Will professional sports teams try to limit media access even after the pandemic?

NFL teams were told on Tuesday that locker room access, at least to start the season, will be limited to 50 fully vaccinated staff members. This includes coaches, trainers, and equipment staff, among other positions employed by the team.

It’s understandable and the responsible thing to do given the spike in COVID-19 cases and the threat of variants of the virus as morons such as Bills catcher and mask/vaccination conspiracy theorist Cole Beasley continue. to protest by doing what is necessary for society.

Team-affiliated media are also among those permitted in the locker room. This should raise the airwaves of members of the media who do not receive a salary from the team, journalists who are quick to cultivate sources in order to discover the truth and inform readers and viewers about what is really going on. with a team.

And this suspicion remains valid. Team-affiliated media should not be allowed back into the locker room and given far greater access when independent journalists will often remain confined to the controlled and infuriating environment of Zoom calls. Patriots.com reporters, especially someone with deep institutional knowledge like Paul Perillo, are credible – which is why they should be treated like any other reporter.

Teams are encouraged in policy to respond to requests for one-on-one interviews outside the locker room after games and practices, but the level of cooperation will vary from team to team, and the Patriots aren’t exactly known. to encourage real journalism.

Time will only tell if those locker room doors will open to the media again when the virus is finally defeated. This latest development suggests that skepticism, always a valid tool for a journalist, is well founded.

Ordway knew what worked

Contrary to what his more hyperbolic colleagues would have suggested in recent weeks, Glenn Ordway did not invent sports radio in Boston. Such a suggestion is disrespectful, even accidentally, to people like Guy Mainella and Eddie Andelman, among others.

Ordway’s legacy is historic in a different, but equally impressive way. He didn’t create sports radio here, but he understood better than anyone before what would work in this market. Ordway, who retired Thursday as a full-time host at WEEI, conjured up a brilliant formula perfectly suited to the cynical nature of the Boston sports fan.

The afternoon “The Big Show” in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which featured Ordway as the irreplaceable emcee with a rotating cast of guest hosts, was a radio staple in this era when Boston teams couldn’t muster a championship.

Ordway was eventually overtaken as the voice of sports radio in the city by a former “Big Show” understudy, Michael Felger of The Sports Hub, and recent notes suggest Ordway is moving from a daily presence at just the right time. . But even though he’s only an occasional voice on Boston sports radio, his imprint on the genre is permanent.

It has been a long time

The Patriots will host CBS’ No. 3 broadcast duo of Kevin Harlan and Trent Green for the first two weeks of the season, the home opener against the Dolphins, and then Week 2 at the Jets. It’s the first time since the 2014 season that a broadcast team featuring Jim Nantz or Al Michaels on play-by-play won’t call the Patriots opener. Nantz and Tony Romo called the Patriots opener for CBS in 2018 and 20, while Michaels and Cris Collinsworth had him for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” from 2015-17, and again in 2019. In 2014, Greg Gumbel and Green, then CBS’ No. 3 team announced the Dolphins’ 33-20 win over the Patriots to kick off the season. This season of the Patriots, as you may recall, ended better than it began…I regret to inform you that the ending does not change, but the upcoming four-part documentary series ESPN’s “30 for 30” about the talented and reckless 1986 New York Mets, titled “Once Upon a Time in Queens,” is a must watch. Yes, even for Red Sox fans. A particularly startling admission from pitcher Dwight Gooden, whose extraordinary start to a career was derailed by drug use: After Celtics draft pick Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose in June 1986, Gooden went to his dealer and said he wanted the stuff that killed Bias. “It’s sick, but that’s where I was, at the time,” Gooden said in the doc. “I’d be like, ‘Hey, I want Len Bias’ stuff,’ which means in street terms, I want the strongest stuff you’ve got. That’s how crazy my brain was at that time. Can you imagine?” Directed by Nick Davis, the series airs September 15-16… Hats off to NESN and WEEI for helping raise over $3.8 million for the Jimmy Fund during his radio – two day telethon Extraordinary work all around.