DHL Dan CCLXXVIII - On To Cincinnati

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank looks at the New England Patriots' latest road game:

Even with the Patriots ‘on to Cincinnati’ again, there’s very little sports history between our cities, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while revisiting “We’re on to Cincinnati.”

⋅ It was 11 years ago. The Tom Brady Patriots had just been smoked by the Chiefs, 41-14, on “Monday Night Football” when ESPN’s Trent Dilfer buried the New England dynasty, telling America that the Patriots “aren’t good anymore!”

Bill Belichick didn’t want to talk about any of it in his postgame press conference and answered most questions with, “We’re on to Cincinnati.”

A week later, the Patriots welcomed the Bengals, spanked them, 43-17, and they wound up in the Super Bowl, where they beat the defending-champion Seahawks, 28-24, in the Malcolm Butler/Pete Carroll game. It was the start of a five-year run in which the Patriots went to four Super Bowls and won three.

That’s when “We’re on to Cincinnati” became a local sports rallying cry, alongside, “Beat LA,” “No days off!” and “Don’t let us win this game tonight!”

DHL Dan CCLXXVII - Bandwagon Hijacked?

I think Shank's coming around on the current New England Patriots team, yes?

Must-watch Patriots are proving each week to be an unexpected gift that keeps on giving, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while rolling my eyes when I hear that the Red Sox are “in on” every free agent …

⋅ It is mid-November and the 9-2 Patriots have the best record in football.

Let that sink in for a second.

A team that finished 4-13 in each of the last two seasons … a team with a 23-year-old quarterback … a team that was supposed to be in a rebuilding year … has the best record in all of football.

Six games remain. Five of those games are against teams with losing records. The other is against a team that the Patriots already beat this year — on the road.

So these Patriots might finish 13-4 or 14-3; sorry, not going for 15-2. They might get a first-round bye. They might go deep into the playoffs. They might (gulp) make it to the Super Bowl.

Where he'll not get another invite to the Patriots pre-game Super Bowl breakfast? Stay tuned!

DHL Dan CCLXXVI - Forgiven?

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank wonders if certain (i.e., juiced) baseball players will make it into the Hall of Fame this time around:

Sports seem to be in an all-forgiving mood. Is the Baseball Hall of Fame next? And other thoughts.

Picked-up pieces while wondering if folks at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will take action if HOFer Chauncey Billups goes to prison for his alleged role in a gambling and money laundering scheme.

Probably not. O.J. Simpson was never kicked out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As far as I can tell, Alan Eagleson is the only person expunged from any of our four major sports Halls of Fame. Bobby Orr’s corrupt agent resigned from the Hockey Hall in 1998, shortly before the Hall’s board was set to expel him.

What about baseball, you ask?

At this hour, baseball seems to be all about forgiveness.

Look no further than the Fenway Park dugout. Alex Cora is one of the great managers in Red Sox history and his unfortunate role in the 2017 Astros’ cheating scandal seems to have gone away. MLB suspended Cora (a bench coach then with the Astros) and Houston manager A.J. Hinch for a year, but both are back in the dugout with playoff teams and nobody really brings it up anymore.

Swell.

So, how are we going to feel if next summer in Cooperstown we’ve got Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Carlos Beltrán on stage holding Hall of Fame plaques?

I'm not sure myself, but a connection, albeit a strong one, is not a determination by some governing body or a conviction in court. Should it still bar these guys from HOF consideration? It'll come down to the 'ol character clause and how stongly it's employed.

Instant Classic

Shank wraps up last week's World Series matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays; Games 6 and 7 were the best games I can remember in a long time:

Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series Game 7 was one for the ages, as well as one for all ages

It’s been several days and some of us are still talking about the seventh game of the World Series that unfolded late Saturday in Toronto.

In the ninth inning alone we saw Miguel Rojas’s (zero hits in a full month, 57 home runs in 12 seasons) unlikely homer . . . Toronto pinch runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa called out as he slid across home plate when he should have run straight up . . . Andy Pages making a Series-saving catch seconds after being inserted for defense. And there was so much more.

When baseball is played well in high-stakes games, it provides indelible moments frozen in time, easily summoned decades later.

Even though the 1975 Series was a half-century ago, Baby Boom New Englanders still carry on as if the thing ended last weekend. And why not? That epic had Looie’s shutout, Armbrister’s bunt, Fisk’s homer, Dewey’s catch . . . oh, and what do you think would have happened if Darrell Johnson hadn’t pinch hit for Jim Willoughby in the bottom of the eighth of Game 7?

Make the column about Boston - that's our Shank!

DHL Dan CCLXXV - MVP! MVP!

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, is Shank a week or two away from jumping on the Drake Maye bandwagon?

NFL MVP Drake Maye? Probably not, but his candidacy is no joke, and other thoughts.

Picked-up pieces while remembering days when Notre Dame at Boston College was a big deal around here . . .

⋅ Drake Maye for MVP?

Patriots fans certainly believe. They love the Drake. They were chanting “MVP!” late in the third quarter of last Sunday’s rout of the Browns at Gillette. Days later, oddsmakers listed Maye as the third-leading candidate for MVP, trailing only two-time winner Patrick Mahomes and last year’s winner, Josh Allen.

Count me as one who doesn’t think it’s going to happen. It’s fun, and a far cry from this time last year, when Maye had three starts under his belt for a rudderless, 2-6 team bound for 4-13, and a head coach firing. The Patriots have had only one NFL MVP in their history: Tom Brady, who won the award in 2007, ’10, and ’17. Boston Patriots Gino Cappelletti and Jim Nance were AFL MVPs in 1964 and ’66, respectively.

The NFL MVP tends to be a quarterback. Peyton Manning is the league’s MVP king with five trophies, followed by Aaron Rodgers (four), and Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Jim Brown, and Brady, who won three each. Vikings tackle Alan Page (1971) and Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor (1986) are the only defensive players to cop the award since the Associated Press made it a regular thing in 1957.

If the Patriots keep on winning, Shank's singing a different tune in about a month.

DHL Dan CCLXXIV - Driving Ms. Russell

This looks like an interesting column:

Bill Russell’s daughter had never met Bob Cousy. Until now.

WORCESTER — It’s Sunday morning in mid-October and Worcester is looking unusually colorful and picturesque.

I am driving Karen Kenyatta Russell to Bob Cousy’s home because we’re new social media friends, and she texted that she was going to be in town for the Celtics’ season opener, mentioning, “I am going to try to see Mr. Cousy.”

So, I am driving Ms. Russell to meet Mr. Cousy.

Russell and Cousy are New England sports royalty. Bill Russell and Bob Cousy were pillars of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports, built by Red Auerbach.

Karen Russell is the 63-year-old daughter of Bill Russell, who died three years ago at the age of 88, 53 years after winning his 11th championship in his 13th and final season with the Boston Celtics.

Bob Cousy is the 97-year-old last survivor of the first Celtics championship, won in 1956-57, which happens to be the year Russell brought his talents to Boston.

Cousy and Russell are NBA Hall of Famers, NBA MVPs (Russell five times!), Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, have their own statues, and won six championships together before Cousy retired in 1963, one year after Karen Russell was born.

DHL Dan CCLXXIII - Looking Back

With the Boston Red Sox no longer in the playoffs, Shank looks back a half century:

Why are we still looking back at the 1975 World Series 50 years later? Because it’s who we are, and other thoughts.

Picked-up pieces while blissfully remembering what life was like when the World Series was here 50 years ago this weekend . . .

⋅ A half-century later, the October 1975 and 2025 calendars align perfectly.

Game 4 in Cincinnati was Wednesday, Oct. 15. That’s when Luis Tiant whirled and twirled for 163 pitches and went the distance in a 5-4 series-squaring victory. The Reds’ Game 5 win was Thursday, Oct. 16. Then everybody flew back to Boston for Game 6 on Saturday.

In October 1975, Kevin Paul Dupont and I were 22 years old, covering high school football for the Globe for the princely sum of $35 per game. Through the kindness of veteran Associated Press sports editor Dave O’Hara, we also were quote-runners at Red Sox games at Fenway Park ($7 per game), which is how we happened to be at the Park Plaza for the food-and-booze World Series hospitality feast on Friday, Oct. 17, the eve of Game 6 — originally scheduled as Bill Lee vs. Jack Billingham. There was a threat of rain all weekend.

While inhaling our free Lobster Newburg, we learned that the Globe was looking for Peter Gammons’s World Series notebook. Nobody on Morrissey Boulevard could find Gammons and we were tasked with cobbling together some notes for the next morning’s paper.

DHL Dan CCLXXII - The Mike Vrabel Column

This week's Picked Up Pieces column focuses on first-year head coach of the Patriots Mike Vrabel:

The Patriots aren’t there quite yet, but they sure have the coaching part figured out with Mike Vrabel, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering when Bill Belichick can put UMass on the Tar Heels’ schedule to pick up a much-needed win . . .

⋅ We’re not going to get all Super Bowl silly on you. The Patriots have a lot of work to do and, realistically, are in no position to think any upcoming opponent is an easy win. New England is still a very young and flawed football team.

But the Patriots have the coach part figured out. They have Mike Vrabel.

Five games into this new regime, it’s pretty clear that Bob Kraft made a great move when he admitted Jerod Mayo was a mistake and switched to Vrabel at the end of Mayo’s single season as head coach in Foxborough.

It couldn’t have been easy. Kraft’s ego is bigger than Gillette’s new lighthouse, and he probably wanted to honor the commitment he made to Mayo and give the neophyte coach a second chance.

Taking shots at ownership - check!

The Other Type Of Shank Column

By now we're all familiar with one type of Dan Shaugnessy column - the ones where he's second guessing a team / coach / player and / or crapping on the team's ownership. Today we get the opposite type of column, the heads version of the coin. When a team's on a winning streak, their opponents all of a sudden turn into small aluminum things!

Maybe we shouldn’t be thinking playoffs for the Patriots just yet, but their softer-than-soft schedule says otherwise

The Patriots just enjoyed their best win in five years, are over .500 after five games for the first time since the Brady era, and we are seriously talking playoffs again.

Not a moment too soon. The Red Sox thrill ride has been over for a week, and with the Bruins/Celtics launching seasons of low expectations, the Patriots have come to our emotional rescue.

Sunday’s wildly entertaining 23-20 victory over the unbeaten, Super Bowl-favorite Bills at Highmark Stadium put Gillette back on the NFL map. After two straight 4-13 campaigns and five years of front office frostiness, draft day boobery, personal vendettas, and abject incompetence — patterns and pettiness that put the franchise on the road to irrelevance — the Patriots are a team on the rise.

The prudent thing, of course, is to pump the brakes and remind everybody that the 2025 Patriots couldn’t beat the awful Raiders, losing 20-13 in Foxborough Sept. 7. Two weeks later, they committed five turnovers in a ridiculous 21-14 home loss to the Steelers.

The lords of television buried the Patriots in the anonymous 1 p.m. Sunday slot for at least 13 weekends. And they did it for a reason; the Patriots were not expected to be interesting.

But thanks to Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye, they’re suddenly a must-watch. And thanks to the easiest schedule these eyes have ever seen, the Patriots are a threat to return to the postseason and possibly even contend for first place in the AFC East.

It’s all about the schedule, people.

Seriously. Not enough has been made of the clear path the Patriots have been handed.

Welcome to the March of the Tomato Cans, 2025.

THat's right - it's not because our team's good; it's because everyone else sucks!