The new sports page

Barring a major development, I’m taking a rest from the Theo wars. But I do want to remind you that, this Sunday, Boston Globe ombudsman Richard Chacón is supposed to weigh in with part two of his take on the business relationship between the New York Times Co. and the Red Sox, and how that affects the Times Co.-owned Globe. Forget the sports section — go straight to the editorial page.

Part one, I thought, showed some guts: Chacón opined that Globe publisher Richard Gilman and president Richard Daniels should give back their World Series rings “to protect the paper’s credibility.” But the larger problem isn’t that Gilman and Daniels accepted the rings — the issue is that they are business associates of the Red Sox, which quite naturally led them to believe there was nothing wrong with taking the jewelry in the first place. This is about high-stakes business ties, not rings.

Mind you, the contretemps of the past week strike me more as having to do with the Globe’s being the dominant newspaper in town than it does with any ownership connection, and with the scrappy Boston Herald’s being in a position to pounce on the Globe’s missteps. Still, what people at the Globe — and the Times Co. — have to realize is that every time something like this happens, critics are going to beat them over the head with the ownership issue.

Silly me — I always thought the real problem would be when the Red Sox tried to move ahead on the business side, putting the squeeze on city and state officials for land and money. The Globe’s perceived interest could potentially become a huge problem in a situation like that, even if the paper’s coverage was properly fair and neutral.

Baseball? Well, that’s just fun and games. Except when it isn’t.