Mound of fury over Schilling drilling

AS A Red Sox fan and Globe reader for the last 40 years, I am amazed and surprised at the savage personal attacks against pitcher Curt Schilling that Dan Shaughnessy is being allowed to represent as acceptable editorial opinion ("Famous guest blogs in," Sports, March 26). Regardless of his personal feelings about Schilling, or vice versa, I see zero value in either paying for or reading columns that are filled with writing directed at Schilling such as the following:

"What do you say to those media morons who contend that you are a self-important blowhard with an ill-informed opinion about everything and an insatiable need to be worshipped by sheep-like fans and late-night blog boys who live in Ma's basement?"

As a recent transplant out of state, but an everyday reader of the Globe online, I have enjoyed Mr. Shaughnessy's crisp writing and biting humor in the past. Surely he and the Globe editors can find something better for him to do with his talents.

DOUG SURETTE
West Palm Beach

I USUALLY enjoy reading a good dose of vitriol as much as the next guy. But I didn't much like Dan Shaughnessy's attack on Curt Schilling, Schilling's blog, and his blog's readers. It was pathetic.

The Internet gives everyone a chance to get on his own soapbox and, sometimes, outdo the traditional media. In some cases, the traditional media set the bar very high. In others, not so high: Pointless invective, little original insight, the same names dropped over and over, and cultural references years past their peak currency -- that is a charitable description of most Shaughnessy pieces.

The so-called new media made possible by the Internet, such as blogs and wikis, are only a threat, as opposed to a complement, to the old when the old is bad.

MICHAEL WOLF
Mexico City