Are The Red Sox Confiscating Signs Supporting Don Orsillo Or Not? 

Earlier tonight, the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy reported that the Red Sox were doing all they could to quell dissent over their unpopular decision to drop NESN play-by-play man Don Orsillo after the season (emphasis mine):

To prevent a potentially embarrassing scene, NESN moved its pregame show from Yawkey Way to a more secure spot near the Red Sox dugout. Two Sox employees told the Globe that workers at Fenway turnstiles were ordered to confiscate any signs supporting Orsillo as fans entered Fenway.

But if you click on the story now, you won’t see that second sentence. Shaughnessy’s accusation that the Red Sox are confiscating pro-Orsillo signs has been erased without an update or correction:

To prevent a potentially embarrassing scene, NESN moved its pregame show from Yawkey Way to a more secure spot near the Red Sox dugout.

Both the Globe and the Red Sox are owned by John Henry, and so a natural assumption is that he called for the line to be axed. But that would be extremely strange thing to do for one little sentence considering the Globe has been reporting the hell out of this story for the last week with column after critical column about the decision. Besides, if that were the case, I’d expect to have heard about Shaughnessy and the rest of the sports department resigning in protest by now.

According to the Red Sox Director of Media Relations Kevin Gregg, Shaughnessy’s reporting simply isn’t true:

Our gameday staff was advised to treat any signs about Don just like any others that come into the ballpark provided they didn’t include offensive language, weren’t displayed during play, or wouldn’t obstruct any fan’s enjoyment of the game.

This wouldn’t be the first time Dan Shaughnessy made some thing up, but in this case at least he claimed to have heard the news from two Red Sox employees. Did he put his faith in the wrong employees? Were they making stuff up? Here’s one explanation from the Globe:

Boston Globe sports editor Matt Pepin has yet to respond to a request for comment.

This post was updated to include the tweet from David Skok.

[ Boston Globe]

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