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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Shaughnessy, The Self-Plagiarist

Dan has arrived in Florida and uses his first day as a springboard for a walk down memory lane of memorable spring trainings past.  I tend to like his sentimental journeys and this one is not too bad.  Unfortunately, Shaughnessy plagizarizes much of this fine work from his 2003 book Spring Training co-written with Stan Grossfeld.

- His "Spring training is where.." convention is used in the same fashion in both pieces
-  the story about Calvin Griffith is in both places
-  The story about Dennis Boyd is in both places
-  The story about Wade Boggs and Bill Clinton is in both places
-  The story about Wade Boggs commenting about being the white Irving Fryar is in both places
-  The story about Gary Carter is in both places

- (Edit: 828 AM: The Story about Yaz and Ted Williams and their tennis match is also in both places)

There is no credit in today's Globe column given to the Spring Training book.

 Shaughnessy, thanks again for proving yet again that you just mail it in these days.  I wonder if he gets in trouble for this?


12 comments:

  1. PS There is a poorly scanned in version of the plagiarized chapter here

    http://books.google.com/books?id=TQWIdHHhQu4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22I%27m+the+white+irving+fryar%22


    You be the judge. Anxious to hear how OB defends this piece of laziness

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  2. It's an excellent and much-needed article... that just slipped in there again!

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  3. The Challenger blew up in January. Guess it took a l-o-n-g time to fall to earth. That's it! Anti-gravity!

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  4. I think this a kind of a gay (as in lame) article.

    Isn’t “Spring Training” about passive and active “warm-ups” in order to prevent injury and therefore enhance performance? At least that’s the way an athlete looks at it.

    We each have our own experiences and memories of the days of old when we readied ourselves for another season.

    So why does the Shank take us down his “memory” lane? Are we to be impressed that he has had the privilege of “being there” for 30 years?

    Could it be that instead of the “sun tan” lotion, The Shank used a little too much Ben Gay during his “warm ups”?

    This is just another one of those masturbatory thrusts by The Shank – a real “self gratifier!”

    To paraphrase JJS37 in a previous post “spring follows winter”.

    g

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  5. Gee, wasn't the idea of the piece to round up interesting/odd anecdotes? Isn't it then expected that such things would have been previously reported? Five of the fifteen were also in a book he wrote.

    So what?

    At least there's not a word about Dick Williams and volleyball or Earl Wilson, Tommy Harper and getting a drink in Winter Haven; or Dennis Bennett and loaded handguns. Look 'em up.

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  6. This isn't shocking, it's common knowledge that Shank is a lazy washed up hack

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  7. OB

    Are you seriously defending this?

    First, it is laziness--copying things he used in the past. Lack of original thought. Mailing it in. Whatever.

    Second, is deceitful...why not put a disclaimer in - "portions of this column are duplicated from previous material". At least then it would be just laziness instead of deceitful laziness.

    I think he is going to get suspended for this. He should.

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  8. Another "mail it in" job for Shank. What can you say at this point? Would there have been a difference between him writing this in a hotel in Florida in 15 minutes or writing this in his basement (next to his Dungeons and Dragons collection) in 15 minutes?

    I get the "walk down memory lane" thing, but really, who cares? There's so much crap to write about (Smoltz in a Sox uniform...Two more Japanese pitchers...Beckett's shot at redemption...Have you even seen the words "Brad Penny" in any Globe articles? And a thousand other things...) that you wonder why we needed the Walk today?

    Whatever.

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  9. OB,

    What's the point of the article? "Hey, here's a Sunday article on the first week of Spring Training that has zero to do with what's going on in Spring Training for the current Red Sox."

    Why did they send him to Florida? He's down there on the Globe's dime writing articles for paying (okay, I'm not paying, I read it free online, but you get the point!) customers and he doesn't mention one current Red Sox?

    Plus the article is self-indulging: "I witnessed....this is my 30th spring training.....look at my new car....I went to Holy Cross which makes me cooler than you..." Okay, I made up the last two, but you get the point.

    No one on the Sox will talk to him because he's an a-hole, so he has to write this crap.

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  10. Again, he gets 'sent to Florida' so he can mail in his work. While media outlets all over the city are sweating whether or not to send ANYONE to Florida, here's the 'I'm-worthy-of-junkets-like-these-and-you're-not' guy getting the 'king-of-the-forest' treatment. I am not going out on much of a limb when I suggest that Shaughnessy is probably as despised by his brethren as he is by us. That's not a stretch by any means.

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  11. I have it on good authority that Peter Gammons has, on more than one occasion, written that Babe Ruth his 60 home runs in a season.

    Suspension!

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  12. OB,

    Nice try.

    Gammons is not the final word on anything baseball.

    The fan is.

    Why repeat common knowledge if the fan wants analysis.

    Leave the experiences up to the individual.

    Shank forces his on us. Do we really need that or care?

    g

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