It’s my own fault. I know this. Every year I get pulled back in, thinking things will be different and every year they aren’t different. They are exactly the same. I’m not talking about my relationship with the Red Sox, I’m talking about the Boston sports media…specifically the Boston Globe.
It started with the ‘article’ Dan Shaughnessy wrote about a firefighter in Roxbury. The story of the firefighter is wonderful (and not Dan’s. A colleague of his wrote it and Dan basically ripped it off to make a point.) but the reason behind Dan writing about it is not. See, the entire theme of the piece was about how Boston sports fans need to realize that athletes aren’t heroes, firefighters are.
He starts the piece by telling us that we probably missed the article by Christine McConville because we ‘love sports’. So, apparently Dan thinks if you’re a sports fan you don’t pay attention to the rest of the world. He ends it by saying that he’ll remind us of how athletes aren’t fans every so often just so we don’t forget.
We get it Dan. You hate Boston sports fans and think they’re idiots. Big surprise.
I sent Dan an email telling him how I felt about his piece. That he should give fans more credit than that and that his stories are turning into nothing more than sister pieces for Steve Silva’s tripe. He responded by telling me I was full of anger.
A day or so later, Steve Silva’s headline on his ‘blog’ that is ‘a feature of boston.com and not produced by the Boston Globe Sports Department" (yeah, right) was "Fatsuzaka" with the accompanying digs at Daisuke’s weight. (Side note, if Daisuke is considered fat…well, then I now know why there are so many eating disorders in this country!)
I sent a message to boston.com wondering how they could align themselves with such a nasty, hateful and yes, racist person/blog. (Do the math. Silva has ripped on which white players, JD Drew and Keith Foulke? And he’s saved his worst for the minority players. I’m not the first nor the last person to point this out.) The response I got from boston.com was so laughable, I feel the need to share it in its entirety here:
Good Afternoon Cyn:
Thank you for writing to Boston.com. We’re sorry to hear that you don’t enjoy Boston Dirt Dogs, which is intended to offer an alternative look at the Boston sports scene. We have forwarded your comments to our senior management team for review.
If you prefer straightforward news coverage of the Red Sox, you can visit (they actually inserted a link to the boston.com sports page, as if I had only read Dirt Dogs and never went to the ‘real’ sports page before) which includes content from The Boston Globe and is edited in the same manner as the newspaper.
Kind Regards,
Customer Support
Boston.com
As you could probably guess, I’ve heard nothing back from the ‘senior management team’. I called Silva and Dirt Dogs racist in my email to boston.com and their excuse is that it is an ‘alternative look at Boston sports"? Kind of like Tim Hardaway has an ‘alternative’ look at h0mosexuals? (For the love of Mike, mlb censors the word h0mosexual??????)
David Stern had the backbone (much to my surprise) to put a muzzle on Hardaway, but boston.com is so enthralled with being ‘alternative’ that they can’t acknowledge Silva doing more harm than good? Just about everyone in the City of Boston is going out of their way to make the Japanese players feel more welcome in such a foreign atmosphere, and boston.com allows Silva to take this first shot before the season even begins? Not only allows it, but encourages it.
And the malarkey about the sports page at boston.com being "edited in the same manner" as the Boston Globe? Jeez, could that be because it is the same exact content as the Boston Globe? Just because the Globe pretends to not be connected to Silva and DIrt Dogs doesn’t mean anyone is buying it. Anyone who has seen that dirtbag at Fenway and has seen his press pass knows what the deal is.
Oh, and about Dan Shaughnessy? If anyone needs further proof that he hates the fans (and most of the Red Sox as well) read his article today about Manny. There are so many slams against the fans and members of the team I practically lost count.
So, yet again as has happened every season since before 2004, I’ll be avoiding the Boston Globe and boston.com. I’m not encouraging anyone else to do the same. Different strokes for different folks and all. But I refuse to support a newspaper and a website that shows such blatant animosity for the most popular sports team in the city and its fans. And i can’t imagine why any Red Sox fan would waste precious moments of his/her life reading the likes of CHB.
(Photo of the Captain, on his first day at Ft Myers, courtesy of ESPN.com)
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