Asshole Of The Week: The Boston Herald

Welcome to Asshole Of The Week, where every Friday your trusty Foul Balls editor picks out the one person from the previous seven days who makes him think, "Man, what an asshole." It could be anybody from an athlete, an owner, someone in the media, or just anybody who happens to catch my ire.

Another first in the short history of Asshole Of The Week here on Foul Balls: instead of naming a person as the Asshole Of The Week, I'm naming an entire newspaper. Or at least their sports department.

Though, if this week's honor were to be bestowed upon one individual, that individual would be John Tomase. Who the hell is John Tomase, and why should you care? Well, Christ, give me a minute and I'll tell you. Have some god damn patience.

Tomase is the New England Patriots beat reporter for The Boston Herald, and he's also the guy who wrote the original story (which I would link to, but the Herald charges you for that type of thing) that the Patriots had taped the St. Louis Rams walk-through prior to Super Bowl XXXVI. His story led to a year's worth of "Spygate."

Before I get into what Tomase did, though, I want to just say how happy I am that the NFL has finally put this entire Spygate debacle to bed.

There has never been a bigger non-story to get so much coverage. A professional sports team trying to gain a competitive advantage over another professional sports team!? Oh, the humanity!

But since this story involved the New England Patriots - and ESPN loves the Patriots and runs the world - we were all forced to deal with it.

So when Roger Goodell came out and said that there was no tape, I was relieved. Though it did beg the question, if there's no tape, then why was the Herald running stories saying there was?

The complex (read: fake) answer is one that has to do with an inferiority complex reporter Tomase has suffered since early childhood, when he was always picked last in pick-up games at the park and in local canasta tournaments with his grandmother (she wanted John's older, smarter, and better looking brother Joe).

The simple answer is, they were wrong, and they finally apologized for it on Wednesday.

On Feb. 2, 2008, the Boston Herald reported that a member of the New England Patriots’ video staff taped the St. Louis Rams’ walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI. While the Boston Herald based its Feb. 2, 2008, report on sources that it believed to be credible, we now know that this report was false, and that no tape of the walkthrough ever existed.

Prior to the publication of its Feb. 2, 2008, article, the Boston Herald neither possessed nor viewed a tape of the Rams’ walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, nor did we speak to anyone who had. We should not have published the allegation in the absence of firmer verification

The Boston Herald regrets the damage done to the team by publication of the allegation, and sincerely apologizes to its readers and to the New England Patriots’ owners, players, employees and fans for our error.

What's that? Did a major newspaper just admit to running with a story it really had no real reason to believe was true? Did it just publish something in hopes of selling papers?

I thought publishing poorly researched, incorrect stories is something only bloggers do. Now I find out that the mainstream media do it too, and...well....I...

My world has been turned upside down. I don't know what to think anymore.

Thankfully for everyone involved, major newspapers only fire their writers for swearing on web sites that aren't affiliated with the paper. If you make up stories, your job is secure.

This, from the Herald's Editor in Chief, Kevin Convey:

"Nevertheless, I continue to stand behind the work of the Herald sports department and John Tomase, a talented journalist who has dealt with this difficult matter professionally while continuing to do his job under intense pressure.

In the end, as editor in chief of the Herald, I take full responsibility for the publication of this story, and I offer my own apology to our readers and our staff.

In tomorrow’s Herald, you’ll hear from John Tomase directly. And I hope that you’ll see, as our coverage of this story and others goes forward, that our dedication to accuracy remains unchanged, and that our first priority will always be maintaining that bond of trust with our readers."

Yes, maintain that bond of trust which you just admitted to breaking. It's always nice to see newspapers holding themselves accountable to the standards they seemingly only set for others.

So, Boston Herald, for forcing me to have to hear about Spygate for so long, then finding out the article your paper published that started the whole thing was bogus, and finishing up by not even firing the bastard who started it, you're the Asshole Of The Week.

Enjoy it while you can. The rest of us irresponsible publishers are coming for you.

Asshole Of The Week: Joe Mauer

Welcome to Asshole Of The Week, where every Friday your trusty Foul Balls editor picks out the one person from the previous seven days who makes him think, "Man, what an asshole." It could be anybody from an athlete, an owner, someone in the media, or just anybody who happens to catch my ire.

This week's winner of the Asshole Of The Week wasn't as easy for me to figure out as it has been in the first three week's of its conception. There wasn't that one person who really stood out to me this week.

For a while I thought about giving it to PETA for their reactions to Eight Belles dying at last week's Kentucky Derby. The only problem with that was then I'd have to pretend I really cared about horse racing, and I don't.

I also thought about giving it to Carol Slezak, but really, Panger is far more qualified to handle that situation than I am.

There was even some thought as to giving it to both Jay Mariotti and Rick Telander for their columns about Cedric Benson, and how the team should just cut him now immediately, even though the entire story hadn't surfaced yet. Just because he's not that good at football doesn't mean we should deny him a chance to prove his innocence first.

I decided against it though because I've given the Sun-Times enough grief this week, and really, giving Jay Mariotti an AOTW would be redundant. He's already the Asshole Of Every Day.

So, after much deliberating, in the end I had to go ahead and give it to Twins catcher Joe Mauer. After all, it was Mauer who broke up Gavin Floyd's second no-hit bid of the season with a one-out double in the 9th inning. Of course, there's a problem with giving Mauer the AOTW as well.

By all accounts, Joe Mauer is a nice guy and I've never read or heard a story saying otherwise. Plus, you can't really blame him for hitting that double. It is his job after all, and I don't think there are many players in baseball who want to be on a team that gets no-hit.

Still, it ruined my night. And I deserved that night too.

I've spent the last few years being tortured by sports teams in Chicago. As has been chronicled here at Foul Balls during the time, ever since the Bears lost Super Bowl XLI things have gone to shit around here. The Bears suck, the Bulls suck, the Sox sucked last season, and even though the Blackhawks improved, they still didn't make the playoffs. The only team that's had any success is the Cubs, and for obvious reasons, that doesn't exactly thrill me. Though even if it did, they still got swept right out of the playoffs.

When it hasn't been the teams themselves sucking, it's been off the field crap. Tank Johnson, Lance Briggs' car ride and contract situation, Brian Urlacher's family life and now his contract situation.

Ben Wallace's bad attitude, and Chris Duhon's partying.

Ozzie's mouth (actually, that's entertaining, but hearing the moaning about it gets annoying).

Sam Zell.

Even Benny the Bull is getting in on the act, if not spearheading it, with his reign of terror upon Chicagoland.

Everything in this city has just had a negative undertone when it comes to sports. So when I have an opportunity to take joy in something like a no-hitter, I don't take it for granted. It's the type of moment that helps a fan get through trying times like these, much like Mark Buehrle's no-hitter last season, or a Devin Hester touchdown return.

You took that moment away from me on Tuesday night, Mauer, and I don't appreciate it. And what did you accomplish by doing so? You still lost the game, but I lost happiness. You were going to lose anyway, why did you feel the need to rob that from me and other White Sox fans?

You're a sick and evil man, Joe Mauer, and you should be ashamed of yourself, but you aren't. No, when I look into your eyes, I don't see remorse. I see nothing. A cold, dark heart that has no feelings for anything but singles the other way and neatly trimmed sideburns.

Look into the eyes of a soulless man

And that, Joe Mauer, is why you're the Asshole Of The Week.

Asshole Of The Week: Buzz Bissinger

Welcome to Asshole Of The Week, where every Friday your trusty Foul Balls editor picks out the one person from the previous seven days who makes him think, "Man, what an asshole." It could be anybody from an athlete, an owner, someone in the media, or just anybody who happens to catch my ire.

This week's Asshole Of The Week is none other than author Buzz Bissinger.

Shocking, I know. For the last few days the entire sports blogosphere has been ablaze with the story about Bissinger's tirade against Deadspin's Will Leitch and sports blogs everywhere on HBO's Costas Now. (If you haven't seen it yet, go here.)

Now, I hadn't seen the show until yesterday but had been reading about it everywhere, and going off what I read on other blogs, I was expecting Bissinger to turn green, quadruple in size, and rip Will's head off before defecating down his exposed throat.

After seeing it, I think my fellow bloggers were overreacting a bit. Don't get me wrong, Buzz did act like jackass (see below), but I think the anger many expressed stems primarily from protective feelings towards blogging and Will Leitch. Let's face it, a lot of the readers of Deadspin are sycophants worshipping at the altar that is Will, and when their savior is questioned, they respond in such a manner.

I don't intend that as an insult, because I'm a huge fan of Leitch's writing myself, and having downed beers with him and heard him sing karaoke in the real world, I'm an even bigger fan of him as a person. When Bissinger accuses Will of being "full of shit," he couldn't be more wrong. Will is as genuine a person as I've ever met, and trust me, what you see is what you get.

On to the matter at hand, Bissinger did make one or two valid points. For example, when Buzz started talking about Will posting pictures of Matt Leinart partying at his house with some girls during the offseason, and questioned what exactly makes it news, I agreed with him. I don't think it's really news, either. It's just unfortunate he offered his opinion in such a maniacal manner, an approach that makes it too easy to dismiss him as a has-been scribe terrified that he and others of his ilk are becoming increasingly more irrelevant with every passing day.

But Bissinger's other criticisms just didn't make sense. He brings up Leinart party pics but doesn't make any note of the fact that there are thousands of posts that have been on Deadspin that have absolutely nothing to do with drunk athletes.

I'm not even going to get into the hypocrisy that is Bissinger's railing against Deadspin and the sports blogosphere for its vulgarity and profane nature by using nothing but profanities himself. (He came off as someone who suffers from a combination of Tourette's syndrome and a methamphetamine addiction: "You motherfuckers cuss too much and show too many cocksucking motherfucking titties! It fucking makes me sick! Shit, cock, tits, balls, asshole!") And let's not forget Buzz's comment that Will is like "Jimmy Olson on percocet." Yeah, saying things like that in no way conflicts with the argument you're trying to make.

But what Bissinger did on Costas Now that really pissed me off was that he jumped feet first on the bandwagon of journalists who question what makes a blogger qualified to offer any opinion at all. To Bissinger we're nothing but a bunch of ignorant morons who know nothing of what we speak because the majority of us don't sit in a press box, and many don't possess the sheepskin that certifies we can write.

What bullshit.

I don't need to watch a game from a press box to see what's going on. In fact, I get a better view from my television at home. As for where I find the nerve to share my opinion, it's that little thing our entire country was founded on called the Bill of Rights featuring my favorite one line, something about "freedom of speech."

This may come as a shock to the learned Buzz, but you don't need a college degree to understand how to form complete sentences, and then put them alongside other complete sentences and form paragraphs. I learned how to do this in grade school.

What also drives me nuts is how he implies blogs are solely responsible for the impending downfall of newspapers and other types of print media. That's just asinine. Yes, it's all Deadspin's fault that the newspapers are going down the crapper. It's not the fact that a few huge conglomerates, like the Chicago Tribune, are buying up all of the local papers, slashing funds and shedding most of their experienced staff, which in turn leads to much smaller and more poorly written rags. (Trust me, I'm one of the few people in my age group who still reads the newspaper every single day, be it the print version or online.) Nope. It's that post on Deadspin in which Ben Roethlisberger is wearing a t-shirt that says "Drink Like A Champion Today" that's killing American journalism.

Buzz has the nerve to say we're responsible for the dumbing down of America? Really? Corporate-produced television has nothing to do with this? Have you been watching lately? While there are actually smart and informative shows still on - you just have to look for them - the majority of air time consists of glorified karaoke performances, "celebrity" dancing, and washed up rock stars trying to find "the one." I'm guessing that there are a whole lot more people who can tell you who got eliminated from American Idol last night than there are that could tell you who is running for the democratic nomination right now.

I'm also sure the dumbing down of America has absolutely nothing to do with the increasing impotence of our public schools as funding continues to get slashed, schools are forced to ax vital programs, kids are crammed 30 into each classroom, and undeserving students are passed just so the schools don't lose what little funding they do receive. Nope, it's that damn Big Daddy Drew! Damn him and those dick jokes!

I guess I'm just sick and tired of being viewed as ignorant by people who claim to judge me and my fellow bloggers without ever actually reading what we write. Sure, I take my shots at writers like Jay Mariotti from time to time, but I actually read what he has to say first. It's called "research," something I'm apparently incapable of doing since I've never been in a press box.

Also, did you ever notice how there isn't this great divide between the "establishment" and bloggers when it comes to other areas? How come politicos like Tim Russert, James Carville, and George Will never complain about all the political blogs out there? They don't get all bent out of shape when somebody who doesn't have a political science degree, or doesn't work on Capitol Hill, shares opinions on issues they don't have intimate knowledge of.

Yet, in sports, which in the end are utterly meaningless and have no effect on anything of real importance, there is this huge rift between the "have credentials" and "have nots."

C'mon, folks, sports are nothing but a distraction from our everyday lives. An escape from the mortgage, the boss, and the wife.

And this leads me to the one thing that pisses me off more than anything else. Buzz Bissinger is arrogant enough to truly believe anything he's ever written has some sort of value in the world. It doesn't. At the end of the day, nothing he's ever written, nothing Will Leitch has ever written, and nothing I've ever written will ever mean anything. Trust me, one hundred years from now nobody will be saying, "Man, Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights changed the world."

That Buzz thinks otherwise is what truly makes him the Asshole Of The Week. Congratulations, Buzz. I hope you're dumber for having read this.

Asshole Of The Week: Greg from Cleveland

Welcome to Asshole Of The Week, where every Friday your trusty Foul Balls editor picks out the one person from the previous seven days who makes him think, "Man, what an asshole." It could be anybody from an athlete, an owner, someone in the media, or just anybody who happens to catch my ire.

This week's Asshole Of The Week is actually a bit of a hybrid post, because I hear that these hybrids are good for the environment, and since Earth Day was earlier this week, I figure I should do something.

So this one's for you, Earth! I love you, ya big blue bastard.

I call it a hybrid because not only will it feature the biggest asshole I came across this week, but it's also a FanHouse commenter, so it's kind of a "Typing in CAPS LOCK" as well. I met this FanHouse commenter-whose name is Greg, and he's from Cleveland- earlier this week when I wrote a satirical post in which I pretended to be the Cleveland Indians putting out a want ad for a left fielder.

I was inspired by this article I read in Cleveland Morning Journal. It was an article about the platoon the Indians use in left-field having a Major League worst .186. So instead of just taking those stats and recycling it into a post, I decided to do something new. My bosses at FanHouse have been telling me they want me to highlight my retarded sense of humor a bit more, and I thought the want ad would be the perfect way to humorously say that the Indians left-fielders suck.

Well, as with any fan base, there are a few fans who cannot stand when you say their team, or a player on it, sucks. Even if it's obvious to anybody who's paid any amount of attention to that team.

One of those fans was our Asshole Of The Week, Greg in Cleveland, who responded to my post with this.

Have you even watched the Indians yet this year?... Dellucci has actually been one of the most productive hitters on the team in his 35 at-bats. .257 AVG. .395 OB% .429 SLG% 1HR 7 RUNS 4 RBI. In addition he's had a number of hard hit balls recorded for outs. I agree Micheals isn't hitting, but I would at least do some re-search instead of reading somebody else's opinion and literally just playing copy and paste.

First of all, research doesn't need the hyphen. Let's get that straight. Then what's with the ellipses after the question mark in the first sentence? (Christ, I've become Panger) And to answer that question, yeah, they've played the White Sox six times already, of course I've watched them.

Finally, how in the hell am I playing copy and paste? There wasn't an unoriginal word in that article, I didn't even quote anything from the article, I just referenced it with a link. I asked Greg these same things in my own comment, and then informed him that if a .257 average is what he wants out of his left-fielder, good for him. I'm of a different opinion myself.

To which Greg replied,

.257 Avg???? He's a #2 hitter with a .395 OB% at this point. That's setting the table just fine. I guess you forgot to look at the production from places like 3B/RF/etc. because you don't actually follow the team.. Those are spots where we are recieving literally NO production. Instead you recycled someone else's garbage, and didn't look very smart for it. Furthermore my original point wasn't to say Dellucci should be on an all-star team, but that he should be recognized as one of the few players who is playing above expectations.

Yeah, you said yourself, he has a .257 batting average. As for his .395 OBP, he'd had 35 at bats on the season up to that point, do you honestly think a guy with a career .330 OBP is going to maintain that for a season? At 34 years of age?

I don't look very smart? You're the one who can't spell received, and you're the one who's spending his time arguing with a blogger in a comment section over David fucking Dellucci. Not even Dellucci's parents have spent this much time defending their son in his lifetime.

That's when I came up with this witty little response that was sure to shut Greg up.

Apparently I should have titled this post:

Wanted: Cleveland Indians Fan With Sense of Humor

Burn! Oh my God, I am hilarious. Seriously, if there was a Nobel Prize for comedy, I'd have like seven of those things already. Two for the Indians post alone. Still, Greg did not see the humor in my comment.

Never been to Cleveland, Huh? Seriously we hate clueless mainstream media.

You also hate grammar. In English, we don't capitalize the word "huh" unless it's the first word in a sentence. Like when your teacher used to ask you what 5+5 was and you replied, "Huh? I don't know, twelve?"

And clueless mainstream media!? You do realize you're reading a blog, right? Blogs are hardly mainstream media, my friend. We're kinda the anti-mainstream media. Luckily, another commenter named Eggs pointed this out for me.

Mainstream media!? Calling this mainstream media is like calling Pauly Shore an Oscar contender.

Finally, there was another commenter from Cleveland, who also is named Greg. The difference between this Greg and our AOTW Greg is that I like this Greg.

This is another Indians fan, and another Greg. I thought this entry was hilarious, and think the Greg commenting above me is an idiot. That is all...

Thank you, Greg #2. You may be known as Greg #2, but you're #1 in our hearts.

So you would think that this is where the feud would end, but you're wrong. The next day I wrote a post about Indians pitcher Jake Westbrook going on the disabled list, and in it I mentioned how the Indians had called up outfielder Ben Francisco from Triple-A. The reason they called him up? In hopes that he could fill the void out in left field.

This angered OG, Original Greg, greatly. Once again, somebody had to stand up for David Dellucci.

Yup man Dellucci has been brutal....

.289AVG 2HR 6RBI 8R .939 OPS and an OB% over .400 now hitting out of the #2 spot....

Great Indians coverage, you really know this team Fornelli.

Now at the point when Greg wrote the comment, he had seen Dellucci's numbers rise thanks to a strong performance that night. As I noted earlier, he'd only had 35 at bats this season, so one decent night is going to inflate his stats. Of course, this all came 4 hours after I wrote the post when Dellucci still sucked. So in other words, I'm a horrible writer who knows nothing because I can't see the future.

It was at this point where I knew that Greg was going to be the AOTW, and frankly, I wanted nothing more to do with him. So I wrote this comment after his.

Greg,

I don't know if you noticed the time stamp on this post, but it was written before David's 2-for-5 with a homer and 2 RBI performance of Tuesday night.

So I guess you're right, I do a horrible job of covering the Indians in the future.

As for his production so far, if you want to believe that Delluci is going to continue to hit at such a clip, by all means, continue building his wing in the Hall of Fame.

I'm more of the opinion that he's going to regress to the career .260 hitter he's always been. If that kind of production is good enough for you from your left fielder, a traditional power position, then whatever, to each his own.

Finally, if you hate my coverage of the Indians so much, then why the hell do you continue to read me? There are plenty of other places you can get your Indians needs if FanHouse isn't good enough for you.

May I suggest Let's Go Tribe, The Diatribe, Tribe Report or Tribe Treasures? All wonderful blogs that do fantastic jobs of covering the Indians.

Have a nice day,
Tom Fornelli

I'll bet you can't guess what kind of response I got.

First of all don't ever suggest Indians Coverage to me (A thousand pardons, your majesty!) cause you don't know where to even start to look (Yes I do. I just gave you like five fucking examples!). Secondly you look dumb to Indians fans when you write Dellucci's name in this post. (Yes, like that Indians fan in the other post that said you are an idiot. I look dumb to him.) He was hitting when you wrote your last post, and he's hitting now. So when you say there can't be much worse of an option than Dellucci you sound just plain stupid. I'm not asking you to look into the future, just look at the facts before you rip off some other site's opinion. (I used stats. Stats aren't opinions, they're numbers. An opinion is more like "I think Greg in Cleveland is a mongoloid.) The sad thing is how wrong you know you are.....Never mention Dellucci and the HOF (I know you didn't mention it, I was making fun of you and your undying love for him.)...You just seem desparate (despErate. When did I become such a grammar Nazi? Thank God I don't read my own posts.) to get a point across that every moron that watches any baseball already knows. Go save some face with someone who doesnt know any better...

Sorry, man. You're right. You obviously know more about baseball than me, because any real baseball fan knows that it just doesn't get any better than David Dellucci. I mean, he's awesome. Four out of 5 dentists agree that you'd rather have Dellucci in left field than, say, Manny Ramirez.

What could I have been thinking?

Greg in Cleveland, you're our Asshole Of The Week. Congratulations. Now have fun living in Cleveland. Home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and despair.

Asshole Of The Week: Rod Blagojevich

Welcome to Asshole Of The Week, where every Friday your trusty Foul Balls editor picks out the one person from the previous seven days who makes him think, "Man, what an asshole." It could be anybody from an athlete, an owner, someone in the media, or just anybody who happens to catch my ire.

Our inaugural Asshole is Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

I had the first Asshole Of The Week post written and all ready to go, with the maiden Asshole set to be NBA commissioner David Stern for the recent fiasco that is the impending move of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City. Then late on Thursday I saw a comment left in High Five from loyal reader and commenter, JayBandit. What was it about?

Well, Jay came across a blog post about our wonderful Governor Rod Blagojevich. Now, I've never been a big fan of Blago for various reasons. None of which really have anything to do with politics.

There's the fact that for some reason, even though he's the governor of the entire state of Illinois, he spends the majority of his time in Chicago instead of the state's capital, Springfield. A minor offense, sure, but it's an annoyance.

More recently, there was the law passed in the state of Illinois that prohibited smoking in public venues such as bars. As someone who smokes, and spends a lot of his time in bars, this pissed me off greatly. Aren't bars supposed to be a place where you can get away from the daily grind, and partake in some good old fashioned vice? Now I can't smoke there? What's next? No beer at baseball games?

Speaking of baseball, Blago's biggest crime before yesterday was the fact that he's a Cubs fan. No man that's in charge of the state where I live should root for the Cubs, because it's obvious from the onset that he can't be that intelligent. I don't want a loser running my state! I'm a winner! Illinois is a winner! We got corn, man! Corn! And soybeans!! We got plenty of hogs too, and they're all under the helm of some drooling Cubs fan.

Still, being a Cubs fan from Chicago is no reason to lose your life, or be named AOTW. I mean, I'm friends with plenty of Cubs fans, some of whom even write for this site. So if all the reasons above are horrible offenses, but not enough to be named Asshole Of The Week, why am I giving this "honor" to Blago?

Check this shit out, from the blog Urbanagora.

Urbanagora has learned from a credible source that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is a closet Dallas Cowboys fan. Even though he occasionally bets on the Bears, Blagojevich has been known to require interns, even those from Chicago, to clip news clippings about the Dallas Cowboys.

Our source reveals:

"When I interned for Blagojevich, in addition to clipping quotes about Chicago and Illinois politics, I was told to pull everything I could find about the Dallas Cowboys. On days I only found stories on current Chicago and Illinois events, I was told to look for Cowboys stories, but I was never asked for news about the Chicago Bears."

You son of a bitch. A Cowboys fan? A fucking Cowboys fan!? In my state!? Are you telling me that the walls of the Governor's mansion are covered in Tony Romo posters? If I voted, I'd kill somebody right now.

This isn't something that the great people of Illinois should tolerate from their governor, you either root for the Bears or move to fucking Iowa. There's no in between. It's bad enough that the southern part of our state is littered with moronic Rams fans, but to let the virus that is the Cowboys infect us as well?

I have to agree with the guys at Urbanagora, fuck this Rezko nonsense, this is the only reason we need for a recall election.

Governor Rod Blagojevich: You're an asshole.