More complaints about ESPN

Great article about the state of affairs in Bristol, CT.

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Media Watch: Gammons the Great?

By Matthew Lesh
NYYFans.com Staff Writer
January 20, 2004

I am a fan of Peter Gammons. I really am. I read his columns regularly on ESPN.com, and I admire his writing style, which is simple but not pandering. I am more likely to watch Baseball Tonight when he�s on. Gammons is more entertaining and more personable than Tim Kurkjian, Rob/Ron Dibble, and whatever other dregs Karl Ravech can drag onto the set. His presence lends a degree of dignity to the proceedings that Dibble and other ex-players or managers can�t approach, and he always seems better informed than Kurkjian, Jayson Stark and the other writers.

Now, as a Yankee fan, I have always been aware of Gammons� reputation among Yankees fans as a Boston homer, and quite frankly, I have always dismissed it out of hand. Gammons always spoke and wrote glowingly of the 1996-2000 champion Yankees, praising the way the team was built and defending its creators from those who accused them of buying championships. He has been nothing but complimentary to Brian Cashman, Joe Torre, and the core group of players who won those titles. Gammons recognized that those Yankees teams went about their business the right way, and he wasn�t shy about broadcasting his admiration in spite of his New England roots. Sure, there was the occasional barb thrown George Steinbrenner�s way, but you can hardly blame the guy for that.

At the same time, Gammons never held back criticism of the Red Sox organization, which resembled a circus for most of the last decade. The Clemens departure, the Jimy Williams/Carl Everett wars, every fiasco Dan Duquette created, even the shady, Selig-induced ownership change: none of these escaped Gammons� critical eye. If anything, he seemed overly harsh toward the Red Sox for the latter half of the last decade.

Given this, I never really understood the cries of bias that some Yankees fans directed his way. I attributed them to oversensitivity, or perhaps the disquieting effect of seeing the country�s premier sports network�s chief baseball analyst position get handed to a man who ostensibly represented the enemy.

Lately, however, even as I still defend Gammons to friends and fellow fans, I have noticed a slow but not-so-subtle shift in his baseball coverage. It�s almost as if he has been struggling for years to cloak his inner Red Sox fan under layers of objectivity and respectability, but he can keep the beast inside no longer. Like The Incredible Hulk when his green skin bursts through Bruce Banner�s clothes, Peter Gammons is transforming before our eyes, and under his gray suits and Andrew Jackson-like face lies a pool of red, red blood.

Since the end of the 2001 World Series, Gammons has grown more and more critical of the Yankees. He has become a vocal basher of the new Yankee regime, and particularly Steinbrenner, who has been the frequent targets of snarky asides and knowing glances between Gammons and Ravech. This doesn�t bother me in and of itself. The Yankees have opened themselves to criticism the way they have built their team the last two seasons, although history tells me that had the Yankees beaten the Marlins this year, Gammons would have been falling all over himself trying to find complimentary things to say about the pinstripers. Quite frankly, Steinbrenner has behaved boorishly at times, from the inanity of DentalGate to his handling of the Andy Pettitte negotiations. Peter Gammons, and everyone else for that matter, has the right to take him to task.

But at the same time, Gammons has done an about-face concerning the Red Sox. Perhaps not coincidentally, his columns about their organization have become consistently more positive as their win total has increased. If I didn�t know better, I would have to wonder if Gammons is in Theo Epstein�s pocket, as he seems to turn to his thesaurus frequently to find new adjectives to describe the brilliance of Boston�s Boy Wonder. A recent column actually mentioned Epstein�s strong family values and upbringing. Even John Henry and Larry Lucchino, two shady characters at best, have received near-constant praise from their newest champion. Yet again, even this wouldn�t bother me on its own, for the Red Sox have had a change in management, and perhaps Gammons truly approves of the way they conduct themselves. I can�t shake the feeling, though, that he is not only openly rooting for the Red Sox, but hopping on the bandwagon at the most convenient time.

In the final analysis, neither critique of the Yankees nor praise of the Red Sox is enough to convict the man of homerism. But it�s not actually that difficult. All you have to do is scan the headlines of his columns for ESPN this off-season. Since the close of the 2003 World Series, Gammons has penned 18 columns for the web site. Of these 18, one deals with Pete Rose, one with a charity concert, one with the untimely passing of Ken Brett. That leaves 15 columns that deal explicitly with analyzing the sport of baseball. Nine out of those 15 cover the Red Sox as their primary topic, including an astonishing six in a row.

The potential ARod/Manny Ramirez trade was certainly a huge story. But did we really need four straight columns from Gammons on a deal that hadn�t yet happened? Did we need to hear about it from every conceivable point of view, from Nomar Garciaparra all the way down to the bat boys? How about two straight columns concerning the Manny Ramirez non-tender, another story about nothing really happening? And let�s not forget an entire column devoted to Theo Epstein�s scintillating search for a manager.

Gammons is out of control. There have been a myriad of interesting, important stories this off-season that he has virtually ignored while he covers the Red Sox like a beat reporter. Other teams� fans have even more right to complain than Yankees fans. New York, as Boston�s natural rival, has at least had some bandwidth devoted to its team, but whither the world champion Marlins, or perennial contenders in San Francisco and Minnesota? Someone in Bristol needs to rein Gammons in, before he turns ESPN.com into the Boston Globe and Baseball Tonight into NESN.