Wait – in the course of three days pitching great Pedro Martinez is inducted into the Hall of Fame and has his number retired by the Red Sox, and no one runs an ad in the local dailies congratulating him?
Boston Celtics stalwarts Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett exited the local scene and they got tribute ads in both Boston dailies.
Hell, Mass General tops some tricked-up U.S. News & World Report hospital ranking and it gets a full-page kiss in the stately local broadsheet.
But Pedro Martinez joins the ranks of the immortals and . . . nothing?
Seriously?
Nothing from the Red Sox? The Globe? The Herald? The New York Mets? The Dominican Republic? Nothing from nobody?
According to Joe Dwinell’s piece in Sunday’s Boston Herald, it’s all over but the pouting for the Store 2024 Olympic bid.
Bid at Breaking Point
USOC could vote tomorrow
The USOC will meet tomorrow on Boston’s shaky bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, where one board member told the Herald she won’t be surprised if the 17-day, $4.6 billion plan comes up for a fateful vote.
“We need to know how (Boston) is doing and if the people of the city are interested in hosting the games,” said Anita L. DeFrantz, a member of both the United States Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee.
“We need to get a report. I need to know,” DeFrantz told the Herald yesterday, voicing doubt about support for the games in the Hub . . .
As for speculation Los Angeles is poised to step in if the USOC backs away from Boston, DeFrantz said “L.A. is perpetually ready. It can host with only two years’ notice.”
Yow.
Crosstown at the Boston Sunday Globe, Mark Arsenault’s story was of course more nuanced.
USOC prods Baker, Walsh to help lift Olympic bid
The US Olympic Committee is pressing Governor Charlie Baker and Mayor Martin J. Walsh to put more of their political capital behind Boston’s struggling bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, but neither politician appears ready to satisfy the USOC, according to a person close to the bid process.
With USOC members set to discuss Boston’s status at a board meeting Monday, the standoff raises new questions about the fate of a bid already in peril due to low poll numbers.
USOC members want the popular governor to endorse the bid, the person close to the process said, which could breathe new life and credibility into the city’s effort.
The board is also pressuring Walsh, an Olympic backer, to announce that he will sign the host city contract required by the International Olympic Committee, which would put city taxpayers on the hook if the Games ran short of money or suffered cost overruns, the person said.
Not gonna happen, according to Arsenault’s report.
Yesterday the hardreading staff noted the failure of the Boston Herald to cover – or even acknowledge – the (Not So) Great Boston 2024 Debate sponsored by FOX 25 and the Boston Globe.
Coincidentally, we had also received this note from a splendid reader:
Just a thought: Fox25 used to partner often for debates with the Herald. Not last night. The Herald used to partner with Suffolk to run [David] Paleologos polling. That’s gone.
Why won’t anyone partner with the Herald anymore? Afraid of catching something?
Well, another splendid reader subsequently sent this:
I’d just like to offer a tiny factual correction to your “splendid reader’s” premise that no one partners with the scrappy tabloid anymore for fear of [Herald] cooties. Or maybe Andy Card is a thrill seeker who likes to stare the danger of catching acute Heraldylococcus in the face:
The other cosponsor, FOX 25, showcases viewer reactions on its website. (Video of debate here.)
Other local news outlets also provided debate coverage.
But not the Boston Herald. The hissy local tabloid had only some limp piece about area mayors feeling left out of the process.
Sort of like the Herald.
Coincidentally, we just received this from a splendid reader:
Just a thought: Fox25 used to partner often for debates with the Herald. Not last night. The Herald used to partner with Suffolk to run [David] Paleologos polling. That’s gone.
Why won’t anyone partner with the Herald anymore? Afraid of catching something?
As you splendid readers no doubt already know, Massachusetts General Hospital has topped this year’s U.S. News and World Report rankings after being relegated to second place for the past two years.
Now that Mass General has been restored to its former glory, it’s all over but the touting. Joining in the celebration is this full-page ad in today’s Boston Globe.
Crosstown at the Boston Herald, no love from the Kraft Family. But the Herald did have this quarter-page ad exclusive.
Of course, the Herald is one of the sponsors, so the ad – like the concerts – is free.
Hey, can’t have everything. Or in the case of the thirsty local tabloid, much of anything.
Departing Boston Bruins bruiser Milan Lucic sent a farewell note to Hub hockey fans in today’s Boston Globe.
The Bruins traded Lucic to the Los Angeles Kings last month for backup goaltender Martin Jones, defensive prospect Colin Miller, and the 13th pick in the 2015 draft. According to this piece by Sebastian Noren of Today’s Slapshot, the Kings have big plans for Lucic.
From all the talk that we’ve heard and read since the trade took place, Lucic will join Anze Kopitar and Marian Gaborik on the top line for the Kings. Having a wrecking ball like Lucic (that also has a knack for scoring goals) next to a playmaker of Kopitar’s caliber and a sniper like Gaborik could be a recipe for success.
In his Globe ad, Lucic thanked multiple people for his success here.
But apparently the people of Boston don’t include the Herald’s readers. No ad for the thirsty local tabloid. Again.
It’s tough playing the game shorthanded this much, yeah?
Back story, via the Boston Globe‘s Stephanie Ebbert.
Salesman Brown pursues a weight-loss constituency
It was not the sight of their former senator bare-chested that shocked Scott Brown’s Facebook followers.
They were used to that.
It was the sales pitch accompanying the before-and-after photos of his physique, crediting his recent, dramatic weight loss to a commercial nutrition and fitness plan.
Brown’s testament to the merits of AdvoCare’s “24-day challenge” was met with so many guffaws that within two hours, he posted another note, saying he is not a paid spokesman for the supplement company.
What he didn’t explain is that he’s a salesman.
Except he’s not, according to Brown’s wife Gail Huff.
The wife of former Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Scott Brown leaped to his defense yesterday, saying her husband was never a salesman for a controversial diet program, never intended to sell it and was only listed as a distributor of AdvoCare in order to get a 20 percent discount.
“He was never a salesman, he never made a penny from it,” Gail Huff told the Track. “At no point did he ever suggest anyone ever purchase it. He is not selling diet pills.”
That’s actually correct. Scott Brown is not selling diet pills – he’s selling diet pill distributorships.
At least according to The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi, who got this response when she asked Brown for an interview about AdvoCare.
“Olivia … Thanks for emailing me about your interest in Advocare . . . I am here to help you get started. As you can see from my story and pictures, these products from Advocare really do work.”
Further, Nuzzi wrote:
Brown is offering me the following: “20-40% off products” if I become an AdvoCare distributor; “Nutrition and Fitness guidance to maximize your results”; and “product regimens to help you reach your goals.”
Not to get technical about it, but Nuzzi’s only goal was to expose Scott Brown as a cheap grifter. Which he sorta seems to be.
Exhibit Umpteen:
I asked Brown if he had ever experienced any side effects while taking the product, and he responded, “Not at all I’ve been taking the products with Advocare for 10 years and they have treated me great. Thanks.”
10 years? On Facebook and in his email advertisement, Brown said he had been introduced to the products recently and they are what caused his weight loss.
“Keith has been taking them for 10 years through his baseball career,” Brown said when I told him his response didn’t match the rest of his story. “He turned them on to me a few months ago. Thanks.”
After 19 years as president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Paul Guzzi is stepping down. As a sort of parting gift, he ran this full-page ad in today’s Boston Herald.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe – no ad. Then again, why pay for what the Globe will provide for free. Bottom of today’s Business front:
Top of C2:
Guzzi is moving on the become board chairman at the Citi Performing Arts Center, where he’ll undoubtedly run many more ads in the stately local broadsheet than the thirsty local tabloid.
As you splendid readers might (or probably don’t) remember, the hardreading staff a couple of days ago (people everywhere: please note the of) detailed the advertising efforts of two front groups for energy concerns: one natural gas, the other nuclear power.
Diligent as always, we wrote to both mouthpieces for more information.
As the hardreading staff noted yesterday, the Boston Herald continues to be the wallflower at the local advertising dance.
Except today.
Lo and behold, occupying the entirety of page 9 was this ad, paid for by some outfit called the Coalition to Lower Energy Costs.
Curious as always, we hied ourselves to the group’s website, which says this about the coalition:
The Coalition to Lower Energy Costs is a non-profit Massachusetts association of individual consumers, labor unions, larger energy consumers and institutions concerned about the threat to New England’s families and economy from skyrocketing natural gas and electric prices. The coalition advocates for the new infrastructure we need to give all of us access to an adequate natural gas supply and lower our energy cost. This will require substantial new pipeline capacity, including one new pipeline from western Massachusetts to Dracut.
Huh. We kind of assumed some natural gas companies might be involved. They could, of course, be those “institutions concerned about the threat to New England’s families and economy from skyrocketing natural gas and electric prices” the website mentions. The About Us page doesn’t say.
But WMUR’s redoubtable John DiStaso doesin this piece.
Pro-gas pipeline group makes regional push with new TV ad
Coalition to Lower Energy cost has ties to Kinder Morgan energy firm
MANCHESTER, N.H. —A group with ties to the proponents of the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, proposed by the Kinder Morgan energy company, has begun advertising on WMUR and other television stations in New England.
The Coalition to Lower Energy Costs has purchased time to air an ad 30 times over two weeks on the New Hampshire’s largest television station at a cost of more than $70,000.
Anthony Buxton, a Maine-based attorney who is a leader of the coalition and also represents Kinder Morgan in a Maine Public Utilities Commission proceeding, said plans call for the ad to air for a total of about three weeks on WMUR. He said it will also air on another New Hampshire television station, as well as two Maine stations and “several stations in Boston,” at a total cost of “several hundred thousand dollars.”
Here’s the spot:
So, mystery solved, yes? Well, no. Why run the print ad in the Herald but not the Boston Globe? Intrepid as ever, we’re sending an email to the coalition to ask.
Wanna know something else that’s strange? A different energy group – Nuclear Matters (you can read about them here) – ran this full-page ad 0n A11 in today’s Globe.
But that’s not the strange part. The strange part is the same ad ran on A13.
Huh? We’re sending them an email too.
P.S. The Nuclear Matters ad also ran in the Herald. Good day for the firsty local tabloid, eh?
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It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 