Globe shuffles sports lineup

As reported earlier today by Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch, there are some big changes afoot at the Globe's sports desk--including the hiring of Albert Breer from the Sporting News to replace Mike Reiss; Adam Kilgore moving from Red Sox to Patriots coverage; Chris Gasper taking over Tony Massarotti's online-columnist slot; and Julian Benbow moving to the Celtics beat. 

Here's the email that sports editor Joe Sullivan sent this morning, describing these and other changes (read: the recent hirings of Gary Washburn and Peter Abraham) in full:

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I'd like to introduce some new free-agent players in our lineup who have
recently been signed to long-term contracts (only kidding about the
contract part). We've had some turnover in the sports department, but we've
been lucky to find great replacements for the quality people who have left.

Gary Washburn is our new national NBA writer (replacing Marc Spears). Gary
grew up in Inglewood, Calif., and graduated from Cal-Berkeley, but his
career has taken him coast to coast. He's worked for the Los Angeles Daily
News, the Contra Costa Times in Northern California. MLB.com in Baltimore,
and the late and lamented Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He covered the NBA
and the SuperSonics at the PI and he brings a veteran's viewpoint to our
NBA coverage.

Peter Abraham will be part of our Red Sox coverage and will be the most
frequent contributor to our Extra Bases blog on Boston.com, especially when
he gets down to Fort Myers in February. Before that, he'll be working with
Amalie Benjamin on offseason stories plus covering the winter meetings.
Peter is a true New Englander, growing up in New Bedford and attending
UMass-Amherst. He worked at the New Bedford Standard-Times and the Norwich
Bulletin in Connecticut before landing at the Journal-News, the Gannett
paper that covers Westchester and Rockland Counties in New York. He covered
the Mets and Yankees for the Journal-News and established a Yankees blog
that became known as the best source of Yankees news on the web;  the major
New York metro papers just could not match him online.

Albert Breer is our new national NFL writer, replacing Mike Reiss. It's not
the first time he's replaced Mike. He became the Metro West Daily News'
Patriots writer when Mike joined the Globe in 2004. Regional sports editor
Craig Larson, then the Daily News' sports editor, hired both of them. Bert,
as he's called except in his byline, covered the Cowboys for the Dallas
Morning News before moving to The Sporting News as its national NFL writer.
He went to Lincoln-Sudbury High and graduated from THE Ohio State
University.

There are other changes.

Christopher L. Gasper (Chris to his friends) is our new web columnist,
essentially replacing Tony Massarotti. Tony is now working for WBZ-FM radio
but continues to write part-time for Boston.com. Chris will become the face
and voice of Boston.com sports. Given his youth, he brings a tremendous
expertise of Boston sports to this job.

Adam Kilgore has been part of our Red Sox coverage for the last two
seasons, will soon be moving to the Patriots beat, where he will join
Monique Walker and Bert to give us top-notch coverage of the team. Monique
had previously split her job between the sports department and Globe South.

Julian Benbow, who used to split his job between the sports department and
Globe North (with occasional rap music reviews in G), will be moving to the
Celtics beat with Frank Dell'Apa and Gary.

Previously, you had been introduced to Matt Pepin, the new sports editor of
Boston.com, in an email from David Beard. Matt brings a creative mind and
excellent management experience from the Middletown, N.Y. Times Record
Herald.

Sports is facing some new challenges (plus the same old ones) in our market
with ESPN launching its Boston website, and Comcast soon to follow, and not
just because those entities will try to compete with us for readers. Both
upstarts also tried to raid our staff, mainly  because they know the best
sportswriters and editors work at the Globe and Boston.com. We feel with
this new lineup we're as strong as ever, and ready to remain the dominate
source of information about Boston sports.

Please say hello to our newcomers and send congratulations to our staffers
on their new assignments.