Dave M. recently gave us all some examples of Dan's use of tired phrases. Some others popped up in a recent column. So...
LET'S CHECK THEM OUT!
One of the most common phrases is "sons of (Boston area coach)" to refer to a local team. Readers are aware that Dan abuses this phrase, but the results are worse than one would think.
A search of the Boston Globe online archive for "'Dan Shaughnessy' 'Sons of'" returns 171 articles. The number is somewhat inflated by duplicate listings and unrelated uses, but a brief glance at the results are stunning. Dan has been using this stupid phrase for over 25 years. (It started in 1981 with a "sons of Weaver" reference.) Dan seemed to overdose on the expression in the mid-90's and since then his use of the term has been more judicious. But every once in a while he will backslide, like the bender he went on in October of 2003, using the phrase "Sons of Grady Little" four times in 17 days.
Dan's frequent Clive Rush references are tiresome not so much for their frequency (about 20 times in the last 20 years), but their irrelevance. Most readers under the age of 40 have no idea who Clive Rush was. Yet Dan consistently reminds us Rush was almost electrocuted by a microphone at a press conference 38 years ago. Maybe I am missing something, but the story isn't as interesting as Dan seems to think it is.
What Other People Are Saying
From a link on Boston Sports Media Watch, I found the firejoemorgan.com post on Dan's Opening Day game column. The site has some other posts regarding recent Dan atrocities.
From an ad on firejoemorgan.com, I found another site devoted to Dan, thechb.com. It's new and it will be interesting to see how it turns out.
I found this take on the Curt blogs column through Seth Mnookin's post on the subject. (Yes, I only posted the link because it favorably mentions DSW.)
7 comments:
I seem to remember that CHB used to throw shots at Jim Rice frequently in his column, even after he had long been in retirement ... would be interesting to get a count of how many times he did that.
How would you rank Dan's favourite dart-boards?
Off the top of my head, it would have to be;
1. Manny Ramirez
2. The average male 'fan-boy' Red Sox fan (as the CHB describes them/us)
3. Keith Foulke
4. Theo
5. Wasdin
Cormac
How could you forget Carl Everett and Pedro Martinez?
The Clive Rush incident represented the nadir of Patriots existence, something than any of the bandwagon climbers of today ought to appreciate.
Rush was hired away from the New York Jets who had just validated the dreams of the AFL, its ownership and its fans by winning a Super Bowl. This was to be the Patsies future, a stunning raid of a successful team, capturing not only its coach but its general manager, George Sauer, Sr. Then Rush got electrocuted touching the microphone at the news conference when he was introduced. It quickly became apparent that rather than being the salvation of the franchise, he was inept. Things got worse and worse until Fairbanks was hired, then Fairbanks was fired and things got worse and worse until Parcells was hired.
Some fans prefer to just live in the present day with no appreciation for the past. That's their privilege. But to condemn people who do appreciate the past is merely parading one's ignorance
I didn't make it clear that Rush was an assistant coach with the Jets
Bruce,
It is not the readers fault the Clive Rush reference is beyond them. Nobody gets it because nobody talks about it.
What your essay fails to mention is that the Patriots of that era were irrelevant not so much because of their records but because football wasn't big in this town. The incident may very well have been an omen for continued failure, but it does not resonate because no one cared.
Besides, the electrocution of Clive Rush is probably as much BS as Frazee selling Ruth to produce 'No, No Nanette."
ObjectiveBruce, indeed. There's a hilarious bit by Leigh Montville in the 2001 Patriots commemorative issue of SI where he recalls a 1969 interview with Rush where Rush asks right away, "Are you fact or flair?" When a confused Montville replies, "I guess I'm flair," Rush snapped, "HA! I thought so!" (Though Montville has what reads like a CHB moment in that he punctuates the bit by noting twice that Rush was listening to WJIB and Montovani was playing).
As long as CHB is injecting Patriots trivia into his columns, he should include Upton Bell screaming for Randy Vataha not to score the game-winning touchdown against Baltimore in 1971, because that TD won the Patriots the game and saved John Mazur's job for another year.
Uh oh, maybe I'd better not give Shank ideas........
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