You Spelled 'Asshole' Wrong

EPISODE 94: @Dan_Shaughnessy joins to discuss being one of the most polarizing media personalities in Boston https://t.co/iwItImaMoq pic.twitter.com/fwvZ0H5uxi

— Section 10 Podcast (@Section10Pod) May 30, 2017

Jared - a little less attitude and a little more professionalism is required here. Believe me, I'm not a snot by any stretch, but he despises you and all that are like you and me (and Mike, my co-blogger, who I bet he hates more!), and he will lie to you until the day he dies. He's lied / insulted you to your face before, and you just took it in the ass. Don't get sucked in by this act of his. At least I bothered to spell your name right - do you really think he'd ever extend you that basic courtesy?

UPDATE AT 7:54 PM At the 24:50 mark, Shank plays the victim / martyr. Not exactly a shock, right?

Shank Commits Blasphemy

Can't be long now before Shank gets shitcanned!

I know nobody reads actual newspapers anymore, but The Saturday Wall Street Journal is the best weekly read in America.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 27, 2017

UPDATE - Typo has been corrected.

It's Over For The Celtics

Shank writes the dirt nap for the 2016-2017 Boston Celtics.

Someday we will look back at this series and wonder exactly how the Celtics won a game and managed to throw a legitimate scare into LeBron James and the World Champion Cavaliers.

Ultimately, this series was men against boys. It was Monstars of Space Jam vs. No Stars of Boston. It was LeBron and Kyrie Irving against Kelly Olynyk and Gerald Green. What a beating.

LeBron and Co. demolished the Celts, 135-102, on Thursday to clinch the Eastern Conference finals, 4-1, to advance to a date with the Warriors in an NBA Finals rubber match that is expected to be one for the ages. It’ll be a seventh straight Finals for LeBron, who has won 13 consecutive close-out games since 2009.

...but not before he backtracks a bit:

The 2016-17 Celtic season goes into the books as a success. Brad Stevens’s fourth campaign yielded a conference-best 53 wins, playoff conquests of the Bulls and Wizards in the first two rounds, and a measure of nobility in the conference finals loss. The Celts played well in two games in Cleveland, managing to come back from a 21-point deficit to win Game 3 and racing to a 16-point lead in Game 4.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - LIII

We are experiencing technical difficulties on https://t.co/UFVRh8RTP3. We hope to have service restored soon. Thank you for your patience.

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) May 25, 2017

Take your time. https://t.co/K4j5wqAt1Y

— Kirk Minihane(@kirkmin) May 25, 2017

Backhanded Compliment

That's how Shank starts out his latest column on the Boston Celtics:

CLEVELAND — The Celtics are in the way. They are the little brother who stays in the TV room yapping all night, clueless that his big sister and her boyfriend would like to be left alone.

NBA America, ESPN, ABC, and the rest of the hoop-watching world can’t wait for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors to meet in their third consecutive Finals. It’ll be Ali-Frazier III. The Spectacle at the Oracle. The Zoo at the Q. LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant.

But your No-Star Boston Celtics are still in the way. For at least one more game.

And Shank continues the attempt to deceive his reading audience:

Such is the national narrative that fuels the ever-disrespected Celtics, who started the playoff run hearing that they might be the worst No. 1 seed in NBA playoff history.

And they heard that from Shank himself, on multiple occasions:

Are these Celtics the worst No. 1-seed in postseason history, or are they a worthy lot, bound for the conference finals and perhaps capable of stunning the Cleveland Cavaliers and advancing to the NBA Finals?

I Stand Corrected

It looks like Shank did a column after all, and he leads off with a bit of hyperbole:

CLEVELAND — This was impossible.

I can’t believe what I just saw.

The Boston Celtics, on the cusp of what looked like a certain Four-Game Sweep and abject humiliation in the Eastern Conference finals, beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 111-108, Sunday night on a last-second 3-pointer by Avery Bradley.

That’s way too simple. And there was nothing simple about any of this.

Let’s mention that the Celtics were blown out in the first two games of this series. They lost Game 2 at home by 44 points and were 16-point underdogs for Game 3. They trailed by 21 in the second half . . . And then came the ferocious comeback, capped when Bradley took a nice feed from Marcus Smart and rattled home his game-winner.

Quite the attitude change from his last two Celtics columns, isn't it?

I'll let the first Globe comment sum things up:

Pure chutzpah on your part, Tomato Can Dan. You couldn't throw the dirt on this team fast enough after game 2, and now it's like that never happened. You make politicians look honest.

Tough Call Made

Celtics win = no Shank column.

The Beatdown Continues - II

Another big loss by the Boston Celtics, another column shitting on those Celtics by Shank.

If you are a citizen of Green Team Nation, you can say it in any language and it still comes out the same.

Je suis Tomato Can.

Ich bin ein Tomato Can.

This is the 1992 Olympics and the Celtics are Angola playing the USA’s Dream Team.

The world champion Cavaliers did it to Boston again Friday, embarrassing the Celtics, 130-86, in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, to take a 2-0 series lead home to Cleveland. It doesn’t seem to make any difference where the games are played. It feels like Celtics and Cavaliers could play one another until Labor Day and nothing would change. Cleveland is just better. And the Celtics, evidently, are just happy to be here. Game 2 was abject humiliation as the locals fell behind by an unthinkable 72-31 at halftime.

The Beatdown Continues

The Boston Celtics lost Game 1 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals last night to the Cleveland Cavaliers, 117-104. You bet your ass Shank wrote about it!

What were you expecting? Brian Scalabrine announcing a run for mayor? Free cigar night on the Red Auerbach court? Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale turning back the clock, walking through that door, and leading the Celtics over the World Champion Cavaliers on the way to Green Banner No. 18?

Sorry.

After winning a pulsating Game 7 vs. Washington on Monday, and hitting the Lottery jackpot Tuesday, the Celtics were throttled by the Cavs, 117-104, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night at the Garden. Don’t let the final score fool you. This was a wire-to-wire beatdown. The Celtics trailed by 28 in the third quarter.

Note how gleeful this column reads; that's my big takeaway from it. But wait - it gets better!

We said all along that just getting to the conference finals would make this Boston basketball season a success.

And what were we saying about the team last month?

On now with @ZoandBertrand til 1. We are talking about how we'll rip the C's if they lose in first round. (They won't).

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 11, 2017

Then there's this passive - aggressive sentence:

A pregame video on the big board featured clips of national commentators disrespecting the Celtics, suggesting Boston might be the worst No. 1 seed in playoff history.

What were you saying last month, Shank?

Are these Celtics the worst No. 1-seed in postseason history, or are they a worthy lot, bound for the conference finals and perhaps capable of stunning the Cleveland Cavaliers and advancing to the NBA Finals?

I think we know the answer. Today’s Celtics fall in between the two extremes. They are not total frauds reaping the benefits of the Tomato Can NBA East. But nor are they championship driven.

This son of a bitch is absolutely shameless, thinking readers will forget what he wrote a mere month ago.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

If anyone doubts Shank's disdain / hatred for David Ortiz isn't real or doesn't exist, this ought to remove that doubt:

Listen for yourself. First fucking sentence from the racist Red Sox Globe "Hallof Famer." https://t.co/j4mi6LPb3C

— Patriots SB52 (@PatriotsSB49) May 16, 2017

Unfortunately, the audio is on iTunes, which I refuse to use now. It's already installed on my computer, yet every time I go to run one of these links, I'm prompted to re-install iTunes. I simply refuse to run any more crapware than I have to.

Back to our subject - you can tell this is 'irrational hatred', to borrow a phrase, for one reason - most rational people would give a non-native English speaker / writer a break in a matter like this one. Back in college I once had to do an oral exam in German on a subject of my choosing, no cheat sheets. Being the cocky little prick I was back in those days, I chose the subject of my final statistics project, the US dollar / German deutsche mark exchange rate. I wound up having to learn at least fifty new words for this exam, the overwhelming majority of them I know I screwed up. In any event, this lack of respect for the English skills from a non-native English speaker is reprehensible coming from a mamember of the media, who ought to know better.

Take Your Pick

It looks like Shank may have a point after all concerning 'irrational hatred' for Lebron James, or someone's not too happy with our 36th President:

Best. Sign. Ever.#Celtics #LeBron #CavsCeltics #wbz pic.twitter.com/sH6w5HBNGb

— Scott Sullivan (@SullyBunz) May 17, 2017

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - LII

Sorry, former Boston Globe headquarters - we're just not into you!

Center Court Properties’ deal to acquire the 16.5-acre Boston Globe site in Dorchester for upward of $80 million has fallen through, the Boston Globe reported late Tuesday evening.

The collapsed deal marks the second time a potential buyer of the longtime Boston Globe headquarters has walked away from an acquisition deal. In early 2015, Concord-based Winstanley Enterprises pulled out of an agreement to buy the newspaper company's Dorchester site.

My dream of this building becoming dormitories for UMass-Boston gets another step closer...

Oh, The Irony

This is one of two things - either Shank is painfully unaware of certain things, or he's just trolling us now:

On today from 11-1 with @ZoandBertrand. Lots of talk about irational LeBron hate around these parts. Oh, and Sox train wreck of late, too.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 16, 2017

My vote is for the latter - he's been milking this theme at least once a year for a couple of years now, most likely in response to a few hysterical Sports Hub callers. Stealing themes from this local radio station is also not exactly a news flash. It takes a certain level of gumption for Shank, a black belt in petty vindictiveness and character assassination, to then accuse others of 'irrational hatred' of an athlete on another team. Are we really supposed to rub LeBron's balls in buttermilk every time he makes a trip to the Garden, Shank?

The One Where Shank Pretends To Like The Celtics Again

After writing three successive columns eager to discuss Celtics losses in Games 3, 4 and 6, we are now treated to a column Shank was forced to write, win or lose. Let the Shankisms fly!

Bring on LeBron.

Isaiah Thomas (29 points) is the Baby-Faced Assassin (*), Kelly Olynyk (26) is Dirk Nowitzki, the Celtics have advanced to the Eastern Conference finals and suddenly, in the immortal words of Kevin Garnett . . . anything’s possible.

Maybe the ping-pong balls, for once, will fall Boston’s way Tuesday and the Celts will have the No. 1 selection in the draft for the first time since their top pick yielded Robert Parish and Kevin McHale in the infamous Red Auerbach swap with the Warriors in 1980.

Maybe the Celts can put up a fight against King James and the World Champion Cavs in a best-of-seven that starts Wednesday on Causeway Street. Maybe the Sons of Brad Stevens can make it all the way to the NBA Finals and win banner 18 several years ahead of schedule.

A proforma Shank game recap follows with a few more clichés, with all the quality of a mailed-in column.

One more quote, just for good measure:

With the Bruins done for the spring and the Red Sox staggering out of town, it’s a good time for the Celtics to be playing deep into the playoffs. The hard-fought second-round win over Washington buys at least four more games and maybe a couple more weeks of high-octane basketball. The Celts will be going Nike-to-Nike with LeBron and the whole basketball world will be watching. The 2016-17 Celtics season is hereby deemed a success. Anything good that happens now is just gravy.

Just a guess - there will be some level of backtracking on this proclamation within the next few weeks.

(*) - Someone hung this moniker on Shank himself early in his career at the Globe, as it became apparent that the subject of Shank's columns were more like assassination targets.

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

Shank didn't like the pace of today's Red Sox / Rays game (which clocked in at about 4h 20m by my count):

Pace of this Red Sox Rays game, in horrible weather, is atrocious

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 14, 2017

Warriors and spurs started 2 hours after Red Sox Rays. Now under 2 min left as sox come up in 9th. The worst

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 14, 2017

He has a point - this was a tough game to watch. However, when you've spent the overwhelming part of your career trashing & destroying professional athletes, in addition to ignoring the steroid problem in baseball until it was bloody obvious to everybody else, it's nearly impossible to take genuine criticisms seriously.

Papi Don't Preach

Reader Melissa H. sends along a note about David Ortiz's recently released book:

Heh, see the snipe at CHB in the review of David Ortiz's new book? :)

Before we get to that, let's take a peek at the beginning of the column:

The first page of the introduction to “Papi’’ summarizes the significance of David Ortiz, according to David Ortiz. He says he would one day “accumulate more home runs, hits, runs scored, and runs batted in than any DH in history.” Beyond that, “I cursed terrorists and spoke up for freedom without fear.”

Thus runs Ortiz’s freewheeling, insider memoir, written with the help of longtime sports journalist and radio personality Michael Holley. Two warnings: Those who prefer their profanities out of earshot might consider covering their eyes through parts of this book and those looking for a salacious tell-all will be disappointed.

Now, then - what kind of a beta male pansy would get his knickers in a twist over a few F-bombs?

Bill Littlefield hosts NPR’s “Only A Game” on WBUR. His most recent book is “Take Me Out” from Zephyr Press.

Oh, an NPR / WBUR kind of pansy / snob!

Anyway, let's get back to some Shank bashing!

It’s no surprise that Ortiz resents the sportswriters who asked him about performance-enhancing drugs (which he vehemently denies ever using), particularly the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy, “that [expletive] still walks around like he owns the team.”

There may be more to Papi's criticism of Shank; since this clown Littlefield's writing for the Globe, that's all we'll get for now on any criticism of a Globe employee.

Three Game Streak

That's how many consecutive columns Shank has written after a Celtics loss.

Celtics rookie Tommy Heinsohn scored 37 points with 23 rebounds before fouling out in double overtime of a Game 7 championship win. John Havlicek stole the ball in Game 7. Boston fans chanted “Beat LA” in Game 7. Cedric Maxwell said, “Hop on my back, boys,’’ in Game 7. Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins had their famous shootout in Game 7. The final game of Bird’s career was a Game 7. And young LeBron James once scored 45 points in a Game 7 loss at the New Garden.

Bill Russell played in 10 Game 7s and won ’em all.

“That’s, I guess, when legends are born,’’ guard Isaiah Thomas said Friday after the Celtics’ Game 6 loss in Washington.

Later in the column, Shank mounts his high horse Shetland pony and blasts the Celtics players for showing up for Friday's game in Washington wearing all black. I suppose that's better fashion sense than Shank ever had.

Political Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Aside from the fact that Richard Nixon never fired an FBI director, this tweet's totally accurate!

Absolutely Nixonesque. We have all been here before.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 10, 2017

FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI #FBIDirector #notNixonian pic.twitter.com/PatArKOZlk

— RichardNixonLibrary (@NixonLibrary) May 9, 2017

Reality Check

What a surprise - another Celtics column by Shank, after they've lost two games in a row!

It’s a war of worlds as we prepare for Celtics-Wizards Game 5 Wednesday night at the Garden.

It’s Planet Green Team vs. Planet Reality.

Planet Green Team vs. Planet Reality is more than Isaiah Thomas vs. John Wall. It’s more than Kelly Olynyk vs. Kelly Oubre Jr. It is a clash of cultures and perceptions. It’s two groups of folks who view the same basketball games and come away with wildly different conclusions.

Here's the DSW reality check - Shank is all but incapable of writing about local professional sports teams, managers and / or ownership groups in a non-disparaging fashion. He's also still stealing material from the Felger & Mazz radio show (the aforementioned reference to the Green Team - originally the 1986 Boston Celtics bench players and now a reference to fans of the Celtics).

Where's Waldo Shaughnessy?

A commenter wonders:

where was this fraud when the celts went up 2-0 he was no where to be found what a fraud

You must be new around here, Anonymous - Shank saves his 'best efforts' for when the local team loses in embarrassing fashion!

WASHINGTON — This is one goofy playoff series.

LeBron James must be very, very confused.

Seriously. Which team do you think LeBron wants to play in the conference finals?

I’m guessing he’d rather play the Celtics than the Wizards. What do you think?

It’s always a mistake, of course, to read too much into your last memory. It was Pat Riley who first said a playoff series doesn’t start until the road team wins a game. Blowouts do not necessarily carry over. But even Tommy Heinsohn will have a hard time putting lipstick on the pig that the Celtics were in their two playoff losses at the Verizon Center.

Familiar Subject Matter - II

When the subject matter involves hate, strife and conflict, Shank bangs out another column which almost seems to write itself.

Hard feelings, hard fouls, and hard-core brawls have been part of our professional sports rivalries for more than a century. Posters of Jason Varitek smashing his catcher’s mitt into Alex Rodriguez’s face adorn half the bars in Boston, and Celtics fans still speak fondly of the day Kevin McHale altered a playoff series with his full-speed clothesline tackle of Lakers forward Kurt Rambis.

New England fans in the last two weeks have seen ballplayers throwing deadly objects at other players’ heads, a bull rush/smackdown on a hardwood court, dust-ups where guys are pulling other guys away from conflict, and a nonstop narrative of “your mother wears army boots.’’

All that, and it’s not even hockey season here in the Hub.

Nice touch, that last one!

Familiar Subject Matter

Shank devotes his latest column, ostensibly about Game 3 of the Boston Celtics / Washington Wizards, to a familiar theme.

Celtics, Wizards bring the hate in Game 3

WASHINGTON — The Celtics and Wizards hate each other almost as much as the Red Sox and Orioles. And they’re going to have to play at least two more times, probably more.

The Wizards blasted the Celtics in more ways than one Thursday night at the Verizon Center. Washington raced to its traditional early big lead, but this time kept going and routed the Green, 116-89, cutting Boston’s series lead to two games to one. The angry rivals meet again Sunday night.

Passed Ball

The Globe's been messing with Shank's timeline the past couple of days, so I just stumbled upon this column on Orioles manager Buck Showalter.

You think Buck Showalter hates the Red Sox, right?

The Orioles manager never passes on a chance to tweak the globally famous, big-payroll Red Sox. In the spring of 2011, Buck famously said, “ . . . I like whipping their butt.’’ Just last month he mocked the Sox for complaining about the flu (“The Red Sox are the only ones who have it, huh?”), and we remember last weekend when Buck pointedly talked of his own team’s “courage” for not retaliating after the Sox completely botched their attempt to punish Manny Machado for a questionable slide into Dustin Pedroia.

And in typical Shaughnessy fashion, he just needs to point out...

Oh, and let’s not forget late September 2011, when Buck’s last-place Orioles put the cherry on top of the Red Sox’ epic collapse (remember the “greatest team ever?”) which resulted in the departures of Theo Epstein, Terry Francona, Jonathan Papelbon, Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, J.D. Drew, Heidi Watney, and ultimately Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez. Those rag-tag Orioles beat the Sox in the final two games at Camden Yards and sent the Sox reeling toward three last-place finishes in four seasons. Tito still grouses about Buck insisting on using the large press room for his postgame media session (“for those three writers still covering the Orioles’’), forcing Francona to face his firing squad in a dank underbelly corridor outside the visitors’ clubhouse.

Damn!

See what happens when you wake up late? You miss Shank regurgitating the one column he wrote last week.

On now until 1:00 with @ZoandBertrand. Lots of Sox talk. Adam Jones. Sweet Caroline. All of it.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 2, 2017