Charles Pierce's Blog

While I'm trying to catch up with life after my trip to eastern Pennsylvania (My rule of thumb is that it takes two days for every day I am away to get back to where I was when I left) you should check out Charles Pierce's sports blog at The Boston Globe.

For Rangers Fans

The Red Sox will be playing host to the Texas Rangers this weekend as something of an amuse bouche before the Yankees come to town. I thought my readers who are Rangers fans (and I know there are a few of you) would enjoy this gem from today's offering from Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy:

The Rangers are leading the West and the Sox will get a look at them at Fenway this weekend. But it's hard to take Texas seriously. The Rangers are the only team in major league baseball to never win a playoff series. They will tank. Sooner or later. Always do.

Now, I do take the Rangers seriously. They have a very good young ballclub. For the first time, well, maybe ever, they have pitching to go along with hitting. And I need the Red Sox to win eacch of the three series the teams play this year -- never mind a possible playoff matchup -- if only not to hear it from my students (yes, Cannon and Jeremy, I'm thinking of you in particular).

Quick Hits

Because dcat readers cannot live solely on a diet of Keele Diaries, here are a few links with brief commentary:

Eugene Robinson takes on the very real and deeply disturbing possibility that The New York Times Co. might shutter The Boston Globe. He uses words such as "pimp" and "cannibalism" to describe the Times' behavior. It is hard to disagree with him.

At Salon Glenn Greenwald goes after Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic for what Greenwald (to my mind rightfully) calls Rosen's "smear" of potential Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Rosen basically relies on little more than anonymous sources to attack Sotomayor's intellectual abilities. long-time readers know my view on journalistic use of anonymous sources, especially when those sources are used simply to grind an ax or pursue an agenda. It is one thing to protect a source who would otherwise be in legitimate danger and whose evidence is essential to the telling of a story. It is quite another to rely on anonymous sources to provide the only evidence you have to accuse someone of being dumb, sloppy, or both.

Finally, Jonathan Chait at The New Republic asks what happened to conservatives cherishing the rule of law? It was vital when it came to pursuing Bill Clinton for lying about his infidelities. Apparently it is less important when it comes to the rather more significant matter of engaging in torture. I am not sure where I stand on pursuing convictions. It seems to run the risk of guaranteeing future tit-for-tat. At the same time, should being in a presidential administration automatically grant one carte blanche for what are, not to put too fine a point on it, human rights violations?

Losing the Globe?

I grew up reading The Boston Globe. Or at least I grew up during my formative newspaper years -- from junior high onward, when my stepfather came into the picture and brought the paper home early every morning from his pre-work coffee run, thus broadening my horizons each morning from the tiny and provincial local newspapers that graced Newport, New Hampshire -- reading the Globe. I placed particular emphasis in those early years on the Globe sports section, which was hands down the best in the country.

So it is with fear and trepidation that I read this morning that the Globe's corporate overlord, The New York Times Company, is demanding $20 million in concessions from the myriad unions that serve in production and distribution of the Globe or else shuttering the paper is a very real possibility. Some of these concessions are surely necessary. But I cannot help but think that at least some represent an attempt to squeeze labor during difficult times knowing full well that if things do return to something resmebling prosperity, the workers will not get back what they give up.

The loss of the Globe would feel like a personal tragedy, but also would represent the most significant newspaper loss so far. Maybe the era of the newspaper, so seemingly permanent for so long, really is ending. Maybe in ten years we really will get all of our news from the internet, and that those newspapers that do survive will do so in a solely or primarily web-based form. But I hope not. The web offers many things that atraditional newspaper cannot, but so too does the paper-and-ink version offer pleasures that even the most user-friendly technology cannot replicate. I am crossing my fingers that the Globe will emerge from this current crisis.

On Newspapers

I represent one of those dying cultural anachronisms. I still value, no, cherish, the newspaper. I read a number of newspapers online, and get the vast majority of the information I consume on the internet, to be sure. But I still value the daily newspaper, whether it is the Odessa American delivered to my door every morning, The New York Times delivered on Sunday, the San Antonio Express-News when we are down there, or the ritual of making sure to grab the local paper when I am traveling, unless it comes to the door of a hotel room, which is always a nice surprise.

I grew up reading my local paper and The Boston Globe that my stepfather picked up every day. Without descending into cliche, I love the tactile, tangible element of the daily paper, and I do believe that there are things you catch while reading through the newspaper that you do not when browsing the handy headlines and choosing what to click on when it arrives in your email inbox.

But we keep hearing that the newspaper is dead, and all signs certainly point that way. I hope something happens to salvage the print newspaper, but within a generation I would guess that the daily paper will be greatly diminished, if not an entirely defunct species. In the latest New Yorker, Harvard historian Jill Lepore (whose regular work there is fantastic) has an article on early American newspapers in which a subtext is that the medium's very survival was always in question. The goal may be to reassure, though the realities of this market are rather different from the colonial and early national era. It may not be entirely reassuring, but her piece will at least remind you of the resilience of the daily (or weekly) printed word.

The Greatest of All Time?

At The Boston Globe Jim McCabe, using the current Patriots as a springboard, explores the futility of figuring out which team is the "greatest of all time" but also acknowledges that the very futility of it may be what makes such arguments so enduring and alluring.

The next week is destined to pass slowly. The NFL does itself, and more importantly its fans, a disservice by having the off week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. There is no real reason why this game should not be going on today, though if Tom Brady's ankle really is injured, pats fans are thankful for the respite. Nonetheless, it feels as if the league has killed some of its own carefully cultivated momentum.

Big Papi for MVP?

At The Boston Globe Jason Tuouhey argues that not only did David Ortiz have a much better season than people realize, he also deserves MVP consideration over Alex Rodriguez, who is practically preordained to receive the award unanimously, or nearly so, when voting is announced on Monday. Every year the discussion ensues as to what the Most Valuable Player award actually means. That is to say, how do we define "valuable"? I'm not certain I buy Tuouhey's argument, but he makes a much better case than I expected that he would when I first started reading his piece.

But one aspect I find interesting is that i simply do not care about the postseason awards now. For years, the award season was all that Red Sox fans had to salvage a season that went awry sometime between June and late October. Now? Let Sabbathia win thew Cy Young Award over Josh Beckett. Anyone who watched the postseason knows who is the better pitcher. Let Eric Wedge win Manager of the Year. We have Terry Francona, the only manager ever to win his first five World Series games as a manager (he is at eight and counting). I hope ARod enjoys his MVP award (and his new contract. Way to take a tough stand, Hank Steinbrenner. Punk.). Big Papi will just have to wait to size his second World Series winners ring.

Glory Days

Not only are Boston sports teams on a four-week streak of making the cover of Sports Illustrated, since October 1 Boston teams have graced the cover six times if you include the World Series commemorative dition (which, incidentally, I do).

A's for the C's

At The Boston Globe Jackie MacMullen and Bob Ryan (does any newspaper in America have a better 1-2 punch when it comes to basketball?) are effusive about the Celtics' 103-83 victory over the Wizards last night. It has been more than two decades since the C's last one a championship for the overcrowded rafters in the Garden (version 2.0). Adding an unprecedented 17th title suddenly does not seem a distant dream.

How Garnett Was Won

At the Boston Globe, Shira Springer has the inside scoop on the process that got Kevin Garnett from Minnesota into the #5 Celtics jersey and back to relevance again. Here is an excerpt:

But the smiles and joke-filled comments at the news conference belied the weeks of careful negotiations, constant cross-country calls, and convincing that resulted in the blockbuster trade. The final 72 hours may have been a whirlwind for Garnett, but the preceding six weeks were a study in the ups and downs, starts and stops of deal-making in the NBA. In recent days, league and team sources -- as well as people close to Garnett -- described the events leading to one of the biggest acquisitions in Celtics history.

The key factor was Garnett's change of heart about Boston, but in between the week leading up to the draft and the culmination of the trade last week came a whole slew of machinations. Springer does a good job of providing some insight into how the behind-the-scenes world of the NBA (and professional sports generally) operate when a major transactiopn is on the boards.

Only In Boston

Boston, it has been said, has two overriding passions: Politics and the Red Sox. Not always in that order. And so perhaps only in Boston could the biggest daily newspaper -- and one of the most respected in the land -- use a quotation from a relief pitcher as an object lesson for politicians. In an editorial titled "Okajima's Civilizing Influence," a Boston Globe uses a quotation from Japanese import Hideki Okajima, who just received the fans' vote for the final American League All Star spot, as a springboard to wish for greater humility from our political leadership.

Upon winning an Internet election for the 32 d and last spot on the American League All-Star team, Red Sox rookie reliever Hideki Okajima, speaking through a translator, said he is "still the hero in the shadow." The pitcher who received 4.4 million online votes insisted that the real hero -- the teammate casting that shadow -- is his younger compatriot, Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Much has been said and written about the lessons these two hurlers from Japan have had to learn about playing ball in the Majors and about American mores. But if Okajima's modesty may be considered as much a cultural quality as a personal trait, then it seems obvious that many Americans in the limelight -- and not merely that special breed, the millionaire athlete -- could stand to learn a thing or two from the gracious Okajima.

The possibilities seem endless. Imagine Hillary Clinton winning an early primary and saying she is still "a hero in the shadow of the greater hero," Bill Clinton. Like Okajima's bow to Matsuzaka, such a Japanese-style gesture from Hillary would derive its virtue from the widespread belief that it is true.

The editorial goes on from there, including speculation that an Okajimesque hunility might benefit Randy Moss as he tried to learn the Patriot Way. Is it a stretch? Absolutely. Does it make me love Boston all that much more? It sure does.

The Bob Ryan Blog

Bob Ryan, doyen of The Boston Globe's sports writers (and arguably the best sportswriter active today) now has a blog. Consider yourself dcat blogrolled, Mr. Ryan.

Larry Whiteside, RIP

Longtime Boston Globe baseball scribe Larry Whiteside passed away yesterday. He was 69. Dan Shaughnessy has a touching tribute to a first-rate baseball beat-man who also was a vital influence for a generation of African American sportswriters. I grew up reading Larry Whiteside's work on the Red Sox during the Golden Age of the Globe sports section when it was so far and away the best in America that there was no viable second place. Just off the top of my head I can recall that the paper had Whiteside, Peter Gammons, Nick Cafardo, Dan Shaughnessy when he had his fastball, Will McDonough, Ron Borges, Peter May, Jackie MacMullen, Bob Ryan, Bud Collins, Kevin Paul DuPont, Leigh Montville, Joe Giuliotti, Ray Fitzgerald, and Clif Keane writing regularly. I'm sure I'm missing several others who had national reputations. Some of them still write for the Globe, but I'm not sure that any American newspaper will ever be able to have that sort of staff again. Whiteside came from another era. He will be sorely missed.