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.’’