May 19th, 2008 → 9:50 am @ Seth Mnookin
Most of the time, I’m of the feeling there should be a constitutional amendment barring the dissemination of videos online.
I’m going to make an exception, however, because I think this video posted by author Dennis Cass may very well be the funniest piece of book-publishing related satire I have ever seen. It’s also the first piece of advertising, viral or not, that actually made me go out and buy a book…which, by all appearances–manic depression, AADD, writer’s block, and the like–looks to be right up my alley. Anyone who hasn’t been involved at all in the publishing “business” but is in the very least bit curious should check this out. For anyone involved in publishing, this will likely make you spit up your coffee.
Post Categories: Boston Magazine & Dan Shaughnessy & Tom Gordon
May 16th, 2008 → 1:23 pm @ Seth Mnookin
If you live in New England, watch C-Span, tune in to ESPN, or regularly peruse the Internets, there’s no way you avoided the culmination of what’s been portentously referred to, alternately, as Spygate and Videogate. (When did every flap or scandal–no matter how minor–take on the import of the only national crisis of the last century to bring down a president? But I digress.)
Tomase, as everyone now knows, is the Boston Herald reporter who wrote, in a story printed the day before the Pats lost the Superbowl to the Giants, about allegations that someone on the Patriots payroll had taped the Rams’ final walkthrough before Superbowl XXXVI. Before we go any further, let’s review what the story actually said:
One night before the Patriots face the Giants in Super Bowl XLII, new allegations have emerged about a Patriots employee taping the Rams’ final walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI. …
According to a source, a member of the team’s video department filmed the Rams’ final walkthrough before that 2002 game. …
When contacted last night, Patriots vice president of media relations Stacey James said: ‘The coaches have no knowledge of it.’ …
After his state of the NFL press conference yesterday, Goodell was asked if the league’s investigation into the Pats included allegations that they recorded the Rams walkthrough in 2002.
“I’m not aware of that,” Goodell said.
“We have no information on that,” seconded NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. …
According to a source close to the team during the 2001 season, here’s what happened. … According to the source, a member of the team’s video staff stayed behind after attending the team’s walkthrough and filmed St. Louis’ walkthrough. …
Asked yesterday if he believed the Pats used similar films to achieve their three Super Bowl victories, Goodell was adamant. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There was no indication that it benefited them in any of the Super Bowl victories.’
So, to review: the story made clear it was referring to “allegations” from “a source” that was “close to the team.”** Neither the Pats’ PR head nor the NFL issued a categorical denial…and in the ever-evolving dance between reporters and the people they cover, “no knowledge of that,” “not aware of that,” and “no information on that” are all the type of hedges that set off alarms.***
What else do we know? That the Pats did videotape opposing teams in ways that violated NFL rules and regs–repeatedly–even when the opposition was clearly inferior (see: Jets, regular season, 2007) and the game was less than season-changing (ibid).
There are, and should be, real debates concerning Tomase’s story, including: What is the threshold for running controversial stories? When are single sources adequate? When can anonymous sources be used? When is it appropriate to out anonymous sources? Why, with the country facing a possible recession and the armed forces stretched perilously thin, is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee so fixated on a football game that was played more than six years ago?
(There’s also this issue, which I haven’t seen brought up once: what responsibility do other media outlets have in running with controversial stories they’re picking up from another news source, and, crucially, what responsibility do those other outlets have in making the limitations of a story’s sourcing as clear as the original article did?)
John, as he readily admits, screwed up by letting his concern about getting beat on a big story result in misplaced confidence about the story itself. (I’ll argue, as many reporters likely would, that it’s a reporter’s job to get excited about a story and it’s an editor’s job to rein him in when needed, but that’s another topic for another day.) But the vitriol and derision being directed at Tomase is over-the-top. (And getting angry at him or at the Herald is a bad way to displace frustration/anger over the Pats slightly-less-than-perfect season.) He had what he thought was a big story, and he thought he had made the limitations of his story clear in the piece itself. The allegations contained therein logically followed from what was already known. And nobody he interviewed would say, flat out, that the piece was wrong. Both Tomase and the Herald are owning up to the fact that major mistakes were made, and that, in my book anyway, involves taking a deep breath and manning up. I’ve screwed up in my career, and when I do I try to correct those mistakes as quickly and as publicly and as prominently as possible. That’s never fun, and from where I’m sitting, it’s hard not to admire a guy who sucks it up and writes the following:
First and foremost, this is about a writer breaking one of the cardinal rules of journalism. I failed to keep challenging what I had been told. … I take immense pride in what I do and the paper I work for. I truly believe it’s a privilege to serve as a link between the fans and their team. On Feb. 2, I let you all down. Today I hope to begin the long road back.
One final thought: Ironically, at the end of the day, the net result of Tomase’s story is likely positive for the Patriots. The larger storyline–that the Patriots had been caught breaking NFL rules multiple times–has become one about media malfeasance and how the team was unfairly accused of breaking NFL rules on one single occasion.
* Disclaimer: I know Tomase–fairly well, actually. He helped me tremendously during the writing of Feeding the Monster, and he gave me a much-used sandwich press when I got married. The reason I asked him to help me on the book was because of how much I admired his work as a Sox writer for the Eagle Tribune. I especially admired his resourcefulness–it’s hard, as a beat writer required to write game wraps, to also ferret out enterprising stories, which John did–and the way he went forward with a story even when he knew he was going to get the shit kicked out of him, as occurred with an ’05 piece about how frustrated the Sox brass were with Manny.
** We now know, in fact, that there were multiple sources for the story, although none with firsthand knowledge of the taping.
*** Important caveat here: As Tomase explains in his mea culpa, he didn’t give the NFL or the team adequate time to investigate the allegations.
Post Categories: Amy K. Nelson & ESPN The Magazine & Statistics & Super Jews
April 21st, 2008 → 5:12 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Headline on GQ’s May 2008 profile of Robert Downey Jr:
Headline on my profile of Stephen Colbert, which ran in the October 2007 issue of Vanity Fair:
(The GQ story, incidentally, is by Matthew Klam, one of my favorite writers and the author of Sam the Cat, a truly phenomenal collection of short stories. Thankfully, writers have nothing to do with headlines, so I can still rip on GQ for their lame-ass mimicry. Also: the head worked better on the Colbert piece. Suckers.)
Post Categories: GQ & Stephen Colbert & Vanity Fair
April 4th, 2008 → 11:08 am @ Seth Mnookin
Pedro is undoubtedly one of the best pitchers never to throw a no-hitter or a complete game. The story of his 9 perfect innings with the Expos is well-known (he gave up a double to lead off the tenth of the 0-0 game). I didn’t realize that two other near-perfect games started off with hit batsmen: the September 10, 1999 masterpiece (yes, I was there) in which Pedro plunked Chuck Knoblauch to start the game, gave up a right-field Stadium porch HR to Chili Davis in the 3rd, and struck out 17 Yankees while retiring everyone else. (That’s the game Mel Stottlemyre called the best he’d ever seen.) A year later, Petey hit Gerald Williams to lead off a game in Tampa Bay…and proceeded to retire the next 24 batters before John Flaherty squeezed out a single to lead off the ninth. (Here’s some more on that game.)
There is, of course, another odd non-perfect game in Sox history: the June 23, 1917 match in which Babe Ruth walked the leadoff batter, promptly got tossed, and was replaced by Ernie Shore, who went on to retire every batter he faced. (That leadoff walk was wiped out on a double play, so Shore only actually pitched to 26 batters.)
Post Categories: Pedro Martinez & perfect games
April 4th, 2008 → 9:36 am @ Seth Mnookin
Not surprisingly, I’ve gotten lots of emails about the news that Murray Chass might have been nudged out the door at the Times. This would undoubtedly be a good thing for the sportswriting profession, as well as for anyone who regularly reads the Times’ sports section. (Just last week I had lunch with a longtime baseball scribe who said, more or less unprompted, that Chass was the worst sportswriter in the country…maybe ever.)
Chass has long been somewhat of a bete noire for me. I have no independent news about his supposed forced buyout, but if his career is actually done–and unlike Jackie Mac, I can’t imagine anyone bidding for his services–I’ll need to look elsewhere for my morning dose of indignation. And two-bit baseball officials and washed up hardball lifers will need to find someone else to faithfully regurgitate their pablum.
Post Categories: Murray Chass & Sports Reporters
April 3rd, 2008 → 10:13 am @ Seth Mnookin
I’ve had a long, and somewhat complicated history with Pedro. Some of my most joyous baseball memories are the result of his brilliance. (I’ve already gone on too many times about his 17-K performance at Yankee Stadium in September 99…the game that got me escorted out of the ballpark for my own safety.) His 2006 return to Fenway was chill (and tear) inducing. On the other hand, his continued obfuscation during same return was childish, and I’m very happy the Sox aren’t on the hook for his salary. (Among other reasons is this Sunday’s starter.)
My strongest memory, however, won’t be a single memory, but an enduring appreciation of his awesome, impish, love of the game–his childlike enthusiasm, one all the more infectious because it was married to the best right-handed pitcher ever to play the game. That’s what makes his recent injury–and the last several years–so sad. He can still pitch; he’s too smart and too innately talented to completely fall off the table. But he’s frail. And when he’s on the mound he looks, well, old. I want to remember this guy, the one who dominated the 1999 All-Star Game, the guy who looked like a teenager when he got to Boston…not the one being helped off the field for what feels like the 100th time in the past three years.
In that spirit, I give you this full-throated appreciation of Pedro’s majestic 2000 season…which was recently rated as the best single season performance in Red Sox history. Here’s the key graf: “Let me state this unequivocally: Not only did Pedro Martinez in 2000 post the best season by any player in Red Sox history, he posted the best pitching season ever in the history of baseball. His 1.74 ERA, stripped of all context, is still in the top 100. When considering the league-average ERA in 2000 was 5.07, the mind boggles. No hitter has ever bested the league-average OPS by 190 percent – no one’s really ever come close.”
That write up is part of a larger project: the ranking of the top-50 best individual Sox seasons of all time. (Rounding out the top five: Williams ’41, Pedro ’99, Yaz ’67, Cy Young ’01.) The whole thing is worth checking out, and will undoubtedly case plenty of debate. (Like, for instance, the fact that D-Lowe, whose ’02 season comes in at 29, is higher than Papi, whose top season (2006) is ranked 30th.) Enjoy. It should help you keep your mind of what’s been going on with #45 for the last several years.
Post Categories: Pedro Martinez
April 3rd, 2008 → 9:44 am @ Seth Mnookin
Yes, it’s baseball season again. That will, of course, result in more frequent hardball-related posts than I’ve been managing as of late. I’m also going to start an experiment — a semi-regular (and mostly random) collection of other interesting ephemera. This will, at the very least, highlight my oftentimes unhealthy fascination with science.
Without further ado…
I’m currently reading Harvard History of Science professor Anne Harrington’s The Cure Within: A History of Mind Body Medicine. It’s a fantastic book. I’m not going to try to summarize it here. (Jerome Groopman wrote a glowing review in the Times Book Review; also, the Globe recently ran an interesting Q/A with Harrington.) Among the many fascinating issues it raises is the constant tension between “hard” science and the validity/ability of our mind to effect our physiological reactions. One common example of mind/body interplay is the placebo effect. Here’s another: a recent study gives evidence that group stereotypes have concrete (and measurable) results on performance. That’s not as intuitive as you might think…and gives the lie to the notion that behind every stereotype lies a kernel of truth. (It could be that behind every stereotype lies some self-actualizing truth…)
Other interesting links:
Coffee really does make you smarter.
Post Categories: mind/body & science & Uncategorized
