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Friday, October 15, 2010

I Spoke Too Soon

If you thought yesterday's column was bad, Shank lowers the bar today with a Picked Up PiecesTM column, the type of column you write when you need to hit a monthly quota and / or need to demonstrate to the whole world you have nothing else worth writing about. That, or he's just flipping the bird to his editors again.

DHL Dan, mailing in yet another underwhelming column...

In other news, commenter Paul points out a Globe letter to the editor written by Claudia Williams, daughter of Ted Williams. Claudia took offense at one sentence of Shank's tribute to Ted from a few weeks ago. She mentions something interesting & revealing with this sentence:

John-Henry (Claudia's brother - Ed.) trusted Shaughnessy and provided him with firsthand information to help him write privileged stories.
I wonder if that will make Shank feel like the asshole / scumbag Claudia's making him out to be?

4 comments:

Monkeesfan said...

So one of Shank's key sources was a con artist. That's so Shank.

David Humphrey said...

For what it's worth, I have sent the following letter to the editor of the Boston Globe today:

To the editor: As a longtime Red Sox fan and daily reader of the Globe
online, I have winced many times over the years at the cruelty the Globe has
allowed Dan Shaughnessy to express in its pages. From his infamous
description of Jose Offerman as a "piece of junk" to his taunting of the 2004
Sox team as "frauds" the day before they began the greatest comeback of all
time, Shaughnessy has misused the privilege of representing the Globe by
substituting venom and personal bile for tough but fair professional insight.


Now he has sunk to another low, gratuitously slashing at the family of one of
New England's greatest heroes, Ted Williams. As he does so often in his
columns, Shaughnessy included a needless but hurtful swipe at Williams and his
family in the middle of a piece ostensibly praising them. There was
absolutely no need for him to remind us of Williams' decision to have his
remains frozen -- it had nothing to do with his storyline, he simply said it
to be cruel, and in hopes that a few readers might chuckle at his cruelty.

Neither Ted Williams nor his son John Henry are alive to respond to
Shaughnessy's tastelessness, so it fell to his daughter Claudia to defend
them. And her rebuke to Shaughnessy's bullying was the perfect description of
why the Globe ought to have the simple human decency to fire Dan Shaughnessy:
"Enough is enough." If the Globe's management once again decides to allow
Shaughnessy to continue poisoning its pages (and perhaps privately eggs him
on, thinking that tastelessness and vitriol sell newspapers), it will reflect
directly on the integrity of its editors and owners.

David Humphrey, Arlington, Texas

Anonymous said...

To David H.:

"...Globe ought to have the simple human decency to fire Dan Shaughnessy..."

I agree with insights in your letter!

Unfortunately the Globe lacks the courage to be decent ... in order to pay the bills they feel that "sensationalism" in sports gets them the biggest bang for the buck.

g

allan said...

CHB also referred to David Ortiz as "a sack of you know what" in 2003 -- though that was apparently on the radio.