I just got done reading spmack's report (props to ya, mon) of Ofman's on-air apology for his "inside scoop" on the botched Furcal deal. My own thinking on it is that, in addition to the possibilities that others have spelled out, it could be that the whole thing is bullshit. I'm thinking that maybe somebody with an ax to grind gave him bogus information, that the 5/47.5 figure was a load of hogwash in the first place.

The notion that the Cubs wouldn't up the dollar amount by a half a mill per season (the "pittance" to which George said that a "source in baseball" referred in their off-air talks) in pursuit of the top available free agent who could fill a leadoff/shortstop hole for them through the end of the decade seems totally ridiculous to me, regardless of whatever kind of "trouble" the Tribune Co. is in these days and whatever other factors might have played a role in this (think about it: what's a half a million bucks a year to a subsidiary of a gigantic media empire that's already negotiating a deal measuring in the tens of millions?). Maybe they never really wanted Furcal anyway and were just trying to cover their asses by leaking a cover story (that I would find hard to believe) via a compliant and unwitting dope like Ofman and then shooting the "messenger" in the back. Who knows, I'm probably totally wrong, but it's sure fun to speculate.

One thing that I know for certain is that the Score completely f'cked up the reporting of the re-signing of Konerko with the White Sox, and then proceeded to falsely claim that they got to the story first. I don't really listen to sports radio as a matter of habit, but I'm pretty active in "accuracy in reporting, truth in advertising" circles, and a buddy of mine clued me in to the following little story. And if you're a Sox-hating Cubs fan, just substitute the name of Mark Prior and Cubs for Konerko and Sox, because that day isn't too far down the road, and you'll want to know the outcome ASAP. Right?

Okay, George had been reporting that a decision from the Konerko camp was due "within the next 24 to 72 hours" as of Tuesday afternoon, November 29th. To fast forward a bit, past the fact of Konerko's re-signing the next day, you may recall that the Score rushed into production one of those promo loops that goes something like, "The Score was first to report it (then archived audio of George's original report), the Score was there with the breakdown (archived audio of Boers and Bernstein, with Bernstein saying, 'We welcome now, the latest signing of the Chicago White Sox, Paul Konerko" and a Konerko comment or two from his phone-in), and the Score was first with your reaction! (canned audio of callers' on-air comments)."

Given that ESPN Radio was airing regular national programming (Dan Patrick) as the Konerko story broke, points 2 and 3 are essentially accurate. It's not like Dan Patrick was on the phone with Konerko or taking calls from Chicago listeners reacting to the news. But the Score wasn't anywhere close to "first" in reporting the story, as the promo piece later claimed, when the it broke during the noon hour on Thursday, November 30th.

Here is a thread from a Sox gab site (at which I learned of spmack's reporting here about George's "apology" for the Furcal story) that chronicles the whole thing http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=62944. You can browse through it if you wish, but there's a lot of "woo hoo!" stuff that's not relevant to this, and you have to go five pages in before you get to first mention of the story from Ofman (all times of posts are given as Eastern, and in truth this all happened during the noon hour, beginning at 12:30 Central, and Ofman reported it at 12:52). To summarize what you'll find there:

12:23 First post in the Sox fan site (the original subject header was something like "Konerko to sign Sox deal by the weekend!" but was changed by the moderators in order to unclutter the boards by combining several threads pertaining to the Konerko signing). It was vague and unsourced, so other users chimed in over the next few minutes demanding specifics.

12:30 Confirmation from two users that AM-1000 was reporting the Konerko signing (posts #7 and #8 on page 1). One user (post #8) cites Bruce Levine, cutting in on the Patrick show with a local update, as the source.

12:30 Ofman, during regular "Scoreboard Update," reports nothing new on Konerko situation.

12:50 User reports that ESPNews cable channel is reporting Konerko signing in "Breaking News" box in lower-right corner of screen.

12:52 Murph invites Ofman to break in on his show to report news of the signing (post #64 on page 5).

My source for all of this tells me that the timestamps are accurate (minus an hour for Eastern time) and that the folks at that site were all over this thing, like within seconds. My source also tells me that, as he was following the news at the site, he had 670 playing on his radio and was waiting (and waiting and waiting) for 670 to report the damn story, which Ofman finally did at 12:52 (my source was watching the clock).

So draw your own conclusions with regard to the accuracy of the Score's claim that it was "first" with the Konerko story. By my own generous count, they were at least 22 minutes behind Bruce Levine and 29 minutes behind the first rumblings of the breaking story. And the station continued to run the self-congratualtory (and inaccurate) promos for at least two days after he brought the matter to the attention of station honchos and industry players.

Whatever you conclude, it's worth wondering just what in hell George Ofman was doing during the noon hour on the day that Konerko re-signed, and when he was supposed to be on duty at the update desk. This doesn't surprise me from one whom I think of as sloppy and unprofessional and who, in my own dealings with him, has been given to inartful attempts to conceal his condescension by pretending to kiss my ass. It also comes as little surprise that he'd be slow off the mark on the Konerko story, as he's the same putz who (I'm told), on the morning of what turned out to be Dick Jauron's last game in charge of the Bears, passed word to the station that Shoop was out but that Jauron would be staying on. Must've been news to Jerry Angelo.

please find an editor, it's too much for me too read. shorty jorge.

I understand your point about the accuracy of the promo. As far as the ability to break a story quickly, I'd rather have the story correctly reported than quickly reported. There are very few stories in sports that really demand immediate reporting. Resigning a free agent is not one of those stories.

Now I understand why the professors in college took away points even on the better written papers when the guys exceeded 5 pages and tried to squeeze more in by going single-space.

_________________
"It's not exactly a rocket surgery." D.J.

You lost me at hello

_________________
"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."

Eh, whatever. Not trying to impress anyone or make new friends. Couldn't care less, truth be told. Just reporting something that I thought some might find interesting, something that you probably didn't know about, and duly backing it up with facts and references, which requires words and a little bit of time (but not as much of either as you might think). Pity if it didn't interest you and/or ran too long for your taste, and especially so if three minutes of your life is more than you care to spare while engaging in what is, after all, a leisure activity.

In any event, and in case you were wondering, I won't be spending any time beating myself up over it, although I do wonder: if you truly found it all that rough, then why spend more of your valuable time thinking about, typing up and tossing out a snotty reply? If I were the type who got his jolles out of witnessing tangible evidence of succeeding at the effort at wasting other people's time (and trust me, I ain't), then I reckon I'd have scored well enough with this one.

Just sayin'. Now quit loafing and get back to work, you foul cretins, and have a nice day.

Most of it was in jest. Besides, we’re all literate here and clearly have plenty of time on our hands. Anyway, for future reference, your best bet would be to submit the Readers’ Digest version, and THEN back it up with the rest should people question your info or your motives.

_________________
"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."

nice research...
but, is this really a big deal? It doesn't bother me that "first" really meant 22 minutes after originally reported.

Whatever you conclude, it's worth wondering just what in hell George Ofman was doing during the noon hour on the day that Konerko re-signed, and when he was supposed to be on duty at the update desk. This doesn't surprise me from one whom I think of as sloppy and unprofessional and who, in my own dealings with him, has been given to inartful attempts to conceal his condescension by pretending to kiss my ass.

George pre-tapes his bottom of the hour report. He may have been in the cafeteria down below. He has been mailing it in for years. Not the only one at 670 to be doing so. It's very important when you consider the level of noise about complaints regarding the on-air product.

I found Insider Outsider's post to be rather interesting, regardless if it is important or not. So it took two or three minutes out of my life, I'm suppose to be studying for final exams anyways, lol.

Just in question, is it really true that Offman tapes his bottom of the hour updates? I would just ask, if true, why?? Two updates twice an hour. Not so hard. Plenty of time and prep. work required, I understand, but what prevents a person for being live at 12:30'ish for the update? Wait, I know the answer to that. The better question, why would management permit such a thing? Not a big deal, I understand, but just interesting, especially when it kind of bites them in the ass when they aren't even close to announcing the Konerko re-signing yet claimed they were the first to announce it.

What management? He's been getting away with that for years. It's "lazy radio" as Murph often says. Spew all you want about Murph, but no two people there put in as much prep time as he does.

WSI is a good site. Tool powerhungry owners/moderators/operators though, i guess that's the trade off

[I found Insider Outsider's post to be rather interesting, regardless if it is important or not. So it took two or three minutes out of my life, I'm suppose to be studying for final exams anyways, lol.

Just in question, is it really true that Offman tapes his bottom of the hour updates? I would just ask, if true, why?? Two updates twice an hour. Not so hard. Plenty of time and prep. work required, I understand, but what prevents a person for being live at 12:30'ish for the update? Wait, I know the answer to that. The better question, why would management permit such a thing? Not a big deal, I understand, but just interesting, especially when it kind of bites them in the ass when they aren't even close to announcing the Konerko re-signing yet claimed they were the first to announce it.[/quote]

I'm guessing it isn't an English exam.