Wow. Ty Keogh's email excerpt makes him seem like an uppity know-it-all. He'd fit right in on Bigsoccer!
"One of the final things he was able to say was to my brother Rob (aka Bob). He said, 'Your team is fun to watch.'" Wasn't there some doubt as to whether he was actually related to Bob Bradley the coach of the MetroScum or did we already know that they were brothers? That would explain the MetroScum bias.
We already knew it. Before there was a glaring pro-Metros bias in his columns, there was a glaring pro-Fire bias in his columns. And if Bob Bradley ever coached the Burn, Jeff would probably tap the Burn as his championship favorites. Hell, he already does it now...
There was never a pro-Fire bias in Jeff's columns. He gave props to the Fire because they did very well in the face of a ton of injuries. The slight Metro bias has always been there. Jeff is from Jersey and in the early years of the league he worked for the Metros (PR department I think). Either way, he has some fun with his columns and he's a damn fine baseball writer.
I'm a Metro guy, but Bradley writing more about the Fire and Metros than other teams has never frustrated me. He's a columnist, and his role is to write about things that will be interesting to the fans. However, he's going to do his best work when he's more interested in his topic (a favorite team, whether it's his home team, his brother's team, or now, both), particularly if he has some information or insight that the rest of us don't have. Although we don't have that many writers, I actually like knowing who a writer's favorite team is. Dan Loney roots for and writes disproportionately about the Galaxy, and why not? Peter Gammons, one of the most respected baseball writers / commentators of the last 50 years, at least, always goes on and on about the Red Sox. So, Red Sox fans love it, and fans of other teams get a lot of insight about the Red Sox. Nothing wrong with that. A columnist is under no obligation to be impartial. He's not an AP writer or anything like that. And if he's an unabashed fan, well, I wish we had hundreds more just like him. BTW, Jeff, good call changing your game-calling statistic. You were stacking the deck against yourself and making it look like you have even less clue than you do about upcoming games.