When reminiscing about sports moments and personalities of days gone by, the familiar anecdotes are often a joy to hear again and again.

Even better, though, is when there are fresh new stories to be told by those who were there.

The new YouTube channel Front Row to Boston Sports offers both familiar tales and ones you may not have heard before, as told by four of the most connected journalists and best storytellers in the modern annals of sports in this region.

Legendary former sports anchors Mike Lynch (Channel 5) and Bob Lobel (Channel 4), along with Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy and former Globe columnist Bob Ryan, have teamed up to share the funniest, most heartfelt, and illuminating tales from their storied careers, from press row and the locker room.

The project is the brainchild of Peter Brown, a former news director at Channel 4, where he spent 22 years before moving on to an accomplished career in public affairs and communications.

“You come from a news background, you’re always thinking about what’s the best way to tell a story,” he said. “What better story is there to tell than those about Boston sports? Everyone who is from here or has lived here is in some degree a fan. I thought a look back at some great moments and some behind-the-scenes details that only the most plugged-in reporters would know would be a fun thing to do.”

So Brown reached out to Alan Miller, a former sports producer at Channel 4 who worked with Brown during the local news heyday in the 1980-90s. Miller, who later worked at the Globe and in the Channel 7 newsroom before retiring in May 2024, has long been one of the most well-liked figures in the Boston sports media landscape, someone who knows everyone and whose word is as good as a signature on the dotted line.

Miller thought it was a super idea, and reached out to his close friend Lobel, along with Lynch, Shaughnessy, and Ryan. They all said yes immediately.

“We basically said, just tell us your best stories,” said Miller. “We wanted the stories that maybe you couldn’t tell on TV or in the newspaper, but the ones you might have told your buddies at the bar. The ones about what people are really like and what gets said behind the scenes. The ones about relationships. These were the four perfect guys to tell those.”

Currently, there are eight clips posted on the channel, ranging in length from just longer than three minutes (Ryan talking about his top five all-time Celtics) to 13 minutes (Shaughnessy sharing an assortment of Terry Francona stories). One of Lobel’s clips includes an emotional discussion of Ted Williams, while Lynch is especially insightful talking about Bill Belichick’s candor off camera during their old Bellistrator segments.

Brown and Miller plan to sprinkle out a few new clips each week. Since the project has been in the works for approximately a year, they were able to build up a catalogue of 30 clips before launch.

Miller said there’s another reason that everyone involved wanted to be part of the project — the fear that institutional knowledge about Boston sports isn’t what it used to be because of the changing media landscape.

“When I was at Channel 7, John Havlicek died, and I think there were about three people in the newsroom who knew how John Havlicek was,” he said. “It’s not their fault, a lot of them are 20-something kids and half of them are from out of town.

“But there can be a real lack of knowledge about the past. And Boston sports, as you know, has an amazing past. You’d like the legacy and the memories to stay alive.”

Bonkers ratings in Boston

It’s no surprise that Patriots television ratings have risen this season corresponding with the team’s return to prominence.

But even if the rise in ratings is logical, some of the heights that they are reaching — or returning to, a half-dozen years after Tom Brady’s final season in New England — are remarkable.

Take last Sunday’s 35-31 loss to the Bills, which aired at 1 p.m. on CBS as a regional broadcast. The game had a 31.4 household rating and 78 share in Boston.

That household rating — the percentage of households in a defined area tuned in to a program at a given time — is the highest for any Patriots game on any network since the regular season finale against the Dolphins in 2021. That also happens to be the last season the Patriots made the playoffs.

The 78 share — the percentage of households with television in use — is reminiscent of the viewership the Patriots enjoyed during the dynasty. As noted here previously, the Patriots averaged a 35.3 household rating and 66 share in 2018, their most recent Super Bowl-winning season.

Nine of the Patriots’ 14 games have aired on CBS this season. Those broadcasts have averaged a 25.7 household rating and 73 share, up 35 percent from last year (19.0/59) through the same span.

Overall last Sunday, the 1 p.m. slot — which also included the Chargers-Chiefs matchup — was a massive success for CBS, averaging 18.9 million viewers across the games. That made it the most-watched regional window on any network in 37 years.

Chad Finn

Sports columnist

Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.

This is also an economic issue. Toxic blooms from stormwater runoff recently threatened the Head of the Charles Regatta, and such conditions will imperil other landmark events and economic development if the MWRA compounds the runoff issue by maintaining its current course on CSOs.

We’ve been here before: When Conservation Law Foundation brought its lawsuit to force the cleanup of Boston Harbor, some members of the media called it a waste of billions of dollars. That faulty notion is reprised in the editorial. Yet today the harbor’s revival proves that clean water investments yield extraordinary returns to our economy, such as a value of ecosystem services estimated between $30 billion and $100 billion.

This is also a matter of the rule of law. MWRA deserves credit for magnificent achievements in cleaning up the harbor over decades. From my experience having enforced the federal Clean Water Act throughout those same decades, I would argue that MWRA’s current approach to CSOs violates both the letter and spirit of the law.

Brad Campbell

President and CEO

Conservation Law Foundation

Boston

The writer is former regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s mid-Atlantic region and former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Your recent editorial on the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s updated CSO control plan resonated because it recognized what’s driving so much of the public’s emotion: a sincere, shared hope for cleaner, healthier rivers. Those of us who work in water and wastewater feel that same pull. Combined sewer overflows should continue to decline, and this plan was always meant to evolve. The goal — for advocates, MWRA, and our communities — is the same: real improvements in water quality.

The challenge, as your editorial noted, is that progress now requires confronting difficult tradeoffs. After 40 years of major gains, the remaining decisions are more complex — and far more costly. MWRA was created to lead the region’s environmental turnaround, and the MWRA Advisory Board was established alongside it to ensure that those decisions kept affordability in mind — not to block investment but rather to make sure families and communities could sustain it.

When tradeoffs fall directly on households, people deserve clarity about what each dollar accomplishes. MWRA is funded entirely by its communities, which means every dollar becomes a higher sewer bill for the residents who cherish these rivers.

Massachusetts has some of the most engaged, informed residents anywhere. Let’s give them the full story in the formal comment process and trust them to help shape the path forward.

Matthew A. Romero

Executive director

MWRA Advisory Board

Chelsea

The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not represent those of the full advisory board.

The editorial “The MWRA’s tricky balancing act” regurgitates MWRA’s misleading argument for dumping sewage in the Charles River while it misses the heart of the public’s concerns. The agency’s proposal to reclassify the river is no meaningless thing; it’s a permanent concession to have sewage discharged into the Charles forever. The proposal would not only remove any accountability for MWRA to end its discharges. It would actually increase the amount of sewage entering the river in the future as storms worsen. It would be a drastic step backward for a mainstay of Greater Boston that’s taken us decades to bring back to life.

There was no misunderstanding about MWRA, Cambridge, and Somerville’s proposal that has to be “explained” to its critics. The authority faced justified alarm from outraged residents legitimately questioning why we would abandon past cleanup efforts and increase sewage discharges to the river.

The editorial paints solutions as impossible and unrealistic. But the Boston Harbor cleanup — also dismissed as too hard at the time — is now one of metro Boston’s greatest economic wins. Clean water is an investment that pays off.

A sewage-free river is not a pipe dream. It’s what we deserve and what MWRA must deliver.

Emily Norton

Executive director

Charles River Watershed Association

Boston

The proposals on the table from MWRA, Cambridge, and Somerville addressing combined sewer overflows would not get us closer to a swimmable or boatable Charles or Mystic River.

For instance, the proposal does not promise to “eliminate CSOs in the Alewife Brook entirely,” as your editorial claims. It predicts only that there would be no CSOs in a “typical” year of rainfall. So the current proposal essentially guarantees continued releases of CSOs in the Alewife Brook, the Mystic, and the Charles, and probably at an even greater level than now.

As environmental advocates, we understand that costs must be weighed against benefits. But the current proposals provide minimal (and yet to be known) benefits, far less than the editorial asserts.

Massachusetts residents deserve more information and a transparent public process where they can weigh in on whether the costs are worth the benefits for treasured public resources.

The headline that appeared over your editorial online asks: “Is making the Charles swimmable worth the cost?”

For our part, the question is: Is freeing our rivers from sewage worth the cost? Our answer remains a resounding yes.

Patrick Herron

Executive director

Mystic River Watershed Association

Arlington