A reader has forwarded to us a link from a February 5 radio broadcast, during which John Tomase of the Boston Herald talked about his February 2 story asserting that the Patriots videotaped the Rams’ walk-through practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI.

By way of background, it previously was presumed that former Pats video employee Matt Walsh was the source for the Herald item.  Recently, however, Walsh’s lawyer denied that Walsh was the source.

The discussion begins at 12:20 of the segment, and Tomase clearly links his day-before-the-Super-Bowl story to the New York Times article from Friday, February 1, which contained the first public quotes from Matt Walsh. 

Said Tomase:  “I woke up on Friday, that story wasn’t even on my radar screen. . . .  [The] New York Times and ESPN seem[ed] like they’re close to something that we heard, so we have to start digging.  And when you find something, it’s gotta go in the paper.”

Tomase also said that he first heard about the Super Bowl XXXVI cheating allegation in September 2007, after Spygate.  But, for whatever reason, he didn’t have enough to justify reporting it before February 1.

But, then, Walsh finally emerges from the shadows of a volcano via the Times on February 1, and Mike Fish of ESPN.com follows up later that day with an article that shows Fish was hunting Walsh as well. 

And so Tomase is able to develop enough evidence in one day to warrant publishing a story that he’d known about for so long that it had dropped off his “radar screen”?  (Presumably, Tomase chased this story to a successful conclusion while otherwise in Arizona covering the Super Bowl.)

In our view, this is further proof that Walsh was the source, and that (as we believe) the Herald  previously had declined to go with the story without Walsh speaking on the record.  Once Walsh seemed to be close to going on the record with the Times and/or ESPN.com, the Herald likely became inclined to drop the requirement (if there was such a requirement) that Walsh be on the record before they’d publish.

Regardless, something happened between Friday morning and Saturday morning — and it was something that allowed Tomase to overcome more than four months of futility.  If the source wasn’t Walsh, who in the hell was it?