Top Gun

The Boston Globe came out today with a list of its top ten stories for 2016. Would you care to guess who grabbed the #1 spot? It's none other than Danny Boy!

If I were the congenial type, I'd be inclined to say congratulations.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLVII

The Boston Globe shoots itself in the foot again:

Just got e-mail from the Globe about our print subscription:

The Globe's newsroom works tirelessly to bring you meaningful, original reporting every day. We are committed to continuing to do so, but we need your help. In order to continue producing the award-winning journalism you know and love, we find it necessary to increase our home delivery rates. Your new weekly rate will be...

There were 44 comments to that article - at least three said they're cancelling their subscriptions after this latest increase.

An Uncertain Man, And Then Some

At the beginning of the month, Shank was leading the Patriots bandwagon to Houston. Today, he's not so sure:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for Thursday night’s Celtics game in Cleveland . . .

■ Why do I feel like I’ll still be saying I’m not sold on this Patriots defense when the Duck Boats are parading down Boylston Street Feb. 7?

Shank has always hated numbers and statistics. Today he loves them both, because it suits his agenda (this and his next paragraph):

■ Stat geeks and Patriot toadies are twisting themselves into knots to tell us that the Patriots really didn’t have an easy schedule this year, but we know what we saw. We saw them play a bunch of bum quarterbacks and almost zero elite offenses.

On Saturday, Shank didn't know much about the 2016 New England Patriots (this is a week after going to Denver and winning, 16 - 3):

Tomato Can season of 2016 marches on. Yet another game in which we learn nothing about the Patriots.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 24, 2016

Four days later, however, he knows all about their defense:

When the season ends Sunday, the Patriots will have played half their games against teams in the bottom third of the league in offense. They faced none of the top six offenses. Here’s hoping they are ready if they face a competent QB/offense in the playoffs. Matt McGloin, Tom Savage, and Matt Moore no doubt have Bill Belichick lying awake at night.

Stolen from yesterday's Boston version of ESPN is this little tidbit - how few differences can you spot?

Since Belichick became Patriots coach in 2000, the AFC East has had 23 head coaches (including interims).

The rundown:

■ Since Belichick took over as head coach of the Patriots, the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets have had 23 head coaches and interim head coaches. The list includes legends such as Perry Fewell, Joe Philbin, Chan Gailey, and Dan “Tomato Can” Campbell. Over the same 16-year span, the second-best quarterback in the division is probably Chad Pennington.

At this point, you've read blatant examples of short sightedness, rank ignorance, duplicity, overuse of canned cliches (canned - get it?), stolen column themes and / or trolling behavior. While he didn't throw in an obligatory mention of Larry Bird, he came close with Kevin McHale. These are the problems with Dan Shaughnessy in general and especially with his mailed-in Picked Up Pieces columns.

Still Trying To Sell Some More Books, Shank?

This guy's shameless - check out his latest retweet:

Today in 1919: The #RedSox quietly sell off the troublesome Babe Ruth to the #Yankees. The deal would be publicly announced in January. #MLB pic.twitter.com/XOEWxZTGCP

— Baseball by BSmile (@BSmile) December 26, 2016

Really Stupid Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

The Jets beat the Browns in Cleveland, 31-28 in Week 8, but Shank says...

The Browns would annihilate the Jets right now.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 24, 2016

Ignorant Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

When you are lazy and mail in columns for the better part of three decades, this is usually a predetermined path:

Tomato Can season of 2016 marches on. Yet another game in which we learn nothing about the Patriots.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 24, 2016

I guess that new receiver, Michael Floyd, doesn't pique his interest enough.

Speaking Of 'The Usual'

Another stupid Patriots tweet from Captain Predictable:

Ho hum. The usual with the coin toss. Nothing exciting about this one.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 24, 2016

Who says you can't teach an old dog old tricks?

Dating Oneself

I caught the last 20 minutes of this on the Expressway this afternoon, and if I was 98.5 management, I wouldn't want to see the Arbitron ratings.

On SportsHub now until 2, filling in for Zo and Beetle with Adam Kaufman. Hope to get some Mitch Miller on.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 23, 2016

Mitch Miller? Seriously?

A Time To Worry

Surely, I can't be the only person out there getting nervous about Shank making plans for the Patriots in the Super Bowl, right?

Which NFC team do you want the Patriots to play in the Super Bowl Feb. 5 in Houston?

The Dallas Cowboys? The Seattle Seahawks? The New York (gulp) football Giants?

First, dismiss the rest of the entire American Football Conference:

This is what keeps me awake these nights. I’ve got no time for the rest of the regular season or the Tomato Can Foxborough festival that will be billed as the AFC playoffs. Bill Belichick, Ernie Adams, Matt Patricia, and Josh McDaniels can game-plan for the rugged Jets and Dolphins over these next two weekends. I have moved on . . . to the Super Bowl.

While acknowledging that the Patriots could possibly play the Packers, Lions, Falcons or some other mystery guest in Super Bowl LI, I think we all know that it’s going to be Dallas, Seattle or New York, and those are clearly the most interesting prospective matchups for New England.

Here’s why:

Go forth and read the rest of the column, for it is boring and oh so predictable...

UPDATE, 12/22/2016 AT 1:20 PM - link added so you can 'enjoy' the rest of the article...

Singing A Different Tune

It seems it was only yesterday when Shank was reminding us about Tom Brady's terrible record at Denver (2-7 lifetime). After a 16-3 win yesterday, Shank does his usual 180 degree turn.

Are Patriots this good, or is every other team a Tomato Can?

DENVER — It must be December in the AFC. Chestnuts are roasting on open fires and Tomato Cans are falling down in front of the sons of Bill Belichick.

Enjoy this as long as it lasts, people. You are not likely to see it ever again in professional sports.

It was yet another hat and T-shirt game for the New England Patriots Sunday. Playing one of their best games of the season, the Patriots Trumped the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, 16-3, at Mile High, winning the AFC East for the eighth consecutive season and the 13th time in the last 14 years. The Patriots are 14-2 in AFC East titles since Tom Brady took over at quarterback in 2001.

For the Patriots, winning the AFC East has become like signing up for Facebook or getting a letter of acceptance from the University of Phoenix. It’s professional sports’ version of a Newton youth soccer participation trophy. All the Patriots have to do to win is show up, play their traditional tight game, and wait for the other guys to make mistakes.

The chorus line of dunce coaches (Cam Cameron?) and bum quarterbacks (Thad Lewis?) populating the AFC East in this century stretches from Orchard Park to Miami Gardens with an annual stop at Exit 16W off the Jersey Turnpike. And the beneficiaries of this abject ineptitude are your New England Patriots — a team that never, ever takes a year off.

If It's A Patriots Game...

... it's Stupid Tweet Time for the 'ace' Boston Globe sports columnist!

Pats lose toss. Denver defers. Pats to receive kickoff.
Boring. Hat and t-shirt game for Pats. Top-2 seed there, too.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 18, 2016

Accentuating The Positive

When Shank writes a column about Patriots football, what else comes to mind except Larry Bird?

DENVER — Larry Bird wrote a fine autobiography with our own Bob Ryan in 1989 and the back of the tome included a bonus section in which Larry talked about his favorite and least-favorite arenas.

A sampling: “I don’t like playing in New Jersey. I knew I wasn’t going to like it the first time I walked in the building. I never liked to shoot there . . . There are few places I hate more than the Kingdome . . . I never liked the Silverdome . . . I’ve had some bad games in Oakland, including my 0-for-9 game during my second year . . . It’s always a tough game in Denver, both because of the Nuggets themselves and because of the altitude.’’

OK, it's actually a decent leadup to this:

Which brings us to Tom Brady’s personal House of Horrors — Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Brady is 2-7 in Denver (and one of those was against the Tim Tebow Broncos). In Pedro Martinez parlance, Mile High is Tom Brady’s “Daddy.’’

What follows from here is a paint-by-numbers and 100% completely predictable history of all Tom Brady games in Denver. Throw in a few quotes from Brady & Belichick, and it's a fish wrap.

All Worn Out from PEDs

The CHB thinks it might be high time baseball Hall of Fame voters put the whole steroids issue to rest.

In the hands of a skilled journalist, it's a fair question. But Shank is no skilled journalist.

As such, he can't actually address the real question. Instead, he resorts to the usual trinity of whispers, innuendos and lies, such as Jeff Bagwell is suspect because he got bigger as he got older. (As if that never happened before. Ever seen Tony Gwynn?)

But at least the white guys get some benefit of the doubt. (Was there seriously any question about Rogers Clemens using? His best friend testified under oath that he shot him up.) He falls back on his cliched racial denigrations (Sammy Sosa "played the language-barrier card before Congress," as if being Dominican is the same as growing up in Groton).

But why the change of heart? I have to think it has something to do with this guy:

Curt Schilling has, in the minds of many Hall voters, gone a step too far when he retweeted a photo of a guy in a shirt that read "Rope. Tree. Journalist." Shank and his ilk were all over talk radio saying this was the last straw, and that Schilling was welcome to shit all over any politician he pleased as and waste millions of dollars of the public's money long as he didn't wish ill on the Fourth Estate.

To that end, Shank's take is that Schilling's latest volley pushes him out of Hall consideration because of the so-called "character clause." Here's what the Hall actually says about voting:

Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon, or even a sports journalist, to recognize that character stops when the player retires. There's nothing in the clause that indicates that an ex-player who, for instance, gets busted drunk driving, as Carlton Fisk did, should be kicked out. Heck, Tony LaRussa got busted several times and they still voted him in. Is retweeting a bad joke honestly worse than getting behind the wheel of a 2-ton vehicle after a night of scotch ("I love scotch. Scotchy scotch scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly")?

So what about Shank's character? What about a guy who called David Ortiz, perhaps the most important athlete in the history of Boston sports ever, a "sad sack of you know what?" What about years of racist spitting and sputtering against every black and Hispanic athlete to cross 128? That didn't seem to stop him from accepting the Spink (or should that be Pink?) Award for baseball writing.

Big Papi is ultimately why The CHB wrote this column. Because in five years, he will have to decide whether to vote in Big Papi. Shank thinks Papi is a fraud. But if anyone can spot a fraud, it's a fraud.

Oh and Shank, if voting for the Hall is truly the "most volatile and toxic thing we do all year," there's always a remedy: Quit.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLVI

The New York Times, former parent company of the Boston Globe, has found a new source of cash:

Dear Colleagues,

When we moved into our new building in 2007, we saw it as a modern headquarters for a modern New York Times. We still feel that way.

But as Mark mentioned in the State of The Times last month, after a good deal of consideration, we have determined that the way that we use our headquarters building needs to evolve to better match the changes you and your colleagues have been driving across every part of the company.

The current way we have configured our office makes us slower and less collaborative. It is also, frankly, too expensive to occupy this many floors when we don’t truly need them.

We’ve made the decision to consolidate our footprint across the building to create a more dynamic, modern and open workplace, one that is better suited to the moment. We’re planning significant investments in a redesign of our existing space in order to facilitate more cross-departmental collaboration.

We expect a substantial financial benefit as well. All told, we will vacate at least eight floors, allowing us to generate significant rental income.

Sure took them long enough to figure this one out. Then again, it'll take them the better part of the year to generate this revenue in terms of rental income at the same time they're paying for rent to house the newly displaced employees, plus the costs to renovate the space they're going to rent out, so the NYT will probably show a loss for the first two or three quarters of 2017.

The Globe's also undergoing their own downsizing moves, so their combined appeal is becoming more selective.

Recycling, By Dan Shaughnessy?

I fully expect a column by Shank before the Patriots (-3) travel to Denver to play the Broncos for one of the late afternoon games. What are the chances of Shank devoting at least two paragraphs to the Brady / Manning rivalry, even though it ended last year? I was hoping he was going to do that for last year's AFC Championship game, and I wound up throwing away a monster post I had going at the time that would have chronicled Shank's reliance on this crutch every time those two quarterbacks faced off. I believe he used the Brady / Manning theme about half the time.

We'll see soon enough.

What's Old Is New Again

The controversy that will never die.

They are like those random Japanese soldiers who combed the jungles of the Philippines and kept fighting World War II years after Japan’s formal surrender in 1945.

They are the Deflategate Truthers and they got some new energy in recent days when Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reported that the Giants sent a couple of suspiciously deflated footballs to the NFL office after losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers Dec. 4 at Heinz Field.

The report was shot down swiftly by the league office with this statement: “The officiating game ball procedures were followed and there were no chain of command issues. All footballs were in compliance and no formal complaint was filed by the Giants with our office.’’

That, naturally, did not cut it with the Deflategate Truthers. The Patriots Media Cartel swung into action and apologies are being demanded once again. Jonathan Kraft took his message to the airwaves on the Patriots’ in-house pregame show Monday night.

Plus, there's this:

The science has never mattered.

It may be a bit different with footballs, but I ride a road bike during the non-winter months, 700 CC rims, 23 cm wide tires in the front and 25 cm in the back. Generally I put 100 PSI in the front tire and 110 PSI in the back. Since I'm an old fuck, I ride every other day. When I get to the next ride, both tires bleed at least 5 PSI over that approximate 48 hour period. Rubber is porous, regardless how it's used, and anyone who has bothered to learn basic physics or atmospherics can tell you air molecules condense when it gets cold. When it comes to science or numbers, Shank is a blithering idiot.

Promise Made

Who believes this crap?

Yikes.Ravens win toss/defer
No deception there/Harbaugh paying attention
We're in for a real game. Promise not to tease Pats if they win

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 13, 2016

No Tomato Cans This Week?

Shank's apparently finished his Christmas shopping and is back to write a column about tonight's Ravens - Patriots game, heavy on past history and light on everything else:

Bill Belichick cares about football history more than any coach in the NFL. He’s speaks minimally on the current state of his playoff-bound Patriots, but get him started on Amos Alonzo Stagg, Paul Brown, or the 1941 Detroit Lions (for whom his dad Steve was a fullback) and stand back for a discourse that will have the depth of a Ken Burns documentary delivered with the eloquence of Winston Churchill.

All of which makes New England’s “Monday Night Football” match with the Baltimore Ravens much more interesting than your run-of-the mill routs that have dotted the Patriots’ 2016 schedule with alarming and boring regularity.

Sorry, folks - no Clive Rush reference!

By the way, how many 'blowouts' do you see in the 2016 Patriots schedule? I see four or five, not as many as Shank's trying to make you believe.

There's a shift in the middle of the column, as Shank needs to downplay the previous 13 games the patriots have played this season:

History suggests that the Patriots have reached the end of the Tomato Can Road (really, could they have faced more impotent offenses, horrible quarterbacks, frightened coaches, and teams whose best player was injured?). This entire Patriots season has been nothing more than a layup drill with an 8-foot rim. Week after week we have learned nothing about the Patriots.

Remind us again, Shank and the Boston Globe - how many beat writers do you have assigned to the Patriots, and they've managed to learn nothing about this team in over three and a half months? How can Shank write such drivel with a straight face? Is this what's now being called 'fake news'?

He then goes on to recount the history between the two teams that he probably copied and pasted from previous Ravens - Patriots columns, then concludes on this line of bullshit:

It’s all about the history when it comes to the Patriots and Ravens. The games are generally good, but some of the history is bad. Which is why we can’t wait for Monday night.

'The games are generally good', except for Shank's prediction about the previous game between the two clubs:

@Dan_Shaughnessy @GreshandZo yup, rip the oppenentso you can downplay the Pats success or destroy them if they lose. Trolling 101

— Josh Hubbard (@Bet_on_Hubb) January 13, 2015

...and that's how Shank plays the game, folks.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLV

The HMS Titantic Boston Globe has a new chump in charge Chief Executive Officer.

Doug Franklin, a top executive with Cox Enterprises and Cox Media Group, will succeed Mike Sheehan as chief executive officer of the Boston Globe on January 1, according to an announcement made a little while ago by Globe publisher John Henry.

Henry’s memo, a copy of which was obtained by Media Nation, is effusive in its praise of Sheehan, crediting the former Hill Holliday advertising executive with untangling the Globe from the New York Times Company, which sold the Globe to Henry in 2013; moving the Globe‘s printing operations to a new facility in Taunton; and preparing the news and business staffs to move to downtown Boston in mid-2017.

“These initiatives are as complex as they are risky,” Henry wrote. “Any one of them would be a once-in-a-lifetime challenge for an executive. But the leadership team, working under Mike, has tackled each of them.”

Of Franklin, Henry says: “As I’ve gotten to know Doug over the past few months, I’ve come to understand that he is fearless, energetic, articulate, and passionate in his desire to help the Globe achieve our long-term goal of creating a sustainable business model for high level journalism.”

The Obligatory Chris Sale Column

It's pretty clear from the video in the previous post that Shank was working on the Chris Sale column, so without further adieux...

OK, do you think now it might be possible to get David Ortiz to come back for one more season?

The Red Sox are loaded. Stacked. It’s time to start making plans for the epic Sox-Cubs World Series in October 2017. I’m already working up some stories on Theo Epstein, Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Anthony Rizzo returning home to Fenway Park to face the Red Sox in the greatest showcase World Series of all time.

Perhaps I am getting carried away. Then again, perhaps not. Name another ball club that can say that the reigning Cy Young Award winner is the third-best starter on the pitching staff.
...
The Sale trade went down on the sixth anniversary of a seismic 2010 deal in which the Sox acquired Adrian Gonzalez from San Diego for top prospects Rizzo and Casey Kelly. That trade was Epstein’s reluctant concession to “winning now,” and it made the Sox favorites to win the World Series in 2011.

Sports Illustrated picked the Sox to win 100 games (and the World Series) and the Boston Herald greeted the Sox in April with a headline that read “Best Team Ever.’’

Just remember there was a Boston Globe sports columnist saying nearly the same thing around that same time.

Dan Shaughnessy Facebook Watch

...and he didn't have to get this take from the Felger & Mazz show!

Video at the link.

Larry Bird Watch

Wanna feel old? Larry Bird turns 60 tomorrow

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 6, 2016

It's not that that would make me feel old; it's the likes of Soundgarden, Metallica, Alice in Chains and Guns & Roses now entering the play rotation on WZLX (100.7 FM, Boston) because they're now considered 'classic rock', i.e., any group over 20 years in existence.

This Bud's For You, Boston

At first, I thought Shank was just being his occasionally parochial self when he writes somewhat convincingly about Bud Selig doing the Red Sox fans a huge favor:

If you are a Red Sox fan, Bud Selig was your friend.

The predictable howling started across baseball America when Selig was elected to the Hall of Fame Sunday, but Sox fans should be sending him thank you notes for a lot of the good things that have happened to the Boston franchise in this century.

Maligning Selig is a popular parlor game on sports talk radio and across the ever-expanding band of social media. Bud gets blamed for steroids, the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, the All-Star tie in Milwaukee, late-night World Series games, four-hour games, ticket costs, and David Price’s inability to win a playoff start. Swell.

Shank spends a little time on sports talk radio from time to time, and nearly all of that time is spent bashing an athlete, some sports team or some combination of the two. I wonder what Selig bashing might be in those archives?

But the totality of his 23 years as commissioner amounts to far more positive than negative, and here in Boston, Selig gets an assist for the championships won in 2004, 2007, and 2013.

It’s simple, really. When the Red Sox were for sale in 2001, it was Selig who assembled John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino and maneuvered the sale in the direction of the Henry group.

“I had nothing to do with any of that,’’ Bud once told me, before adding, “But someday you’ll thank me for it.’’

Selig had a lot to do with it. It was Selig who connected Lucchino with Henry when Henry was dealing with ballpark and ownership issues with the Florida Marlins. Henry was working on selling the Marlins and buying the Angels in 2001. Lucchino, who knew Werner from San Diego, put Henry together with Werner, who was then trying to buy the Red Sox with underfinanced partner Les Otten.

At the urging of Selig, Yawkey Trust boss John Harrington agreed to accept the bid of the Henry group. When MLB owners voted to the approve the sale, Bud Selig made sure the vote was unanimous. Henry, Werner, and Lucchino were Bud’s guys.

That makes complete sense. I was checking on one of the bidders for the Red sox that year to look up Frank McCourt, who I knew Shank has slammed good in hard in the past. There were also two other bidders:

Folks in Boston knew McCourt would be a disaster for Major League Baseball. He was a smooth-talking, nicely-dressed, well-mannered guy with parking lots and delusions of grandeur. He fancied himself as a serious bidder for the Red Sox in 2001 when the Yawkey Trust put the team up for sale, but nobody in Boston took McCourt seriously because he didn't have enough of his own money.

The "sale" of the Red Sox turned out to be a bag-job of the highest order. Cable czar Charles Dolan submitted the highest bid, while Boston businessman Joe O'Donnell was viewed as the local favorite to get the team.

Tire-kicker McCourt was never in the running. In December 2001, Selig announced that John Henry's bid was the winner. Selig was beholden to Henry (former owner of the Marlins) and put him together with Tom Werner (former owner of the Padres) and Larry Lucchino (former Orioles and Padres boss).

Bag job, indeed! No reason it can't be both a bag job (the bidding process) and a rousing success. I was also wondering about how adequate Joe O'Donnell's bid was. A few people bring up that point in the comments, so I went to research it. Boy, did Shank really, REALLY HATE this deal when it went down!

The Red Sox are a public trust. They are the heart and soul of New England. They are as important as any local institution. And last night they changed hands for the first time in 68 years.

Michigan-born, Yale grad Tom Yawkey rescued the franchise in 1933, and now we have unknown men named Henry and Werner taking charge of this most-cherished local team.

I wish I felt good about this and I hope I’m wrong. I wish I could get on the bandwagon and believe good things will come of this. Maybe John Henry and Tom Werner will be the best Boston sports owners since Walter Brown. Maybe they will build a new jewel of a ballpark in South Boston and reward us with a string of championship teams in the next decade.

But forgive me if I don’t trust these guys. Any of them ever been to Durgin Park? Any of ‘em know that the L Street Brownies swim in the ocean on New Year’s Day? Any of them know the meaning of Curt Gowdy and “Hi, neighbor, have a ‘Gansett?” Any of them know who hit Tony Conigliaro with that spitball in 1967? And that the pitch was thrown Aug. 18, a Friday night?

Shame on John Harrington. The cowardly little accountant had a chance to do something great and important here. This is the man who befriended Mrs. Yawkey all those years ago and - on that relationship alone - became CEO of the Red Sox and a Big Player in Major League Baseball. The record will show that when it came time to step up, Harrington caved to commissioner Bud Selig and the Lords of the Sport. He chose to serve the Boys in the Club rather than loyal, long-suffering, top-dollar-paying citizens of Red Sox Nation.
...
So now we have this band of carpetbaggers, taking charge of our most cherished institution.
...
This was a bag job from start to finish. Bud got his man. The Trust got its money. John Harrington secured his fraudulent place in the Men’s Club of Major League Baseball. And the Red Sox were turned over to people who don’t know Fenway Park from Jellystone Park.

Looks like we have our answer on the 'maligning Selig' parlor game question!

So, has Shank mellowed with age, or is this another convenient lapse of memory? You make the call!

UPDATE AT 8:36 PM - Added the 'carpetbaggers' and 'Jellystone Park' bits from the last link. Reading all the way through that old column was priceless for tidbits like that...

Return Of The Tomato Cans

So, this is how Shank writes a column after All World tight end Rob Gronkowski has surgery on his back - listen to Felger & Mazz for a few days, pretend to put a positive spin on the situation, and - voila!

No Gronk. No problem. The Patriots are still going to the Super Bowl.

Everybody loves Rob Gronkowski. The big galoot (sorry, Curt Schilling! - ed.) is tons of fun, on and off the football field. We root for his full recovery from a third back surgery and hope there are more rumbling, smashmouth/stiff-arm touchdowns and spiked footballs in his Patriot future.

But everybody needs to calm down regarding what this does to the Patriots’ chances. Of course the Patriots are better with Gronk than without him (don’t underestimate Gronkowski’s contribution to the running game), but take a good look around the AFC. Who is better than the Gronk-less Patriots? Nobody, that’s who. Even without one of the greatest tight ends of all time, the Patriots still have a clean, clear path to Super Bowl LI in Houston in February.

And you know what that means:

It’s clear by now that there are no dominant teams in the NFL. The 11-1 Cowboys are the flavor of the month and it’s nice to see the Oakland Raiders make some noise on the left coast. But the Patriots’ schedule this year — clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right — tells you everything you need to know about where this is heading. After late-November road wins against the hideous 49ers and Jets, the Patriots return home Sunday to say hello to the 4-7 Los Angeles Rams — the sui generis of Tomato Cans (Bill Belichick has beaten Rams coach Jeff Fisher by an aggregate 104-7 in their last two meetings).

New England will be 10-2 after Sunday’s layup and should finish no worse than 13-3.

How'd Shank's prediction work out last week? Anybody?

Just a reminder - Shank isn't exactly writing this column because any of the things mentioned about the Patriots are true. He's writing this column to do what he does every single year - in order to take a world class shit on the Patriots, Bill Belichick and especially the Kraft family should they fail to win the Lombardi Trophy in February.

Compare And Contrast

Dan Shaughnessy, in his latest mailed-in column:

■ Count me out on Curt Schilling. I have held my nose and voted for the Big Blowhard in recent years (11-2 in postseason, ridiculous walk/strikeout ratio), and he was up to 52.3 percent (75 percent required) last year, but I shall invoke the “character” clause this year. Schill has transitioned from a mere nuisance to an actual menace to society. His tweet supporting the lynching of journalists was the last straw for this voter. Curt later claimed he was joking. Swell.

Shank's fellow members of the media, on civil political discourse. I guess he's cool with that.

DHL Dan LXV

It's the usual hodgepodge of uninspired crap, not even worth sampling here.

Bonus - Larry Bird sighting!

Reasons To Be Worried

A few things to note here - during the first quarter of the Patriots - Jets game, Shank tweeted 'beatdown of epic proportions' and '#73 - 0'. Today things are described quite differently.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — You have seen this game one million times. Maybe two million.

The Patriots struggle. The other team plays over its head. It looks like we might witness an upset loss for the team from Fort Foxborough. And then all the usual elements emerge and the Patriots cut out the hearts of their rivals. Tom Brady plays cool, flawless football down the stretch, the Patriots wait for the other guys to step on banana peels, and New England walks out of another enemy stadium with a hard-fought victory.

“It says a lot about our team,’’ Bill Belichick said Sunday night after the Patriots trumped the Jets, 22-17, at MetLife Stadium. “Their resiliency and mental toughness. How they execute under pressure. A lot of games in this league come down to the last series or the last plays or whatever it is. You battle it out for 59 mintues and it comes down to one or two plays . . . We’ve had a lot of those come up.’’

Now check out this paragraph (emphasis mine):

The Patriots beat you because they are smarter and tougher. They never take the apple. If you are from Buffalo, Miami, or the Meadowlands, they take away your will to live. They make the plays when the plays need to be made and they wait for you to tie your shoelaces together. Which you inevitably will do. It is all so predictable.

...says the columnist who predicted the exact opposite at the start of the game. Schmuck.

This is a year in which there are no great NFL teams, and in that spirit the Patriots are certainly in the Super Bowl hunt . . . but the Patriots hardly looked championship-driven for most of Sunday afternoon/evening in the Meadowlands. Those of us who trade in analysis and negativity will have much to chew on this week.

I think the Dallas Cowboys, currently at 10-1 and the Oakland Raiders, tied with the Patriots at 9-2, might have something to say about that. Does Shank expect the 1985 Bears or the 2000 Baltimore Ravens to be resurrected somehow? And when is the last time Shank offered up anything remotely resembling 'analysis'? At least he got the last part right about trading in negativity, him and his asshole colleague Ben Volin.

Can't wait to hear Shank regurgitate this column tomorrow morning with Bettle & Zolak - riveting radio, everyone!

UPDATE AT 8:00 PM - Minor spelling error corrected in the penultimate paragraph of this post.

Boston Globe Asshole Update - II

Isn't it interesting how Shank's stopped tweeting once the game got tight?

Boston Globe Asshole Update

This tweet went up a few minutes before Tom Brady tied the game at 10-10 as well as hitting 60,000 career passing yards:

Have to wonder if Patriots might be better off with Garoppolo at QB. Brady isn't right

— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) November 27, 2016

Would you mind letting the fucking guy play the entire game before you second guess him? Thanks.

Lack Of Knowledge

Now that the Jets have a 10-0 lead, let's note Shank isn't banging out any more smug tweets right now. He conveniently forgets to mention the recent history of close games between the two teams in order to keep peddling this bullshit.

Let The Stupid Tweets Begin! - II

Right on schedule...

Pats lose toss. Jets Defer. Eveyrbody is on to Bill now. But that's not going to help the Jets. #73-0.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 27, 2016

Let The Stupid Tweets Begin!

Hot off the hot take presses, everybody!

Patriots have their whole team today vs. moribund Jets. This should be a beatdown of epic proportion.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 27, 2016

What Do You Mean 'We', Kemosabe?

Shank continues to ride high atop the New England sports bandwagon (emphasis added here and there):

Be thankful, New England fans, for our bounty of success

You are a New England sports fan, and it’s Thanksgiving week, and there is so much for which to be thankful.

Ours truly is the best region for professional sports watching. The blessings are many. I was thinking of this back in October while watching the Cubs and Indians in their epic World Series. The Cubs hadn’t won a championship in 108 years and the Tribe are still sitting on a 68-year drought. The city of Cleveland went from 1964 until this year (Cavaliers over Warriors) without winning anything. And here in Boston we get agitated when the Bruins go two straight years without making the playoffs.

I'm pretty sure it's mostly Boston sportswriters and Michael Felger who get agitated when that happens.

In any event, the rest of the column's a good read and he makes a halfway convincing case, to the extent he avoids using 'I', 'we' and 'our' when discussing the local pro sports teams. We've' seen this sort of writing way too many times before from Shank to believe one word of it is sincere in any manner. We won't get fooled again.

There is one other thing that's been pissing me off for years:

The Patriots certainly play in a terrible division,

Compared to what? This is simply a lie that Shank keeps peddling because he doesn't have any editors that will call him on this, and I'm getting sick and fucking tired of having to keep pointing out the bloody fucking obvious. Go look at the records of all of the divisions this year. There are two divisions that have three teams at or above the .500 mark - the AFC East and the NFC East. In 2015 there was one division that met this criteria, and in 2014 four divisions met this criteria. In the past three years the AFC East seems to be the division that consistently comes up with the most wins, doesn't it?

You know what? I take the praise of this column back. Everything that guy just said, is bullshit! Thank you.

Bonus - No Larry Bird reference, but there is a Clive Rush reference!

UPDATE, 1:57 PM - On a second pass, this little bit of arrogant condescension jumped out:

...and management has a penchant for style-over-substance and pandering to Pink Hats,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of the people you see in the stands wearing pink hats... aren't they all women?

Why is the Boston Globe baseball section such a hotbed for misogynistic intolerance? Shame on you, Mr. Shaughnessy! Shame!

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLIV

A month or so after Wikileaks ripped off the façade of 'objective journalism' as supposedly practiced by the Boston Globe and exposed collusion between the Boring Broadsheet and the Hillary Clinton campaign, Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory does his best attempt at damage control.

Hey all,

So the earth shook under us last week with Donald Trump’s stunning victory, raising all the questions you’ve heard and even asked about the inability (you spelt 'ignoring' wrong - ed) of the news media to see this coming. These are good questions, with no clear or clean answers, but what absolutely can’t be lost in our self-reflection is that we’re in a moment, an utterly pivotal moment, in which we matter more than ever (funny, your circulation numbers don't reflect it - ed) to our region and our loyal readership. It is not an overstatement to say that this is why we exist. And I don’t have even the slightest doubt that we will meet the challenge.

I do - want to put money on your ability to continue as a going concern, Brian? Say, Chapter 7 liquidation in five years?

To that end, I should say more publicly what I’ve told a lot of people in here privately over the past ten days: I’m intensely proud of our national and campaign coverage going back not just weeks and months, but years. You should be, too.

You were caught red handed colluding with a U.S. Presidential campaign. Are you Globies proud of that? Are you, Bruce Mo**?

Go read the rest of it if you want to be further insulted by this bow-tied bumkisser.

Dishonest To The Core - II

Here's Shank's actual second column on the Patriots - 49ers game on Sunday.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Tommy Brady. Homecoming King.

The New England Patriots Trumped (Trumped - get it? - ed) the moribund San Francisco 49ers, 30-17, at Levi’s Stadium Sunday and Brady — playing in front of family, friends, and Patriot Nation West for the first time in his 17-year career — led the way with 280 yards of completions, including four touchdown passes.

It was a sweet Sunday for the Patriot icon as he finally had a chance to show the locals what they missed when they passed on him (as did every other team for 5½ rounds) at the 2000 NFL Draft.

We watched three quarters of slippery, grinding football in a steady rain before the Patriots secured their victory with a pair of quick-strike touchdowns early in the fourth. With just over nine minutes left, a large portion of the Niners “home” crowd toasted QB12 with chants of “Bra-dy, Bra-dy”.

As the clocked ticked down toward 0:00, the sun broke through and a giant rainbow settled over the 49ers’ massive new stadium. Such are the powers of Tommy Brady. He can avoid the rush, throw on the run, make the rain stop, and the sun shine.

Laying it on a little thick, isn't he? That's when you know he's full of shit.

Dishonest To The Core

Dear New England Patriots Fans:

You saw those earlier tweets of mine when I called the 49ers tomato cans, then took it back minutes later, only to see the Patriots win convincingly in the second half? We're good now, right?

Your pal, Shank.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — It was looking really good when the sun was peeking out and the “Brady” chants were raining down at Levi’s Stadium Sunday afternoon.

It was looking pretty dismal when the actual drops rained down during the quarterback’s homecoming.

Playing through a steady downpour in front of a half-empty stadium – it’s possible Junipero Serra High had more fans at its state playoff win over Saint Francis Friday night — the Patriots survived a rock fight with the 49ers, earning a 30-17 victory.

It felt a lot closer than that.

That it was, but not before Shank passed judgment on the Patriots multiple times, wrongly, before the game was even close to being finished.

Shank makes this critique far too easy with today's 'performance'. I'm surprised he didn't break both his ankles jumping off and back on the bandwagon while the game was being played. If you want to know what a complete unthinking, reactionary sports columnist looks like with not an original thing to say, who contradicts himself multiple times within the span of a few hours, here it is, in all it's lack of glory. Read it and weep, for the future of traditional sports 'journalism'.

UPDATE, 10:47 A.M. - I got the wrong link; this column was written by Jim McBride, not Shank. Both columns are of the same ilk, so the points above still stand.

He Would Know

Once again, the Patriots opponent quickly goes from Tomato Can to...

Wait . . . It's "bend, but don't break", right? Do I have that right.?
Nothing ever changes.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 20, 2016

With certain people, there's no pleasing them.

Predictable Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Bet you never, ever heard this one before:

Pats call heads. Head it is. Pats defer. Game over.
Real Tomato Can today.
Seriously.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 20, 2016

Remember - he said the same thing last week, then backtracked about twenty minutes later.

Disingenuous Dan, Part LXV

Dear Tom:

Remember when I called you a cheater earlier this year?

We're good now, right? Mind if I rub your balls for a few minutes?

Sincerely,

Your Pal Shank

SAN FRANCISCO — Tom Brady’s handsome head must be about ready to explode inside his Flying Elvis football helmet.

How much is too much for one star athlete?

Brady is at the epicenter of everything. President-elect Donald Trump. Deflategate. Foot Locker. The rainforest. Gisele Bundchen. TB12 Nutrition.

Nobody hijacks bandwagons like Dan Shaughnessy.

Now That We've All Finished Dinner

... I can post this without inflicting vomiting on the reading audience :

Oh hey @Dan_Shaughnessy #TheGlobies pic.twitter.com/G4K4EG3NTJ

— Boston Globe Events (@globeevents) November 15, 2016

Tweets From The Boston Globe Bubble, By Dan Shaughnessy

Sorry, Shank - I was rearranging my sock drawer last night.

On now until 1:00 with Zo and Beetle @ZoandBertrand. Did not see either at Globies last night. What's up with that. Who misses Globies?

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 15, 2016

I Don't Know About You

...but I can't wait until Shank's next column, following this Patriots loss to the Seahawks...

They Were Tomato Cans Twenty Minutes Ago

I sure wish Shank could make up his mind - don't you?

Do I hear "Bend, but don't break"? That always works against crap teams. Until you get deep in the playoffs

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 14, 2016

The Unbearable Shank - II

With 1/8 of the game played, here is the Shank take so far:

Seahawks looking like one more tomato can

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 14, 2016

Can feel it. Pete getting ready to call slant pass on second and goal from the one

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 14, 2016

The Unbearable Shank

How soon do we see tweets about deferring the coin flip and double scores? Stay tuned for a decade-old hot take!

Discounting A Certain Game

Shank ignores tonight's Seahawks / Patriots game to hype...

Best NFL game of year unfolding now. Dallas at Pittsburgh

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 14, 2016

It is turning out to be a good game, but Shank continues his passive / aggressive approach as far as the Patriots are concerned.

Trump's First Appointment

Regardless of your political leanings, you have to admit this would be pretty damn funny and entertaining, and Shank would throw a fit:

A Message To My Buddy Bruce

Since I seem to have technical difficulties posting comments on Blogger, I'll leave a brief message here.

Bruce - did you need to see the grief counselors on Wednesday after Hillary! got her corrupt ass handed to her? Not even the corrupt, no credibility Boston Globe, which you were a part of for decades, stacking the deck in Hillary's favor was not enough to drag her over the line.

Have a nice day - don't cry too much, okay?

Your pal,

Roger

Douchebag Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Shank, being presumptuous:

Busy February. Feb 5 super bowl. Feb 6 Truck Day. Feb 7 patriots parade

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 11, 2016

We all know why he's doing this by now - setting up the Patriots with the highest of expectations so he can a) stay on the bandwagon and pretend he's a fanboy or b) write a hundred columns about their demise should the Patriots win anything less then the Lombardi Trophy.

Pete Carroll - Hall Of Fame Coach?

Well - sort of:

There should be a statue of Pete Carroll at Patriot Place. He should have a place in the Patriots Hall of Fame alongside Tedy Bruschi, Willie McGinest, and Troy Brown. Pete is on a short list of folks who can claim responsibility for the Patriots winning a Super Bowl.

Pete did not do this by conventional means. He did not coach the Patriots to a championship. He did not design a defensive scheme that enabled them to beat the Rams, Panthers, or Eagles.

Like most of Shank's columns, this one has a negative angle:

No. Pete delivered a Super Bowl to New England with the worst in-game coaching decision in the history of sports. Worse than Fourth and 2. Worse than Grady sticking with Pedro. Worse than Johnny Mac leaving Bill Buckner on the field in ’86. Worse than Joe McCarthy starting Denny Galehouse in the one-game playoff in ’48.

Less than two years ago, when good fortune (and some great plays) were about to hand Pete Carroll a victory in Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz., Pete said “no thanks” and handed the Lombardi Trophy to the New England Patriots.

And like most of his columns that discuss local championships, they must be discounted:

Sorry, fanboys. I know you hate hearing this. I know the brilliant, ever-prepared Patriots practiced their big defensive stop two days before the game. I know cornerback Malcolm Butler made a sensational play, picking off Russell Wilson’s slant pass. I know that Bill Belichick and Ernie Adams masterfully maneuvered the clock and suckered Pete into putting the wrong package on the field. I know there are no sure things in sports and that Marshawn Lynch was sometimes stopped on 1-yard runs in 2014.

But we all know that the Seahawks would have won Super Bowl XLIX if Pete had not panicked, let the defense dictate his offense, and called a high-risk slant pass into traffic instead of going Beast Mode for at least one or two carries into the end zone.

Left unmentioned, naturally, is luck that runs the other way, like the David Tyree helmet catch.

DHL Dan - LXIII / Double Standards Dan

Shank's at it again, attempting to create controversy where none exists:

Here’s some picked-up pieces of our broken luck after the 2016 baseball and election seasons . . .

■ The Patriots win too much. They get caught cheating. And just when you think they can’t offend any more of Football America, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady get used as endorsement props by the most polarizing American political figure of the last 60 years. On the eve of the presidential election.

So, Hilary's not a polarizing figure? Good to know!

And remember - it's perfectly fine for the wife of a Boston Globe columnist to write a check to a political candidate from a joint checking account, because that's different!

Every vote is sacred and a private matter if that’s what the voter chooses. We applaud athletes who take stands on issues or candidates. LeBron James knew exactly what he was doing when he went on stage with Hillary Clinton in Cleveland Sunday.

When a sports figure lends the currency of his fame to support a candidate, he’d better be prepared to hear questions about his position and brace for some blowback from an emotional voting population.

In this spirit, Belichick and Brady have invited the dreaded media to ask questions about their support for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. If we can believe Trump, Brady called the candidate Monday, told him he voted for him, then told Trump it was OK to announce his support in New Hampshire.

Ditto for Belichick. According to Trump, the coach wrote the candidate a fawning letter, then amended that missive and gave Trump permission to read it to the world on election eve.

This disqualifies Brady and Belichick from expressing surprise or disdain when they get asked about it in Foxborough Wednesday. They can dismiss it with “we’re on to Seattle” if they want, but the quarterback and coach invited this.

Good for them for taking a public position. Time now to stand by their man or explain that the candidate did not have their permission to share details of their support. It’s one or the other. The “crooked” media did not start this fire. Bill and Tom did.

Do I detect a double standard here? Lebron supports Hillary - all well & fine. Belichick & Brady support Donald Trump - I WANT ANSWERS!

■ Curt Schilling’s latest controversial tweet (since deleted) advocated the lynching of journalists as “awesome.” Schill said it was sarcasm. Hard to imagine how this guy keeps losing jobs.

Question for the Sanctimonious Shank - is it okay for a reporter to call for the death of a presidential candidate? Was that sarcasm? The guy rightly got shitcanned a few days later (possibly to be picked by the Globe after the heat dies down), but I don't recall Shank weighing in on that infraction. I wonder if he'd like to do so now?

The rest of the 'column' is the usual mishmash of trivia and arcana as he waits for his next victim - read at your peril.

DHL Dan - LXII

On the bye week, Shank continues his jihad on the New England Patriots, while pretending to be on their bandwagon:

The Patriots did not play a football game Sunday. It was New England’s bye week. In the fall of 2016, every week is a bye week for the Patriots. The games are pretty much all the same and the outcome is never in doubt.

Here’s what you would be reading today if the Patriots had played a game on Sunday:

“The Patriots beat the Gotham Tomato Cans, 45-7, Sunday on a sun-splashed autumn afternoon at Gillette Stadium.” New England effectively locked up the AFC East for the 13th time in the last 14 years.

Every Shank cliché is there, which makes it unreadable, except for this masochist.

You're Only Encouraging Him

Please, make it stop!

@Dan_Shaughnessy Pats Schedule pic.twitter.com/W4ox0zPuYs

— Brian Manning (@Boxdonkey17) November 6, 2016

There are eight games left in the Patriots schedule, and I can see three games that aren't tomato can games - the Ravens, while not playing great this year, are currently beating the Steelers 10 - 0 (even Shank has admitted in the past that they're not scared of the Patriots) and we have road games at Denver (how'd that last trip to Denver work out?) and at Miami (how'd that last trip to Miami work out?). I don't mind attempts at humor as much as I mind people spreading bullshit like this.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLIV

The New York Times, former parent company of the Boston Globe made a profit last quarter - a very small profit:

The New York Times Co reported a 95.7 fall in quarterly profit, hit by restructuring charges related to headcount reductions.

Net profit attributable to the newspaper publisher fell to $406,000, or break-even per share, in the third quarter, from $9.4 million, or 6 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell to $363.6 million from $367.4 million.

The company, struggling to transition to digital, said online ad revenues grew 21.5 percent and now account for more than 35 percent of its advertising receipts.

Question for Bruce Mo** - is this how you become a nonprofit, or do you still have to ask the IRS?

Curses! Another Blown Lede

No one loves a good curse more than The CHB. So it stands to reason that today's excrement exercise is one big kiss off to 108 years of Cubs failure

In true Shank fashion, he tries to make poetry out of prose -- "They blew a lead of 6-3 with two out and nobody aboard in the eighth inning. Manager Joe Maddon was being measured for a Grady Little cap. [T]he Cubs ... won it when lefty Mike Montgomery retired Michael Martinez on a grounder to Kris Bryant with the tying run aboard at 12:47 a.m. You could hear Harry Caray hollering'Cubs win' and 'Holy cow' in hardball heaven." -- and in the process completely misses the actual drama of the game. No surprise there.

Even less surprising to those of us who have tortured ourselves to bring you this column for going on 10 years, is his attempt to stick it to the Red Sox in the process. Indeed, this was one of the classic World Series, and Shank spends most of it writing about the Red Sox.

Let's start with Theo Epstein, who has now "has punched his ticket to Cooperstown as the man who killed two curses."

Since The CHB doesn't seem to remember what he previously wrote about Theo, I'll remind him: 

• "Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than [Larry] Lucchino or anyone else." 
• "It was charged [in 2005] that Sox management conducted a ''smear campaign" against Epstein. How? Where's the campaign?"   
• "Epstein made a ton of bad moves in the later years of his tenure, then went to Chicago for a $19 million contract and watched from afar as the Sox decomposed. ... Mistakes were made. Money was spent badly. The Sox lost their way and tried to throw money at their problems." 

There's Jon Lester, "who was famously lowballed, then traded, by the smarter-than-everybody Sox in 2014, did what he proved he could do in Boston: he came up big in the big moment. Lester was called upon to pitch in relief and stuffed the Indians for three innings." Well, not exactly. Lester allowed two runs in three innings work, and it was his wild pitch that cut the Cubs lead to 2 in the bottom of the fifth, giving Cleveland hope they could come back.

There's John Lackey, who gave up 3 runs in 5 innings in a Cubs loss Game 5.

There's Terry Francona who "[had] a commanding World Series lead, only to see it implode over the final three games."

Imagine what Shank would have said if this had happened while Francona was managing the Red Sox. Oh wait, it did:

The greatest choke in baseball history ended the only way it could have ended, with the Red Sox gagging on the Camden Yards lawn one last time. ... Say goodbye to Terry Francona. In the midnight confessions, Francona spoke of “the mess we got ourselves in,’’ then said, “We needed to take care of business and we didn’t.’’ 

In historic fashion.

Wouldn't losing a 3 games to 1 lead in the World Series, dropping the final two on your home field, be even worse?

Yes it would. I can think of only one thing worse: Shank's column.

The Big Lie Continues

The spirit of Joseph Goebbels continues, as the jackasses at ESPN continue to spread the lie that Shank is somehow in the Baseball Hall of Fame:

Greatest question from HOFer @Dan_Shaughnessy to future HOFer Terry Francona: ”Would you call this a must-win game?" #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/mh5eBTKOgC

— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) November 2, 2016

By this 'standard', I won one Tour de France, maybe two...

Tweet Of The Day

Presented without comment, as if it's necessary.

@Dan_Shaughnessy is it hard for you to go out at night with all these clown sightings?

— Christopher Smith (@smithtmj) November 2, 2016

Shank on Jamie Collins

Shank's been unusually busy this past week. He's banged out ten World Series columns and now does one on recently departed New England Patriots linebacker Jamie Collins.

I'll just sample the tail end of the column, where, try as Shank does to get Jamie to badmouth the Patriots, Jamie doesn't bite and instead lays down a subtle yet awesome countermeasure on Shank:

How did you find out about the trade?

“I got a call.’’

Who called you? A Patriot person?

“I don’t want to get into that. I’m here now.’’

Did Bill talk to you?

“I talked to him.’’’

How’d that go?

“It was OK. It’s business. This is a business league. [Expletive] happens . . . I leave with good terms with anybody.’’

Do you think they’re going to go on and win the Super Bowl?

“I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t play for New England. I’m over here. All I care about is the Cleveland Browns.”

How do you look back at your New England experience?

“It was fun while it lasted. This is a new chapter in my life and I’m ready to approach it.’’

Any hard feelings toward the Patriots?

“No. It’s a business. At the end of the day I’m still getting money, man. I’m still getting money, I’m still moving on and I’m still here playing. I’m not the one that’s watching the game. I’m playing the game.’’

Are you hurt by this?

“No. I’ve been through a lot so this ain’t nothing. I’m good. I’m on to Cleveland.’’

How do you like them apples, Shank?

DHL Dan - LXI

It's that rare feat where Shank can write two separate columns about Game 6 and not say a single interesting thing.

Something Shank Can Relate To

We know Shank's heard this a shitload of times as well:

Tito on mananging in Philly and Boston: "There were a lot of times I thought my name was "You suck" because that's all I ever heard''

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 1, 2016

As expected, feedback was positive and constructive:

@Dan_Shaughnessy You and Tito share something in common!

— Mash (@DirtDogs643) November 1, 2016

@Dan_Shaughnessy How many times is he going to say that?

— Michael Farrell (@farrell205) November 1, 2016

Do you think Shank's angling to write a follow-up book to "Francona - The Red Sox Years"? The vibe is unmistakable.

DHL Dan - LX

By now, you have read seven columns by Shank on this year's World Series. Number eight reads like a mashup of the previous seven:

CLEVELAND — Baseball connects people, moments, and generations. Fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. If you are a true seamhead, baseball events parallel your own experiences, creating a timeline of your life. This is what’s happening as the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs play out this 2016 World Series. The Tribe lead the Cubs, three games to two.

There is great anticipation over what might transpire in both cities over the next two days. As the Series resumes with Game 6 at Progressive Field Tuesday, folks in Cleveland are bracing for the possibility they’ll be celebrating the city’s first baseball championship since 1948. Meanwhile, back in Chicago, the long-suffering legions of Wrigleyville want to extend the Series to a seventh game and see the Cubs win their first championship since 1908.

And then we get this gem:

It’s going to be history for one city and more heartbreak for the other.

This clown makes near six figures a year and we get this kind of pedestrian 'analysis' and opinion, and the rest of the column is more or less about... Dan Shaughnessy. Just flush this one down the toilet.

The Obligatory Jon Lester Column

Who knew Shank was capable of two columns in a day outside of spring training?

But Lester and the Cubs had other plans. After two quiet nights in Wrigleyville, the Cubs finally strung together a few hits and Lester and the Chicago bullpen did the rest.

It had to be strange for Francona to watch Lester start Game 5.

Their relationship was special when they were together in the Red Sox organization. Francona paid extra attention to Lester the rookie, and when the kid was diagnosed with anaplastic large cell lymphoma, the manager took Lester’s worried parents aside and said, “We will take care of your son.’’

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLIII

You know the ship is sinking when you need nonprofits to help pay your salaries.

If newspapers are going to survive and thrive, then various types of nonprofit/for-profit partnerships will almost certainly be part of the mix.

At the extreme end is the Philadelphia Inquirer, which, along with its sister paper, the Daily News, and their joint website, Philly.com, were donated earlier this year to the nonprofit Philadelphia Foundation. The media properties still need to find a way to break even, but it does save them from the pressure of cutting their way to profits in order to satisfy a corporate owner.

You could say most newspapers are already 'nonprofit', if ya know what I mean!

A more modest step was announced in today’s Boston Globe. Zoë Madonna, a young prize-winning critic, will be paid through a nonprofit grant to write about classical music for the next 10 months while Globe critic Jeremy Eichler is on leave at Harvard. The money will come from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

According to a press release from the Rubin Institute, which awarded her its 2014 prize in music criticism, the benefactors “will consider an ongoing strategy to support this endeavor on a national scale” once Madonna’s stint at the Globe has been completed. Globe editor Brian McGrory is quoted as saying:

I'm sure the need for a classical music critic is right at the top of the needs for modern newspapers - and the Globe wonders why they're shitting the bed...

The Obligatory John Lackey Column

With so many former Red Sox players in the World Series this year, Shank could have treated it like he treats spring training - run a different column each day and focus on a single player. Since that's probably too much work for the World Series, we see only a brief example of this when Shank writes about John Lackey.

John Lackey. Did anybody ever have a goofier Red Sox career than him?

Lackey seemed like a perfectly happy guy in the eight years he pitched for the Angels. He was an innings-eater and early in his career demonstrated that he was not afraid of the big stage. When he was a 24-year-old rookie, Lackey pitched and won the seventh game of the World Series against Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants. Joe Maddon was the Angels bench coach. LA’s manager-for-life Mike Scioscia gave Lackey the ball for 12 postseason starts in eight years.

And then the trouble started. Instead of staying in California or going home to Texas (his warm-up music Saturday was Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places), Lackey played out his contract with the Angels, hit the free agent market, and was seduced by Red Sox millions, signing a five-year, $82.5 million deal.

At Fenway he made fast friends with Josh Beckett, Lester, and Clay Buchholz, but Fenway was never a good fit for the tall Texan.

The first thing that didn’t fit was Lackey’s habit of showing up his teammates when they didn’t make a play behind him. To a man, the teammates said it did not bother them, but it looked bad and Boston fans and media were unforgiving. Lackey went 14-11 in his first season playing for Francona.

Any member of the media in particular, Shank?

Lackey has simply got to go. He’s coming off the worst season by a starting pitcher in more than a century of Red Sox baseball, and he’s regularly shown up his teammates and his manager. Bookend all that with his TMZ personal issues and his place in the biscuit brigade and you’ve got a local pariah on a par with none other. The Red Sox are on the hook for three more years to the tune of $45.5 million, but they simply cannot bring him back. Even if they had to eat most of the money. Or all the money.

Finally Telling The Truth

I'm sure this is an inadvertent disclosure...

CHICAGO — The white-hot Cleveland Indians thrashed the Cubs again Saturday night, this time by a score of 7-2. The Tribe holds a three-games-to-one lead and has a chance to win its first World Series in 68 years Sunday night at Wrigley Field.

So I ask you, Baseball America . . . while acknowledging that this is not yet over . . . if the low-payroll, underdog, no-name Tribe wins the 112th World Series, is the lasting narrative one of the Indians winning or the Cubs losing?

I am a flip-flopper on this one. I feel strongly both ways. Stay with me and play along if you like:

I have better ways to waste my time...

Cubs Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Killing time until that next riveting World Series column:

The Cubs have been shut out in four of their last eight games.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 29, 2016

Joe West at second base tonight. Inching closer to where he can do real damage. On tap for Homeplate if there's a Game 6

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 30, 2016

Woodstock Watch

Let the clichés commence!

Wrigley Field turns into Woodstock

CHICAGO — The Cleveland Indians clearly did not get the memo about their role in this Cub-centric World Series. The Sons of Terry Francona are supposed to be mere props in the nationwide coronation of the Chicago Cubs.

They are not. Tito’s Tribe got an RBI single from Coco Crisp and stuffed the Cubs, 1-0, Friday, giving Cleveland a 2-1 lead in the 112th World Series.

“That’s a heck of a win,’’ said Francona, who made multiple moves and emptied his bench. “That was agonizing. We needed to win that game in nine because we used so many guys . . . We don’t worry too much about outside expectations. What’s important is how we feel about ourselves. We want to be one run better and that’s about as true-to-form as you can get.’’

It was the first World Series game played at Wrigley Field in 71 years and there was a Woodstock-like feel around the ballpark all day and night. We even had (Kyle) Hendricks facing (Carlos) Santana to start the game. Wrigleyville could have been Max Yasgur’s farm.

Shank sure loves reliving past events, doesn't he?

More clichés and the paint-by-numbers Shank walk down memory lane ensue from there.

Captain Obvious Has A Twitter Account

You don't say?

Wrigley will be busier in four hours pic.twitter.com/7BiQP0oNYn

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 28, 2016

Swing And A Miss

That would be this blogger not noticing Shank's latest column until ten minutes ago:

CLEVELAND — Ever-agitated Red Sox manager John McNamara said it best for longtime losers when he walked into a press conference after his team’s hideous Game 6 collapse against the Mets (The Bill Buckner Game) and announced, “I don’t know nothing about history and I don’t want to hear about choking or any of that crap.’’

That was 30 years ago and Mac has been hearing about it ever since.

This is the weight the Chicago Cubs carried into Progressive Field Wednesday night. The Cubbies were smothered by the surprising Cleveland Indians in Game 1, and given their history, the Cubbies could ill afford to fall behind two games to none.

Familiar Complaint

Harkening back to those Red sox / Yankees games...

Baseball is killing itself with this pace. 297 pitches through seven innnings. We are almost three and a half hours old. Awful

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 27, 2016

Trying To Have It Both Ways

It doesn't take long for Shank to jump from one bandwagon to another:

CLEVELAND — Cubs, Cubs, Cubs. This World Series is about the Billy Goat Curse, Steve Bartman, Wrigley Field, Theo Epstein, Jon Lester, Back To The Future II, 108 years, and dozens of essays by high-minded intellectuals explaining what a life-changing moment it will be when the lovable losers from the North Side finally win the World Series.

Swell.

But all of this leaves the needy folks of Cleveland asking, “What about us?’’

This crap, from the same guy who was telling Red Sox fans two short weeks ago they have to root for the Cubs.

Listen up folks; there is actually a second team in this 112th World Series and the Cleveland Indians won’t be mere props in the Cubs’ inexorable march to the crown. The Tribe made this abundantly clear Tuesday night, thrashing the Cubs, 6-0, to take the first game of the World Series. Cleveland’s No. 9 batter, Roberto Perez, who hit three homers all season, hit two in his first Series game and Terry Francona improved his Fall Classic record to a preposterous 9-0. Cleveland has now won eight of nine in this postseason (four shutouts), shredding your Red Sox, the Blue Jays and now the Cubs — big payroll, star-laden teams, all favored to beat Cleveland easily.

So when does the national narrative become about the Indians? Fact is, if not for the presence of the Cubs, the Indians would be the ones posing as sentimental favorites in the Fall Classic.

Remember - this is the same city Shank took a major league shit on a year and a half ago, and now pretends to like the city. He's utterly shameless.

Taken To The Woodshed

Instead of a tweet or two about the upcoming World Series between the Cleveland Native Americans and the Chicago Cubs, Shank has to a) look backwards instead of forwards and b) keep shitting on the Red Sox instead:

I can't be the first to note that today is the 30th annniversary of Red Sox-Mets Game 6 and Bill "Behind the Bag!!!" Buckner.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 25, 2016

Reader reaction follows, leading off is former WFNX lead leftist Henry Santoro:

@Dan_Shaughnessy - I talked about it on WGBH today.

— HenrySantoro(@HenrySantoro) October 25, 2016

Where I'm sure all of ten people heard it...

Other weigh-ins:

@Dan_Shaughnessy maybe you can be the first in your class to note that the real goats of that game were ScharldiGedmanand Stanley

— James Kellogg (@jkeggs1121) October 25, 2016

@Dan_Shaughnessy why the fuck would you want to do that Dan? Why?

— Michael J Mousseau(@mooseman137) October 25, 2016

Because he's a world class asshole, that's why.

Classic response, encapsulating Shank perfectly:

@Dan_Shaughnessy pic.twitter.com/wNK6GEYAwr

— Zachary Lang (@therealZachLang) October 25, 2016

Can't top that one - thread is over!

Rewriting History, Part II

My co-blogger notes in the post below the many times Shank has trashed a Red Sox player, manager or general manager as they were ending their tenure in Boston, only to have their careers resuscitated in Chicago or Cleveland. Shank's world class hypocrisy tour continues today as we await Game 1 of the 2016 World Series.

CLEVELAND — Theo and Tito.

Theirs are names from “Sesame Street,’’ or perhaps a couple of characters for a children’s book series: “Theo and Tito Go to the Zoo.’’ “Theo and Tito Say, ‘Goodnight, Moon.’ ’’

When I read a Shank column, I often think I'm reading a children's book.

But they are neither muppets nor fiction. Theo Epstein and Terry “Tito” Francona are the men who in 2004 brought Boston its first baseball championship in 86 years. Then they did it again in 2007.

Theo and Tito were together on Yawkey Way for eight years, winning an average of 93 games per season, making the playoffs five times, and filling Fenway for every game of every season. When they left after the chicken-and-beer collapse of 2011 — Theo voluntarily, Tito being pushed — it was like the breakup of Boston’s baseball Beatles.

Shank should have written them a thank you letter for the chicken & beer fiasco - he got about ten columns out of it.

Theo and Tito were together on Yawkey Way for eight years, winning an average of 93 games per season, making the playoffs five times, and filling Fenway for every game of every season. When they left after the chicken-and-beer collapse of 2011 — Theo voluntarily, Tito being pushed — it was like the breakup of Boston’s baseball Beatles.

Now they are on opposite sides of two “other” long-suffering franchises in the 112th World Series, which starts Tuesday night at Progressive Field. The Chicago Cubs, led by general manager Theo Epstein, have not won a World Series since 1908 and have not even participated in the Fall Classic since 1945. The Cleveland Indians, managed by Terry Francona, have not won a World Series since 1948. We have two plagued ball clubs led by a pair of curse-busting bosses.

Something has to give.

Dan Shaughnessy - Master of the Obvious.

Out Nitwitted

First he takes credit for running them out of town. Then he criticizes their deportations.

So which is it, Shank?

The pending World Series matchup, writes The CHB, is an "emotional duel of guys who were dumped by the Red Sox, or quit the Red Sox."

As you might have guessed, it's a really stupid column.

But first, a shot at the 2016 Red Sox, which despite their 93 wins, were overrated, he argues, because they lost "the majority of their close games."

It's true that the Red Sox were 20-24 in one-run games in 2016. But guess who else was under .500 in one-run games? The Cubs (22-23). And guess who had the best record in the AL East in one-run games? The Yankees (24-12), who finished 9 games back of the Sox. And guess who had the majors' best record in one-run games? The Rangers (36-11), who are sitting home right now too.

It's a specious argument. But then again, The CHB is a specious guy.

The CHB's breakdown of the players who the Sox traded away is equal parts laughable and fallacy. Mike Napoli? Coco Crisp? No one wanted these guys.

Not even Shank, who on Jul. 8, 2015, said: "I would cut Napoli, just let him go." That was a few years after he blasted the Sox for keeping Crisp and letting Johnny Damon walk.

Andrew Miller was a stud, but the Sox picked up a stud lefty starter in return. Don't take my word for it: Shank said so here: "Eduardo Rodriguez has a chance to become Dan Duquette’s Jeff Bagwell."

And just one month ago he said he thought Rodriguez should be the third starter in the playoffs for the Red Sox.

Then there's Theo Epstein, of whom Shaughnessy said his "slow rebuilding style would not have worked in Boston the way it has in Chicago. ... Theo on a six-year plan with a $19 million contract, that's pretty easy to do that. I'm going to sat Boston wouldn't tolerate what Chicago went through to get here."

And in another column, this one for SI, from Dec. 14, 2009: "Epstein is touting organization prospects named Jose Iglesias, Ryan Kalish, Ryan Westmorland, Casey Kelly and Lars Anderson, but they are a couple of years away. In Boston the message needs to be 'win now.'"

In fact, he wrote in August 2012 that Theo deserved more blame for the state of the Red Sox than he's getting. "Epstein made a ton of bad moves in the later years of his tenure, then went to Chicago for a $19 million contract and watched from afar as the Sox decomposed. ...  Mistakes were made. Money was spent badly. The Sox lost their way and tried to throw money at their problems."

As for the others:

• Adrian Gonzalez is "the Kryptonite of winning baseball teams. He’s the Cooler." 
• "(John) Lackey has simply got to go. He’s coming off the worst season by a starting pitcher in more than a century of Red Sox baseball, and he’s regularly shown up his teammates and his manager." 
• Jon Lester was a disloyal ingrate who threw manager Terry Francona under the bus and was a key part on "the most loathed Boston team in history."
• And as for that David Price signing: "The Sox have wisely junked their phony, “We don’t need an ace” philosophy and signed the best free agent pitcher. Not afraid to admit they were wrong, the Sox on Tuesday agreed to a deal with 30-year-old lefthanded starter David Price on a seven-year, $217 million contact. Nitwits and analytic overthinkers will immediately fret about how the Sox will not be getting commensurate value three, four, or five years from now."

Who's the nitwit now? Shank, to thine own self be true.