Shameless Shank

I thought hit Shaughnessy hit a low water mark last fall when he declared the Red Sox playoff series over after the Red Sox won the first game. But then he hit a lower point this spring when he self-plagiarized a column about spring training from a book that he had co-written with another person. But this past week, he has sunk to a whole new level.

Shaughnessy accused David Ortiz of lying but he did not have all the facts and could not be bothered to collect them (see my diatribe in the previous post below). Today's contribution is just as bad. He issues no mea culpas—instead he offers a mammoth rationalization as to why he wrongly/prematurely accused someone of lying. It is downright disgusting. At the least, I credit him for admitting he was too lazy to collect the facts

Click here to read Shaughnessy’s rationalization:

- First, he makes the astounding claim that the reason that Ortiz seems to be getting a pass here is that people like him personally. Meanwhile, Clemens and Bonds are being vilified because people don’t like them personally. Seriously? If you didn’t have your head so far up your arse, you would realize there are worlds of differences between the cases of Bonds, Clemens, and Ortiz. There is no Game of Shadows for Ortiz is there? To this point, no one has come out publicly to say they injected Ortiz with steroids, have they? Give people credit, Dan—they are able to seek the evidence and make their own conclusions. Personality certainly is a factor but it is not the decisive factor that you claim. The cases are different but you are too dense to understand that.

- Shaughnessy does admit to being too lazy although he is probably too stupid to realize he has made this stunning admission. He says

“Seriously, if Donald Fehr, Gene Orza, or Weiner had gone public with their questions about the legitimacy of the (2003) positive results back in February, there would have been less rush to jump on Ortiz when his name came out July 30.”

Did you even bother to ask any of them yourself Dan? Did you even try to get any of the facts right? Isn't that your responsibility before you claim someone is a liar?

Then he quotes Weiner:

"We thought we were pretty darn vocal,’’ Weiner said. “We wrote a long and publicly-released letter to congressmen Waxman and Davis. Maybe we made a mistake of thinking people would read a letter sent to congressmen.’’

and says:

Right. Most of us routinely inspect all correspondence between the Players Association and Congress. Sorry we missed this one.

Sorry you missed this one? Take your sarcasm and shove it. You shouldn’t have missed this one. It is your responsibility as a journalist to do due diligence before you make the accusation that someone has lied. And you didn’t do it. How dare you?

Oh and here is my favorite
“We’re trained to be cynical of accused cheaters who claim innocence.”

Wow, what journalism school did you go to? I thought you were trained to do research to prove your assertions? I thought you were trained to take each individual case and examine it on its own merits? What you seem to be saying is that you have lumped everyone together in one big pot and it is okay to accuse them all of lying because everyone seems to be lying?

Then you have the nerve to end your little piece of trash by suggesting that there were holes in the Ortiz and Wiener’s accounts? Maybe so….but nothing in comparison to the gaping holes in your credibility and ethics. Astonishing

In my nearly three years of working on this site, I have never been this utterly disgusted. Truly, a new low for Shaughnessy. A new low for the Globe. And a new low for journalism.