It's On

In a Federal court filing a few hours ago, Tom Brady and the NFLPA sued the NFL, mentioning numerous items conveniently ignored by the 'ace' Boston Globe columnist:

Thumbing its nose at the Peterson order, Commissioner Goodell’s Award upholds Brady’s four-game suspension in its entirety despite the undisputed arbitration record of several egregious notice defects: Brady had no notice of the disciplinary standards that would be applied to him; no notice of the disciplinary policies that would be applied; and no notice of the potential penalties. In fact, the NFL collectively bargained over the punishments (fines, not suspensions) for alleged equipment tampering by players-including those designed to gain a competitive advantage-and was not free to disregard that CBA bargain and subject Brady to other standards, policies, and penalties without any notice at all.

Read the whole thing, and compare & contrast it to the completely one-sided bullshit posted by Shank in his most recent column and in previous Deflategate columns. It would leave no doubt whatsoever that Shank's been grinding an axe on this issue the entire time.

UPDATE, AT 10:50 pm - Is it even worse for the NFL?

Page 5

“10. On May 6, many months and many millions of dollars in legal fees later, Paul, Weiss and the NFL issued the ‘Wells Report’ summarizing the findings from their investigation. The purportedly independent Wells Report was edited by Pash, the NFL’s General Counsel, before its public release “

If I may be granted a moment to second guess (and why the hell not?), a word or two of advice to the 'ace' Boston Globe columnist. While this DSW blogger may not have done a ton of research into this matter, it's bloody obvious that neither did you, Shank. You might have tried considering the merits of both parties involved before running your mouth once again, producing another anti-Patriots screed in order to perhaps avenge that disinvitation to the 1995 Super Bowl party, this research being something someone of your 'stature' in the local journalism community is expected to do and not further contribute to the decline in quality in your sports section and your newspaper in general.

Shank's Second Victory Lap

Tom Brady's four game suspension for his 'involvement' with DeflateGate was upheld by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Shank couldn't be happier about it.

In a 20-page decision that was released at 2:32 p.m. Tuesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension. In the day’s most shocking revelation, the commissioner revealed that Brady ordered his assistant to destroy his cellphone on the same day (March 6) Brady was interviewed by NFL investigator Ted Wells. Brady did not disclose this development for several months and it was not confirmed until the day of his suspension appeal hearing, June 23.

What do you say now, Patriot fans? Still think the NFL is out to get the Patriots? Still think Tom Brady is clean? Still think this is a witch hunt?

Of course you do. And that is why at a time when you should be embarrassed, you are probably emboldened.

Please. Give up. It’s time for local loyalists to parachute down from Planet Patriot and get in touch with reality. Stop twisting yourselves into knots to justify the petty crimes and coverups of the Patriots and their quarterback.

Shank's Victory Lap

After Boston mayor Marty Walsh nuked the 2024 Boston Summer Olympics, Shank does his end-zone dance, and rightly so.

Mercifully, our short regional nightmare is over.

Kaput. Done. Ov-ah.

The ridiculous notion that we might play host to the 2024 Olympics officially died Monday afternoon when the United States Olympic Committee and Boston 2024 announced they’d mutually agreed to withdraw the Boston bid. Thank goodness. Free at last. This was one of the worst ideas since Bob Kraft told us he was moving the Patriots to Hartford. It was obvious from Day One that Boston 2024 was doomed.

Better sooner than later. Mayor of Boston Marty Walsh cut his losses early Monday when he informed the world that our city was not willing to give the USOC the financial guarantees it would need to present Boston as a bid city for 2024. A few hours later, the death of Boston’s bid was official.

In a rare departure from our masthead, go forth and read this entire column, for a rare moment or two of insight and eloquence from Shank is revealed:

We don’t need this. We never needed this. The Olympics have become the province of autocratic societies. That is not us. We are a free people.
...
The death of Boston 2024 is a victory for the Hub of the Universe. It’s a triumph for rational thought. It’s a statement that we are not stupid.

Faster, Higher, Stronger. That’s the Olympic motto.

Smarter. That’s the Boston motto. Good luck to the host city of the 2024 Games. It’s not our problem anymore.

Sadly, from here he will digress from this statesmanship into petty hatred of the New England Patriots once a) the NFL decision on Tom Brady is handed down and / or b) training camp opens up.

It was nice while it lasted...

What A Difference Three Hours Makes

Shank's tweet on Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, discussing opposition to the Boston bid for the 2024 Olympic Games:

Boston Herald's headline, three hours later:

Boston Bid for Olympics is over after Walsh Speech

I can't wait to hear why Walsh had an apparent and sudden change of heart. Until then, RIP, Boston 2024!

Hall of Shame

The CHB's column on Pedro Martinez's induction today to the Baseball Hall of Fame is sterile in its mindless recitation of Pedro's stats and moronic for calling him, yet again, a diva. Classy.

If there were a Boston Racist Hall of Fame, The CHB would get my vote.

No To Boston 2024

Shank watched last night's debate between the big guns of the pro and con Boston 2024 camps and devotes his latest column to it.

This blog agrees with the No to Boston 2024 side, and Shank continues to take this same stance. Hell has just opened a new gate!

Memorable debates.

There was Lincoln-Douglas. Kennedy-Nixon. Will Ferrell’s “Frank the Tank” vs. James Carville in “Old School.”

And now Steve Pagliuca and Daniel Doctoroff vs. Chris Dempsey and Andrew Zimbalist in the Boston 2024 Olympic debate, which aired Thursday night on Fox 25.

We tuned in hoping for one of those famous debate moments — something like Gerald Ford claiming there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, or Ronald Reagan stating, “I am paying for this microphone.’’ We would have even settled for Pags spanking Dempsey with, “I knew Red Auerbach. Red Auerbach was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Red Auerbach.’’

The best we got was Zimbalist saying, “Most of the numbers I look at reflect drunken optimism.’’

Ouch. That one hurt

Good column by Shank... look - another gate just opened!

The Concept Is Called 'Negotiation'

Not knowing the details of a particular matter has never prevented Shank from throwing out a half-assed opinion about it:

You Mad, Bro?

Shank continues to leverage Twitter as a prime trolling application:

Read today that Red Sox have best farm system in baseball. Again. This is part of their problem. They buy the hype and finish last. Again

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 23, 2015

Satire is Reflexive

Satire is reflexive.

As we have routinely called attention to The CHB's flip-flopping and used quotes from his own columns to mock him when events turned out differently than he predicted -- which is almost always -- The CHB is now borrowing from our technique to take aim at Red Sox management.

Unfortunately, just as John Henry and Co. believe(d) mightily in the team -- and at least said so, and to be honest, what else are they supposed to do? -- so too did The CHB.

• “This isn’t quite Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, but I’m applauding this. [T]hey’re putting money back into the payroll. I applaud that. Some of these contracts may not look so good four, five years from now when you see what these guys look like, but I won’t care.”
• It’s OK now to applaud the Sox for spending money and trying to make their team better and more interesting in 2015. What we’ve seen this week is more like the Red Sox of the old days — a team that would spend buckets of cash to take other teams’ best players; the Red Sox who were more like the Yankees than they ever wanted to admit. ... [L]et’s welcome the Red Sox back to relevancy."

• "Pablo Sandoval ... is a 28-year-old switch-hitter who can rake. He can turn on the high fastball, something nobody does anymore. ... He can hit when it matters most. He’s also a cat-like defender."

So there's that.

What's weird is how he continually refers to the 2013 World Series championship as a "fluke." So if winning 95 games plus three playoff series is a fluke, then what were the crash of 2012, the World Series losses in 1967, 1975 and 1986, etc. -- anomalies?

Advice: Don't bother reading the column. Shank jumps back and forth so much among topics, you'll be convinced he didn't take his dementia meds before writing it.

Afterthought: What the hell is with Nick Cafardo? He writes for the umpteenth time that the Red Sox have to start their youth movement, then in the same column says none of the AAA players the Sox have are major league caliber. Note to Nick: Stop sharing a row with The CHB. It's rubbing off.

Another Dumb Red Sox Tweet, By Dan Shaughnessy

Yeah, I'm just as shocked as the rest of you:

It's been EIGHT days since Red Sox scored a run. I am guessing this is a major league record for in-season drought other than 9/11.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 20, 2015

Eight days that included the All-Star break (four days) and Sunday's rainout at Anaheim, and throw in the fact that the Sox did score runs on July 12th and July 20th (he tweeted out this beauty before the Sox took the field for their Monday doubleheader), which then can be better described as 'no runs scored in the two games the Red Sox played since July 12.'

Other than that, his tweet was accurate...

Another Slow News Week - DHL Dan XLIV

We should rejoice, as at least he won't be commenting on the Tour de France!

We are 'treated' to an official Picked Up Pieces column, where the usual targets are aimed at - Red Sox, Patriots, David Ortiz, useless trivia, assorted miscellaneous musings, and a new one - Shank's no longer entertained by this year's installment of the Summer of Gronk.

One big problem with this column - I'm aware of cooked numbers when I see them:

If you take away the blessed outlier season of 2013, the Sox are 66 games under .500 since September 2011. Wonder what Bill James and the analytics folks are telling their boss about the hideous pitching staff and failed projections for the 2015 Red Sox? The Sox have to realize that last place has become the norm, not the exception.

Shank keeps feeling the need to bring up this completely misleading 'games under .500' statistic by removing a) the stretch between April 2011 and August 2011 and the entire 2013 season for one reason - to make this team look as bad as he possibly can. With the two links above, we can add the records from April to August 2011 (83 - 52, +31) and the 2013 season (97 - 65, +32) to get to a whopping three fucking games under .500 since the beginning of the 2011 season.

What other important fact is missing from Shank's column? Boston Red Sox - 2013 World Series Champions! That's not worth mentioning when your busy trashing the Old Towne Team.

As always, read this occasionally deceptive columnist with a huge grain of salt.

Possible new subhed for the site - Dan Shaughnessy Watch: It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it!

Slow News Week - DHL Dan XLIII

When we're in the middle of summer and it's baseball's All-Star week, and Shank doesn't feel like writing about that particular game, he'll mail something in instead.

Used a Rolodex lately?

Didn’t think so. For the benefit of young folks, a Rolodex is a plastic wheel loaded with alphabetized cards that store phone numbers of people you may need to contact. Watch “Mad Men.’’ Don Draper’s secretary always flips through her Rolodex after Don asks her to reach a client.

I’m not a Rolodex guy, but I still travel with a black leather “At-A-Glance” address and telephone book that I pull out of my work bag every time I need to call Curt Schilling or Jonathan Kraft. It is at this moment that some wiseguy usually asks me if I’m about to dial Austin Powers or Marty McFly. We know that everybody now stores contact information in their phones. Almost everybody, that is.

I was clutching my beloved address book while sitting in the palatial offices of the Globe sports department recently when one of my bosses trumped me in a big way.

“Wait until you get a load of this,’’ he said, as he pivoted in his chair, reached to a shelf behind where he was sitting, and hoisted a metal cabinet drawer that was stocked with about 500 weathered index cards. “This is the old Globe sports directory,’’ he said. “One of the secretaries gave it to me when she retired and I’ve never been able to throw it away.’’

Trolling 101

This is the level of discourse you can expect from Shank after the American League wins the All-Star game and, as a result, won the home-field advantage in the 2015 World Series.

Naturally, he gets something wrong (4 should be 5):

Wonder which Sox player loses track of how many outs there are today?

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 4, 2015

Catching Up

I haven't been able to get to any of Shank's 'work' until now, but then again, you didn't miss much. Shank's as predictable as ever.

On Friday, the Red Sox lost to the Yankees. The next day, Shank buries the Sox:

The Red Sox are Fool’s Gold. The sooner we accept this fact, the easier it will be to tolerate another lost summer.

Friday night was not a good night for the Local Nine.

Fans arrived at Fenway full of hope and vigor. The season was saved; downright revitalized. The “surging” Red Sox were back in the pennant race in the American League East and there was legitimate belief the locals were on the cusp of making a serious midseason run toward respectability and possible contention.

And then it unraveled. In depressing and predictable fashion. Despicable-Him, A-Rod, hit a solo homer in the first and the Sox played ugly defense, Clay Buchholz got hurt (on schedule), and the first-place Yankees beat the Red Sox, 5-1, to keep the Red Sox in the cellar and push the Bostons 6½ games out of first place.

On Saturday, the Sox beat the Yankees, so Shank writes a trivial column instead of his general standard of mail-it-in uselessness, the picked-up pieces column:

Tuesday is the big night and we are breathless with anticipation. It’s the night we learn the identity of every big league baseball team’s “Franchise Four.” The nation is agog.

I love these contrived events and polls. It’s like the Mount Rushmore game. In Boston sports we have settled on Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Tom Brady, and Bobby Orr. And we believe no city can match our guys.

But who would you choose for the Red Sox? Who will it be when the Franchise Four of the 115-year-old Boston Red Sox is unveiled on Fox?

On Sunday, the Sox lost to the Yankees, so Shank rewrites Saturday's column:

The popular narrative holds that after 3½ months and 89 games we still don’t have a handle on these 2015 Red Sox.

Buyers or sellers? Contenders or pretenders? In or out? Up or down? Cardiac Kids or Annoying Millionaires Who Raise Your Blood Pressure?

Stop. I think we know now.

The Sox were spanked by the Yankees again Sunday. David Ortiz was sent home with a respiratory condition, Alex Rodriguez (.333, three homers, 10 RBIs vs. Sox this year) continued his Wrecking Ball Tour de Fenway, and the first-place Bronx Bombers sent the Sox into the All-Star break with an 8-6 loss.

Negative, trivial and repetitive - that's Shank in a nutshell.

Dumb Red Sox Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Carter Capps in MLB since '12. Now that he's pitched vs. Red Sox, we must have investigation on his delivery. Clearly illegal. #weknowbetter

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 9, 2015

If Carter's been doing this hop-step pitching all year, he would have faced a potential total of 84 different umpires, any of whom could have cited this delivery as illegal. A preliminary search does not indicate that any MLB umpire has raised an issue with his delivery, and this column states that MLB has weighed in on the matter and determined that it 'it's legal, more or less'.

If only Shank had done a basic Google search before running his mouth, or had a freaking editor, he wouldn't have had to embarrass himself yet again.

UPDATE AT 4:48 PM - From the second link, the relevant rule on an illegal pitch states, in part - "An illegal pitch when runners are on base is a balk." From the first link, Capps has no balks called against him in 2015. That's just further evidence of Shank's complete lack of research & due diligence with that stupid tweet.

Clutter

A rational person would see this as an opportunity to make some money or donate it to a library (and get a charitable donation deduction in the process). Then there's this guy:

I am overwhelmed by stuff. I’ve been a sports fan for more than a half-century, and a professional sportswriter for 40 years. I look around my home office and see book posters, press passes, boxes of old newspapers, and stacks of media guides from, BC, BU, Harvard, and Holy Cross. I am drowning in a sea of C’s, B’s, Sox, and Pats publications. I am the Hub Hardball History’s episode of “Hoarders.’’

It’s difficult to throw stuff away.

But I’m trying.

The New York Times last week stated that household decluttering has become a national obsession. A book entitled “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’’ has lived on the bestseller list, so I spent a couple of vacation days trying to comply. My neighborhood’s trash/recycling day is Thursday, and I’ve pledged to place overfilled bins and barrels on the curb. This is not easy when you’ve spent more than 40 years covering sports for newspapers.

How to best proceed with this triage of trivia, trinkets, and tradition?

How about the shit I just mentioned, ya freakin' moron?

Independently Insufferable

Last year's stupid and annoying verbal tic from Shank - dozens of tweets and mentions of the Patriots winning the opening coin toss. This year's version of same:

Wonder which Sox player loses track of how many outs there are today?

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 4, 2015

Familiar With The Concept

Joy-sucking is the reading of Shank's columns...

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

No criticism too small for Our Man Shank:

Um, rookie outfielder?