Boston Globe Slowbituary: Doug Mohns Finally Gets His Due!

February 21, 2014

For weeks now the hardreading staff has been imploring the Boston Globe to memorialize former Boston Bruins stalwart Doug Mohns, who died earlier this month.

And – at last – the stately local broadsheet has.

From Thursday’s edition:

Doug Mohns, 80; was Bruins All-Star

Sixty years after his rookie season as a 19-year-old with the Boston Bruins, Doug Mohns made a sentimental journey to the team’s annual fund-raising golf tournament last September.

Although weakened by cancer, Mr. Mohns, who played half of his 22 seasons in the National Hockey League in Boston, walked Mohns013into the dining room on his own at the International Golf Club in Bolton.

There he shared memories with Milt Schmidt, the Bruins coach in the late 1950s when Mr. Mohns played in two Stanley Cup finals, and he told everyone how special it had been to wear a Bruins uniform.

“He did everything in his power to get there,” said his son, Doug Jr. of Hanover, who accompanied Mr. Mohns. “Looking back, it was also his way of saying goodbye on his own terms.”

Mr. Mohns, a seven-time NHL All-Star and the first Bruins defenseman to score 20 goals in a season, died of myelodysplastic syndrome Feb. 7 in the Sawtelle Family Hospice House in Reading. He was 80 and lived in Bedford.

 

And finally got his long-overdue recognition from the Boston Globe.

 


The Quick Brown Fox Jumps All Over the Lazy Quote

February 20, 2014

Now that my friend Dan Kennedy has told his myriad readers that I’d be writing this, I am.

The Boston Globe, Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere) and Fox News are going ’round the Maypole over a story by Joshua Miller that appeared in the stately local broadsheet yesterday.

Scott Brown no longer under contract with Fox News

Ex-senator mum on whether he will run in N.H.Debate Pool3

Former US senator Scott Brown, a frequent presence on Fox News, is no longer under contract with the widely watched cable station, a development sure to fan flames of speculation about his potential US Senate bid in New Hampshire.

“He is currently out of contract with the network,” a Fox News spokeswoman told the Globe late Tuesday night following an inquiry.

 

Not so, Brown tells the Boston Herald’s Hillary Chabot in today’s edition.

Scott Brown rips Boston Globe over Fox report

Just inked deal, not going

 

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A miffed Scott Brown yesterday shot down reports that he parted ways with Fox News — pointing to his freshly inked deal with the conservative network and tweaking the Boston Globe for failing to double-check its story.

“Globe should have checked with someone who had authority to speak for Fox and/or me. They did not,” wrote the former U.S. senator in a text to the Herald. He did not disclose any details of his Fox pact.

 

According to Miller, the Globe did try: “Brown did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment late Tuesday.” Yesyesyes – how late is key, but it’s disingenuous for Brown to imply that no attempt was made to get his side.

Then again, in his mulligan today Miller sliced it a bit fine himself:

The Globe, in a report published online Tuesday night and in Wednesday’s paper, said that Brown “is currently out of contract with the network,” based on a statement from a Fox News spokeswoman. When pressed whether this was due to a potential run for office or because his contract was up, the spokeswoman simply repeated that he is “out of contract with the network.”

The report did not say that Brown was leaving the network nor that he had been terminated.

 

Yeah, but you sure got that impression. And then there’s this: “Brown did not return the Globe’s multiple calls for comment Tuesday and Wednesday.”

Wednesday? The corn was off the cob by then. Wednesday doesn’t count.

Here’s what does count: As long as Brown keeps showing some leg, someone’s gonna be trying to cut them out from under him.

 


Boston Globe Doesn’t Forget Your Waiters and Waitresses

February 20, 2014

From our Tip o’ the Service Tip desk

Wednesday’s Boston Globe featured the conclusion of an unusual editorial-page series called Service Not Included.

For four days the Globe’s editorials have been exclusively dedicated the plight of restaurant-industry employees. The full-page kickoff appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe.

 

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Money quote:

Because waiters making poverty wages turn to public aid, American taxpayers effectively subsidize the restaurant industry to the tune of $7 billion per year.

 

From there, Monday’s editorial addressed the tipping system, Tuesday’s took on the living wage, and yesterday’s addressed the need for advocacy and activism.

All in all, an admirable effort that didn’t get the attention it richly deserved.

 


Globe Sells Globe Sale Short

February 19, 2014

It started yesterday with Jason Schwartz’s big John Henry takeout (via Boston Daily).

Will John Henry Save the Globe?

Maybe, but his ambitions are much grander. “I feel my mortality,” he says. So here’s his plan: He’s going to use the time he has left on earth to try to save journalism itself.

Just days after striking a deal to buy the Boston Globe from the New York Times Company last summer, John Henry walked into the paper’s newsroom john-henryas the city’s most important private citizen in decades—maybe centuries. He already owned one great Boston institution, the Red Sox, and now, for a mere $70 million, he’d bought a second.

As he made his way around the room to greet reporters and editors, neither party knew quite what to make of the other. “He was standing, hovering over my desk with an outstretched arm. It was really weird,” one reporter recalls. “Like, ‘Hi, I’m John Henry.’ ‘Oh, hello.’”

“You’re shaking a billionaire’s hand,” says another. “There’s an apprehension to it. Okay, what’s going to happen? We know so little about him.”

 

We know more now, thanks to the Boston magazine piece. For instance, we know this:

[Henry has] decided that it’s time for the Globe to make a move. The prospective sale of the paper’s 16-acre Morrissey Boulevard property, he says, “will provide us with the ability to move into a smaller, more efficient and modern facility in the heart of the city. We believe that there is enough excess value there to fund very important investments in our long-term future, if the community supports development of the property.”

 

As night follows the Daily, today’s Boston Herald jumped right on the story.

John Henry to sell Globe HQ

Moving broadsheet to smaller digs in ‘heart’ of Boston

_AN18577.JPGRed Sox owner John Henry plans to sell The Boston Globe’s headquarters on Morrissey Boulevard and relocate the broadsheet to a smaller facility somewhere “in the heart of” the Hub — but so far he’s made no mention of when the move will happen or what he’ll do with the paper’s printing press operations.

“I’m sure right now there are a lot of people at the Globe wondering what’s going on, but certainly if I were an employee that worked on the printing press I would be concerned,” said Suffolk University journalism chairman Bob Rosenthal.

 

One possibility: a shotgun wedding between the Globe and NESN, which has studios in Watertown.

[Insert don’t-forget-to-tweest graf here]

The decision to sell underlines what many experts have said all along — that the $70 million sale to Henry was mainly a land transaction.

“It is a reminder of how much of the value of the Globe lies in the real estate and physical assets, and how little remains in the financial value of the operating company,” said Nicholas Retsinas, a senior lecturer in real estate at the Harvard Business School.

 

Ouch.

Crosstown at the stately low-cost broadsheet, all’s quiet on the Henry front. We’ll see how long that lasts.

 


What Can the Herald Do for Brown? (Cheap Trick Edition)

February 18, 2014

As Scott Brown (R-Elsewhere) continues to Hamlet a New Hampshire senate race against Jeanne Shaheen (D-Nowhere), the Boston Herald continues to play groupie to Brown’s, well, groupie.

From today’s Inside Track:

Scott Brown plays Trick onstage

Maybe Scott Brown should just ditch the whole politics thing and become a rock star. Because the former U.S. senator — and maybe future candidate 021714brownfor U.S. Senate from New Hampshire — ripped it up onstage with Cheap Trick over the weekend, singing and playing guitar on the band’s big ’78 hit “Surrender.”

“It was a lot of fun,” Brown told the Track. “Great guys. Very talented and gracious. … Looking forward to doing it again.”

 

(Brown also tweeted this out: “Just played guitar with Cheap Trick. It was sooooooo fun.” What is he – twelve years old?)

The frisky local tabloid helpfully provides this video to illustrate just how fun it was:

 

 

The hard(of)hearing staff will be the first to admit that we stopped listening to rock ‘n’ roll right about, oh, Katy Lied. So we’ll refrain from passing musical judgment and just say Brown’s as gifted a musician as he is a policymaker.

Rock on . . . or bqhatevwr.

 


Mitt Romney Is Front (Page) and Center in Boston Dailies

February 17, 2014

Two-time presidential loser Mitt Romney is the Great Mentioner’s main squeeze right now, a regular Page One Pin-up Boy.

Start with this front-page story in Saturday’s Boston Globe (mercifully below the fold).

 

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Money quote:

 “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no,” Romney told The New York Times.

 

But . . . “in recent weeks, a strange thing has happened: Some supporters and donors, pollsters and pundits are starting to suggest — without irony — that the former Massachusetts governor run for president in 2016.”

Romney, not surprisingly, says all the right things in pooh-poohing the possibility he could go for the hat trick, while adding a few Mitticisms along the way that are as awkward as he is.

As the redoubtable Dan Kennedy noted on Facebook:

Mitt Romney on presidential losers: “Mike Dukakis, you know, he can’t get a job mowing lawns. We just brutalize whoever loses.” (http://b.globe.com/1fodGJN) Haw haw haw! Michael Dukakis has been an important part of the Northeastern community for many years. But why let the facts get in the way of a bad joke?

 

Why indeed.

Crosstown, Romney graces the front page of today’s Boston Herald.

 

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The take here is different from the Globe’s, in that the Herald piece operates under the assumption Romney is not a potential 2016 contender.

Mitt Romney — the GOP’s uptight 2012 presidential nominee known for his family-man image and awkward sound bites — just might turn into the Screen Shot 2014-02-17 at 12.35.44 PMRepublican Party’s top 
attack dog in 2016.

“He will be the one who carries the fight and makes the arguments and shows the contrasts,” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire GOP consultant who helped Romney’s 2012 bid. “He fills the void while we are waiting to select a nominee, and he can be a very effective and compelling spokesperson who doesn’t have to be anything but be himself.”

 

Of course, being himself is what made him a two-time loser. But why get technical about it.

 


Boston Herald Finds Its Olgarithm

February 16, 2014

It’s been All Olga All the Time at the feisty local tabloid this weekend as the Boston Herald wages jihad against embattled Department of Children and Families Commissioner Olga Roche.

Start with yesterday’s blowout front page:

 

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Inside there’s double-trouble for Roche. (Inexplicable Little Green Numbers sold separately.)

 

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And, of course, there’s the standard-issue Time to clean house editorial.

Today, on the other hand, Roche is reduced to the top of Page One.

 

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Then again, the DCF commish also gets the traditional His ‘n’ Her columns by Howie Carr and Margery Eagan (they make great parting gifts!), neither of which is especially kind to Roche.

That seems to be the Boston Globe’s department. The stately local broadsheet has barely laid a glove on Roche, as these search results for “Olga Roche” attest:

 

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Where are the editorials? The op-ed columns? Doesn’t anybody at the Globe have an opinion about the dismal state of DCF affairs? We’re not saying the Globeniks should go all Howie on Roche, but damn – something’s in order here, isn’t it?

For the moment, at least, it’s not just Deval Patrick who’s looking disengaged.

 


Why Does Jim Fregosi Get a Boston Globe Obit Before Doug Mohns?

February 16, 2014

From our Free the Doug Mohns One! desk

Saturday’s Boston Globe featured this obituary (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Jim Fregosi, 71, All-Star shortstop and gregarious manager

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Atlanta Braves special assistant Jim Fregosi, a former All-Star shortstop and manager known for his gregarious personality and baseball acumen, died early Friday in a Miami hospital after suffering multiple strokes e15b6f14ff004e52896c10bb4b8ad60f-e15b6f14ff004e52896c10bb4b8ad60f-0four days earlier . . .

After an 18-year playing career that included six All-Star seasons with the Angels, Mr. Fregosi managed parts of 15 seasons in the majors and had a 1,028-1,094 record with the Angels, White Sox, Phillies, and Blue Jays. He guided the Phillies to a 97-65 record and 1993 World Series berth after rallying from a 2-1 deficit to beat the Braves in three straight in the National League Championship Series.

 

Fregosi’s Boston connection?

He received multiple college football scholarship offers but opted to sign with the Red Sox for a $20,000 bonus.

 

Period. Never played for the Sox (although he did affect the 1967 Impossible Dream team in an indirect yet significant way according to ESPN’s Gordon Edes.)

Regardless, how does Fregosi deserve an obit before Boston Bruins stalwart Doug Mohns, whose passing has been resolutely ignored by the Globe (as the hard reading staff has previously noted).

Hey, Globeniks: Do the right thing, yeah?

Give Doug Mohns a proper sendoff.

UPDATE: To his credit, Globe sportswriter Fluto Shinzawa wrote this in today’s  Sunday Hockey Notes column:

Remembering former Bruin Mohns

Doug Mohns last pulled on a Black and Gold jersey in 1964. Half a century later, fans recalled the former Bruin with fondness upon his death Feb. 7. Mohns appeared in 1,390 career games for Boston, Chicago, Minnesota, Atlanta, and Washington. Mohns, who played both up front and on defense, scored 248 goals and 462 assists. In Boston, Mohns had his best season in 1959-60, scoring 20 goals and 25 assists for coach Milt Schmidt. In Chicago, Mohns played on a line with Stan Mikita. Mohns might be best remembered as being an early adopter of the slap shot.

 

Nice, but still not a proper obit.

 


Herald’s Inside Track Revives Lauren Bacall

February 14, 2014

As the hardreading staff previously noted, Wednesday’s Boston Herald had the Inside Track killing off Lauren Bacall prematurely. We also noted that there was no correction in Thursday’s Herald.

But there is one today, at least in the print edition. (We couldn’t find it online.)

Screen Shot 2014-02-14 at 1.12.59 PM

Respeck to Track Gal Gayle Fee. Good to see someone at the feisty local tabloid knows CPR.

P.S. Our original item got Two-Daily Town a nod from the redoubtable Jim Romenesko. Dear Diary . . . 

 


Doug Mohns Nothing to the Boston Globe

February 14, 2014

Splendid reader Bob Gardner sent this comment to Two-Daily Town yesterday in response to our post Lauren Bacall Killed by Boston Herald.

On the other hand, I haven’t been able to find any mention in the Globe today of the death of Doug Mohns. Mohns was one the great Bruins from the 1950′s and “60′s. Mohns was considered to be one of the best Bruin players at that time and (if I remember right) was one of the few players of that era who wore a helmet.
Mohn’s death was reported in the NY Times today but my search of Boston.com turned up nothing. That’s especially ironic, since not only did he play in Boston, but (according to the Times) was a resident of Bedford Mass at the time of his death.

 

New York Times obituary:

Doug Mohns, N.H.L. Player for 22 Seasons, Dies at 80

Doug Mohns, a durable and versatile skater who lasted 22 seasons in the National Hockey League, playing in seven All-Star Games, MOHNS-obit-web-master180died on Friday in Reading, Mass. He was 80.

The cause was myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood and bone marrow disorder, said his wife, Tabor Ansin Mohns.

For most of his career, which extended from 1953 to 1975, Mohns was a stalwart of the old, compact N.H.L. — when there were only six franchises, rivalries were especially intense, no one wore a helmet, and players were intimately acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of players on every other club.

He played 11 seasons for the Boston Bruins . . .

 

As Gardner says, the Globe has essentially ignored the passing of Doug Mohns. Plug his name into the Globe’s search box and you get this (as of midnight Thursday):

 

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The Boston Herald hasn’t done much better. There’s only this mention that was tagged onto the February 9th Bruins Notebook (no link because the Herald is the Bermuda Triangle of search engines).

 

Screen Shot 2014-02-13 at 11.29.04 PM

 

Rest in peace, Doug Mohns.

Just not in the Boston dailies.