That's definitely a fair question. I can give you the "humorous" answer where I'd say that I'm a masochist and enjoy fucking up my Sunday each and every week.
Or I can be straight and tell you that I've read the Sunday Boston Globe practically every weekend since 1986. It's something I did with my Dad, it's something I did with my college roommates, it's something that I do with my wife. I know that I can read the paper online if I want, but I like that hour or so every Sunday where I can stretch out on the couch, shuffle sections back and forth and read the paper. Prior to my current job, I was a reporter for a mid-sized weekly newspaper. I like the printed word.
Since 1986, the Baseball Notes column has been my favorite thing written each week. From Peter Gammons to Larry Whiteside to Gordon Edes (I may have inadvertently missed someone along the lines), it was a treasure trove of baseball thought, tid-bits and stories from guys who were extremely well-connected and had a passion for baseball. They wrote intelligently and they wrote truthfully.
I'm not sure when Cafardo picked up this beat, but he's destroyed it (and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic). The Boston Globe's Baseball Notes is now filled with unimaginative "thought pieces" (Top 30 Managers Ranked!), silly and stupid trade possibilities, written hand jobs for Cafardo's buddies, weekly vengeance for people who don't speak to him and Quixotic defenses on "wars" that have been decided years ago (Moneyball, scouts vs. nerds!). It's embarrassing. To top it off, he writes with the skill of a fourth-grader who's finishing his assignment on the bus to school.
Nick Cafardo should not be writing these columns. Alex Speir or Peter Abraham or any number of people would do this job so much better than Nick Cafardo. This Baseball Notes column is no longer the top of its profession, it's a joke. And so, yes, when I read it now I get pissed not because it's not Gammons' quality, but because it's zero quality. It's slapdash and self-serving. It's boring and at the same time incredibly dumb. It's written by a man who stopped learning things in 1989 and that sucks.
If you don't agree, I'm not sure I can convince you. But, I think that when I write about Cafardo, I at least try to take apart what he wrote that particular week rather than acting like a broken record. However, maybe I don't. It is cathartic to me because I don't think that my wife cares about a baseball reporter nearly as much as most people here do.