DHL Dan LXIII - Hot Stove Whining

It was announced about nine hours ago that the New York Yankees have acquired top free agent Giancarlo Stanton. About two hours ago Shank's already complaining about the Red Sox not responding to it:

■ Giancarlo Stanton is about to become a Yankee. This is big, people. The Yankees now have two guys who combined for 111 homers last season. It’s back to Mantle-Maris, circa 1961. The addition of Stanton gives the Bronx Bombers a lineup that includes Stanton, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius, Brett Gardner, Greg Bird, and Aaron Hicks. The Sox will need more than electronic devices to beat that team. Stanton’s popups to right will be homers in Yankee Stadium. With Derek Jeter helping his old team, the deal is already being compared to Kevin McHale sending Kevin Garnett to the Celtics. Meanwhile, could the Boston baseball winter be any more boring? With the Patriots headed to Minneapolis for the Super Bowl and the Celtics off to a near-historic start, the local baseball team does nothing day after day. And it’s trouble that both Shohei Ohtani and Stanton put Boston on the no-fly list. Guess not everybody wants to play here anymore.

First thing - I continue to be amazed at Shank's ability (and his complete unreasonableness) to whine and bitch about stuff like this. Second thing - I checked a few news stories about this trade (see here and here and here), and I'm unable to verify Shank's hyperbolic statement that "Stanton put Boston on the no-fly list". That's just Shank throwing gas on the fire that he started. Some rational thought on Boston's response can be found here.

From there, it's more baseball stuff and yet another unprofessional criticism of Robert Kraft. Why does he continue to call him Amos Alonzo? Probably because he's still pissed at that Super Bowl breakfast snub from 1996, that's why.

Things that Shank has already written about two dozen times:

■ The AFC has only two good teams and it’s hard to believe the Patriots will be tested any time in January. Most likely to challenge New England is probably the not-so-talented Ravens, because they have two things no one else has: a coach (John Harbaugh) and quarterback (Joe Flacco) who don’t lose their minds at the sight of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

He didn't notice when McGwire and Sosa were hitting all those home runs but he notices it now:

■ Adderall is on the list of banned substances in major league baseball, but according to Sports Illustrated’s L. Jon Wertheim, a 2013 report stated that 119 major league players had obtained “therapeutic use exemptions,” allowing for a prescription and absolvement from any tests detecting the banned substance. That’s almost 10 percent of the MLB workforce with a permission slip allowing a banned substance. Hmm.

Bonus - Larry Bird sighting!