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.