Nothing beats being wrong on the sports pages of The Boston Globe. And that is because of you, gentle readers.
Choosing Manning over Brady in these parts is like taking Magic over Larry. You invite a ton of dispute and insult. And these days, dissent arrives faster than a Jonathan Papelbon fastball.
There’s a spectacular immediacy about e-mails and message boards. In the bygone era of US Mail delivery, several days would pass before I’d open letters and read about how stupid I am. Many of the missives, some in Crayola, arrived long after I’d moved on to another topic.
Not now. In 2010, you hear about what a dope you are before you pack up and leave the press box.
Especially in Boston. Especially if you type without pompoms dangling from your wrists.
Sunday night in Sun Life Stadium, I started getting “I told you so e-mails’’ before the game was even over.
The avalanche of anger was triggered when Tracy Porter jumped the route, picked off Manning, and ran 74 yards into the end zone with just over three minutes to play. While Garrett Hartley was kicking the extra point, my computer blinked.
You have new mail.
New mail? Suddenly my inbox was hotter than the switchboard at your local Toyota dealer. The Dan-is-Dumb Bomb had been detonated.
Subject lines hinted at the tone of the messages:
“Eating crow.’’
“Have you had a change of heart?’’
“Mr. Right.’’
“Peyton ain’t no Brady.’’
“You know how to pick ’em.’’
“Shame on you.’’
Something told me these were not high school students asking about a job-shadow opportunity for the spring semester.
As always, the commentary was astute and hilarious.
■“Dan - You are like a TV weatherman in New England. How much of the time are you really seriously right? Would you like some seasoning with your order of crow? Better luck next time.’’
■“I understand you got an assignment to write some usual BS for the Super Bowl. That’s how you get paid. But, you have to get into people’s nerves and create some controversy in order for some people to read your stuff; know that I am being polite with the word ‘stuff.’ ’’
■“You, just like the “Who’’ stinking at halftime, are washed up.’’
