Back to His Old Shenanigans

Well, the old Danny Boy is back, with a smarmy May 27th column he cribs from Sports Illustrated's Peter King on Patriots' QB Tom Brady.

Every bit of decent information the Shank provides comes from King. Dan is relegated to making snotty comments suck as how "cash [must changes] hands" at Foxborough in order for a reporter to get any useful or pertinent information.

Dan also avails himself to info from the Boston Herald to augment his backhanded comments.

Might it be that Danny's a bit jealous that other sports reporters are given the opportunity to speak with Boston sports professionals because they are trusted ... and that he's universally distrusted?

Hmmmmm... Lemme see....

Dan Makes Some Funnies

Celebrating a sweep-preventing win over the Mets of New York, Shank tried his hand at comedy writing and pretty much succeeded.

Invoking a veritable litany of names -- real and imagined -- Dan mentioned Willie Tasby (interestingly enough the first black ballplayer the Sox acquired via trade) and Forrest Gump, and refered to umpire Joe West as "Country Joe."

He cited the "golfball-size hail," cracking that "All hail broke loose."

And for the second consecutive game, the umpiring crew used instant replay to determine the legitimacy of a homerun. Unfortunately the umps didn't see the replay on Turner Broadcasting System ... because clearly Kevin Youkilis ultimately was robbed of a four-bagger.

Last but not least, the Shankster continued to lobby for the benching of the woeful David Ortiz, suggesting the Sox conjure up a means of placing the Big Man on the disabled list, or ship him to the minors until he gets back into a groove.

Dan Gives Buddy Bob Ryan a Backhand

Dan got a bit snippy with his Globe colleague, Bob Ryan, in a Red Sox column May 23 that otherwise was a credible effort.

Snipped Shank, "Our man Bob yesterday submitted that they should just start the game with the bases loaded or perhaps start the game with a 3-2 count on the leadoff batter."

Isn't that special?

Usually the Shank is the one who is implanting the shank.

He might have written a better, more prescient piece if he'd enumerate on the stupidity of the World Baseball Classic. Dice-K, Youk, Petey. Who's gonna go down the next time?

Hmmm...

Some Graciousness

I must admit that I didn't expect it.

But Dan continues to surprise and pens a gracious, well-written column about Big Papi finally breaking out of his homerless slump in the wake of a smarmy column he wrote for Wednesday's Globe.

For some reason, the site is not allowing me to emplace a link to the website, so here it is:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2009/05/21/for_papi_big_sigh_of_relief/

He's not only been strangely productive of late, but rather muted regarding his usual snotty, inflammatory missives.

Shank Returns with His Sharpened Shanks

Although my health is still precarious, Dan's latest diatribe forces me to recount his May missives.

Since the beginning of the month the Shankster has penned twelve columns, most of which were relatively free of Shanksterisms, although a number of comments from several blog boys und girls found fault with some of Danny Boy's smarmy smears.

Of his twelves efforts, six involved the Celtics, three were centered on the Bruins, and three were aimed at the Red Sox. Surprisingly, when the Celtics were humiliated by the Orlando Magic the other night Shank did not aim his poison pen at the men in green.

But he made up for his lack of comments regarding the C's no showing of the other evening with his column concerning David Ortiz, a/k/a Big Papi, in Wednesday's Globe.

Entitled "No. 1 Problem Is in No. 3 Spot," Shaughnessy laments the fact that both the Celtics and the B's have been eliminated from their respective playoffs because their continued presence deflected attention from Big Papi's woeful performance at the plate thus far this season. He finds fault with the fact that Ortiz has been tight-lipped of late with the media. Yet Shank goes on to quote Sox manager Terry Francona as saying that Ortiz is tired of answering the same questions.

Duh!

Dan predicts that Papi is singelhandedly poised to sink the Sox. Yet methinks the starting pitching is actually more critical to righting Boston's ship, especially with the imminent return of Kevin Youkilis. And I'll bet Tito juggles the line-up and moves Jason Bay & Co. and drops Ortiz's spot in the batting order until (if) he reacquires his prowess at the plate.

This seems to be another one of Shank's patented rushes to judgement. But the jury's still out...

Forgiveness

Hi, all...

Please forgive me for not posting this week.

I've been hospitalized with pneumonia and congestive heart failure since Sunday last, and probably won't be discharged until tomorrow (Friday, May 8th).

I haven't had Internet access until this morning, and that proved a total fluke.

Sharpen your knives, if warranted, and I'll update tomorrow.

Until then, cheers -- and jeers!

May Flowers

Has Dan misplaced his snideness?

He's submitted another workmanlike column for Saturday's Globe, essentially a game account of the Bruins' 4-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game One of the second round in the Stanley Cups.

What's missing are his snotty comments, low blows, Eighties references and smarmy asides. (He did slip one in about Moses Malone, though...)

Although one wonders why the Globe folks assent to a second game account (along with reporter Fluto Shinzawa's version) in lieu of a column, Dan does try to adhere to a story line -- the Bruins' facial hair.

Maybe the newspaper ought to take a page from that of the Baltimore Sun which has pared its Orioles coverage back to a single beat reporter. What a concept.

Shank Didn't Shank This One

Well, ol' Danny's done it again.

Danny filed a right-on column for Friday's Globe, appropriately capturing the excitement and intensity of the Celtics-Bulls first-round NBA playoff tilt.

So, he's submitted yet another credible piece -- or his editors really exerted their craft.

Maybe it's something in the water...