DHL Dan - XXXIV

Consistent with July 4th being a holiday, Shank takes another day off and mails in another column.

Picked-up pieces while sorting through vicious messages from those gentle, progressive, inclusive, oh-so-tolerant fans of “The Beautiful Game” . . .

Isn't that rich - Shank lecturing other people on tolerance!

With this riff on the Red Sox, is Shank falling into his old habits, perhaps aware that John Henry won't shitcan him?

In the wake of Theo’s Revenge, the Red Sox are nine games under .500. They are 38-47 and went into Thursday’s day off just one game ahead of the last-place Rays. The Bobby Valentine Red Sox — who turned out to be the worst Sox team in 47 years — were 43-42 at this same juncture. Worst-to-first-to-worst is certainly doable. Barring a miracle, the Sox will fail to win a playoff game for the fifth time in the last six seasons. Think about that while you are paying the highest ticket prices in baseball. Your team, which has made the luxury-tax threshold a hard salary cap for itself, will go without a playoff win in five of six seasons. The Sox brass know you are SO GRATEFUL for last year’s championship. So what’s up with this team we are watching? Is everything still awesome?

And what's a Picked Up Pieces column without a shot at the Krafts?

Amazing to hear Jonathan Kraft — whose family fortune was made on paper product — telling The SportsHub, “We all know what is happening to print publications, they don’t matter anymore,’’ after an unflattering portrayal of the Krafts’ Revolution ownership in Boston Magazine.

Not amazing at all, Shank - The Kraft Group has a paper & packaging division, which, last time I checked, is quite different from what Jonathan Kraft was referring to. But hey, deliberate misrepresentation is fine as long as you can use it to take a shot at the Krafts, right?

The rest of the 'column' is the usual jumble of disjointed random thoughts & subjects - par for the course.