The sports world is agog over the Brady-Reimer kerfuffle and more than anything it serves to expose the low class banter which passes for “sports talk” on a daily basis in Boston.
The incident which started the controversy happened Thursday evening live on WEEI. Fill-in reprobate Alex Reimer, commenting on Brady’s FaceBook Series “Tom vs Time” opined that Brady’s 5 year old daughter was “an annoying little pissant.”
To be clear, the reality of the offense is not merely that Reimer dragged an athlete’s child into the fray. Or more accurately, the misdeed was not that the comment was more vulgar or offensive than the regular programming in general. How could it be? Both WEEI and WBZ-FM (98.5 The Sports Hub) regularly use disgusting vernacular everyday to describe those in the news.
This one “sucks,” that one “blows,” someone else is “an a-hole.” This is the daily currency in which these outlets trade. It’s not even new.
WEEI regularly allows Barstool’s gutter residing David Portnoy to be a guest across their platforms. In 2011 Portnoy infamously published a photo of Brady’s then-toddler son naked on a beach beneath the headline, “Check out the howitzer on Brady’s kid.”
Portnoy was “banned” from the station for a while but is back pushing his locker room trash on the public airwaves. And don’t think the station won’t weigh ratings vs fallout again and bring Reimer back at some point.
The real offense here is that one of WEEI’s prime attractions, Brady and the Patriots, has signaled that the relationship, at least his weekly appearance, is threatened by the behavior of the radio host.
Today’s shows were awash in the irony of Minihane, Ordway, Merloni and others lamenting how Reimer went too far in commenting on the child. But Reimer’s comment itself was nowhere near the typical vulgar and abusive regular talk that is a staple of the abovementioned broadcasters but is also matched by 98.5’s Felger, Mazzarotti, T&R and many others.
Yet these hypocrites were all “shocked” in the same way Captain Renault was in the gambling at Rick’s Americain Cafe in “Casablanca.”
The best outcome from this incident would be a retreat of the potty mouths back towards a more genteel sports talk environment on Boston radio.
Don’t hold your breath.