Q&A: Boston Globe's Pete Abraham

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Then I very unexpectedly got a chance to go to the Boston Globe and become the Red Sox beat writer for them. It was something I couldn’t pass up, not so much because I was from New England or anything, but because it’s such a good newspaper and there’s people there I can learn from. Professionally it made sense to go there.

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CORMACK: You had a pretty big following Yankees-wise with your blog. What was the reaction like when you announced you were leaving to join the Boston Globe?

ABRAHAM: My newspaper at the time, The Journal News in Westchester County, was the next to smallest paper covering the (Yankees) and we obviously weren’t going to be able to produce the amount of copy in the newspaper that the New York Times, or the Daily News, the New York Post or Newsday could.

So our niche was to try and do more things online, so in addition to writing in the newspaper, it was the first blog by a New York beat writer for any sport. This was in ’06 that we started it, which seems unusual now because everybody does it.

But at the time it was something new and nobody read it for two weeks as far as we could tell. There was virtually no traffic and no comments and we were close to giving it up and next thing you know, there were a few comments and then a few more and it grew from there.

It became really popular because we would just put the lineups up, the latest things that the manager said and stuff that people were used to getting the next day. We were giving it to them right away and it became popular. It grew beyond whatever I could have expected.

When I got the offer from the Globe, it had kind of gotten out that I had interviewed with them, so I decided that I ought to get ahead of it, so I wrote a post that said, "Hey, I’m going to be done in two weeks."

Boy, people were either really, really, upset with me or pleased for me that I got a new job. Some sent me some emails that were really furious with it. It was kind of odd in a way. It was kind of disturbing too. People were quite upset. You try to explain to people, "Hey, it’s for professional reasons, my newspaper is in some financial difficulty, I’m going to a better situation just to make a living." And people just didn’t want to hear it.

They were like, “How am I going to get my lineup everyday, or where am I going to get my news on Derek Jeter?”

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CORMACK: Conversely, what was the reaction like from Boston fans, when they heard that a Yankees guy was coming to cover their team?

ABRAHAM Yeah, a lot of them didn’t trust me, or thought that I was up to something. So I would explain to people, ‘Well, I’m from New England. I went to school in New England. I was offered this good job and I took it. I think 90 per cent of the people are OK with that and still to this day, and I’ve been there for two years now, people say “Well, you’re a Yankee supporter.”

I’ll mention something on my blog or on Twitter that Joe Girardi is a good guy or it was fun to cover Derek Jeter, and people get quite upset with me because they assume I’m supposed to hate everything about the Yankees.

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CORMACK: How are the two fanbases different?

ABRAHAM: I don’t think they are. Being around both sides, obviously there’s a lot of people that know a lot about baseball and they’re very passionate about it. They follow very similar teams. They’re high payroll teams with star players. Young, smart GMs. Old school managers who were guys who weren’t flashy players during their careers but are good managers who’ve won World Series, in Joe Girardi and Terry Francona.

They both have lighting-rod players. The Yankees have Alex Rodriguez and the Red Sox have David Ortiz. There’s a tremendous amount of similarities. Both fanbases like to think that their team is somehow doing things differently and better, but they’re really not. They’re a lot alike I think.

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CORMACK:A lot is made about how long Red Sox games take to play, including Monday’s three-hour and 51 minute, 11-inning marathon. Do the fans in Boston mind?

ABRAHAM No, because the Red Sox usually win those games and they’ve been very successful playing that style. So I don’t think people complain about it too much.

It’s deliberate. They coach their players to take a lot of pitches and get the other team’s starting pitcher out of the game and to get to the bullpen. Obviously there are lesser pitchers in the bullpen than there are in the rotation.

They look for players who take a lot of pitches and players who draw a lot of walks with high on-base percentages. It’s by design, it’s not by chance.

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CORMACK: From a distance, what’s your take on the Blue Jays, where they are now and some of the moves they’ve made of late?

ABRAHAM: Boy, I think they’ve really done some good things. They remind me of the Rays when their new management came in and started changing things.

What Alex (Anthopoulos) has done is tremendous. He got rid of some bad contracts. He’s had some good drafts. He’s building a base of young talent that’s going to grow with this team.

We saw what Brett Lawrie did. The Red Sox are very impressed with him. I think they have some young guys now that they can build around and pitchers they can build around. I think if you were to look at the teams in the American League East and ask, “Who’s on the way up?” I think Toronto is clearly on the way up.

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CORMACK: How much had you heard of Lawrie on the way up and what are your impressions of him?

ABRAHAM: I try to follow all the teams in the division, so this is a guy they have a lot riding on. They went out of their way to acquire him. He’s a Canadian guy with a fiery personality.

He’s obviously a very talented player, he’s obviously very passionate about playing in Canada and I think that’s a good thing for the Blue Jays.

As good as Jose Bautista is, I don’t know if he’s a guy that people are going to travel hours to see, but I think this guy could be.

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CORMACK: What have the Red Sox been saying about Lawrie?

ABRAHAM: The other day after he hit that home run they were (saying) that they knew this guy was a good player and that they weren’t surprised he hit the home run. Ortiz was saying he was impressed with his swing. Carl Crawford was talking about how good of a player he looks.

Good players recognize good players and they see that this guy has got a chance to be, as Ortiz said, around a long time.

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CORMACK: The Red Sox came into the season with some very high expectations. A lot of people felt it might be -- on paper anyway -- the best Red Sox team ever. Are they where you thought they’d be at this point of the season?

ABRAHAM: Yeah, I think they are. They’ve taken an unusual route to get there after a terrible start and then a ridiculous next three months. You would’ve thought it would have been a little more consistent, but they’ve gotten where they need to get to at this point in the year.

I think they’ve let down a little bit in the past week or so as the Yankees have gone by them, but whether they make the postseason as the wildcard or the division champion, I don’t think that matters much.

They’re probably going to be 95 wins or something like that, which is pretty much what most people projected. I thought the projections to win 100 games were a little crazy since the division has gotten so much better.

The Blue Jays are better and obviously the Rays are good. I didn’t think 100 wins were realistic and it doesn’t look like they’re going to get to that point.

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CORMACK OK, but what’s the mood of the Red Sox fanbase right now?

ABRAHAM: In Boston it’s constant panic. They’re worried about Josh Beckett, they’re worried that they don’t have a steady right-fielder, never mind that they have a great second baseman, a great third baseman and a great first baseman.

There’s still tremendous panic. They’re worried about the Yankees; they think the Rays are going to sneak up behind them. It’s 162, one-game seasons in Boston. If they win that day, they’re the greatest team ever. If they lose, it’s time to get rid of everybody.

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CORMACK:The blogosphere is typically somewhere there’s not a lot of civility, but you seem to put a premium on it in your blogs, thanking people for reading your work, etc.

ABRAHAM: It’s hard because there’s people who don’t want to be civil but my personal opinion is, you can go anywhere on the Internet and find people bickering with each other, insulting each other anonymously.

With my blog I think you’ll draw more people if they think this is an OK place to comment and they’re not going to be belittled or insulted.

We moderate the comments as best we can and encourage people not to attack each other and every once in a while we say, “Hey, try to be civil to each other. We’re talking about baseball here; we’re not talking about politics or anything divisive.”

We should be in agreement that baseball is a fun thing to watch.

It’s a little crazy, especially when the Red Sox play the Yankees because the fans come on each other’s site and it gets a little hectic, but to me it should be a fun thing, not a divisive thing.