Joon Lee

Is Mike Felger the most influential person in Boston? - The Boston Globe The dominant figure in local sports talk radio manages to capture — and shape — the mood of this fast-changing city.

In a city where politicians cycle out and owners stay hidden behind tinted glass, sports radio show host Mike Felger has been the loudest, clearest, and most consistent voice, @joon.bsky.social writes in #GlobeIdeas.

Not just in sports — in anything.

Is Mike Felger the most influential person in Boston? - The Boston Globe The dominant figure in local sports talk radio manages to capture — and shape — the mood of this fast-changing city.

For @bostonglobe.com: When Marty Walsh was Boston’s mayor, he turned to sports radio, not social media, to get a temperature check on the city.

For two decades, Mike Felger has set the agenda on sports radio.

Is Felger the most influential person in Boston?
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/30/o...

YouTube video by Joon Lee Why NBA Superstars Are Corny Now

NEW VIDEO: Jordan and Kobe were stoic icons.

Now stars like SGA, Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum are called corny.

How did this happen?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtHt...

Gambling addiction is a public health crisis, but it's not treated that way yet.

What will it take for it to get there?

One day, it will be and people will ask: how did things get so bad?

I've watched friends spiral into gambling debt.

I've seen how quickly betting replaces joy.
And I've watched it hollow out how people connect to sports, replacing community with isolation and shame.

Our culture can't tell real stories about sports without talking about addiction, mental health, and what this industry is doing to people.

But most media can't tell that story honestly because they're in business with the very companies fueling the crisis.

Sports media helped normalize this.

Not just by promoting gambling, but by failing to ask real questions.

What does it mean when joy in sports is replaced by odds?

Does "fan engagement" just mean keeping people watching bad games and keeping ratings up as cable collapses?

There's a casino in your pocket.

So much of sports media is framed around gambling language.

The losses are invisible until it's too late.

And when someone spirals, whether it's a fan, a coach, or a player, we act like they're uniquely broken instead of asking how we got here.

When someone gets suspended for gambling, the public reaction is often moralizing.

"How could they be so stupid?"
"What an idiot."

But this isn't just about choices. This is what addiction looks like when it's been rebranded as content.

Gambling addiction is sweeping the country, and not enough people are talking about it.

When people fall into gambling, our culture and sports media often frames it as a failure of personal responsibility, when it should be treated like what it is: an addiction.

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Why NBA Players Keep Tearing Their Achilles, Explained YouTube video by Joon Lee

NEW VIDEO - Seven NBA players tore their Achilles this season. That’s 5X the historical average.

So what’s going on here? I talked to an NBA trainer to find out. m.youtube.com/watch?si=984...

Went on CNN with @smerconish.bsky.social to discuss how the increasing cost of paywalls in sports is hurting community in America

The Red Sox have been dysfunctional as Craig Breslow has boxed out longtime voices from the Theo Epstein era.

Breslow recently fired scouting supervisor Craig Moesche after he said "Thanks, Bres, you f--king stiff" on a Zoom hot mic. sports.yahoo.com/mlb/article/...

Inside the 'absolute s*** show' that led to the Boston Red Sox's trade of Rafael Devers The blockbuster deal was the culmination of eroded trust, fraying relationships and a deeper breakdown inside one of MLB's most visible franchises.

The Red Sox trade of Rafael Devers wasn't just about beef with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.

It was a rupture of an organization that has quietly been unraveling from the inside since the trade of Mookie Betts.

For @yahoosports.bsky.social: sports.yahoo.com/mlb/article/...

Definitely a men's sports centric read but many of the same fundamental issues are at play in women's sports, including the split of media rights and especially private equity investment (I'd argue more concerning on the women's side bc it's far earlier in a league's lifespan).

Opinion | $4,785. That’s How Much It Costs to Be a Sports Fan Now.

Sports was one of America's most accessible forms of entertainment. Now it's paywalled, splintered and sold to the highest bidder.

Fandom isn't being nurtured. It's being mined.

For @nytopinion.nytimes.com on on the state of sports, and what it says about America: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/o...

Will have more reporting and sourcing on the state of the Red Sox, but this is the big takeaway.

There's blame to go around with everyone: Devers, Cora, Breslow, but this is emblematic of bigger than just one dramatic situation of a player not wanting to move to a new position.

The Rafael Devers trade is the result of organizational dysfunction and declining culture from John Henry.

This is a team claims to have an organizational north star of longterm sustainability, but doesn't have the patience to stomach what it takes to make that happen

Devers not being willing to play first base after the team moved him to designated hitter certainly wasn't a mature response.

But Devers also felt the team wronged him and didn't give him the respect of being a franchise player with the Bregman situation.

It's absurd that Craig Breslow and the Red Sox didn't communiciate to Devers that they to sign Alex Bregman to take over at third base.

Breslow didn't promise Devers that he wouldn't move him off of third base. That was Chaim Bloom. But that's a failure in leadership.

Back in 2023 -- after Xander Bogaerts left for the San Diego Padres -- I talked to Devers about the leadership void.

Cora clearly wanted him to fill it.

Devers said, "I don't really see myself too much as a leader right now."
www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/...

It’s insane that the Red Sox gave a long term deal to Rafael Devers in part because of the enormous backlash to the Mookie Betts trade, and this where the situation ends, with a shocking trade to the Giants.

This is an organizational failure on so many fronts that Devers is gone

One of my favorite things about Boston is that when the Red Sox call up their top prospect, it legitimately feels like a national holiday. The city’s vibe changes.

The weather for the game sucks, but Fenway is mostly packed. Everyone stood up for Roman Anthony’s first AB.

One last thing: it's so many of the small things that feel like the Red Sox are missing right now.

That was the hallmark of so many Alex Cora teams early in his managerial tenure and it feels like they've been missing the mark here a lot this season.

There's still time for the Red Sox to get back into the playoff hunt, but it's starting to get a little late, fast.

Doesn't help that the pitching staff has underperformed either. Crochet has been incredible to start the season, but he's only one guy on a pitching staff.

All of this right now looks extremely shaky.

It's one thing to say you want to replicate the Dodgers with "sustainability" but it's not as easy to actually pull it off. The Dodgers have done such a good job balancing veterans with prospects to ease pressure on the young guys.

When the Red Sox were cranking on player development, they let Ellsbury, Pedroia, Mookie and Xander have significant roles early, but didn't need them to flourish for the team to win.

Front office (Chaim and Breslow) sold fans on prospects so hard as the reason to be patient.

The Red Sox are putting so much weight on the prospects to develop at the big league level now. A lot of pressure on Campbell, Mayer and Anthony to be the saviors of this team, let alone learn how to adjust to big league pitching.

This Red Sox team is aneurysm inducing.

Feels like the team is trying to juggle too many things at once and have it all. Developing multiple young prospects at the same time while trying to compete. Spend money but don't go all the way in on top-level veteran players.