Fighting Words The Director’s Cut: The Patriots Chapter (Part Three)

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are in sync when it comes to delivering the message. Photo from this site.

Below is the third and final part of my chapter about the Patriots and the media. Parts one and two can be found here and here. Today’s final installment delves into Bill Belichick’s famously secretive approach to the release of injury information (and how it compares to the rest of his coaching brethren) as well as how he dictates the message his players deliver to the press and how the Patriots in general have become adept at managing the news.

By the end of 2005, reporters were so accustomed to Belichick’s evasiveness regarding injuries they an entire news conference could come and go without anyone asking about a hobbled player. Defensive leader Tedy Bruschi, whose comeback from a February stroke was one of the top stories of the season, suffered a leg injury against the Jets on Dec. 26. Belichick fielded just one Bruschi question during his Dec. 28 press conference (“I’ve seen Tedy. We’ll release the injury report after practice. I think the best way I could characterize it is he’s day-to-day.”) and none at all during his press conference the next day. (Bruschi suited up for the game against the Dolphins Jan. 1 but did not play)

Part of this secrecy was a byproduct of Belichick’s famous focus: If a player could not help the Patriots this week, then it did Belichick or the team no good to talk about him because it distracted them from the challenge of winning without the player.

But most of the elusiveness was rooted in competitive interests. Belichick did not want to reveal anything that could help an opponent in its preparation. And though the Patriots were considered the least-revealing team in the NFL when it came to injury information—the Boston Herald’s Michael Felger wrote in October 2005 the Patriots are so secretive in revealing injuries “…that the NFL felt the need to institute the current policy in an attempt to keep things on the level”—Belichick was no different than most NFL coaches, who have grown increasingly secretive over the years.

Even former Jets and Kansas City Chiefs head coach Herman Edwards, considered one of the most cooperative coaches in the NFL, wanted complete control over the dissemination of injury news. According to the Jets 2005 media guide: “Head Coach Herman Edwards is the only spokesperson in the organization to report injuries to the media…(Players are not permitted to talk about their injuries to the media and should defer all inquiries to the head coach).”

When asked if his policies were similar to those of his contemporaries, Belichick—speaking through Najarian—referred to the Patriots game against the Atlanta Falcons Oct. 9, 2005, when the Falcons started backup quarterback Matt Schaub instead of first-stringer Michael Vick even though Vick—who strained a ligament in his right knee the previous week—was listed as probable (meaning there was a 75 percent chance or better he would play) on the NFL’s injury list until Saturday, when he was downgraded to questionable (50 percent chance to play).

However, Vick sat out most of the previous week’s practices, which would typically reduce a player’s status to doubtful. Given the differences in Vick, the most mobile and improvisational quarterback in the NFL, and Schaub, a prototypical pocket passer, it’s not difficult to ascertain the Falcons figured they were gaining an advantage in pronouncing Vick likely to start.

Felger wrote Oct. 12 that others in the league believed Falcons coach Jim Mora “out-Belichicked” the Patriots and theorized the Falcons should not be believed when they said Vick’s condition worsened despite barely practicing the previous week.

In 2003, Felger wrote the Patriots believed the Philadelphia Eagles’ openness about game plans and injuries helped the Patriots beat the Eagles, 31-10. The Eagles announced the Tuesday prior to the game three defensive starters would likely sit due to injury. Later in the week, their defensive coordinator announced the replacements and admitted the team would cut back on its original game plan.

The Patriots exploited the Eagles’ three new starters in their lopsided win. Meanwhile, the Eagles were almost certainly surprised to see rookie Eugene Wilson playing safety for the Patriots. Wilson spoke to Felger for 15 minutes two days prior to the game and never indicated he would move to safety against Philadelphia.

“I’m not sure why they would [reveal so much information], all I know is that we don’t,” Patriots center Dan Koppen told the Herald. “All I know is that we don’t. You don’t know who’s out there until they come out of the room on Sunday.”

“I’m not saying we’ve got all the answers,” Belichick told the Herald. “I’m just saying it’s right for us. There is some element of a competitive edge there. Maybe sometimes it’s negligible. Other times it may be more.”

While Belichick’s perfunctory press conferences would indicate he didn’t pay much attention to the media, his interest in controlling the words of Patriots players—as well as his ability to scour comments made by opponents and other outsiders in order to find any slight that could whip the Patriots into an “us-against-the-world” lather—suggested otherwise.

Before the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX in 2004, Belichick showed the Patriots the parade route the Philadelphia Eagles had planned in case they won. The Patriots went 16-0 in 2007 and posted their most dominating victory—a 56-10 trouncing of the Buffalo Bills Nov. 18—after Don Shula, who coached the 1972 Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in league history, said the fact the Patriots had been caught stealing signals against the New York Jets in the season opener “…diminished what they’ve accomplished.”

Three weeks later, Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteed his team would beat the Patriots. Smith was beaten on two touchdown passes as the Steelers fell, 34-13. After one of the touchdowns, Brady yelled at Smith.

“We’ve played a lot better safeties than him, I’ll tell you that,” Belichick told reporters after the game.

The Patriots’ eagerness to punish anyone who doubted them appeared to make Belichick doubly determined to make sure his players didn’t provide bulletin board material for anybody else. Conformity was encouraged under Belichick— the most vocal Patriot of the Pete Carroll Era, Chad Eaton, was typically nowhere to be found when the media was allowed locker room access during the first several months of Belichick’s tenure—and players followed a carefully prepared script when speaking to reporters.

At Super Bowl XLI media day Jan. 29, 2008, Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel told the New York Daily News that 30 minutes of the daily team meeting is spent discussing what to say to reporters and how to say it.

Nobody echoed Belichick’s thoughts better than Brady—appropriate considering the two were the most indispensible parts of the dynasty. The Patriots were 5-13 under Belichick before Bledsoe’s injury forced Brady into the starting lineup—and 86-24 in regular season games with Brady behind center through 2007.

Unlike his coach, Brady enjoyed the perks of his success: He appeared on the cover of GQ, dated celebrities, guest-hosted Saturday Night Live and even occupied a choice seat at George W. Bush’s State of the Union address in 2005. But there was never a sense Brady let his off-field interests interrupt his preparation, and his focus and disdain for excuse-making made him a younger, more telegenic version of his coach.

It seemed, finally, Belichick had found someone he could trust as much as Parcells trusted the likes of Dave Meggett and Steve DeOssie, each of whom he coached with the Giants before he arrived in Foxboro. “Guys from the Giants, they were very open,” Boston Globe reporter Nick Cafardo said. “They wouldn’t just regurgitate what he said. They were very comfortable in being able to give you more than the norm. And I think [Parcells] made them feel comfortable doing that.”

Unlike those players, Brady could be counted on to toe the company line. Belichick declined comment when asked if he and Brady went over what they would say prior to their separate meetings with the press. But their answers were remarkably similar.

On Dec. 29, 2005, both men were asked to explain the Patriots’ recent red zone success. They did so by pointing out the offense had produced fewer “negative” plays inside the opponents 20-yard-line.

Belichick: “Fumbles, sacks penalties—it’s hard enough to get it down there in the condensed field anyway and then when you take one play that loses yardage or makes it a 15-yard series of downs instead of 10, then it just makes it that much tougher. If you lose a down, like we did…then the odds are really against you. Us or anybody else. Eliminate negative plays and going forward toward the goal line instead of backwards, away from it.”

Brady: “I think the one thing that sets you back in the red zone is if you lose yards. If you can keep going forward and eliminate negative plays and eliminate penalties in the red zone, you’ll be pretty successful. The hard part is when you lose 10 or you lose five or you take a sack or run the ball in early downs and come up with no yards or lose yards, those are hard to overcome.”

Belichick’s ability to dictate his players’ words spoke to a fundamental difference between the NFL and Major League Baseball as well as the Patriots’ uncanny knack for managing the message and dictating the news cycle.

The active Major League Baseball roster features barely half the players (25) of the active NFL roster (45), but baseball’s potent player’s union gives its members far more security. The mostly powerless NFL Players Association and the lack of guaranteed contracts meant conformity was good business for football players.

“No one’s going to toss Coco Crisp for saying I want to be traded or [Jonathan] Papelbon for complaining about his contract,” WEEI.com editor Rob Bradford said. “Everyone was saying Theo wants this team to be like the Patriots—there’s elements of truth to that, but he’s a smart guy. And I’ve got to imagine he understands the road goes in a different direction when it comes to what they can do with the players. Even the young guys who they do have some sense of control over—there’s just no way they can do everything and cover every angle.”

The Patriots, on the other hand, could not only control how their players spoke but also how the news was released. They were the first American professional sports team to embrace new media in 1995, when patriots.com was launched. That year, the Patriots also became the first sports team to publish its own full-color weekly newspaper (Patriots Football Weekly).

In 1997, the Patriots began a nightly online program called “Patriots Video News.” The team also has an online radio station, carries all Belichick and Brady press conferences live online and archives the audio and transcriptions of these press conferences online.

The Patriots remain the standard bearer of online and team-sanctioned media in a league which encourages fans to view its official outlets as the source of record. Former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette would often decline comment by telling reporters to refer to the team’s website for information on the club, but he didn’t break news like the Patriots, who revealed, via Patriots.com, the trade of Bledsoe to the Buffalo Bills in April 2002.

Today, the other 29 teams often break news via NFL.com and the NFL Network, the latter of which carries regular season games and formerly employed Adam Schefter—a well-respected former Denver Broncos beat writer for the Denver Post—as its lead reporter.

Even when the Patriots don’t break the news on Patriots.com, they have a knack for timing leaks, press releases and their comments to ensure maximum—or minimum—impact. ESPN.com reported safety Rodney Harrison was suspended by the NFL for violating its substance abuse policy on Sept. 1, 2007, a Friday night. The Patriots held a conference call with Harrison shortly thereafter, assuring the crux of the story would break during the lightest news cycle of the week.

On Sept. 16, just hours before the Patriots hosted the Chargers in a prime-time game on NBC, ESPN.com reported that “…league sources and sources close to the coach” confirmed the Patriots had extended Belichick’s contract through at least 2013. The terms of Belichick’s deal were previously a closely guarded secret—“I don’t talk about contracts,” Belichick told reporters in July 2007—and the Patriots had not acknowledged his contract since July 2003, when they announced he inked an extension through 2006.

The news of his new deal arrived seven days after the Patriots were caught videotaping the Jets’ signals during the season opener. On Sept. 12, Belichick issued, via the Patriots, a one-paragraph statement apologizing to the organization and said he would “…have further comment” once the league made a ruling on his punishment.

The punishment came down the next day, when the NFL fined the Patriots $750,000--$500,000 of which was to be paid by Belichick—and took away a 2008 draft pick. But during his press conference Sept. 14, Belichick refused to discuss the incident and used the term “moving on” a reported nine times while continually saying he was just worried about the Chargers game.

The response to “Spygate” provided the most resounding proof yet: Under Belichick, the Patriots talked about what they wanted to when they wanted to and on their own terms. And in keeping with his low public profile and general air of mystery, Belichick was reluctant to explain his media relations philosophies.

His longtime friend Najarian declined to be interviewed for this book, and after numerous unsuccessful requests for an interview with Belichick over a 13-month span during the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Najarian asked the author to send the questions to him with the promise he would get Belichick’s answers.

Of the 10 questions sent to Belichick via Najarian, Belichick declined to answer six. His four answers comprised a total of 59 words—42 of which occurred in one answer about the media not traveling with the Giants during Belichick’s tenure with that club.

His second-longest answer was in response to whether or not he was surprised that the Sox received more media attention during the Patriots’ run of three Super Bowl victories in four years.

“I honestly am not very cognizant of it either way,” Belichick said.

When it came to the media and the Patriots, Belichick had proven to be quite cognizant of everything else.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words The Director’s Cut: The Patriots Chapter (Part Two)

Bill Belichick wasn't hired by Robert Kraft to become a media darling, but the coach knew he had to have a better relationship with the press in New England than he did in Cleveland. Photo from this site.

As noted Friday, I’ll be unveiling this week, in two or three parts, the chapter about the Patriots and the media that I had to cut from Fighting Words. Though I still have no regrets about axing this chapter—there was just no way to put this in the book and maintain some sort of flow—it is a little sobering to re-read the chapter and to be reminded of how many edits it went through for something that didn’t make it to print.

Part one, about the Patriots’ checkered first three decades and how the hiring of Bill Parcells made them relevant, appeared yesterday and can be found here. Part two is about Bill Belichick, his decidedly anti-Parcells approach to media relations and how he went about fixing a reputation in tatters after a rocky four-year stint with the Browns and a historically brief tenure with the Jets.

(I haven’t done too much editing here, hoping to preserve the chapter as I intended to present it in the summer of 2008.)

Bill Belichick is to the gray sweatshirt what Tom Landry was to the fedora.

Landry, the legendary former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, lent a stately air to the savagery of football by wearing a wide-brimmed fedora and a suit and tie on the sidelines Belichick’s apparel—a gray hooded Patriots sweatshirt with his initials on the waist pocket—only deepened the belief he was football’s brilliant mind, a man so consumed with digging through film in search of that elusive advantage that he had little time for such non-essentials as finding anything other than the most basic of wardrobes.

Belichick is the son of a former football coach (Steve Belichick, who died during the 2005 season, spent more than 30 years as an assistant at the Naval Academy) who was breaking down film as a teenager. He graduated from exclusive Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he played lacrosse and squash, but little is known of his off-field interests other than an affinity for hard rock and a friendship with musician Jon Bon Jovi, who dedicated his band’s 2002 song “Bounce” to Belichick.

Between his monotonous voice, typically expressionless face, and reluctance to say much more than absolutely necessary, the gray sweatshirt is a perfect symbol of Belichick’s public persona and unyielding focus. And according to those who cover the team, it’s a personality as natural as it is painstakingly maintained.

The Patriots dynastic run is built on the belief nobody is bigger than the team. Belichick has embodied that by refusing to parlay his success into celebrity.

While some coaches unveil a more accessible personality with television networks and/or during appearances on the national stage in order to polish their reputations, those who cover the Patriots regularly say Belichick is less revealing than usual during heavily attended playoff press conferences.

When Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe suffered a concussion and a sheared blood vessel in his lung—the latter a potentially life-threatening injury—against the Jets September 23, 2001, a Patriots staffer told CBS sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein Bledsoe’s benching was a “coaches decision.” Bernstein later told the Boston Herald she was “discouraged” the Patriots did not tell her Bledsoe was injured.

Parcells—whose most famous quote, “If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries,” was uttered at a packed press conference announcing his departure from the Patriots Jan. 31, 1997—capitalized on the Giants’ first Super Bowl win by penning his autobiography with powerful New York columnist Mike Lupica and has remained a multi-media machine in the subsequent two decades.

With co-author and Boston sportswriting legend Will McDonough, Parcells penned a book called “The Final Season” during his last year with the Jets in 1999 (four years later, he returned to the sidelines as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys) and became a well-known endorser and media personality during his four seasons with the Patriots, when he appeared on one weekly television show and made two weekly radio appearances. Parcells also worked at NBC and ESPN following each of his three “retirements” from coaching.

Belichick endorses nothing, and when he agreed to an authorized account of his life, it was with the noted journalist David Halberstam. Though Belichick appears each Monday during the season on WEEI, he surprised most observers when he agreed to appear on the Super Bowl XL pre-game show in February 2006.

And unlike the scathingly honest Parcells, Belichick was unlikely to provide colorful assessments of a player. He reinforces the team-first mantra by rarely singling out individuals, and even in victory, his post-game comments are as generalized as possible and tempered with the reminder the Patriots can always do better.

After a 31-21 win over the Jets Dec. 26, 2005, he did not praise one player, even when presented with a seemingly easy opportunity to do so. Asked about Hank Poteat and Monty Beisel, who replaced the injured Tedy Bruschi and Asante Samuel, Belichick said “We’ll take a look at the tape. Some things I’m sure could have been better than others, but overall it was a solid effort. A lot of players did contribute, so I’m sure it was good enough.”

Such reluctance to discuss particular players runs counter to the needs of writers, who often need a quote about a particular player for a feature. And Belichick’s singular focus doesn’t leave much room for reflection or prognostication, which are also regular topics for writers.

In many ways, Belichick is the football version of Bill Mueller. While teammates cherished Mueller for his grind-it-out nature, reporters were often frustrated by his reluctance or refusal to discuss his individual achievements in anything other than the most clichéd of terms. In fact, when he won the American League batting title on the final day of the 2003 season, Mueller ducked out of the clubhouse without speaking to reporters.

While Belichick was typically distant and perfunctory in his dealings with the media, he did show glimmers of personality in greeting reporters at the start of press conferences. Though he did not provide much headline fodder, he spoke at length on a variety of topics and complimented reporters whom he thought asked pertinent and informed questions.

Belichick also took the unusual step of occasionally hosting film sessions with reporters. While he would not break down any current film for obvious competitive reasons, this willingness to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the preparation process helped reporters better understand the game.

The film sessions also helped humanize a coach who is often perceived as robotic. A willingness to occasionally offer a glimpse at his relaxed side could only help, even subtly, how he was viewed by the reporters who cover him.

It was a side he never exposed during his first stint as a head coach with the Cleveland Browns. On Feb. 5, 1991—nine days after he designed the defensive game plan that shut down the powerful Buffalo Bills and lifted the Giants to a 20-19 victory in Super Bowl XXV; the game plan is on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame—Belichick accepted the Browns head coaching job.

But despite his impeccable pedigree, the Browns went 37-45 with just one playoff berth under Belichick, whose struggles on the sidelines were compounded by his troubles with the local press. The Browns were known for their open ways under previous coach Marty Schottenheimer, but one of Belichick’s first acts was to drastically cut back on the amount of access print reporters received to the Browns. Reporters were no longer allowed to watch practice and Belichick put up curtains around the field to further safeguard the premises.

Belichick gave off an air of paranoid disinterest. He once accused the rival Cincinnati Bengals of spying on Browns practices from rooftops near the Browns’ facility in a residential area of Berea. And some reporters were convinced Belichick had spies within the media who reported back to Belichick with negative comments the other reporters were making when the head coach was out of the room.

Belichick once conducted a teleconference with reporters from his office instead of meeting them in the media workroom. In 2001, longtime Cleveland Post-Dispatch Browns beat writer Tony Grossi told The Standard-Times of New Bedford, MA Belichick would hold press conferences on his exercise bike or during lunch.

Grossi and Akron Beacon-Journal beat writer Ed Meyer were regular guests on local sports talk radio station WHK, where they mocked Belichick weekly during a two-hour show called “Doom and Gloom.” Grossi so infuriated the Browns that some Cleveland reporters believe Browns owner Art Modell pressured the Post-Dispatch to remove Grossi from the Browns beat during Belichick’s tenure. And the “Doom and Gloom” segment created so much controversy that all Plain Dealer writers were barred from appearing on WHK, which eventually became a religious station.

“To read some of this stuff, you would have thought that Bill was down there in the bunker at the end of World War II with Eva Braun,” Browns offensive assistant Ernie Adams told the Akron Beacon-Journal in 1994. Adams later joined the Patriots as their football research director.

Belichick’s image was further soiled in October 1993, when he cut quarterback Bernie Kosar—a native of nearby Youngstown who directed the Browns to three AFC title game appearances in the 1980s and was enormously popular with fans and media alike—in favor of recent signee Vinny Testaverde.

Belichick’s instincts were eventually proven correct: Kosar was never again a regular starter in the NFL while Testaverde directed the Browns to the playoffs in 1994 and a wild card win over Parcells’ Patriots. The Browns were expected to contend for the Super Bowl in 1995, but they fell apart after Modell announced he planned to move the franchise to Baltimore. Belichick was fired amid nearly unanimous roars of approval from fans and writers alike after a 5-11 season.

“There were people who made it personal,” said Patriots vice president-player personnel Scott Pioli, who was a member of the Browns’ personnel department during Belichick’s tenure, in an interview with the Standard-Times.

“Some people wrote some mean-spirited things about Belichick and some went out of their way to make it confrontational,” Pioli said. “That’s what happens when you hear only one side of the story. Bill wasn’t defending himself and there weren’t people running to his defense.”

Shortly after he was dismissed in Cleveland, Belichick rejoined Parcells in New England and began restoring his reputation as the game’s finest defensive coordinator. Belichick followed Parcells to New York after the 1996 season and was contractually obligated to replace Parcells upon the latter’s retirement. But Belichick, uncomfortable with the specter of Parcells remaining as general manager and the uncertainty surrounding the Jets (the franchise was in the process of being sold following the death of longtime owner Leon Hess), stepped down Jan. 4, 2000, one day after Parcells retired—and one day after the Patriots fired Pete Carroll.

Belichick was criticized for his hasty departure—moments before he stepped to the podium, he handed shocked team president Steve Gutman an abbreviated 68-word letter penned on Jets stationary in which Belichick informed Gutman and Parcells he had “…decided to resign as HC of the NY Jets”—as well as for the rambling hour-long press conference in which he tried to explain his decision. The notoriously press-shy Belichick seemed to realize he was losing the battle of public opinion as he invited reporters to call him at home to further discuss the surprising move.

Middletown (NY) Times-Herald columnist Kevin Gleason wrote Belichick exhibited “…all the grace of a bug splattering on your car windshield” while Gutman followed Belichick to the podium and said he believed the ex-coach was in “obvious turmoil.”

Few believed Belichick would suddenly resign from the Jets without another job lined up, so no one was surprised less than three weeks later when the Patriots agreed to send three draft picks to the Jets in exchange for naming Belichick head coach.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who said he was mailed copies of Belichick’s press conferences in Cleveland by someone who did not want the Patriots to hire Belichick, admitted Belichick had made media-related mistakes and was not a natural public speaker but said he was more concerned with landing a quick mind than a quick wit.

“I’m not sure it would have been my first choice for how I liked my head coach to present himself,” Kraft told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer prior to Super Bowl XXXVIII in January 2004. “We chatted about that. In the end, I’m not into lipstick and powder. I’m into substance, and substance is winning football games.”

Still, crafting a better relationship with the press was important enough to Belichick so that one of his first moves upon becoming the Patriots’ head coach was to hire his friend Berj Najarian—a Jets public relations assistant whom New York beat writers believed was tutoring Belichick on how to handle the media—as the executive administrator to the head coach.

And Belichick admitted he made mistakes with the Browns, most notably in his attempts to adoptive a Parcells-like combative tone with reporters.

“I watched what Bill did with the New York media when I was there, and maybe I tried to do some of those things,” Belichick told the Boston Herald in December 2001. “And he was in a position where honestly, he could get away with some things that other people can’t get away with. And I don’t think I really realized that.”

The man Belichick once unsuccessfully tried to imitate made it possible for him to limit the media’s access to the Patriots without incurring a firestorm. Local reporters had grown accustomed under Parcells to closed practices (under Belichick, reporters were allowed to watch the first 10 minutes of practice, which typically consisted only of light stretching), assistant coaches who were almost always off-limits to the media, vague information regarding injured players and the game plan for the upcoming week and the concept of a coach serving as the voice of the organization.

Belichick described a player’s injury in the most general of terms—for example, an ankle injury would be dubbed a “lower leg injury.” When asked about an injured player, Belichick would tell reporters he didn’t know his short- or long-term status because he wasn’t a doctor. In addition, players were not allowed to speak to the media about the condition of another player, and those who were injured tended to be absent from the locker room whenever the media was allowed access.

“The only reason for an injury report is the betting line,” said former Patriots backup quarterback and Boston College legend Doug Flutie. “Otherwise, it’s nobody’s business.”

Belichick and the Patriots were so adept at concealing injuries that it was not revealed that quarterback Tom Brady, the team’s most recognizable and valuable player, had what the Patriots dubbed “minor” shoulder surgery following the 2004 season until several weeks after the procedure. And after the Patriots were eliminated from the playoffs in 2005, it was revealed Brady played much of the season with a sports hernia even though he was never listed as suffering from any type of groin or hernia injury.

Belichick also seemed to mock the injury report by listing Brady, who, prior to suffering a season-ending knee injury in the 2008 season opener, had never missed a start since taking over for Drew Bledsoe prior to the third game of the 2001 season, as “probable” with a shoulder injury for 74 straight games—until Super Bowl XLI, when Brady was listed as “probable” with an ankle injury.

(Part three tomorrow)

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words The Director’s Cut: The Patriots Chapter (Part One)

Bill Parcells, as quick with a quote as he was on the sideline, brought relevance and respectability to the Patriots. Photo from this site.

As noted Friday, I’ll be unveiling this week, in two or three parts, the chapter about the Patriots and the media that I had to cut from Fighting Words. Though I still have no regrets about axing this chapter—there was just no way to put this in the book and maintain some sort of flow—it is a little sobering to re-read the chapter and to be reminded of how many edits it went through for something that didn’t make it to print.

Originally, way back in 2004, I envisioned writing about how the Patriots, Celtics and Bruins are all secondary to the Sox in Boston. Once I narrowed the focus down to the Patriots, I recall one draft heavy on Bill Parcells information and another one in which I got bogged down in the minutiae of Bill Belichick’s first two years and the Brady/Bledsoe controversy in particular.

And somewhere along the line I managed to tie together the Patriots’ second Super Bowl run with the Sox’ pursuit of Alex Rodriguez and how Nomar Garciaparra basically pre-empted “Patriots Monday” one week in 2003 by calling in to say he didn’t really want out of Boston.

Hopefully the almost-final product is more cohesive than the drafts. Part one today goes into how baseball lends itself to more thorough coverage than football as well as the Patriots’ pre-Parcells checkered history and how Parcells changed how the Patriots were perceived as well as how they were covered.

(I haven’t done too much editing here, hoping to preserve the chapter as I intended to present it in the summer of 2008.)

The New England Patriots won three Super Bowls in a span of four seasons from 2001 through 2004—no small feat at any time in National Football League history but an especially notable achievement at a time when the NFL’s salary cap threatened to make dynasties obsolete—and were the most successful team in professional sports during the first half of the decade.

Yet they were not the most chronicled franchise in their home market. This contradictory existence was noted by every observer of the Boston media scene except, perhaps, Bill Belichick—the man most responsible for the Patriots’ historic success.

Only in Boston could a record-shattering NFL team play in the shadow of a baseball team that went more than 80 seasons between world championships. On Sept. 19, 2004, the Patriots, who had just won their 17th game--two shy of the NFL record--shared the dominant front page photo in The Boston Globe with the wild card-leading Red Sox, who had just lost their second in a row to the Yankees to all but fall out of contention in the AL East.

The headline inside the box—17 IN A ROW…TWO IN A ROW—made it seem as if the Sox’ losing streak and Patriots’ winning streak were equally significant feats.

This was a remarkably bizarre situation to the rest of the country. “That’s another thing that mystifies people from outside of New England,” Boston Herald Red Sox beat writer Sean McAdam said. “If you look around and look at the numbers—and I’ve occasionally done this exercise with other people in the business—and asked how many markets in America does baseball hold sway over football still, and the general consensus is that, at tops, it’s less than a half dozen.”

If baseball was still referred to as the national pastime, football was the national obsession. A Harris Interactive survey in 2005 revealed that 33 percent of Americans who follow at least one sport considered football their favorite, far ahead of second-place baseball (14 percent).

The Super Bowl long ago emerged as the water cooler moment of the year and America’s unofficial national holiday. The paucity and timing of the NFL regular season schedule—16 games spread out over 17 weekends—lends a momentous feel to even the most mundane game, a feeling none of the other three major sport leagues can replicate.

The game itself is more visceral and telegenic and provides more instant gratification than baseball. It’s also far easier to bet on and the popularity of fantasy football—a less costly but no less addicting alternative to gambling—has surged over the past decade.

In addition, as Boston Globe writer Nick Cafardo—who has been a beat reporter covering both the Red Sox and Patriots—notes, there is a widespread perception the NFL “…is run properly. It’s run right.”

Virtually no contract in the NFL is guaranteed, meaning players are basically auditioning for their jobs on a yearly basis. Players who sign lucrative long-term contracts in the NFL do so knowing they’ll almost surely never see the money on the back end. Seattle running back Shaun Alexander signed an eight-year, $62 million contract after he won the MVP award in 2005 but was cut following the 2007 season.

The salary cap creates the perception that every team is on a level financial field, even though the NFL has had fewer teams win the Super Bowl (14) than Major League Baseball has had teams win the World Series (18) since 1980. And since the NFL’s last labor dispute in 1987—a three-week strike by the players that ended with superstars crossing the picket lines to join replacement players hired by the owners—a strike has killed the 1994 World Series, an owners lockout forced the cancellation of the 2004-05 National Hockey League season and the National Basketball Association played just 50 games in 1998-99 due to a protracted labor dispute.

But in Boston, the Patriots’ continued success—in addition to their three titles this decade, their loss in Super Bowl XXXI in 1997 marked the only championship round appearance by a Boston-based team in the 1990s—could not approach the drama engineered by the Red Sox’ epic and seemingly Quixotic pursuit of an elusive world championship.

“The Patriots definitely should get more attention,” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said in 2004. “But it’s not a meritocracy.”

Actually, it was for the better part of 40 years, during which the Patriots underperformed—on and off the field—and failed to overcome the generational bond created by the Red Sox.

“I’m 41 years old and I don’t have stories from my childhood of sitting on my grandfather’s lap in the summertime listening to the Patriots,” Trish Saintelus, the moderator of The Remy Report’s chat room, said during an interview in January 2005. “I have great memories of sitting with my grandfather [who was] 80 years old, listening to the Red Sox on a hot summer night. And it’s part of my childhood. It’s part of what I grew up with. I think it just has a different place in our heart than football. You live and die with these guys 160 games a year. You’re with them from early April, you hope, right up through late October. It’s part of your childhood, going to ballgames.

“You don’t get that from football. It’s very, very different. Baseball is accessible.”

For the writers as well as the fans. Baseball writers see the players they cover for several hours per day nearly every day from February through October. And while most baseball and football teams allowed writers to travel with the club well into the 1980s (the New York Giants were an exception; Belichick, a former defensive coordinator with the Giants, recalls head coach Ray Perkins barring writers from the flights upon his arrival in 1979), the frequency of the baseball schedule and the long train trips of the pre-airplane era gave writers far more time to bond with the players and established a rapport between the two sides that would last for decades.

The NFL obviously could not match the regularity of the Major League Baseball schedule, but it encouraged open access under commissioner Pete Rozelle—a former public relations executive with the league—during his more than 20-year reign. Gerry Eskenazi, the former New York Jets beat writer for The New York Times, recalls in his book Gang Green sitting poolside with quarterback Joe Namath the week prior to the Jets’ shocking victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

Former Patriots quarterback Steve Grogan remembers playing cards with writers on team flights and buses and said the writers officially had locker room access to the Patriots both before and after practice. The NFL became more corporate in the 1990s under new commissioner Paul Tagliabue, a former league lawyer, and by the turn of the century writers were limited to a press conference with the head coach four days a week and a 45-to-60 minute open locker room period three or four times a week. In addition, players and coaches are not available immediately prior to games.

So conceivably, the baseball writer—who is allowed in the clubhouse three-and-a-half hours before first pitch—could see the players he covers more in one day than a football writer does all week.

In addition, baseball generated coverage year-round. The off-season was far shorter than in football, where even the Super Bowl teams have more than five months off between the end of the season and the start of training camp.

Free agency has fueled baseball’s hot stove league—the term originated decades ago when fans would talk baseball as they huddled around a stove to keep warm—since the late ‘70s, but it was just one part of an off-season staggered so that there’s a newsworthy event almost every week during the nearly four-month period between the end of the World Series and the start of spring training. Free agency did not hit football until the 1990s, and most newspapers did not cover the off-season management meetings.

And while the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins played their home games at legendary venues—the Celtics and Bruins played at the original Boston Garden until the end of the 1995 season—the Patriots played home games at seven different stadiums between 1960 and 1968, including Fenway Park and, remarkably, venues in San Diego and Birmingham, AL, before moving into Schafer Stadium in Foxboro, MA—45 minutes south of Boston—in 1969.

The stadium saved the Patriots but the locale doomed them to afterthought status. “We were kind of the odd man out in Foxboro,” Grogan said. “I always felt like the teams that played in Boston got more media coverage—the Red Sox in particular—than we did.”

Schafer Stadium—which was re-named Sullivan Stadium in honor of franchise founder William Sullivan in 1981 and christened Foxboro Stadium in 1990, two years after the Patriots were purchased by Victor Kiam—was sparser and decidedly less romantic than Fenway Park and Boston Garden. Most of the seats at Foxboro Stadium were metal bleachers, which gave it all the ambiance of a high school field. It had more than eight times as many portable toilets as actual restrooms. The capacity in the press box was 120.

“It’s been nothing but a horror,” former Patriots spokesman Don Lowery told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after the final game at Foxboro Stadium in January 2002.

The same could generally be said for the Patriots, who hosted one playoff game in their first 25 years. Much of the news the Patriots made was of the embarrassing variety: Cornerback Raymond Clayborn was slugged by sportswriter Will McDonough in 1979.

The team was at the center of an ugly sexual harassment scandal in 1990, when several players made lewd comments and gestures at Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson. Owner Victor Kiam initially shrugged off Olson’s charges, said she strolled into the shower area the previous season and reportedly called her a “classic bitch” in private.

Even the Patriots’ successes were overshadowed by ineptitude. Coach Chuck Fairbanks directed the Patriots to their first division title in 1978 but was suspended for the regular season finale after it was learned he’d already accepted the head coaching job at the University of Colorado.

In 1985, the Patriots became the first team to make the Super Bowl by winning three straight road games. “I think it was the first time I really felt like football was appreciated around here,” Grogan said. “I think for a short period of time there we caught the imagination of the sport fan around here. A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and wanted to be associated with the Patriots.”

A win over the Chicago Bears and their legendary defense would have been the biggest upset in football history. Alas, the Bears were as good as advertised as they destroyed the Patriots, 46-10. Two days later, any remaining positive feelings the Patriots had built up over the previous month disappeared when it was revealed more than two dozen players failed drug tests during the season.

“Who knows what would have happened had we won that game?” Grogan said. “We certainly would have been in the forefront for a little longer than it was.”

The Patriots were a picture of instability and uncertainty in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The franchise won 14 games in a four-season span from 1989-1992, had three owners between 1989 and 1993 and was moments away from moving to St. Louis when Robert Kraft, who owned Foxboro Stadium, bought the team from James Orthwein.

“The Red Sox cut across all demographics—racial lines, age, gender, it doesn’t matter,” McAdam said. “If you lived in New England, the Red Sox are part of the fabric. And if you’ve lived in New England until the last 10 years, the Patriots were mostly a bad joke. And that kind of thing doesn’t get erased overnight with people who have developed a decades-long affiliation with the Red Sox.”

Even Kraft could not deny the seemingly irresistible lure of the Red Sox: According to The Boston Globe, when a fellow NFL owner poked fun at Kraft for being pictured in a Red Sox jacket on national television, Kraft said he was a Sox fan long before he was a Patriots fan.

The Patriots surged to respectability under Kraft and coach Bill Parcells, who was hired prior to the 1993 season by Orthwein. And it was Parcells’ charisma—as well as the success the Patriots enjoyed under him; their loss in Super Bowl XXXI following the 1996 season marked the decade’s only championship round appearance by a Boston team—that finally turned the Patriots into the clear number two “beat” in Boston.

In December 1996, Channel 4 sports anchor Bob Lobel told the Boston Herald Parcells was “…by far the greatest sports personality in my 20 years here.” Parcells could be secretive, bullying and combative with the media, particularly those who second-guessed his decisions or asked what he believed were ill-informed questions, but he seemed to enjoy interacting with reporters and his sarcastic wit and biting commentary—in 1996, he called rookie wide receiver Terry Glenn “she” in an attempt to fire him up—made his press conferences can’t-miss affairs.

Few coaches were more consumed with winning or more miserable in defeat than Parcells, who once said winning the Super Bowl was better than sex. But unlike so many of his brethren whose lives seemingly did not extend beyond the gridiron, Parcells has a litany of off-field interests and hobbies.

Parcells had a particular fondness for horse racing—he owned several thoroughbreds and bet a pair of writers that a favorite horse of his would win a 1996 race; when it did, the writers could not ask Parcells a question for a week—and baseball. Parcells is a lifelong fan of the game who often said he’d love to own a minor league team upon retirement. He’d often talk about the game and swap trivia questions with reporters in off-the-record sessions following press conferences.

“He was an interesting guy in his press conferences,” said Cafardo, who was moved from the Red Sox beat to the Patriots beat when Ron Borges was promoted to NFL columnist in 1996. “He wasn’t afraid to say things about players. He would go off on the writers. He was just very entertaining and he would always fill up your notebook.”

Filling up the notebooks of reporters was the last thing on the mind of Bill Belichick, a Parcells disciple and the man who would lift the Patriots to unimaginable heights.

(Part two tomorrow)

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Gabe Kapler

Gabe Kapler's a pretty interesting guy, In the five years since this interview was conducted, he has won a World Series ring, played in Japan, returned to the Red Sox, suffered a torn Achilles tendon, returned to the Sox, retired to become the manager of the Sox' Single-A affiliate in Greenville, unretired, signed with the Brewers, participated in the 2008 playoffs and played with the Rays. Whew. Photo from this site.

A quick note here to offer my sincere and appreciative thanks to Bruce Allen for reviewing Fighting Words and conducting a Q&A with me yesterday at Boston Sports Media Watch. Thanks, too, to Bruce for linking the Derek Lowe Q&A, and if you arrived here via that route, welcome. I hope you like what you see, and I hope you’ll stop by beginning Tuesday, when, I’ll post in two or three parts the Patriots chapter from Fighting Words that ended up on the cutting room floor.

In the meantime, check out this Q&A with Gabe Kapler that I conducted in 2004. I’m a day late to coincide with Kapler and the Rays hosting the Sox, but Kapler’s take on the positivity of the press and the advantages of playing in a market where fans have an insatiable thirst for information about their athletes is pretty timely given the Sox’ recent dissatisfaction with what they perceive as negative coverage. Happy Labor Day weekend. Enjoy the burgers and dogs.

Did you ever participate in any media training seminars?

I remember we had a rookie development program, I think in ’98—how to deal with the media and how to handle certain situations, to avoid [certain] questions and how to not be manipulated by questions and how to manipulate the situation so you get across the points that you want to get across. What else did they teach us there? There was also [something on] how to avoid the pitfalls of being out on the town and getting photographed—not necessarily photographed, but being confronted by people—and learning how to not be reactive.

What was the media like at your previous stops: Detroit, Texas and Colorado?

It was a different world. You knew everybody by name, there was a familiarity there that you don’t have here, because, basically, there’s two competing newspapers: Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. So if you have a conversation with a reporter, you know where it is [going to appear]. Whereas here, it can [appear] anywhere. Detroit was a little bit closer to here. Not nearly the same level. As far as Colorado, it wasn’t even close.

What had you heard about the Boston media before you played here?

In the clubhouse, I’d heard it would get crowded at times and you had to be careful, because my understanding from outside sources—which I found to be entirely untrue—was that the media’s happier when you’re losing than when you’re winning. I haven’t found that to be an accurate depiction at all.

Why do you think that is the case?

I think that comes from there being less to write about when [the Sox lose]. I think that, truly, a lot of the writers around here are Red Sox fans, whether they admit it or not.

A lot of the beat writers and columnists are from the area. Do you think they shoulder the team’s struggles and failures more than reporters in other cities?

I think that’s more the fans caring so passionately and deeply. They want to win so badly They say ‘We’re going to be very disappointed when we lose.’ They’re very open about being disappointed when you lose. But [they’re] always going to care.

Do you ever marvel at how the Patriots are in the midst of a legendary run yet the Sox get more coverage?

It’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty exciting It’s nice to be a part of. Whether I play one more year with the Red Sox, no more years with the Red Sox or 10 more years with the Red Sox, I will always cherish the experiences that I had here. Remarkably rewarding.

You’ve become pretty popular with the media. Do you see yourself as a team spokesperson-type of player?

I don’t think that’s accurate—at least I don’t see it. Maybe I’m off, but I don’t feel like I talk to the media more than anybody else. I don’t feel at all offended by that [characterization]. I’ve never—I don’t notice myself talking to the media more than anybody else I could be wrong. Other people have more [press responsibilities] than me.

What do you remember about the relationship between the press and the Sox—and in particular Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra—last year?

Very little, believe it or not. There’s been so much positive that’s gone on here that it’s been difficult to think of [negatives]. Pedro’s talking to the media now and Manny [as well]. Nomar was real particular about when he talked.

Is the passion for baseball in Boston a good thing because it allows someone like you and your wife an outlet to try and help others by telling the story of how she was abused by a former boyfriend?

There’s no doubt about it. It’s unbelievable. It’s given me a forum to talk about important issues that you never would have been able to talk about. And because of it, we’re starting a really great [charity] that we wouldn’t have been able to start [otherwise]. I’m very thankful for the opportunity.

We had talked about starting a foundation and we have this fundraiser called Picnic in the Park here. Jane Doe is an organization that supports women in abusive relationships and their rehabilitation. Lisa said she had been in that type of relationship, they embraced her [and] she opened up about it. She started to speak about it, we talked about how perfect it would be if we could get something going.

And the rest has become history. She’s spoken to five or six high schools in the last two weeks. She’ll get [a company] called the National Jean Company that’s affiliated with Jane Doe and raise money for Jane Doe. Really remarkable. We really have Boston to thank for that, because they listen where nobody else really cares. It’s great to be a member of the Rockies, but you have an issue and you’re not Todd Helton, it might not get heard, where here, it’s heard.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Relationship between the Sox, media and fans tense and timeless

You can say anything you want about me and my writing, but if you badmouth Extreme we'll have a lot more than words between us. Photo from this site.

The best thing about finishing Fighting Words and seeing it hit the shelves (buy it here!)—other than living a cross-continental life of fame and fortune and having Jennifer Aniston on speed dial (OK that’s a lie, but I’m apparently following Wyclef Jean on Twitter and I can tell you he never shuts up)—is the absence of dread on mornings like last Thursday, when the Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman wrote a column criticizing the Red Sox’ recent sensitivity towards the media’s coverage of the team.

Three years ago, or even a year ago, such a piece would have filled me with panic. What if someone else decides it’d be interesting to write a book about the dynamic between the Red Sox and the media? And what if that someone else is able to, you know, author the book about it in less than a year? Gulp.

Now, such stories leave me strangely aglow with comfort (not quite Monty Burns in the woods aglow, but pretty close)—not only because I was able to get the book out before someone else did, but because it’s further proof this stuff is timeless. It’s nice to know I didn’t write a book about the modern version of the Macarena and that there’s a shred of a chance someone will pick up Fighting Words in a year or two and still find it relevant.

Because, let’s face it: There IS some kind of unavoidable disconnect between the players, the media and the fans that root for the team and absorb the coverage. And it’s an impossible to bridge that gap and impossible to choose sides, because you can’t change instinctual reactions nor blame people for having them.

Players are going to get mad whenever the coverage isn’t positive, even if the non-positive coverage is mostly straight reportage. It’s kind of hard to avoid that the Sox had a miserable stretch leading up to and following the All-Star Break, or that they fell hopelessly behind the Yankees, or that David Ortiz tested positive for performance-enhancers in 2003. (Perhaps Ortiz was angry about the moralizing of columnists, but I kind of doubt it)

Such sentiments—whether born out of the expectation that the press should serve as a supportive cheerleader or the athlete’s need to turn any slight into motivational material—are universal in professional sports.

“Ninety-nine percent of the players think every city is negative,” former Herald columnist and current ESPN.com columnist Howard Bryant said in an interview for Fighting Words in January 2005. “If you talk to players about how they’re perceived or portrayed, I don’t think there’s any market where they could say ‘That’s a fair town.’ I think it all depends on how you’re being treated at that moment. I think that would be the case with any of us, if we were in the public eye.

Added Bryant later in the interview: “Let’s face it: When you talk to a ballplayer anywhere, you could write nine good stories about them and one bad one and they’ll say you’re being negative. They don’t remember the good.”

Fandom, meanwhile, is about rooting for and being supportive of your favorite team and players and jumping to their defense whenever someone is critical or dismissive of said team and players. Or, for those of us who don’t really root for professional teams, bands. I get worked into a frothy rage whenever anyone thinks Extreme is nothing more than “More Than Words,” but I digress.

Nobody likes being criticized, and the reporter gets it from both subject and audience. Michael Gee expounded on the latter element Wednesday in a really interesting guest column at Boston Sports Media Watch.

Perhaps—and I’m just theorizing here—the sensitivity of reporters is heightened by our (I’ve been out of work for mumblemumble months, can I say our?) own sense of impending doom and marginalization in a business largely headed down the crapper. Maybe we’re upset that people are critical of a profession in which we’ve invested so much time, effort and money. Of course, it doesn’t stop us from blasting doctors, car mechanics and lawyers, does it?

The relationship between the players, the media and the fans is a particularly unique one in Boston, one that remains fascinating even if it really hasn’t changed in decades and even though the fundamental differences between the parties aren’t going to disappear any millennium soon. To which I say: Thank goodness.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Hey kids: Carlos Pena walks, homers and strikes out…TO THE EXTREME!

Carlos Pena will be cooler than Poochie if he manages to lead the AL in homers, RBI, walks and strikeouts while finishing last in the majors in batting average. Photo from this site.

Carlos Pena hit 46 homers in 2007, one season after he spent time in three organizations and hit one major league homer (a walk-off blast for the Red Sox against the White Sox Sept. 4), and helped the perpetually awful Rays to the World Series in 2008. But Pena may be pulling off his most remarkable feat yet as he puts the finishing touches on an awesomely absurd season of extreme statistical accomplishment.

Pena has gotten plenty of ink and pixels for collecting more homers (39) than singles (38), something only Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds have ever accomplished. But that’s nothing compared to his emergence as the poster boy for Three True Outcomes.

Entering play today, Pena leads the AL in homers (39), walks (84) and strikeouts (156) while ranking second in RBI…and last among all major league qualifiers in batting average (.225). That’s right: He may win two-thirds of the Triple Crown (he is three behind Mark Teixeira in RBI) while finishing dead last in the third category.

That is, if I may use the adjective for the second time in three graphs, awesome, and reminiscent of one of the defining seasons of my baseball youth. I recall watching the putrid Mets (some things never change) on WWOR-9 (OK, most things do change) in 1982 as Dave Kingman jockeyed for the NL home run lead while struggling to keep his batting average above The Mendoza Line.

A quick check of Baseball-Reference.com confirms my recollections were correct: Kingman led the NL with 37 homers and also paced the circuit with 156 strikeouts, all while batting .204—the lowest mark in the big leagues.

A further foray into B-R.com also makes it clear that Pena is on pace to produce the most productive season, by far, of anyone who has finished last in the majors in batting average since 1979. No player since Kingman has led his league in multiple offensive categories while ranking last in batting average—in fact, the only players to bring up the rear in batting average and lead the league in anything, positive or negative, are Rob Deer (led the AL in whiffs in 1991 and 1993) and Brian Hunter (led the AL in stolen bases in 1999).

Yet Pena has a chance to do it in FOUR categories—though he enters today with a healthy lead only in homers, where he is seven ahead of Teixeira—and he’ll also likely finish the season in the top 10 in slugging percentage and runs scored as well. Only two players since 1979 have even finished in the top 10 in three categories while compiling the lowest batting average in the game: Kingman, who finished ninth in the NL in RBI in 1982, and Gorman Thomas, who ranked fifth in homers, seventh in strikeouts and ninth in walks in the AL in 1985.

In addition, Pena already has more homers than anyone who finished last in batting average since 1979, and he’ll make it a clean sweep with two more RBI, 13 more walks and 20 more strikeouts.

If, of course, Pena manages to stay first in the race for last. Pena was hitting as low as .211 as recently as Aug. 18, but he’s hit .356 with over his last 13 games to allow Mike Jacobs (.228) and David Ortiz (.229) to creep closer. Pena has seven singles in that span, one more than he had in 38 games from July 1 through Aug. 18. On behalf of minutiae-loving baseball fans everywhere, Carlos, here’s hoping for more Three True Outcomes and less versatility down the stretch.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Reports of the Red Sox’ demise were greatly exaggerated

Paul McCartney is alive and well, and so are the Sox. Photo from this site.

We know it’s no good for us and that equal parts regret and guilt will wash over us as indigestion sets in. We know this, yet the urge for instant gratification overwhelms common sense and we dive headlong into that bag of potato chips or that pint of ice cream…or, if you’re a sportswriter/blogger, that column/post about how the team you cover/watch from afar is either unbeatable or completely sunk following a seismic handful of games.

Sometimes, we give ourselves a little bit of wiggle room, but let’s face it, tempering those scenarios of imminent euphoria or destruction with “well, anything can still happen” is a lot like washing down that bag of chips with Diet Coke. You’re not fooling anyone and the damage is still done.

And so it is that here, on the first morning of September, those utterances of three weeks ago that the Red Sox were finished—pardon me, potentially finished, and I’ve got to give myself a little bit of credit, I washed that blog down with a bottle of water—following the Boston Massacre III look a wee bit foolish.

The sky has yet to fall upon the Sox, who begin play today a healthy four games up on the Rangers and five games up on the Rays—the latter of whom the Sox can finish off, err, put into a deeper hole during a three-game series beginning tonight in Florida—in the wild card race. The Sox have built that distance on the strength of the offense that was, somewhat understandably, declared extinct after a 31-inning scoreless stretch against the Yankees.

Remarkably, even with that epic drought, the Sox had one of the best offensive months of any AL team. The Sox led the circuit with 50 homers while hitting .275 with 165 runs scored, 152 RBI, a .356 on-base percentage and a .494 slugging percentage.  They ranked second in slugging, behind the Yankees, and third in runs, RBI and on-base percentage, behind the Yankees and Angels.

In their final 20 games of the month, the Sox went 14-6 while scoring 129 runs, an average of 6.45 runs per game. They scored more than four runs 14 times. In the previous 20-game stretch—which ended with the sweep at the hands of the Yankees—the Sox went 7-13 with 91 runs scored, an average of 4.55 runs per game, and scored fewer than four runs 12 times.

Kevin Youkilis (.337-4-16), Dustin Pedroia (.305-5-13), Mike Lowell (.319-5-15), Jacoby Ellsbury (.295-0-11) and David Ortiz (seven homers for the third straight month) maintained or slightly improved their seasonal norms, but the real fuel for the August surge was provided by a pair of slumping core players and two newcomers who proved to be dramatic upgrades on their predecessors.

Jason Bay hit .289 with nine homers and 18 RBI in August after hitting .213 with five homers and 25 RBI in June and July. J.D. Drew hit .329 with six homers and 13 RBI in 73 at-bats after hitting .217 with two homers and five RBI in 83 at-bats in July.

Victor Martinez hit .306 with five homers and 19 RBI in 108 at-bats. Jason Varitek hit .135 with one homer and four RBI in August and is hitting .204 with four homers and 26 RBI in 181 at-bats since June 1. Alex Gonzalez, imported for his glove more than his bat, hit .296 with three homers and seven RBI in 54 at-bats. Nick Green has as many scoreless innings on the mound (two) as he does homers since July 1, and is hitting just .161 since then with eight RBI in 93 at-bats.

This is not quite 2004 all over again, when the Sox took a couple weeks to find a groove following the Nomar Garciaparra trade and went 20-2 and scored more than four runs 18 times from Aug. 16 through Sept. 8. And the uncertain state of the Sox’ starting staff—this is what’s known as chasing a binge of optimism with a diet soda—beyond Jon Lester means it’s a little early to project 2004-type success in October and, perhaps, November. Still, it seems pretty clear the sky is not falling, and that my waistline continues to expand.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.