Who shall it be? Will Tony take the Tournament Double Crown, despite not being a horse? Oe will Gabby Starr announce her arrival as a local media legend? Voting will remain open until Midnight EDT. Play Ball!
(Oh yes, there’s also the consolation match.)
The votes are all tallied, and its Gabz versus Mazz! Current Herald vs. former Herald! The Baseball Hour vs. Girl at the Game! Youth vs. Experience! See you tomorrow for Championship Monday!
Wow!
Polls. Open until 12 Midnight EDT.
Welcome to the first ever Summertime Sour Sixteen! If you like new media and Red Sox broadcasters, or more importantly if you don’t like new media and Red Sox broadcasters, then this is the competition for you! We’ve got six podcasters, seven current or former members of Red Sox radio/TV broadcasts, two crusty old newspaper men and one weepy grifter. (Sung to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)
Region B
1 Dave O’Brien vs 4 Steve Perrault
O’Brien wasn’t bad on radio play-by-play. However, he is so bad on TV that he actually makes people long for the days of Don Orsillo. Now that’s bad. Perrault is just one of the Carrabis’s many forgettable goofball sidekicks. O’Brien walks it off.
2 Chad Finn vs 3 Rob Bradford
Hairy vag faced Bradfo will smother Wax Pack Chad under a pile of wrinkled t-shirts.
Region V (aka The Section 10 free region)
1 Gabby Starr vs 4 Justin MLB
Here’s a tip for any of you looking to participate in next year’s Mini-Tourney. Put “MLB” in your twitter handle, it will set you apart from your average run of the mill baseball fans named Justin. Gabz won’t even need to come back from one of her many in-season vacations to dispatch Mr. Gonzalez.
2 Tom Caron vs 6 Hogdale
The Hogriders came out in force and pushed their hero into Round 2. They may have misunderstood the assignment though. How could anyone not appreciate the passion that Grant Huckvale brings to the role of “Hogdale”? It’s always a tour de force performance. Grant is matched up with milquetoast Tom Caron. No matter how many hair plugs Caron gets, it will never be enough to mask his Megamind Forehead. Dr. Tom Leonard’s least successful client moves on.
Region N
1 Jared Carrabis vs 4 Coley Mick
Jared Carrabis is a better more knowledgeable fan than YOU. Sorry, just deal with it losers. “Coley Mick” is a lace curtain Irish dunce. “Car Rubbish”® will mash that bloated spud in the Section 10 showdown.
2 Tony Massarotti vs 3 Will Fleming
It seems unfair to have the March Sadness runner up in the Midsummer Mini-Tourney, but that’s baseball. Maybe if Will Fleming starts speaking Spanish, Tony will run away and hide. Unfortunately the only Spanish Mazz will hear from Fleming is “No Más“.
Region T
1 Pete Abraham vs 4 Tyler Milikin
This match up should be introduced by Dale Dorman as part of the Creature Double Feature. Sentient garden gnome (Abraham) takes on an obese two legged centaur (Milikin). The winner may depend on what country you live in.
2 Tyler Broadman vs 3 Mike McCarthy
Is Mike McCarthy the pudgy bearded millennial doofus who figured out you can lose weight by eating salads, or is he the pudgy bearded millennial doofus with horrible teeth, or is he the pudgy bearded millennial doofus who couldn’t successfully book flights for his honeymoon or is he McBone? It’s hard to keep track of all these wacky call screeners.
Tyler Broadman may turn out to be a decent play-by-play man once he completes puberty, but his fake radio voice and Connecticut School of Broadcasting cadence make me want to ram my score keeping pencil in my ears. This a tough one, but McCarthy squeezes by.
All chalk in the first round, except for the unstoppable object that is ‘Hogdale’. Round Two commences tomorrow Monday July 21st.
Please direct your attention to the seedings for the tournament, listed alphabetically by seed:
Seeded Eighth: Ian Browne, Jon Couture, Tim Healey, Jonny Miller.
Seeded Seventh: Mac Cerullo, Chris Cotillo, Jen McCaffrey, Sean McDonough.
Seeded Sixth: Steve Buckley, ‘Hogdale’, Sean McAdam, Mike Monaco.
Seeded Fifth: Will Middlebrooks, Kevin Millar, Jonathan Papelbon, Jim Rice.
Seeded Fourth: ‘ColeyMick’, ‘JustinMLB’, Tyler Milliken, Steve Perrault.
Seeded Third: Rob Bradford, Will Flemming, Matt McCarthy, Christopher Smith.
Seeded Second: Cooper Boardman, Tom Caron, Chad Finn, Tony Masserotti.
And, now, the Top Seeded competitors:
Pete Abraham, Jared Carrabis, Dave O’Brien, and Gabrielle Starr.
Bracket will drop tomorrow, Tuesday July 15th. Tourney to start Thursday.
We know from experience how much you all enjoy the annual March Sadness Tournament. But due to the calendar, the contestant pool is weighted heavily toward the sports then being played or just having concluded, hockey, basketball, and especially football. So the baseball writers, yakkers, and bloggers don’t receive their full attention. We aim to fix that.
Next week we will pit 32 members of the local baseball media against one another in a single elimination tournament in the style of our March Sadness/Mediot Madness event. Voters will decide who is the worst.
After all, it always comes back to baseball, Danny. The American Pastime. The beautiful game. The sport of kings. So good, so good. so good!
The Immaculate Grid, Boston sports media edition. This week’s theme, people who care way too much about the Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson gossip.
Current media members, local & national, in their present or previous job formats. There may only be one answer, and you can’t use anyone more than once. Best of luck.
Tony Massarotti. A two-time Consolation Match winner, his terribleness finally shone through when it counted. And his broadcast partner Michael Felger? Not a winner. Fact: not opinion. Sorrey! Thanks to the Collaborative, the Selection Committee, and especially all the voters. See you soon!
The 15 