Herald's Massarotti burns down Boston

Kind of late and no thread, so I'll start one -- Tony Mazz just goes off on Boston fans in general.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/patriots/view.bg?articleid=1094171&format=comments&cnum=2

The radio is killing him for it. Now, there is a lot of truth to what he has said. But, is it really smart to offend the very people who read your paper? Now, I hate the Boston sports fan too. If I see another Bruschi Jersey on an adult with his Red Sox hat backwards I am going to get in a fight. Still, these are the people who buy his newspaper.

 

He's right in the abstract -- many (most?) fans have an overly evolved opinion of their ability to analyze their teams and act as if the players are doing them a favor by doing their jobs -- but the ham-handed, juvenile writing obscures the point. Makes you wonder what the defendable point was.

 

However, now was not the day for anyone at the Herald to start calling people out for unprofessionalism.
Not the right day at all.

 

I've said it for the longest time . . . New England fans are not the smartest or brightest . . . they are the most ignorant, rudest and self righteous a-holes in the nation.

 

Timing is unfortunate, but I really don't understand the point. I agree with most of what he said, but why alienate your readers, particularly this week? Knowing the area, the losers wearing Bruschi shirts are also the Herald readers.

This probably would have been better off as a post on here than something appearing in print.

 

Who were the two Patriots players recently arrested for drug possession?

Willie Andrews and ??

 

Wasn't Kevin Faulk arrested for marijuana possession a few months back?

 

Faulk wasn't arrested; he was briefly detained in a holding cell at a concert. A small error, indeed, but given the current circumstances at the Herald, you'd think they wouldn't let something like that slip.

 

Massarotti: "After saying that he wouldn’t know `where else to turn' to continue the investigation, Goodell had the attorney return to the room where he had addressed the media and deliver the following message: Oops, almost forgot to tell you. Walsh didn’t tape the walkthrough, but he says he was there and said he did give information to a Patriots coach. We don’t think it’s terribly important, but we’re in the business of being honest with you guys.
"Whether or not you think it was the Rams’ fault for not kicking Walsh off of the field during their walkthrough, if a reporter buried a lead like that, he wouldn’t be a reporter."

Spare us, Tony. Last I checked, Tomase was still a reporter -- and he committed a crime a lot worse than burying a lead.

 

This would have looked better coming from some place other than the paper that just blew its credibility to hell in the first place.

 

First of all, Tomase's apology wasn't great, but it was certainly sincere and definitely remorseful. I give him credit for that. Maz's explanation about this terrible fiasco? "All together now: It is what it is." Really Tony? Is that all it is?

Next, he pokes fun at media members who have personal relationships with Belichick. But as we all know, Maz wrote a biography about David Ortiz last year. . .yet he also covers the Sox. Isn't that a bit of a conflict of interest?

Then he vehemently (and condescendingly) insults the same readers who buy and read his material everyday, the middle-aged, Bruschi jersey-wearing Patriots fans, the majority of which are regular football fans and not "pathetic and repressed". He also, in very Herald-like fashion, gets a key fact wrong (the number of Patriots arrests this offseason). And that Brian Daboll conversation with Walsh that Arlen Specter is touting? Never happened, according to Daboll, yet Tony presents it like fact, in the third paragraph nonetheless.

Overall, just a horrible, inaccurate, tasteless piece. It's like something Shaugnessy writes during his time of the month just to piss people off. I guess in this day and age you gotta throw an occasional Ann Coulter-esque diatribe out there. May be one of the poorest published writings of the year, as he incoherently defends his co-worker like a frat brother.