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Tuesday, November 22, 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!

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