Courtesy The Sun Chronicle

(October 1, 2009) Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while waiting for a new keyboard to be installed on the trusty laptop that followed me to the Patriots' last two Super Bowl appearances:

I know radio stations and their talk-show hosts have to hype what's coming after the next break, to keep individuals like me from pressing another button and going elsewhere. But sometimes the teasers are so misleading, it's downright maddening.

For instance, I took a ride down to the Cape for a well-deserved day off Monday, but spent the ride clicking between Boston's two sports-gabbers. Just before a top-of-the-hour break, WBZ-FM's Gary Tanguay announced to the world that Patriots' coach Bill Belichick had engaged in a dust-up with the Boston Herald's Karen Guregian at the morning press conference, and that he and co-host Scott Zolak would have the audio for all to hear after the break.

Tanguay sounded quite animated about the audio that was to follow, so I decided to stay with "The Sports Hub" into the next hour. Tanguay and Zolak teased the Belichick-Guregian "smackdown" at least three times before the break, and followed it with a lengthy lead-in to what I assumed would be genuine fireworks between the coach and the veteran Herald reporter.

Of course, I was hooked. Knowing Karen to be a pleasant and even-keeled individual, I was compelled to listen because I just couldn't imagine her getting involved in a shouting match with Belichick (or for that matter, Belichick shouting at anyone, either). Anyway, here is what the Patriots issued as a transcript of the fireworks that Tanguay and Zolak promised, and it closely reflects the actual questions I heard:

Guregian: Is Fred Taylor still capable of carrying the load of the feature back or is he past his prime in that regard?

Belichick: Well, it looked like he carried the mail yesterday.

Guregian: I mean over the course of a season?

Belichick: Well, I don't know the answer to that. We've only played three games.

Four questions later, Guregian asked one more follow-up:

Guregian: Getting back to the running backs, it's kind of been a committee approach the last few years. Are you averse to having a feature back?

Belichick: Like when Corey Dillon ran for 1,600 yards? Would I be opposed to that? Yeah, I don't think so.

I heard the WBZ-FM version (which edited all of the running back questions together) and another recording, and I can tell you without fear of contradiction that while Belichick may have been a little dismissive in his responses, there was nothing in the exchange between him and Guregian that could even remotely be classified as "fireworks." But, as the old saying goes, never let facts stand in the way of a good storyline.

I know WBZ is new to the sports-talk game and it probably has to shout a little louder from time to time to draw attention to its programming, standing in the shadow of the WEEI behemoth as it is. But to sell that by-play between Guregian and Belichick as anything more than just another press conference exchange was taking self-promotion to an extreme - and I'm sorry I was suckered into listening to it.

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