Re: ESPN, the place where "No Celtics News Is Good News"

["Troy Hash" <troyhash@xxxxxxx>]

Well said Snoop!  I had the same thought.  I did see last night on Fox
Sports a scroll at the bottom of the screen saying we signed James.  I
haven't seen anything about Hunter's signing, but I sure hope we did!!  Troy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Snoopy the Celtics Beagle" <snoopy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <celtics@xxxxxxxx>; <Celticsstuffgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 12:44 PM
Subject: ESPN, the place where "No Celtics News Is Good News"


> It's amazing, really.  If a flea farts on LeBron James, it's an ESPN
> sidebar.  Kobe Bryant buys an apology present for cheating on his wife
(and
> when said event puts her on the evening news it had BETTER be expensive)
> and rates a headline for doing so.  Even a whisper of talks between the
> Clippers and the Heat merit a clickable headline.
>
> Yet the Celtics have completed at least one signing, possibly two,
> accompanied by showing Travis Best's agent how the Celtics expect the game
> to be played on and off the court; and from ESPN we get.....
>
> Zip.  Not so much as a whisper.
>
> I know, it's me being a hometown fan, some will say.  True, but that
> doesn't matter any to a sports desk.  Others will chime in, insisting that
> signing a second-round pick isn't worth the space.  This is the internet,
> people.  For all intents and purposes, space is limitless, given the
amount
> of drivel that somehow finds it's way online.  Besides, a look at today's
> news of front page interest includes the naming of the Rockets' new arena;
> Lue signing with Orlando; and someone named P. Diddy wanting to own the
Knicks.
>
> It was two days after the fact that Walter McCarty's signing was mentioned
> on the site.  The Summer League, to hear it from them, was attended by one
> player from Cleveland.  No mention of the fact that LeBron's first shot of
> the league was an airball courtesy of the Boston Celtics.
>
> I know there's some bad blood in the past.  Red was arrogant in
> victory.  No less so, I think, than anyone who has won 16 championships
has
> a right to be.  The Celtics had the whole mystique thing going.  Anything
> bad that happened to the Lakers, was cause for celebration in
> Boston.  Anything bad that happened to the Celtics was cause for
> celebration everywhere else.  The owners got to stick it to the C's by
> voting down a request for relief when Reggie Lewis died, which is the main
> reason the owners no longer have this power.
>
> But the networks have perpetuated this sort of idiocy for years, now.  Tom
> Heinsohn was fired as a national NBA announcer because of his bias for
> Boston during the mid 1980's.  As Heinsohn put it, paraphrased, the team
> was winning 60+ games.  Was he supposed to say they stank?  Yet Jeff Van
> Gundy, a former coach of the Knicks, conspicuously said "we" in speaking
of
> the Knicks, as if he were still working for them, and not TNT.  Hubie
Brown
> never met a negative comment about Boston that he didn't freely repeat on
> the air as often as he could.  We all remember too well the playoffs tv
> schedule, where the Celtics had two playoff games in the same series
> relegated to NBAtv, including what could have been a series-deciding
> game.  Other teams had only one such appearance.  During those games we
DID
> see, the announcers would talk about every subject under the sun BUT the
> Celtics, save only to say, "Walker likes taking threes" like it was a
state
> secret that nobody had figured out.
>
> The Celtics take more heat than the Heat do.  The Trailblazers team
picture
> practically needed to be taken at the city jail.  The Lakers are getting
> progressively crazier.  Police in places ranging from Toronto to Orlando
> are making it clear they don't tolerate NBA players behaving like thugs.
>
> The Celtics have been to the playoffs two years running with a team that
> the previous owners did their best to gut like a cheap fish while taking
> money by the truck full  to their own hands.  They have made a determined
> effort under new ownership to commit to long-term winning, not only this
> season, but in the future.  I think that ESPN, to name one incredibly
> unbalanced bastion of sports journalism, needs to stop bashing Boston and
> start acting like they know what the words "balanced" and "objective"
mean.
>
> Snoopy the Celtics Beagle
> Please visit the <http://www.celticsbeagle.net/>Celtics Beagle Website