Tag: Patriots

Of pitchers and Patriots

This Sunday we can finally get that Super Bowl thing over with and start talking about baseball. Spring training’s just a few weeks away. Two quick hits this morning:

  • I’m actually glad that Johan Santana has gone to the Mets, preferring to watch the Red Sox win (or lose) with the kids. As Tom Werner says, at least he’s not going to the Yankees. And I know Pedro’s near the end of his career, but can he handle not being the Man?
  • Roger Clemens’ protestations of innocence don’t add up, but he’s made them so vehemently that I had decided to suspend judgment. But if Andy Pettitte is ready to say Clemens used steroids and human growth hormone, it’s lights out.

Oh, one other thing. Go Pats.

Something happened (II)

No one will ever confuse Media Nation with Patriots Country. I am the most casual of football fans. They’re playing sometime this weekend, right? Uh … the Chargers? OK. I’ll watch the second half. If I’m around. I mean, I want them to win, but this isn’t baseball.

So it’s not fevered fandom that leads me to say the anti-violence group Jane Doe Inc. is all wrong in calling for the Patriots to bench Randy Moss, as Jessica Van Sack reports in today’s Herald. Yes, of course, he’s innocent unless proven guilty. That goes without saying.

But this goes beyond that. The situation involving Moss is truly ambiguous. We have no idea of what really happened, of course. But the version being put out by Moss’ lawyers (Globe coverage here; Herald here) is not implausible. We need to let this play out. And to let Moss play.

Something happened

In the Globe, Christopher Gasper writes that Patriots star receiver Randy Moss says it was “an accident.” In the Herald, Karen Guregian has a little more, reporting that Moss told her his female friend had suffered a “slight injury.” Both papers report Moss’ assertion that he did nothing wrong.

But there’s an allegation of violence against a woman, a restraining order and the certainty that we’re going to learn much more in the days and weeks ahead. Ugh.

Don’t ask, don’t tell

Media Nation regular O-Fish-L passes along a curious item. It seems that Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi was rumored to have died during the past day or so. Mr. Fish writes: “Now I’ve called the Herald, Fox 25 and WEEI to check on this. All three had heard the rumor and quickly dismissed it as false. Someone at Fox told me that Bruschi’s agent asked them not to run a story dispelling the rumor because it might adversely affect the Bruschi children.”

Obviously this was not a particularly outlandish rumor, given Bruschi’s stroke history. Fortunately, he is alive and well.

Anyway, it appears that the first person to make any public mention of this story was Tom Curran, who posted a blog item at NBCSports.com — and Curran whacks the media, writing:

How did it get this far? Well, the answer won’t really drape the journalism industry in glory.

Apparently, an anonymous e-mail to a TV affiliate in Boston came in Monday afternoon saying that Bruschi had gone to Jesus.

Before getting confirmation from the Patriots that Bruschi was (and is) indeed alive, the rumor made its way to other media types putting them on red alert as well. This caused them to start calling every contact they could to find out if tragedy had struck Bruschi and the Patriots again. And they called two friends and so on, and so on.

So reporters aren’t supposed to ask questions? Isn’t that what we do? It would have been disgusting if someone had put out an unconfirmed report that Bruschi had died, but no one did that. And it was Curran, after all, who broke the so-called news that this rumor was circulating.

Mr. Fish adds: “Trust me when I tell you that this one had legs and caused more panic than the ‘Great Blue Hill Volcano’ from April Fools Day many years ago. I heard it from my elderly mother, to a police Lieutenant that I once served with, to a clerk at the corner store. It seems Curran is the only journalist to officially touch the story thus far.”

I can’t imagine why Curran thinks it’s wrong for any journalist to check out a tip, verify that it’s not true and then not report it.

Following Curran, WCVB-TV (Channel 5) confirms Bruschi’s continued status as being among the living.

More: Bruce Allen explains. (Via Universal Hub.)

Head cases

Here’s a little context for Jackie MacMullan’s story in today’s Boston Globe on Ted Johnson, the former Patriots linebacker who’s suffering from depression and other ailments that he blames on repeated concussions during his career.

In August 2004, the Globe’s Gordon Edes checked in with Johnny Damon, who, you might recall, had suffered a concussion in an outfield collision with Damian Jackson and missed two games in the 2003 post-season. Edes wrote:

He is dealing, he said, with some physical aftereffects from that Jackson collision, most notably its impact on his vision. He is sufficiently concerned, he said, that he has an eye exam scheduled and plans to have doctors check out a few other things, too, though he refused to be more specific (“I’d rather not talk about it,” he said).

“I definitely can’t see like I used to,” he said. “When I cover up an eye and try to get a clear vision, it’s not there. At night, at dusk, I definitely have a tough time. It’s something I have to battle with.”

Then there’s this, from Damon’s book, “Idiot”:

While I was on a stretcher being put into an ambulance, I gave a thumbs-up. When they carted me off the field, everyone thought I was okay, but I wasn’t. I’d suffered a bad concussion. My mind was scrambled. I actually thought I was wearing an Oakland uniform and that I was walking off the field waving to the Oakland fans, saying, “Thank you for supporting us this year….”

When we got back to Boston, I went to the team doctor, and he said everything was checking out fine, that I was regaining some of my faculties. But the truth was I wasn’t close to normal — it took me four or five months before I had a clear, vivid picture of what was going on.

Remember, this was after one concussion, and Damon, by all appearances, made a full recovery. By contrast, here’s what Johnson told MacMullan: “Officially, I’ve probably only been listed as having three or four concussions in my career. But the real number is closer to 30, maybe even more. I’ve been dinged so many times I’ve lost count.”

Based on MacMullan’s story, it would seem that Patriots coach Bill Belichick is slated for a mighty uncomfortable off-season. Still, Belichick, by pushing Johnson to play before he was ready, wasn’t doing anything unusual by football standards.

The larger question is what is the NFL going to do about it. The players need to be protected from themselves.