Yankee beat writer, regular on Yankee radio, assures Red Sox blog, 'I'm not even a Yankees fan'

• From yankeeshater.com blog, post, 4/8/08, 4/9/08

"Daily News beat writer swings back

• "Turns out that the New York Daily News’ Mark Feinsand (NY Yankees beat writer) didn’t think much of the most-recent post on YankeesHater.com, and he dropped us a line to say so. In fairness to Mr. Feinsand, we are running the full text of his email here:

(Feinsand): “A friend of mine in Boston (I went to BU and still have some pals up in that area) sent me a link to your site. If you’re going to rip me (and I don’t mind if you do .. at least you’re reading/listening), at least get your facts straight. The Daily News 5th Inning has been around for several years, and the beat writer at the paper has always been the person to join the broadcasters in the booth. It is not new this year, so to say I have been rewarded is just factually incorrect.

• Also, the broadcast is not on the YES Network. It’s radio. And it’s not even the first year I’ve done it.
• I was on with them all of last year, too.

My presence there has nothing to do with my Cy Young vote (and by the way, I was not only far from the only writer not to put Beckett first, but I wasn’t even the only one to leave him off my ballot).

• I’m not even a Yankees fan, otherwise I would have found a way to get Wang on the ballot (he didn’t deserve it either).

As I told the Boston Globe last November, I would have listed Beckett first had I been able to submit my ballot on November 1, but it was due October 1. Oh well.

Enjoy the season. Good luck to your Sox. In case you missed it, I picked them to win the AL East this season.

-Mark Feinsand”

[Editor’s note: I have to say, I am impressed with Mr. Feinsand’s response. Well-written. Cordial. Factual. With all those nice traits, how the %&*$# did you leave Beckett off the Cy Young ballot last year? At any rate, thanks for the response. For better or worse, lots of us NJ/NY-based YH’ers are reading and listening, Mark. And if you “miss the mark” again, you can be damn sure that we’ll call you out first!

• By the way, the best part of your email was when you indicated that

• you weren’t a Yankee fan. Ah, some common ground. Think we’ll have to send you a cap, on the house.

• After all, if you ain’t with ‘em, you’re usually against ‘em!]"

posted april 9, 2008*****

• YankeesHater.com's April 2nd post referencing the NY Daily News 5th inning sponsorship of Yankee baseball on WCBS radio in which Feinsand appeared with John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.
• YankeesHater.com mistakenly assumed Feinsand was a Yankee fan. That prompted Feinsand's reply in which he said
• he is not a Yankee fan:

  "He’s back.

  Mark Feinsand, the New York Daily News writer who left Boston ace Josh Beckett off of his Cy Young ballot last season, has been rewarded by the Yankees for his clueless act. The Yankees are now referring to the fifth inning of their radio broadcast as the “Daily News Fifth“, a honor seemingly bestowed on the Big Apple rag as a result of their ability to pay the Steinbrenner clan an undisclosed amount of cold, hard cash. The Daily News, in turn, has selected Feinsand as its representative to take up space in the

• Yankees’ broadcast booth during said fifth inning. Yankees’ broadcaster John Sterling was forced to play in the corporate sandbox with Feinsand

during tonight’s home game against the Blue Jays. During his stint on the mike, Feinsand offered deep, can’t-get-it-anywhere-else insight like “spring training stats don’t matter” and “I think the Yankees will find a way to get to the playoffs, like they did last year” (thanks).

Furthermore, Feinsand’s voice sounded like he came off a month-long chain smoking binge. There’s a reason why writers write and commentators speak. Feinsand should spend more time with the stat guys at Elias, getting coached on what a Cy Young winner really looks like, and less time playing Sportscaster Hero on the YES network."

April 02nd 2008 Posted to Rants" ************************

• *The NY Daily News Yankee beat writer is there first and foremost to do the bidding of the newspaper's owner, a vanity publisher who made his fortune as head of Boston Properties.* But the writer/reporter's celebrity is due to his name being associated with the Yankees. His picture is in the paper every day.
• Fans assume such a person has the same interests as they do, eg, here's our buddy so and so he'll tell us about our team. It is of extreme value for a fan to know that a person who has
• made a living trading on the Yankee name for several years is clearly not a fan of the team. (Which in this case has long been obvious to me since his days working for Bud Selig at MLB.com).
• The Red Sox blogger was so happy at that news he said it was the best part of the beat writer's email to him.

Anyone can say they're objective. A person who buys a newspaper for the purpose of being influential isn't a good candidate for claiming objectivity. sm

• *Reference: Publishers Always Influence Editorial--Shafer, Slate, 7/9/09

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