Fitzgerald’s Boston Herald  column today:

Hall of Fame BaseballWhy I cast Hall of Fame vote for Clemens

When a few folks discovered this writer had a vote in last month’s Hall of Fame balloting, there was not only an interest in the decisions he made, but also a demand to know what he was thinking if he wasn’t on the same page they were, as if a disagreement was intensely personal to them . . .

For what it’s worth, here’s why Roger Clemens received a vote here, a vote that had much less to do with baseball than it did with adherence to a principle.

First of all, if Clemens used a performance enhancer, it was not to have a Hall of Fame career, but rather to extend one.

The key word there is “if,” though very little doubt exists in the court of public opinion. Thankfully, the court of public opinion isn’t where we look for justice.

The law tried to nail Clemens twice and it failed both times.

But that made no difference to many of the writers who would ban him, explaining suspicions were sufficient to deny him induction.

Suspicions? Is that all that’s now needed to convict someone?

Sorry, boys, it doesn’t work that way, or at least it’s not supposed to.

Different strokes for different papers.

Good, yes?

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That Dog Gone Tessa (Lehane Exits Brookline Edition)

January 12, 2013

According to our dogged local tabloid, Dennis (Call Me Javert) Lehane is giving up his Brookline canine patrol for his runaway pooch Tessa.

From today’s Boston Herald (web edition):

2b852b_LehaneLehane says he’ll take down missing dog fliers

Crime scribe Dennis Lehane says he’ll take down the fliers volunteers have posted around Brookline in the quest to find his missing dog after the town said they violated town bylaws.

“I can see the town of Brookline’s point. And there’s no reason we should expect preferential or selective treatment because of my last name,” Lehane said today in the statement.

The town yesterday told Lehane that the hundreds of fliers put up all over town had to be taken down by Monday.

 

But wait! There’s more!

From today’s Boston Globe:

People Dennis Lehane Dog.JPEG-03d81Brookline will hold off on removing Lehane’s fliers

Brookline is going to sit on an order to remove numerous fliers posted around town for author Dennis Lehane’s missing dog, Tessa. Town Administrator Melvin Kleckner said in an e-mail Friday night that, with an offer by the Animal Rescue League to facilitate, he’s directed Brookline’s Department of Public Works to hold off on taking down the signs “in the hopes that a more coordinated and reasonable approach on posting signs can be worked out.”

 

Actually, there’s been more than enough coordination in this doggie crusade.

But reasonable?

You tell us.

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That Dog Gone Tessa (Mean Brookline Edition)

January 11, 2013

Last week the hardwalking staff at Campaign Outsider reported on the flood of Lost Dog flyers in the Brookline Village area compliments of local author Dennis Lehane, whose pursuit of his runaway pooch Tessa is positively Javertesque.

Now comes the backlash. From today’s Boston Herald:

BI1E2289.JPGOfficial hounding Dennis Lehane on fliers

A by-the-book Brookline bureaucrat is giving crime scribe Dennis Lehane until Monday to pull down all the fliers throughout town for his beloved missing beagle.

The heart-wrenching ultimatum all but dooms the search for Lehane’s runaway pooch.

“There is a town bylaw that prohibits that,” said Brookline Public Works Commissioner Andrew M. Pappastergion. “It was a hardship. They were trying to find the dog and we turned our eyes away for a week. They’ve been up there for two weeks and there are hundreds.”

 

The piece also quotes a Brookline dog owner who says she’s “very, very upset with this town. It’s very disconcerting to me. They are not littering. They are posting on lampposts. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.”

Some Herald readers, however, aren’t as sympathetic. Representative samples:

Picture 2

Picture 1

 

That’s in bad taste, eh?

But it’s the pitchforks that are out at Lehane’s Finding Tessa Facebook page, as Erin Clossey noted on her Brookline Tab blog last night:

Picture 3

 

Clossey ends her post, “God, I hope they find this dog soon.”

Amen, Erin. Amen.

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Hark! The Herald! (Power of the Press Edition)

January 10, 2013

The feisty local tabloid has the self-promotion machine in overdrive today.

Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

MA_BH

 

And here’s the spread from pages 4 and 5:

Picture 2

 

Just for good measure, the Herald tosses an editorial (“Time for true reform”) and this Margery Eagan column into the mix:

062909rowlings077.jpgShocking! In Mass., they’re fixing a mess

Call it a shocker. A stunner. Another Massachusetts Miracle. Something you would never expect until Boston Harbor freezes over and 90 percent of our lawmakers have an “R” instead of a “D” next to their names.

Last year the Herald ran a series of stories detailing questionable unemployment claims filed by city and town workers. Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick announced reforms. And most everybody thinks Beacon Hill will actually OK those reforms — soon.

 

All thanks to the Herald, of course. Or so it seems.

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Barney Frank(enstein)

January 9, 2013

From our Call and Response desk

Yesterday a Boston Globe editorial called on Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint Barney Frank (D-I Love Me) to fill the interim U.S. Senate seat created by John Kerry’s departure for the State Department.

New Congress.JPEG-087bdPatrick should take Frank up on his Senate offer

‘DOES IT matter, in the case of Congressman Frank, what I would have preferred?” quipped Governor Patrick, after Barney Frank announced to the nation — on “Morning Joe,” no less — that he is seeking Patrick’s support for the four-month interim appointment to replace Senator John Kerry. Yes, Frank can be obnoxious, even to his friends. And as a retiring congressman who relishes the idea of never again going before the voters, he’s as unleashed as he ever has been. Washington, watch out.

But as Patrick acknowledged, Frank is an excellent candidate for interim senator. Choosing him would serve two important purposes. First, since he’s emphatically ruled out any future election, his selection would allow the voters to choose a permanent senator without having one of the candidates anointed by the governor. Second, he would be effective immediately as a senator, since he’s about as knowledgeable on federal budget issues as anyone in Congress. That’s crucial because budget cutting will be the prime agenda item for the next four months.

 

Paging Fannie Mae. Paging Ms. Fannie Mae.

Today Joe Fitzgerald responded in his Boston Herald column.

Andy Samberg Barney FrankBarney Frank’s wit dulled by peevish trait

Here’s why Barney Frank is no favorite at this address.

No, it’s got nothing to do with philosophical or lifestyle issues, because total agreement has never been the litmus test for admiring someone here; if it were, this writer would have spent his career surrounded by a very small circle of kindred spirits.

Indeed, Barney, of all polar opposites, should have been easy to admire here because of his mastery of the language and an agile mind that churned out memorable quips . . .

Barney had the stuff of a bon vivant, a hail fellow well met, a joy to be around. Instead he was too often an unpleasant sort, as if an anger festered within him just waiting for an excuse to be unleashed.

Even the Globe, in yesterday’s fawning editorial urging Gov. Deval Patrick to grant Barney’s wish for a four-month interim appointment as John Kerry’s successor, thought it necessary to note, “Yes, Frank can be obnoxious, even to his friends.”

Great. That’s just what’s needed in the nation’s capital right now, an obnoxious presence in an atmosphere where cordiality is desperately needed.

 

In a previous incarnation, the hardreading staff had occasional contact with Frank at the local public television station. Every time, he would walk in the door in full complaint – Why am I not on the set yet? I don’t have time to wait around. Are you going to hurry this up?

Our response tended to be, “Congressman, no one wants to get you out of here faster than us.”

Not sure that extends to the U.S. Senate, though.

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Hark! The Herald!

January 9, 2013

In its Tuesday edition the Boston Herald – ever Whitmanesque – celebrates itself and sings itself yet again.

Page Two:

Picture 5

 

That upper right item:

 

Picture 3

 

Being one of the Newseum’s Top Ten Front Pages isn’t exactly winning a Pulitzer, but it’ll do until something better comes along for the feisty local tabloid.

 

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OMG! Herald Has a New (?) Advice Column

January 7, 2013

Page 3 of today’s Boston Herald features this advice column, which the hardreading staff doesn’t recall seeing in the paper before, although we could be wrong. Regardless, it’s lame even by Herald standards.

OMG_logosTime to give in and wear the watch

Dear OMG,

My girlfriend got me a watch for Christmas while on a trip with her family to the Bahamas. It’s a really nice watch, but it’s not my style at all (I don’t usually even wear a watch) and I know I can’t take it back since it’s from a boutique there. I don’t want to offend her, but I don’t think I’ll ever wear it. What should I do?

— Out of Time

Dear Out Of Time,

Ugh, this is a toughie. Why not compromise — suck it up and wear it on occasions that are special to you both: an anniversary dinner, her birthday, or if you ever go to the Bahamas as a couple. If you really aren’t a watch wearer, tell her that by saying something like, “When I wear a watch, it’s going to be this one.” That way she won’t expect you to have it on all the time, and you’ll be relieved of sporting a not-at-all-you piece to the next Celts game.

 

There’s another question and answer – and a video – but we’ve already sampled too much.

Don’t just take our word for it – here are representative samples of the comments:

Picture 1

 

Speaking of the Boston Globe, its advice column – Ask Amy – isn’t much better. From today’s installment:

Q. I can’t stand it when kids, teenagers, young adults, and older male adults wear baseball caps into homes, restaurants, and other buildings. When I invite family members to my home for dinner, I expect them not to wear a baseball cap at the dining room table.

When I enter a restaurant, I don’t want to see any men at a dining table with a baseball cap on. It upsets me to pay for a nice dinner when I see attire that belongs at a fast food restaurant.

Needless to say, in my house I must keep the family peace, and so I can’t say anything. In restaurants, I obviously can’t speak up. Your opinion please?

A. A quibble, fine sir. Your home is your castle and of course you can — and should — ask men to please remove their hats (certainly if they are younger than you are. This would be tougher if you were trying to correct a contemporary).

Pretend you are a host at a fine restaurant and say, “Gentlemen, please remove your hats in the house.” If they don’t comply, you have my permission to judge them harshly.

 

Yeesh. You have our permission to judge both columns harshly.

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Herald’s Inside Trick: Credit Defaults

January 6, 2013

The hardreading staff has noted before the occasional tendency of the Boston Herald’s Track Gals (without Megan!) to borrow material without disclosing their sources.

Sad to say, they’re back at it again today.

From the Inside Track’s We Hear section:

• That Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, late of News Talk 96.9, will guest host for two hours on 89.7 WGBH Radio on Tuesday beginning at noon. The pair — he hosts a show on NECN and she is a Herald columnist — will host a segment within the midday show of live, local talk, according to their old WTKK boss Phil Redo, who just so happens to be managing director of ’GBH Radio. Tryout? Do stay tuned.

 

From yesterday’s Boston Globe:

Former WTKK hosts get one-day gig at WGBH

Two days after they hosted the final talk show broadcast on WTKK-FM, Jim Braude and Margery Eagan have lined up a one-day gig on WGBH-FM that could double as an audition.

WGBH said Friday that the former WTKK morning show hosts will guest host “Boston Public Radio” Jan. 8, filling in for Callie Crossley, Emily Rooney and Kara Miller.

Braude and Eagan hosted the last episode of “Jim & Margery” Wednesday before the station switched to an all-music format.

The pair has no other assignments booked on WGBH, but the station’s managing director, Phil Redo, suggested in an e-mail that there could be more to come.

“I’m a big fan of theirs,” said Redo, who managed WTKK and four other Greater Media Inc. stations in Boston from 2006 to 2009 . . .

 

Not to get technical about it, but next time the Track Gals should File Under: “We Read.”

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Herald More Frank About Barney

January 5, 2013

From our Compare and Contrast in Clear Idiomatic English desk

Barney Frank (D-I Love Me) gets Page One of the local dailies today, but in very – wait for it – different ways (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages).

Boston Globe:

MA_BG

 

Boston Herald:

MA_BH

 

The feisty local tabloid devotes two full pages to the Barney-burner, complete with Hall of Shame qualifications:

Picture 2

 

Note especially this:

Picture 3

 

Text:

A huge public policy blunder

During the beginning of the financial industry crisis, Frank defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from more government oversight, famously declaring the agencies “fundamentally sound.” We know how wrong that turned out to be.

 

Crosstown at the Globe, the coverage is more, well, restrained.

New Congress.JPEG-087bd-3155Barney Frank says he would like to be interim senator

On what should have been the first day of his retirement from Congress, former representative Barney Frank instead burst back onto the political scene, revealing that he had asked Governor Deval Patrick to appoint him to temporarily fill John Kerry’s Senate seat while a special election is held.

Frank said his 32 years in Congress made him especially qualified to help settle spending and entitlement fights that were pushed off several months by the New Year’s Eve fiscal cliff compromise between President Obama and congressional leaders.

“The first months of the new Senate will be among the most important in American history. I may be a little immodest, but I called the governor and said I think I can be a help in reaching a fair solution to some of these issues,” Frank told the Globe Friday.

 

Asked about running in the special election for the seat, Frank said “absolutely not.”

And does the Globe piece mention the Fannie/Freddie kerfuffle?

Absolutely not.

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WRKO = We Really Knock Others

January 5, 2013

Big breakthrough for the hardreading staff: We’ve finally gotten access to the Boston Herald’s e-Edition, which is only right since we’re one of the 17 home subscribers to the feisty local tabloid.

Anyway, that allows us to bring you this WRKO ad from Friday’s Herald, which combines a whack at the demise of News Talk 96.9 with a promo for Herald columnist Howie Carr:

Picture 1

 

680 WRKO – Boston’s ONLY Talk Station!

Does it get any more depressing than that?

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