BSD POSTS LOCKER ROOM INTERVIEWS ON YOU TUBE

BSD has posted locker room interviews from tonight’s Bruins – Maple Leafs game

CHARA
KHUDOBIN
Marchand
Bergeron

KEVIN HARRIMAN

THANK YOU FROM BSD !!!!

Thank you to our readers !

At some point tonight, readers/followers of Boston Sports Desk will have visited our site more than 90,000 times since  we started tracking our stats back in late 2010.

Thanks to all of  you who have supported us along the way. We look forward to offering you the latest sports information and opinions as we continue to grow.

Mark Harriman and Kevin Harriman

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT !

THANK YOU !

The staff at Boston Sports Desk would like to thank all of our followers for their support during the past two years. Tonight, at some point, BSD will have had more than 80,000 hits to our site during the past two years. We are tremendously grateful for the time and participation you have given us. Your contributions, opinions, best wishes and criticisms  have been appreciated.

We enjoy what we do at BSD and are looking forward to improving our content and coverage in the months ahead.

Thanks again !

Kevin Harriman

Mark Harriman

DIFFERENT IS OK, EXTREME SUCKS BIG TIME !

BY KEVIN HARRIMAN

Boston Sports Desk Publisher

I have been preaching, pontificating, call it what you want, for more than two years now about how journalism is changing for ever, right in front of us.

The viewing public, in my opinion, no longer wants to read long, flowery game stories or features. The idea of having to read more than five or six paragraphs to get to the heart of the story is offensive. A well-written, articulately crafted story that takes a reader through an event or situation is boring.

Tweet it ! Blog it ! Hell, Boston Sports Desk (BSD) was started because we believed that there was an opportunity to provide information to an audience through social media using our background as former sports reporters. Give the audience what they want. Seems like a great idea. And hey, if along the way, you attract a following that hits your website 60 or 70,000 times a day……you can make yourself a decent living.

I’m all for it !

Even BSD will soon be switching from a blog site to a website. It’s just how things progress. We’ve been very lucky that our followers have continued to support us, our style (a little of this and a little of that) and our sports and music content. I’m all for change and creativity.

With that said, let me tell you, we will NEVER…allow an article or photo to be published for the sake of drawing publicity and traffic to BSD at the expense of others.

A little more than a week ago, the blogging world was turned upside down by David Portnoy, President of Bar Stool Sports, a local blog site that prides itself on being edgy, controversial and sexy. All are great things to bring to your viewers who have grown accustomed to nude pics, rate that ass and a different slant on stories both locally and national. The word ” SPORTS ” in the company name is a little odd given the lack of actual sports on the site, but hey….lots of great looking women…..I guess looking at very pretty young women could be considered a sport.

But that was not enough for Portnoy.  He needed to push the envelope over the cliff and into a fiery crash !

As I’m sure most Boston sports fans are aware, Bar Stool Sports published a photo of Tom Brady’s 2-year old son, fully naked on a beach. Add to that some gasoline in the form of an inappropriate photo caption describing the child and you’ve got yourself a shit storm.

I hadn’t given the situation a second thought since last week. But all of that came to end early this week when reading the” Inside Track ” in the Boston Herald, I find a quote from Portnoy saying that he did it for the publicity.

Publicity ! Publicity and the almighty dollar perhaps ? Probably, but I don’t want to put words in Portnoy’s mouth. Those words may get infected from fecal matter residing in that particular orifice.

He sure got his publicity. WEEI (850) spent hours on the subject over the course of four days. Portnoy had been a regular guest on the Dennis and Callahan Show. But that came to a crashing halt on Friday morning when station Vice President of Programming for WEEI, Jason Wolfe, tweeted: “No we will not have Portnoy on again. What he did was completely irresponsible. It’s not about whether he was allowed to do it or not. It’s about common decency. And he showed none.”

Portnoy was anything but apologetic following Wolfe’s tweet posting: “As I’ve already said a million times I’m honestly shocked this got blown so far out of proportion. To me anybody with a normally functioning brain should have looked at this blog, hopefully laughed, and moved on.”

“I feel like it’s disingenuous of me to take them down because of what a bunch of loony bins are saying,” he said on his website.

I think Portnoy is extremely disingenuous in his remarks !

BSD had an opportunity to speak with Attorney General Martha Coakley this past week at an event in Brockton. Coakley was the invited guest of honor, rolling out a new initiative and speaking on the growing foreclosure crisis and its effects on neighborhoods.

But the first question out of the mouths of reporters at the end of the press conference centered on the Portnoy shit storm. Not on how local neighborhoods need to tackle serious issues, but rather a stupid, insensitive, offensive and over the top action by Bar Stool Sports. The public in general was out-raged and rightly so.

Coakley went on to tell the media how her office had contacted Portnoy by sending the State Police to his house. She went on to say how the matter was resolved when the State Police asked El-Prez to remove the picture.

I guess those “loony bin” State Police changed his mind. The pictures of the 2-year old were removed fromt the website.

Sure, social media is changing journalism and information sharing. We can all agree with that. But getting publicity at the expense of others just sucks !

Shame on Bar Stool Sports for going over the cliff with this one. Smarten up guys !

You’ve got a good thing going with traffic that other sites would kill for. You have a solid following and you don’t need to take the site into the toilet.

It’s pretty bad when Howard Stern chastises you publicly for posting the picture

Just saying……..

BSD NAMED FINALIST BY 98.5 AS “MOST VALUABLE BLOGGER”

BOSTON – Boston Sports Desk has been named a finalist by 98.5 The Sports Hub as Boston’s “MOST VALUABLE BLOGGER”.  You can vote for your choice of best sports blogger by clicking on the link below. There are a number of great blog sites to choose from. Voting will conclude Sept. 9, 2011. Please consider voting for BSD !

http://boston.cbslocal.com/most-valuable-blogger/

“I really enjoy BSD’s outlook on sports, and would like to show my appreciation through this award.” -BSD’s nomination (anonymous) 

KEVIN HARRIMAN

Boston Sports Desk Publisher

RED SOX NOTEBOOK: SEATTLE GAME 3

SOX LATELY: The Red Sox lost last night in Seattle, 5-4, the club’s 2nd loss in its last 3 games…Boston has taken 5 of its last 7 contests overall, 15 of its last 23, 18 of 28 since the All-Star break and 28 of 39 since 6/30, outscoring opponents 231-165 in that time.

ON THE RECORD: At 73-45 (.619), the Red Sox own the best record in the AL, behind only Philadelphia (78-41, .655) in the Majors.

Boston is a Major League-best 73-39 (.652) since picking up its 1st win of 2011 on 4/8…The Sox lost 6 straight games to begin
the year, the club’s longest season-opening slide since 1945 (0-8). The Sox 73 wins mark the club’s most through the 1st 118 games of a season since 1995 (73). A win today would give the Sox a victory in the current series…The Red Sox have won or split each of their last 11 series since the start of July, with victories in 9 of those sets.

FIRST PLACE: The Red Sox reclaimed 1st place in the AL East with a win over New York on 8/7 and currently lead the Yankees by
1.0 game…Overall in 2011, the Red Sox have been tied or in the lead in the division on 53 total days since tying for 1st on 5/26.

LONG ROAD: Today’s game is the Red Sox 6th in a stretch in which they play 14 of 17 contests on the road from 8/8-25, going
3-2 thus far…The club is continuing a 3-game set in Seattle after last night’s loss…Boston took 2 of 3 in Minnesota (8/8-10) to begin its current trip…Following the current series, the Sox will return home for an off-day Monday and then play 3 games in 2 days against Tampa Bay on Tuesday (doubleheader) and Wednesday before heading out for an 8-day, 8-game road trip to Kansas City (8/18-21) and Texas (8/22-25).

With a win today, Boston would claim its 8th straight winning road trip…The Sox have earned a winning record in each of their last 7 trips after going 0-6 in their season-opening jaunt…It is the 1st time in club history that the Sox have won 7 straight road trips within a season (Elias). The Sox 36-23 mark (.610) away from home overall this year is the 2nd-best road record in the Majors after the Phillies
(36-22).

ROAD WARRIORS: The Sox went deep twice last night and have hit a Major League-high 80 homers on the road this year, 10
more than the next-best team (STL, 70)…Red Sox batters have hit at least 1 homer in each of the club’s last 11 road games (18 total), matching their longest such stretch away from home this year (also 5/10-29)…Boston’s last longer streak of road games with at least 1 home run was a 14-game stretch from 6/7-7/6/05…Boston sluggers have combined for 31 roundtrippers in their last 18 contests away from home overall.

Sox batters have drawn a ML-high 235 walks on the road…They also lead AL road leaders in SLG (.432), OPS (.768) and runs (tied, 301), and are 2nd in that group in RBI (289), and OBP (.336). David Ortiz leads the team with 14 homers on the road, tied for 3rd most in the AL, while Adrian Gonzalez’s .326 clip on the road is 3rd among AL leaders.

VS. THE M’s: Today Boston plays the 3rd tilt of a 3-game set in Seattle, the club’s last game at Safeco Field this year, with the
Sox holding a 5-3 advantage…The clubs met for 2 sets at Fenway Park earlier in 2011…Last night’s loss snapped a streak of 5 straight wins against the M’s. Friday night’s victory secured the Sox a win in the season set vs. the Mariners in back-to-back seasons (7-3 last year) for the 1st time since 2003-04 (5-2 and 5-4)…Boston has won 19 of its last 29 games vs. the Mariners since 6/7/08 and has taken 22 of 35 matchups dating back to 8/4/07. Last night’s loss also ended Boston’s 4-game win streak in Seattle, the club’s longest win streak here since a 4-game run, 9/4/99-4/4/00…The Sox are 13-7 vs. the M’s in the Emerald City since 8/4/07 and 10-5 at Safeco dating
back to 7/21/08. The Red Sox are 215-157 (.578) all-time against the Mariners, the top winning percentage for any American League club against Seattle since the Mariners 1st season in 1977.

200 CLUB: Today’s starter Tim Wakefield is 1 win shy of becoming the 108th pitcher in Major League history and the 89th modern
Major Leaguer (since 1900) to record 200 career victories…

20/20 ACHIEVED: Jacoby Ellsbury knocked his 20th homer of the season last night in the 6th inning…Along with his 31 stolen
bases, he became the 6th Red Sox (7th time) to reach both 20 HR and 20 SB in a season, the 1st since Nomar Garciaparra in 1997…His 20 long balls are the most ever for a Red Sox with 30 or more steals. Ellsbury became the 4th member of the 20/20 club in the Majors this season, joining MIL’s Ryan Braun, NYY’s Curtis Granderson and LAD’s Matt Kemp…Ellsbury leads that group with 31 swipes.

CLEANING UP: Dustin Pedroia batted cleanup last night and hit a 2-run homer in the 6th inning…He has now hit safely in
all 10 career starts in the 4-hole, batting .500 (22-for-44) with 5 doubles, 1 triple, 5 homers and 11 RBI in those contests…The Sox are 8-2 in those games, including 5-1 in his 6 starts as the cleanup hitter this season.

Pedroia has hit safely in 47 of his last 52 games dating back to 6/15, leading the Majors in that span in AVG (.371), OBP (.436),
OPS (1.060) and total bases (131), and placing 2nd in that time in hits (tied, 78), extra-base hits (29), runs (tied, 41) and SLG (.624).

CLOSE LOSSES: 2 of Boston’s last 3 losses have come by 1 run and 7 of the club’s last 8 losses since 7/25 have been decided by 3
runs or less…The Sox are 48-24 since 5/23, and among those 24 losses, only 1 was decided by more than 4 runs: a 5-0 loss at Philadelphia on 6/28.

SAVINGS ACCOUNT: Jonathan Papelbon recorded his 27th save Friday night, 4th-most in the AL, and has converted each of his
last 22 save chances since 5/13, the longest single-season stretch of his career and the 2nd-longest save streak in the American League this year behind DET’s Jose Valverde, who has converted each of his 35 chances thus far.

Papelbon has thrown 12.0 scoreless frames over his last 12 games, allowing just 3 base runners (all singles) with 13 strikeouts in that stretch, while going 2-0 with 7 saves in that time.

PAPI POWER: David Ortiz has homered 4 times in his last 8 games, including in 2 of his last 3 contests…He has hit 24 roundtrippers on the season, tied for 7th among American League leaders, and 1 shy of his 8th 25-homer season, all with Boston…Ortiz would move out of a tie with Jim Rice (7 seasons) for the 2nd-most, 25-homer seasons ever by a Red Sox after Ted Williams (14). Ortiz is hitting .545
(12-for-22) with 3 homers and 7 RBI over his current 6-game hit streak.

KEVIN HARRIMAN 

THE SPORTS HUB 98.5 HOLDS “MOST VALUABLE BLOGGER” CONTEST

Boston radio station, 98.5  “The Sports Hub” is holding a contest to determine the “Most Valuable Blogger” in a number of categories. One of the categories is SPORTS…Voting begins August 16th. Please check it out and participate !

 

http://boston.cbslocal.com/most-valuable-blogger/?src=fb

BSD NEEDS WRITERS FOR CONCERT REVIEWS

BY KEVIN HARRIMAN

Boston Sports Desk Publisher

Boston Sports Desk  recently announced that it would begin its concert coverage. Because of this, BSD  is in need of people looking to do concert reviews. If you have previous experience or just think you would like to try something new and exciting, we’d like to talk to you. BSD will provide the press pass to you. We will be looking to cover concerts all over the country.

Email Kevin@Bostonsportsdesk.com and tell us why you would like to be involved with BSD.  Also, please include your availability, the areas you would be willing to travel to for concert coverage and include a head shot or picture of yourself.