Sunday's column is an odd conglomeration. This is foreshadowed by the title "Decision for Schilling? No. Lots going on? Yes" So even the guy who writes the headline is struggling to succinctly distill Shaughnessy's message.
The message is that Schilling had a busy week off the field and a messy one on the field yesterday. To his credit, Shaughnessy does not blame yesterday's poor performance on the off-field stuff (specifically, the Roger Clemens "We don't need him quote" and the Bonds bashing)
Yet, this is another column with precious little insight. As he details Schilling's off-field activities, he adds nothing to the discussion. As he reviews Schilling's game yesterday, he describes a rough 6th inning in some detail but that is about it.
Of course, Shaughnessy does get his jabs in. He continues to mock Schilling for the "We don't need him" quote. He also gets a minor slam on Matsuzaka with a dig on the $51 million posting fee.
It's ironic though...these jabs come in a column in which Shank starts off by saying that the Red Sox have "...the best starting pitching this side of the 1971 Orioles". So Shank, please explain why the Red Sox need a 5 inning pitcher who gets special treatment and about $1 million/start? If the Red Sox made that signing, you would have had a field day ripping them for it.
42 comments:
I may be completely misinterpretting this article but it seems to me Dan is extending an olive branch of sorts to Schilling. I remember hearing on WEEI this week that he acknowledges what the fight between Schilling and him looks like and maybe he's trying to defuse it a bit. I know he goes about it in a very odd way though, alternately praising and slamming others on the team (see "Oh, that was the other guy" comment refering to one Matsuzaka, Daisuke).
The evidence that he may be trying to squash the fued a bit. Two items. One, he uses the words "big lug" and "big guy" three times in the article. Nowhere does he call Schilling a "bloward" or his comments about Clemens, Bonds or Guccione "arrogant" or stupid". The second is his retraction of the way he portrayed the Clemens comment last weekend. Dan just about admits that he took that quote completely out of context (O/B I would love to hear your thoughts on that paragraph! Since you defended his decision to write the quote that way).
Overall, a major step in the right direction. This is sports. We shouldn't have writers taking out the axes every time a player says something. This article seems like a step away from the abyss for Dan.
Then again, I could have misread the whole article, too...
[Homer Simpson voice]Boring!!![/Homer Simpson Voice]
In an article in which Dan accuses Schilling of backpedaling that was a nice bit of backpedaling by Dan about the "We don't need him" quotation.
And why does it have to be that Schilling was 'backpedaling'? He made a mistake in judgment and apologized. Dan is not alone in characterizing the situation as such, but I don't think it is backpedaling.
Re Schilling, Shaughnessy was for him before he was against him.
See also: Josh Beckett, Keith Foulke, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Oil Can Boyd, Calvin Schiraldi, etc.
The irony in the backpedaling comment is so rich...sometimes I wonder if Dan even realizes what he's writing.
About the only interesting thing in the entire column was the stat about Schilling having the best K/BB ratio since 1900. Other than that, he justs recaps the game (which we all saw) and the week's drama (which nobody cares about).
Nice work Dan.
My guess? Dan's trying to smooth the waters.
He knows how much people hate him and it freaks him out.
(OB, this is where you step in and tell us that giants of the newspaper world like CHB don't care what we, the great unwashed, think.)
The blog's the thing. The media hates Schilling now for his blog and his blog alone. It short-circuits the media's perceived 'normal order of things,' which is to say that the media talks to players and then the media tells you what they said. '38 Pitches' upends that process by cutting the media out of the loop, and they absolutely positively hate it. Olive branch or not, Shaughnessy and the rest of the sports media hacks will circle their own hastily-contructed 'anti-Schilling' wagon until '38 Pitches' is gone...or he is.
You have an utterly unhinged sports media cabal right now. Newspaper, TV and radio 'hacks' are all in a snoot that the Internet exists and mad that it provides a pipeline for the expression of hatred for their profession...a pipeline that years ago could only be expressed in 'Letters to the Editor' or 'Ask the Manager.' There's a new sheriff in town, and they don't like it one single bit.
I was disappointing to see that the columnist felt a need to explain, but it's more an olive branch for Schilling, I would think, than any sort of response to blogger boys.
Go ahead and keep believing that the blog's the thing. Anyone who believes they get the unvarnished truth because somebody gets up on a soapbox is naive. But we really can't expect anything more than naivete from the likes of Chris, people that hate anyone and anything that pokes fun at or seriously questions their heroes.
Self-serving blogs mean a greater need to ask difficult questions and raise difficult issues.
Hasn't Dan made the "Twighlight of his career" just one long stand on the soap box?
Anyone who believes they get the unvarnished truth because somebody gets up on a soapbox is naive.
I may not get the 'truth' at 38pitches.com, but I know Schilling will never be misquoted.
Schilling provides more analysis of his starts than any reporter could or would care to provide. As to anything else, what he writes is no more self serving than anything that he would say to a reporter. Also, the reader has the benefit of knowing the full context of the statement and does not need to rely on the reporter to provide context. If you check back on some of his columns, Dan has made dubious claims about persons' statements.
"If you check back on some of his columns, Dan has made dubious claims about persons' statements."
Of course, OB and 'his' agenda-driven Boston Globe could never stoop so low as to 'check' on things that may slice and dice their carefully-cultivated action lines. Better to NOT check and keep making/drinking Kool-Aid than to do a little investigative work and be proven wrong.
this is all you need to know.
http://barstoolsports.com/randomthoughts/2007/05/14/#dan_shaughnessys_favorite_program_anything
it's not letting me post the link, just go to www.barstoolsports.com and check out Dan watching himself on TV.
yo- funny thing is...the 1 interesting part of his article (according to southpaws comment) is extremely mis-handled...
from joy of sox:
Odd choices. Why Seaver, Spahn and Clemens?
The Top 10 since 1900:
Curt Schilling 4.37
Pedro Martinez 4.28
Ben Sheets 4.03
Roy Oswalt 3.72
Doug Jones 3.68
Johan Santana 3.68
Jon Lieber 3.67
Bret Saberhagen 3.64
Mike Mussina 3.56
Rick Reed 3.40
http://joyofsox.blogspot.com/2007/05/history-lesson-chb-style.html
i guess it doesn't post whole links but if you doubleclick that line and edit copy, it gets it
www.tiny.url is great for taking long URLs and turning them into friendly shorter ones!
www.tinyurl.com.
Glen Ordway was on today mentioning how Dan took the "We don't need him" quotation out of context and backtracked in his Sunday piece. Probably the only reasonable thing I have heard him say in the last three years. (I don't listen to him except for when I search through radio stations.)
McAdam for some strange reason felt compelled to defend Dan.
In case you were wondering, Larry Johnson had nothing meaningful to add.
Awe-inspiring snap of Dan watching Dan, anonymous. It reminded me of one time several years ago when I was in the Boston Harbor Hotel bar with some out-of-town business guys and Dan was drunkenly slobbering around the place making a general jack-ass nuisance of himself, presumably in search of the "is that THE Dan Shaughnessy?" sound-byte. Instead, one of the know-nothings from beyond Dan's portion of the quadrant of the high school cafeteria said, "Who the fuck is this guy? A reject from the pilot for 'Welcome Back, Kotter'?"
Apparently Dan likes to go to bars and watch himself on TV:
http://www.barstoolsports.com/randomthoughts/2007/05/14/#dan_shaughnessys_favorite_program_anything
I still think CHB is ticked that Schilling played a key role in killing the "Curse" angle he kept writing books about. Took the bread out of his mouth, so to speak. Not that CHB needs any encouragement to be a jerk.
dave 11:44: Very well put, and spot-on. CHB could not refute that if his life depended on it.
sal solomon - LOL! I saw a shot of that - Shank watching himself on a big-screen TV. It looked a little bit like an image of Stalin or Saddam Hussein admiring one of those gigantic portraits they had made of themselves.
One other comment about Shank - his remark about Terry Francona "being readied for a gray hoodie." What is that supposed to mean?
dbvader - they didn't ask anything of LJ. As for Sean McAdam, remember this is one of the two reporters (Tony Spaz is the other) who thought it proper to defend His Gradiness after he blew the 2003 ALCS, so logic is naturally in short supply here.
I believe the gray hoodie comment refers to being elevated to Belichick status
Francona being elevated to Belichick status - given the Globe's makeup I'm not sure that's meant to be praise for Francona, especially now that Bully Borges is back.
BTW, when can we expect Shank snarkiness about Daisuke Matsusaka's complete-game win over Detroit?
When does Borges return?
It will be refreshing to read yet another petty, mean-spirited columnist who carries out his own personal grudges instead of doing his job.
Same shite, different writer.
Can we stand it? Another columnist back in the paper who doesn't worship the local teams? Say it isn't so! We want abject devotion to our heroes!!
O tempora! O mores!
O/B
So how many times are you gonna use the "The Columnist who Doesn't Woship the Poor, Poor Pitiful Home Teams" line to prop your arguments?
O/B:
Someone got himself a Latin dictionary!
You ah wicked smaht!
OB, it's a whole different agenda (there's that word again!) that Nappy-Hair uses here. He is simply being a contrarian: If 'fans' say the sky is blue, then it's not. If 'fans' say the world is round, then it's flat. The philosophy is a cliched one, and we all laugh at Nappy-Hair's use of it: In short, you look FEEBLE as a journalist when you take the side that 'most everyone else' is taking. That is the textbook definition for why Nappy-Hair is taking theb stance he is.
The other principle reason is that The Globe has a vendetta against BB and the Patriots. That much is clear and obvious. The 'party line' on Bowtie Boulevard is that the Patriots need to LOSE for the columnists to save face. I'll laugh and laugh when Nappy-Hair and his mind-numbed associates like Borges and MacMullen walk into the interview room and get IGNORED by BB and the players.
'Esteemed' Boston Globe, my ass.
Someone got himself a Latin dictionary!
You ah wicked smaht!
**********************
LOL!
You know how those 'elites' are on Bowtie Boulevard! They just need to re-affirm their perceived greatness with some regularity.
Oh, I just got it ...
"objective" is meant to be ironic, right?
"The 'party line' on Bowtie Boulevard is that the Patriots need to LOSE for the columnists to save face."
Moronic. Simply moronic.
"So how many times are you gonna use the "The Columnist who Doesn't Woship the Poor, Poor Pitiful Home Teams" line to prop your arguments?"
Until the day someone offers a rational argument against it. Hasn't happened yet.
"Bowtie Boulevard!"
Cribbing from Howie Carr again?
Who at the Globe wears bow ties? Name names. (Don't forget to come up from your photo-googling in the basement for your medication. We wouldn't want an ugly incident.)
Tom Oliphant.
Thanks for the layup OB!
The layup is rejected.
Oliphant has retired. His last column appeared December 22, 2005.
Larry Bird retired, too. Doesn't stop Nappy-Hair from referencing him.
DING! I win :-).
Now it'll be another few days before OB comes back with more fun for us to throw straight back at him.
Oh, okay. Oliphant retired.
So I guess that means he never wore a bowtie.
Good point. Really.
Larry Bird isn\'t walking through that door. Neither is Tom Oliphant.
Bruce takes this one.
Marvelous logic, that, defending someone who makes a living chirping in his 'column' about an endless parade of sports people who 'won't be walking through ANY doors.' The literal Bowties may be gone from Bowtie Boulevard, but the figurative ones are still there...coddling the necks of all those elite, 'better-than-everyone-else' columnists that fill every nook and cranny of, yes, Bowtie Boulevard.
What the hell is a figurative bow-tie?
Bwahahahahahaha...BOREges retires (use finger quotes around the word 'retires') from the Globe. hahahahahahaha! Chipppin' away at the stone. Chippin' away at the stone!
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