If you're an NFL fan, here are 50 sportswriters that you simply must follow on Twitter. When Will McDonough, Bob Ryan, and Peter Gammons began showing up on TV, they evolved from working writers into celebrities. Now there was a stylist. No question is stupid or ridiculous to him, and you can tell he truly loves the NFL and what he does. Meanwhile, sports talk radio station WEEI has stuck with many of the same hosts theyve had since the 90s, like Callahan, John Dennis, Glenn Ordway, and even Mike Adams. Will McDonough and I flew with the team and often played racquetball with the players. We won, but you didnt lose, Steinbrenner told the Boston players. Wouldnt be able to do that today. Dan Kadar is a rather underrated individual on Twitter. While Brian McCarthy isn't technically a sportswriter, he definitely acts like one on Twitter. a lot of your list were beat writers and not columnists. The examples and perspective in this article, Last edited on 10 November 2022, at 21:30, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "James Jerpe Dies; Well-Known Writer; Friend of Sportsmen, Firemen Passes Away", "Bears just can't seem to win with Jimmy or Jay", "Author seeks to link three Belleville murders", "Guillen's validation sealed with a kiss", "Red Fisher: Remembering great friend and Haps legend Dickie Moore, dead at age 84", "Mariano makes it interesting, but isn't it always? I had the pleasure of reading him for a couple of decades. Jason La Canfora is as honest as they come as a writer and he doesn't lose any of that honesty on Twitter. I have little patience, however, for those overtly displaying hostility towards numbers or the sabermetric side of the game. If you've ever got a question about the NFL, send it over to him and he'll likely reply with the answer you are looking for. New York ran the score to 5-2, but the Sox clawed to within a run by the ninth. Like his more experienced colleagues, has not actively embraced statistical analysis although he has not taken a line against them, either. National writers (Law, Olney, etc) are excluded from this ranking, though I may do a similar national list at a later date. Ill use that feedback to compile another list, from which well vote on the all-time best. Mr. Allens rapier wit has obviously eluded you for a brief moment. But thats probably as it should be, and the relevant point is that hes not afraid of numbers, or of learning more about them. He's easily their top analyst, even though the information he gives seems a little far off at times. If your favorite team is in the NFC West, and you aren't following Mike Sando, you may be clinically insane. All of which is fine, and none of which is my concern: it would be absurd to suggest that because Abraham took a new job, he should sever all ties from his years on the Mets and Yankees beats. But when Adam Vinatieri booted a field goal as time expired, our citys sports landscape shifted permanently. Tears, my friend. Peter Gammons. And hes certainly competent at doing so. After the game, George Steinbrenner appeared in the Red Sox clubhouse. McAdam was perhaps the most strident critic, at one point calling Okajima cowardly. The obvious question is whether this needs to be reported. Another Pulitzer winner with New England ties is Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein, who won for commentary. Craig Ellenport has been around the NFL for a long time. We all love rumors about the NFL, and who to better bring them to you than the rumor central for media giant ESPN. For the second consecutive year, Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy submits a Hall of Fame ballot with only Jeff Kent marked, ignoring David Ortiz. In it, he leverages his strengths well. He wouldnt vote for Felix Hernandez this year because he believes that wins still matter. Which might be fair if Hernandez team score more than two and a half runs for him per game, but they didnt. The best part about following Trotter is the information he gets straight from NFL players. You have to not give a shit about ultimately looking like an idiot or saying a lot of things that you regret.. Differentiated content within the local market. The 2004 Red Sox never lost another game. Im not naive enough to expect something erudite and grounded to ever sell well on a volume basis; Mencken, better than any of us perhaps, understood this. He spent the beginning of his career actually working for NFL teams and has since turned back to writing about them. Bill Simmons, the ESPN media mogul and star columnist, has often complained that he never felt like he, or any young, aspiring writer, had a fair chance to break into covering Boston sports. It set the stage for Kevin Garnetts (pictured) Anything is possible! yell after winning the Celtics first title since 1986. Former WEEI host and current Barstool Sports podcaster Kirk Minihane caught Boston Globe metro beat writer and longtime tough guy Kevin Cullen fabricating sources and lying about his . Massarotti, however, is less than grounded by facts. I meant that some of YOU (meaning the readers) might not think he deserves to be considered. Ater he retired joe became an official score keeper at Fenway.__My other choices are Timmy Horgan, Peter Gammons and Joe Fitzgerald. Having met him, I mistook him as a hoop centric guy, but he quickly correctly me, and said Beisbol been berry berry good to me. The better part of that story, is that we were both sharing a beer. Dave Cowens was renowned for his intensity, but he played with particular passion in Game 7 of the 1974 NBA Finals versus the Milwaukee Bucks because he felt he had let his team down with a 5-for-19 showing in a losing Game 6. If thats what you like reading, enjoy. Could this get any easier? Shaughnessy wrote. Granted, some promising young guys coming up in new mediums, but the shoes are very large to fill. How about John Gilloly(sp) or Huck Finnegan or Bob Coyne (cartoonist). One single writer and the subtle, self-contained perfection of the game itself, of course was all it took to turn a rooting interest into a lifetime of obsession. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. He knows players, people and teams and whether they'll fit together nicely or not. But Bostons defense limited the Lakers to 33 points in the second half and they took a 3-1 lead. The following is a partial list of sports writers. Were in agreement. As reported by the New York Times, the Globe's political writer, Robert L. Healy, and Jack Driscoll, the editor of The Evening Globe, recruited Mr. Barnicle to write a column. Those were the best of a very good lot. Later that week, the New-Hampshire-based sports-media critic Bruce Allen summed up the entire episode. However, if you ever need to know the inside and outs of the draft, look to Kiper to provide some quality information. As for numbers, Abraham will use them, but perhaps not to the extent he should: his dismissal of Miguel Cabreras value, for example, was curious. Ill also have a prize for a random commenter in this list, but I havent picked out what it will be yet. It seemed that he never was in the paper as often as Id like,which is the ultimate compliment. Miserable for more than a decade, they were thought of as somewhere between laughable and preposterous. It was a moment. He was football coach at CM for 19 years and although his '72 team lost to Swampscott High, they rebounded to win Division 2 titles in 1973 and 1978. . I loved to read him, and wasted a lot of time perusing the wire for any of his columns that I had missed. What more could you ask? Its bad enough that media outlets still overpaginate their content in an attempt to articifically inflate viewership metrics, but when the payoff for that click is a few words, well, you become the definition of a poor customer experience. But sad to say, the quality of the current scribes is uneven. Cheesy to reply to your own message, but for Ryans most emblematic column, Id pick I-saiah. She's covered the New England Patriots, the Boston Celtics. And while hes not in the camp attacking statistics, neither has he embraced them the way that peers like Speier have. As the public relations man for the NFL, McCarthy is an elite source for the most secretive information. A grave injustice. The mood on Main Street outside the Lake Placid arena that afternoon in 1980 was defiant, almost militant. His pen dripped blood, more often than not Ted Williams blood. He was the first Boston sports columnist that I truely adored, and the Globe has been the same since he left. He knows everything there is to know about the Giants and tweets about them constantly. In case it wasnt already apparent, this is a focus on Boston market writers. We got beat, he told me. Don't believe me? 1) Ray Fitz. Weaknesses: Undifferentiated in the marketplace, and likely to lack the resources of more aggressive and committed outlets moving forward. I found this out when my mom tweeted the other day that it was time to clean up my room before dinner. Some sportswriters just cover the draft or just cover the games, but Brooks can literally do it all. Loved the fact that he could really master the but, after all, its just a game air without getting pompous about it (Hello to the Toy Department referencers out there!). There is willful mediocrity alongside innovative brilliance, with the inevitable faux-populist vitriol bubbling to the surface every so often. Weaknesses: Doesnt stand out in a crowded market place, lacks a clear niche advantage versus the competition. He has a fantastic sense of humor and is fearless about taking shots at whoever deserves it. The first two rounds were a slog, with Boston struggling to win each in seven games against the Hawks and the LeBron James-led Cavaliers, respectively. He also loves his mom, which is a great thing. McAdam and several of his colleagues publicly called him out on this behavior, justifying their actions with claims that it was affecting Okajimas teammates. Bud Collins makes whatever he writes about interesting, regardless of whether it would be interesting outside his column. Strengths: Perfectly embodies and argues the voice of the angry talk show caller. He's honest and stays true to his opinions. They are often rude, crude and way out in left field. This isnt to say that this was the case with McAdam, but the context here is important: fans by and large do not care nearly as much about players not talking to the media as the media do, for obvious reasons. Priority on this list, with a few exceptions, is given to writers focused exlusively on the Red Sox. It was inside baseball before there was inside baseball: the behind the scenes of major trades, the trends shaping the game, insights on players never before even whispered. He was 62. The Hall of Fame tennis writer and TV commentator Bud Collins, who helped popularise the sport during his decades-long career, died at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts on Friday after a long. Im 56 so that explains why I pick Roberts. Piniella later said, I went to where I guessed the ball would go off the bat.. The US hockey team was about to play the Soviet Union in the Olympics but their countrymen seemed ready to go to war. It's a great way to keep up with all the major NFL commentators just by simply following Silva. Roberts stole second on a close call, scored on a single by Bill Mueller, and the Sox won it in 12 on a David Ortiz homer. In the playoffs against Oakland, the Patriots famously got robbed (at least according to anyone with Boston blood) when Sugar Bear Hamilton was called for roughing the passer. His property, Boston.com, is amongst the most egregious abusers of pop-under advertisements of any property on the web. You know that this man is obsessive about fantasy football because he's already starting to put out fantasy mock drafts one week after the Super Bowl. Reporters will almost universally argue that it does, but what they typically dont address is how much of the need to report it is driven by frustration with or dislike for the player at issue. More perhaps than any of the other writers on this list, Abraham gets the difference in tone between traditional outlets and blogs. Hes better than that, I believe, regardless of what Okajima did or did not do. It doesn't get much better in sports writing than Peter King. it was the best. While Ralph Mancini specializes in NFL draft coverage, he still has a great sense of the league as a whole. The first is that he knows what he is talking about. They called him. Was this review helpful? The picks were not the real attraction. He loves the game of football and has a great sense of humor. Send me an email. The player-media relationship was much more relaxed back then. How did Hagerty make this list? Hasnt really added modern statistics to his arsenal. Man dead in Oxford after family dispute - The Boston Globe Man dead in Oxford after family dispute By Ava Sasani Globe Correspondent, Updated March 27, 2022, 5:45 p. Four people were killed and seven injured in a shooting Tuesday afternoon at Oxford High School in Oakland County, roughly 45 minutes northwest of Detroit. June 24, 2021 at 11:36 a. And Horgan was terrific. Tony Massarottis defection set it back, as did Sean McAdams abbreviated stint and subsequent departure for CSNNE. There had been four previous winners from the Boston chapter of the BBWAA: Peter Gammons,. In 2007, the year in which Sabathia won the Cy Young, Cafardo gave him a fourth place vote, with Beckett getting the nod for #1. Bob Ryan is the standard bearer but Peter Gammons, Will McDonough and Dan Shauhnessy are soooo ever so close as well it's a tough call. There are two things that I really like about Evan Silva on Twitter. The Boston Globe. I fondly remember the Will McDounough Sunday column. The Boston Globe, New England's largest newspaper, has a habit of hiring journalists who fabricate information, misrepresent sources, or plagiarize writing. One thing worth noting that Ive always appreciated from Edes has been his respect for the privacy of the players. Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe had his moment Saturday as the 67th winner of the Spink Award. The players, who called him "Scoop," alternately respected and resented the Boston Globe writer. #ada-button-frame { The playoff run was tougher than the teams 66 regular-season wins might have suggested. Always. Too many media members, both locally and nationally, are doing things simply because thats the way theyve always been done. The mood on Main Street outside the Lake Placid arena that afternoon in 1980 was defiant, almost militant. My list of those inducted on the first ballot would match yours Montville, Fitzgerald, Ryan. Change). Quotes were the chief information-dispensing device of other NBA writers. 8 Frank DeFord - Sports Illustrated. It sounds absurd looking back, it was! He was that good. (LogOut/ That type of information is priceless to true NFL fans. As a Boston Globe staff writer for almost 20 years, Shira reported on all four major Boston professional teams, the NBA Finals, the World Series, the Olympics and the Boston Marathon. Gammons and McDonough were reporters to me, not columnists.