Shattered victory

Dan offers an endearing look at a local high school pitcher who pitched the final out in his team's high school championship--only to suffer a severely broken leg in the celebration that ensued. The kid (Chris Halliday of Auburn) sounds like a kid with a fresh perspective on life - it is neat to see his attitude towards it all. No bitterness whatsoever. These are the types of story Dan should stick to. ( Although this particular story took place two weeks ago when Dan must have been preparing his trip to California to carp about LA and Manny)

Dan does relate the two stories of two professional athletes who were hurt during celebrations (Bill Gramatica, the kicker and Dave Henderson from the 1986 Red Sox series--after he hit the homer). The Gramatica story is pretty clear although there is debate about the Henderson story--a debate that I believe that even Shaughnessy has written about. Henderson has apparently claimed that he was hurt prior to jumping up and down after the homer

Catching Up

A brief look at some of Dan-o's recent offerings:

- On June 26, 2009, Dan wrote that the Celtics should not trade Rajon Rondo. Relatively straightforward piece but as usual Dan can't resist the Red Sox references (favorite targets: Pedro the diva and a new Manny twist with Dan's introduction of "Rajon being Rajon"). He also makes the comment that the Cavaliers just got a lot better with Shaquille O'Neal. O"Neal is old and this is typical Shaughnessy hyperbole.

As an aside, was there a fleeting/passive acknowledgement of our little DSW site? Shaughnessy refers to the recent speculation about the Celtics point guard as the "Rondo Watch". I think ole Dan has missed us

- Shaughnessy does a little puff piece on June 24th with his article on Nancy Kerrigan who was to be recognized at a Boston sports gala in support of the Sports Museum. The Shank hyperbole factor is much worse here when he claims Kerrigan "knows more about performing pressure than any of the fabled fellows" (like Brady, Russell, Schilling, etc). That's a little over the top Dan. I was going to take issue with his claim that the 1994 Olympics were some of the most watched TV ever ranking right up there with MASH (I remember the whole Harding saga well but did not think the TV ratings would be so high) but I did check and Shaughnessy was actually on the money with that stat. Finally, Dan's line "Harding has since gone on to live the life of every country-western song ever written." This is an awkward sentence at best and just a tad bit overreaching

- Outside of Bill Belichick and possibly now Rajon Rondo, Dan does not really have the whipping posts that he used to have. With the likes of Pedro, Mo Vaughn, Schilling et al gone, Shaughnessy must travel to Los Angeles to find an outlet for his bitter diatribes. Why would the Globe waste so much money on travel to LA for this crap? They did the same thing last year - but this year's dispatches from LA are even worse. It is the standard Manny shots that we have seen from Shank time and time again. But the most curious thing about this article is the timing - why is Shank in LA writing about this? It's just really odd. Must be the case that Shaughnessy was going nuts in the sports department with no one to carp about--CHB was probably suffering from headaches, profuse sweating and the jitters in general and so they sent him to LA to get his fix

- Shank's piece on the LA sports scene was one of his worst offerings ever. What a load of garbage. Snarky bitterness. He comes across as a little baby at the playground. Shaughnessy claims to be above the zealous fandom in the local Boston sports scene and yet he comes across as one of the biggest sore losers in the sports world with this garbage. The trip out to LA must have been a hard one on Dan--this and the aforementioned Manny piece were atrocious.

Dave

Blast from The Past

Hi All,

I just wanted to offer a quick post. I do not know how Jerry is doing - I have not heard from him and sincerely hope he is okay. Jerry, please drop us all a line if you can.

Dbvader and I decided earlier this year that we had too many things going on to continue and Jerry was gracious enough to take this on. Things have settled down me for a little bit and I am going to do what I can to post as time allows and until Jerry gives us an update and indicates he is able to resume posting.

Jerry - please know we all hope you are doing okay.
To the regular readers: thanks for your patience and understanding. Glad folks are still checking in

Will post later this weekend with a recap of some of Shaughnessy's recent classics. He has been in rare form.

Dave M