Here's the full article so the BH site doesn't get more hits:
Nobody wins this one
By Tony Massarotti
Thursday, May 15, 2008 -
WASHINGTON - So let’s get this straight: Patriots employee Matt Walsh claimed to have passed on information about the St. Louis Rams walkthrough, but he did not videotape them. And after doing his best to sweep this matter under the rug, the esteemed commissioner of the NFL decided to drop in this little nugget like a throwaway line on a postcard.
Weather’s beautiful. Wish you were here.
“He does have some important things to say about walkthroughs,” Republican senator Arlen Specter said of Walsh yesterday at The Capitol, where the two met on Tuesday. “For example, he was there and he was questioned by a coach (Brian Daboll, now with New York Jets about what happened in the walkthrough.
“The coach questioned Walsh about it and made some diagrams about it. It wasn’t a casual thing. It was a matter of some importance.”
Not here. Not in New England, now the official home of yahoos, hero worshipers and gutless suck-ups. To this entire group, it was all about whether there was a tape; anything else doesn’t matter so much.
In the interest of disclosure, let’s again make something clear here: The Herald screwed up, and we screwed up big time. We told you there was a tape of the Rams walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, and there is no tape. We deserve every bit of criticism we get for that one.
All together now: It is what it is.
Now let’s get to the stories behind the story, the stuff nobody wants to talk about for fear of being exposed. The media is a sordid business. Professional and personal relationships frequently collide. Patriots coach Bill Belichick gives Christmas gifts and holiday cards to some members of the media, cyanide-tipped glares to others. You’re either a Belichicklet or you are not, and there is no base-level membership.
If you’re going to buy in, you have to sell out.
Thanks but no thanks.
As you are a member of the public, we strongly urge you to review all media stories (particularly this continuously developing one) with a cynical and skeptical eye. Try to discern which members of the media show up to work wearing Patriots Super Bowl jackets, and which of your pathetic, repressed middle-aged neighbors wear their Tedy Bruschi [stats] jerseys on Sundays.
Meanwhile, take time to wonder if those same neighbors are blogging and posting on message boards while spending hours on hold so they might hear their voices on the radio.
Listen, mom!
Just like karaoke!
These are the people who preserve the sports fantasy world that justifies their own sorry existence.
As for the Pats - and we’re not talking about the players here - do not let them fool you. For an organization so accomplished - and that it is - it never can seem to get enough love. Publicly, the Pats will make it seem as if they regard media coverage as a distraction and obstacle to their on-field success. Privately, the Pats will be upset when they feel the Red Sox [team stats] are getting too much coverage, regardless of which team has won more titles in the past four years.
Nice strategy there.
Talk about being insecure.
Somewhere along the line during this Golden Era of Boston sports, maybe we all went soft. In the past year or so, the Pats have been fined and stripped of a first-round draft pick, had two players arrested for drug possession and another suspended for the use of human growth hormone. Then the Pats went out and lost one of the biggest games in the history of professional sports against a team they were favored to beat by two touchdowns.
How dare anyone criticize them?
As for Goodell, his parting revelations through a league attorney that Walsh claimed to have passed on information about the walkthrough to a Patriots [team stats] coach seems like a clear attempt to diffuse the issue before it came out in Walsh’s meeting with Specter.
After saying that he wouldn’t know “where else to turn” to continue the investigation, Goodell had the attorney return to the room where he had addressed the media and deliver the following message: Oops, almost forgot to tell you. Walsh didn’t tape the walkthrough, but he says he was there and said he did give information to a Patriots coach. We don’t think it’s terribly important, but we’re in the business of being honest with you guys.
Whether or not you think it was the Rams’ fault for not kicking Walsh off of the field during their walkthrough, if a reporter buried a lead like that, he wouldn’t be a reporter.
Come to think of it, he’d probably be commissioner of the NFL.
Which brings us back to Specter’s concerns about the presence of a Patriots attorney at Goodell’s meeting with Walsh.
In the floor statement that Specter entered into the Congressional record, he said: “Walsh said that Dan Goldberg, an attorney for the Patriots, was present at his interview and asked questions. With some experience in investigations, I have never heard of a situation where the subject of an investigation or his/her/its representative was permitted to be present during the investigation. I (sic) strains credulity that any objective investigator would countenance such a practice. During a hearing or trial, parties will be present with the right of cross-examination and confrontation but certainly not in the investigative stage.”
One can only wonder whether anyone thought about bringing in Frank Pantangeli’s brother from Sicily, too.
In the end, nobody here is going to get what they want. Not the Patriots, not the Herald, not the NFL and not the fans. Stories like this have so many layers it’s as if the skin grows back. You can choose to believe either the Patriots or their critics, but make one promise to yourself if you choose the former.
Wash your official NFL-licensed Patriots underwear.
After a while, most everything gets dirty.
Nobody wins this one - BostonHerald.com
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