Up Close With PSR
Bob Ryan

Nationally acclaimed, Bob Ryan has been writing for The Boston Globe for the past 30 years, and has been an award winning columnist for the paper since 1989. A regular on ESPN's The Sports Reporters, Ryan was awarded the prestigious Curt Gowdy media award by the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997. PSR editor Tony DeFazio spoke with Ryan shortly before the holidays.

PSR: Who do you see as the Super Bowl favorite right now - any horse you're ready to back?

Bob Ryan: I think that the way the NFL has gone over the past several years, you jump on one horse in September, another in October, yet another in November and December and so on.

For a while it seemed no one was going to touch Kansas City, then they came back to earth. Meanwhile, the Patriots are chugging along in their strange little way - logic says you're looking at a Patriots-Indianapolis-Kansas City trio on the one side; and Philadelphia-St. Louis on the other. I think that's clear.

Indianapolis to me has to be one of the favorites in the AFC. If it comes down to Indianapolis and the Patriots it may depend on where the game is. The Patriots can win on the road, they've proven that this year. But suddenly New England has one of the most difficult places to play in the league. They've embraced a psyche that says, 'We're the Green Bay of this decade, you can't beat us here in a cold-weather, snowy condition.'

PSR: There is a school of though that says a head coach can outlive his usefulness and stay in one place too long. Do you think that may be the case with Bill Cowher?

Ryan: I think they've reached that point in Pittsburgh. He's a fine coach, but it never quite got done fully. They were able to withstand the ravages of free agency year after year for awhile and stay competitive in a really remarkable way, but they're not a factor anymore, and maybe it is time for a change there.

Twenty-five years ago Red Auerbach was talking about how coaching cycles are shorter now. Where an era might have been 10-12 years before, Red said now it was down to five or six, and this was 25 years ago he was saying this. Now I'm not so sure it isn't down to three or four.

PSR: Has parity in the NFL made is such that no team in the league is so far away from competing that they need to rebuild and start over?

Ryan: It certainly is a league that one can make a very large leap in one year. It has been happening time and again

in the last six or seven years where a team comes from nowhere. Every-body forgets the Bears were actually 13-3 two years ago. Teams can do a 180 as the Raiders have done this season.

The way it's set up in the NFL with free agency, the way teams cannot hold on to players, makes it easier for some teams, if things fall their way, to make advances, and easy for other teams, when things fall the other way, to have a quick demise. It's a very volatile league in that regard. So if you can find a way to manage your cap better than the other guys, and be able to keep guys and have some sort of continuity, and have your money allocated in just the right places and just the right ways, you can get it done.

PSR: Is that a good or bad thing for fans?

Ryan: Well, that's the debate that we have in sports... The NFL likes to trumpet the question, 'How many teams are alive with two weeks to go?'

And that is a good thing, I can't deny that. I think because hope springs eternal it is a good thing. It's a good thing if you're on the upswing, it's a bad thing if you're on the other side. I think overall any team can have hope.

PSR: In spite of the fantastic season the Patriots are having, have the Red Sox just blown them off the headlines with all their wheeling and dealing this winter?

Ryan: Well, I'll give you exhibit A: The Patriots are playing for everything - they're playing to get the homefield advantage in the playoffs, and what greater prize is there in the NFL? There is none - that's exactly what you're playing for; the chance to give yourself the best possible path to the Super Bowl. So there's nothing but positive stories with them.

Today, you have to take out the magnifying glass to go to the lower left corner of my newspaper to find the article on the upcoming Patriots' game.

The dominant story has been the on-again off-again Manny Ramirez/A-Rod trade and all that goes with that. It's been the dominant story of this winter so far... Baseball has blown football out of the water in Boston even when you have a team that might be going on to win the Super Bowl, and this trade talk is a perfect example.

So much so, that during the winter baseball meetings in New Orleans, Theo Epstein (general manager of the Red Sox) told a writer from the Globe, 'Geez I hope the Patriots can get the headlines they deserve tomorrow.'

This is a kid, he has yet to turn 30, and he's just rooting for his football team. But he's well aware of what's been going on, and how the Red Sox have stolen the headlines from a deserving football team. That's where we are - now how many other cities in America could that happen in?

This is Fantasy Baseball come to life. The people involved are the biggest people ever involved in one transaction in the history of baseball and maybe in American professional sports. So of course it's compelling. I don't know how important it is to people in Fargo or Albuquerque, but it's pretty damned important to people in Boston.

PSR: Are baseball fans in places like Boston tired of hearing about so-called small market excuses from teams such as Pittsburgh? Is that a valid excuse?

Ryan: They are valid. I mean look at what the Red Sox are doing - they're waging a war of diplomacy. They don't have as much money as the Yankees, but they are spending more money than anyone in baseball is spending, other than the Yankees, to do what they want to do. They're taking advantage of the revenue they have. The fact that you can make money in Boston even with a small ballpark that plays to 98% capacity or so, they have great broadcast rights, tremendous corporate sponsorship and merchandising availability, great tradition and all that - so yes, a small market is certainly a valid obstacle. It's not an excuse.

Now, can you do better than Pittsburgh has done, and can you do what Oakland and Minnesota have done, and what Kansas City appears to be doing? Yes, that's where capable management comes in, and the Pirates haven't come anywhere near the level of the other three teams I just mentioned. They can do a lot better, but ultimately, what have those teams won? They haven't gone all the way, they haven't been able to do it, but they certainly have done a lot better than the Pirates. It's ultimately about judgement as well as money.

PSR: You mentioned corporate sponsorships. If you remember the James Caan movie 'Roller Ball,' where corporations basically take over sports, can you see sports headed in that direction? Is it as far-fetched today as it seemed 20 or 30 years ago?

Ryan: Not at all. The new breed of owner is best exemplified by Mark Cuban. Enter into this, a) wanting to win a championship, but b) wanting to turn a profit and keep people coming by any means necessary; and they buy into the idea that if you send people home happy with their night out, whether the Mavericks have won or lost, then we've done something good. They are willing to do things that purists would have frowned upon years ago.

I think that's clearly the way all sports are heading. The indoor sports got it first with the music and the activities - shooting t-shirts into the crowd, shots from half-court, all the promotional stuff - and now the outdoor sports are getting into it. Football and baseball can't really shoot t-shirts into the crowd, but they sure have the music, they are trying to attract younger people, different people, the fringe people and not just the purists. The only city where you don't have to do that is the one I'm living in, because you don't have to do any of that stuff in order to attract people, but most other cities do need it.

It has come that far. Radio's going that way, television's going that way, sports are going that way. In order to get people under your umbrella you have to broaden your concept of what the whole purpose of going to a game is really about. For me, it's simply the game. I don't need any noise, I don't need any promotions. Obviously though, I'm an old-school guy and I have to recognize the world is changing.

PSR: To that end, what were your thoughts on Joe Horn's antics with the cell phone in the end zone?

Ryan: It has been foreshadowed and predicted that it would come to this. Mike Lupica, my colleague and friend on the Sports Reporters, has a football novel out in which a guy did just that. It was inevitable that something like this would happen - It's too far, too much -

When you see a thing like T.J. Duckett doing his dance when his team's losing badly, it's a mockery of the game. There's got to be a respect for the game and a respect for the opponent. I like what John Saraceno wrote in the USA Today the other day, that he wishes Duckett would have done that against the Ravens and seen what Ray Lewis thought of it. I'm not a pro-violence guy, but football's a violent game and somebody needed to knock him on his butt. It should have been somebody on his own team to knock him on his butt. You'd like to think that, but hey, let's not kid ourselves. It's a whole different generation of guys and a different frame of reference, and I suppose most football players didn't see it as that much of a problem.

PSR: What are your thoughts on the recent comments made by Matt Millen about Johnny Morton?

Ryan: Matt Millen's problem is that his behavior goes back 20 years when he - as a player - got into an incident after a playoff game with Patrick Sullivan, then the Patriots' general manager. And Patrick Sullivan was acting punky that day and antagonizing Millen, but Millen should have avoided a confrontation with a civilian general manager.

But first, look who's talking? I mean you're talking to someone who was put on suspension for something I said on the air in Boston this year - so I'm all about full disclosure here. I know the perils of speaking off the cuff without allowing the filter to do its job for you. Believe me, I understand.

But Matt Millen is a repeat offender here. He's got to be careful. You just can't, in his position, do that.

Not to mention, I think what he said clearly underscores the basic thinking not only in football, but in the entire world of professional sports. There's a real shockwave for anybody who thinks that professional sports is ready for the first guy during his career to come out of the closet; and think that it would go over casually is kidding him- or herself. It's not close to that point. The F-word he used is in fact the word of choice that would be employed by 99% of people within sports. If someone were to come out and say 'I am a homosexual' while they were an active player all hell would break loose. That closet door is going to get an extra lock on it right now because of this.