Shank At Cooperstown - II

Here's some more baseball stories by Shank.

Shank At Cooperstown

I think the main reason he's there is to prevent him from writing more negative Red Sox stories, an attitude which these former Red Sox players don't appear to share:

“They’re really good,’’ (Pedro) Martinez said. “I mean it. Everyone can see the wins, but I’ve looked at that lineup and matched it up against our lineup when we won in 2004 and you know what? These guys are just a little bit better. It’s going to come down to the pitching and how those big guys do in the big moment. We had those guys. Schill had done it. I had done it. And D-Lowe — he was just crazy enough not to worry in the big moments. He just wanted to throw the ball.’’

Shank Confronts Bill Belichick - II

Here's the official Globe write-up of Shank's attempted ambush of Patriots coach Bill Belichick.

FOXBOROUGH — I came in peace. Truly.

I like and respect Bill Belichick. Like most of you, I think he might be the greatest football coach who ever lived.

But I just had to ask.

And to the surprise of no one . . . he had no answer. He didn’t want to go there.

So it looks like we might never know why Malcolm Butler didn’t play in Super Bowl LII. It’s become one of the unsolved mysteries of all time, along with the lost city of Atlantis, Stonehenge, and who killed JFK. There are theories all over the place, but we still have no definitive answer.

Oh, please - just do some fucking research, maybe read your own paper for once? What a lazy hack - quit pretending 'we might never know'. What a douchebag!

Shank Confronts Bill Belichick

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick held his first press conference of the 2018-2019 season, and Shank is there to ask him some uncomfortable questions:

During a press conference at training camp this morning, the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy pressed Belichick about the Butler decision multiple times. Here’s the full exchange:

Belichick hardly ever grumbles more than a few syllables when a reporter tries to bait him, but Shaughnessy seemed to actually get under his skin a bit. When Shaughnessy asked him if he cared that fans still want answers about what happened with Butler, Belichick unleashed what qualifies as a rant for him:

I’m focused on doing the best I can for the 2018 New England Patriots. That’s my job, that’s what I’m going to do. That’s what I’ve always done in the past. Every day that I’ve coached here, I’ve done the best I can for this football team and I’ll continue to do that. Right now, my focus is on the 2018 season. Not 2017. Not 2014. Not 2007. Not 2004. Not 2001. Not 2000. I’m not focused on any of those seasons. They’re done.

Normally I’d consider a line of questioning like Shaughnessy’s to be tiresome, obvious grandstanding, but this is a situation in which a months-old coaching decision actually deserves continued scrutiny. Not only did Belichick bench his best and most reliable corner before the biggest game of the season, he then refused to fix his own mistake and put Butler back in while the Eagles continued to light up his secondary. This was an act of coaching malpractice carried out during the goddamn Super Bowl, and Belichick’s refusal to explain why it happened should continue to be called out. I say keep asking him about it until he retires.

Recycling - Not Just For Shank!

I had one of those shredding companies come by the house this morning and rip through ten boxes of old tax returns, some of them going back to the year 2000 or so.

While I'm not 100% certain if that meets the definition of recycling, I do know that this is:

On today with @ZoandBertrand from 11-1. Plenty of Pats, might get into Ted Williams on PBS and Dan's Dates at 12:45,

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 24, 2018

"Plenty of Pats" means he'll more or less read from his most recent column for the first segment at 11:00.

Shank's Annual Patriots Jihad Starts Early

Do you need an example of Shank attempting to create controversy where it didn't exist before? Behold, his first column on the 2018-2019 New England Patriots:

The team that hasn’t played a game, or held a full-squad practice, is the team that’s dominated our sports news cycle over the last 5½ months.

The Patriots are unavailable for comment. They are unaccessible unless your name is Oprah Winfrey or stooge Jim Gray. They hold no official team news conferences. They won’t even trot out Sarah Huckabee Sanders to promote the gospel of Foxborough.

In this absence of news and explanation we try to connect the dots. We devour words from “sources close to the team.’’ We comb the internet for cryptic tweets and Instagram postings. We try to crack secret codes and discern hidden meetings. We examine photos of Tom Brady at the Met Gala or Bob Kraft at the Rich Guy Retreat in Idaho. We monitor Bill Belichick sightings on Nantucket and watch Gronk at a dirt bike event. We study “Tom Vs. Time” the same way we dissected the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album to see if the lads were sending a message that Paul was dead.

Way to relate to current fans - cite an album that was cut while I was still crapping my diapers!

This column reeks of every single negative thing Shank can muster and throw against the wall, hoping some of it will stick.

Also - Globe comments are wisely turned off for this column. Given the hostile tone, it's not surprising.

Rainy Tuesday

It's raining outside right now, so it makes sense for Shank to continue to rain on the Red Sox parade, writing / reusing a column theme he's been beating to death the past few weeks, with a helpful caption / reminder below the top picture:

Xander Bogaerts (left) and Brandon Workman are the only two Red Sox players with championship rings (from the 2013 World Series).

So much winning.

I am reading that these 2018 Red Sox might be the best Red Sox team ever. I have been made aware that no team has ever won 68 games before the All-Star break. I know that of the 19 teams to win 68 of their first 98 games, 17 went on to win the pennant and 11 won the World Series.

The Red Sox are white-hot and they’re going to stay hot after the break. Starting Friday in Detroit, the Sox resume their season with series against the Tigers, Orioles, and Twins (aggregate 63 games under .500). Alex Cora’s men might be playing .700 baseball by the time they face another team with a winning record.

These Arbitron Ratings = Blutarsky's GPA

The best two hours of local sports talk radio... said no one, ever:

On @ZoandBertrand today from 11-1. Hardy filling in for Beetle. Sarge doing the headlines. Basically, the Dream Team of local sports radio. Dan's Dates at 1:45.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 17, 2018

I do feel a little sorry for Scott Zolak, though.

March Of The Summer Tomato Cans

The Toronto Blue Jays snapped the Red Sox's 10 game winning streak last night, 13 - 7. Shank is there to rain on their parade:

Sorry Sox fans. Still impossible to tell how good Sox are. Jays, like Angels, Nats, Royals and Rangers just begging to be beaten. #marchoftomatocans

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 13, 2018

Readers are there to remind Shank of a few things:

Right exactly. As if it's the Red Sox fault that everybody else is terrible. They all get their fair share of terrible teams to play and the Red Sox have pulverized everybody else the hardest.

— David Nielson (@DaveNielsonKW) July 14, 2018

You've been doing the same act with @Patriots for 17 years...its all about bad competition and never about the thehome team just being good. What's truly impossible, is to figure out how you get continuously paid for writing the same ole shit every day.

— Brian Sullivan (@bsbigtime) July 14, 2018

Remember that time you said shit about the Eagles for two weeks and changed your profile picture to a tomato can... thank god the players and coaching staffs take their opponents more seriously than you

— Trevor Barnette(@trevor_barnette) July 14, 2018

And the winner:

For the love of God.....c'mon Dan.....you're the guy that would complain about too much teeth in a BJ

— JD64 (@JMDon64) July 14, 2018

The David Price Paradox

Shank wants to take a monster shit on the Red Sox lefty, but can't quite bring himself to do it.

Had a quick back-and-forth with my main man, David Price, at his locker Wednesday afternoon. Here’s how it went:

Me: “You said you were ‘searching’ after that bad outing in KC the other night. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Price: “Yup.”

Me: “Can you tell me what you learned?”

Price: “Nope.”

And it goes downhill from there, with Shank egging him on and Price lying through his teeth.

In case you're wondering, here's Shank ripping off / reusing local talk radio to write part of his columns for him:

Caller on Line 1: “Yeah, I love the Red Sox, but I just don’t trust David Price in a big game. He’s soft. He thinks too much. Are we gonna be able to pitch him against the Yankees, or in the playoffs?’’

Host: “Can’t argue with any of that. That’s the $217 million question for the Red Sox in the next few months.’’

Compare And Contrast - A Continuing Series

Dan Shaughnessy, yesterday:

Try to find good baseball conversation. Spend an hour alternating between the Sports Hub and WEEI and take note of how little baseball conversation you hear.

Dan Shaughnessy, this morning:

On today with @ZoandBertrand from 11-1. Will see if I can cajole Zo into making fun of baseball. Dan's Dates, too

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 10, 2018

Is cajoling someone into 'making fun of baseball' a way to promote 'good baseball conversation'? It is not - Shank is not serious about the former comment, as it distracts from his primary summer mission - dismissing and destroying the Red Sox in any manner possible.

And Now For Some (Objective) Bruce M*** Bashing

The quarterly magazine he works for, Commonwealth Magazine, has a readership whose readers have just become more selective. Let's hear it from the horse's mouth:

TODAY’S RELEASE of the print issue of CommonWealth will be our last. After surveying readers (both of them! - ed.), consulting with board members of MassINC, and holding many discussions with my colleagues here at the magazine, I’ve decided we should stop printing the quarterly print magazine and focus all of our attention and resources on the CommonWealth website.

The decision wasn’t easy. MassINC has been publishing the magazine for more than 20 years, but the growing success of our 9-year-old website and its various digital products has forced a re-evaluation of our priorities. The website has become our prime vehicle for reaching readers and an important part of the way public policy is explored in Massachusetts.

In the end, I concluded the print magazine took too much time and too many resources to produce. My belief is that these resources should be redeployed to the website, its various digital products, and our podcast, which we call The Codcast.

We explored a number of compromise positions, including publishing a thinner magazine (you’ll notice this issue is a bit narrower), a smaller-sized magazine, and even reducing the number of issues we publish. We evaluated each option closely, but in the end they all felt as if they were merely delaying the inevitable.

Good luck with going to a pay site, or the real 'delaying of the inevitable' is just a few more years away.

Easy Call Made / Glass Is Half Empty Guy

The Boston Red Sox have the best record in baseball and have won six road games in a row. Once again, Shank belittles this achievement by saying 'all the other teams suck':

The Red Sox Sunday completed their three-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals. Aggregate score: Boston 32, Kansas City 13.

The Sox are now 62-29 — 33 games over .500. The Royals have lost nine straight and 27 of 31. KC is 39 games under .500.

If one team is winning a lot of games, that strongly implies another team / teams is / are losing a lot of games. Logic has never been one of Shank's strong suits.

The Sox come home Monday and get to play the last-place Rangers for the next three nights. Then we’ll get a weekend look at the moribund Blue Jays who are 20 games out of first place.

On and on it goes. Meaningless game after meaningless game as the Red Sox put up cartoonish numbers while we wait for the real games to start in October. So much winning.

Whoop dee do.

If anyone has doubts about Shank despising at least this local professional sports team, that last little sentence should remove all doubt. This column goes on to make some good points about some of the reasons behind the declining popularity of baseball, but they are greatly devalued with flippant comments like that one.

Are you ready for this particular load of crap?

Here in baseball-savvy Boston, the Olde Towne Team is playing at a near-record pace, but it seems that local sports fans only want to talk about the Celtics and NBA free agency. Tom Brady and Julian Edelman. Try to find good baseball conversation. Spend an hour alternating between the Sports Hub and WEEI and take note of how little baseball conversation you hear. Unless there’s yet another caller bashing David Price, the Sox don’t generate much sports talk these days.

Shank appears for two hours on 98.5 The Sports Hub just about every week. If he feels there isn't enough baseball conversation, there's a way to address that problem - provide it when you do these appearances.

Strikeout inflation is a big part of the problem. I have grown to hate strikeouts. A strikeout used to be a measure of a pitcher’s dominance. Not anymore. Everybody strikes out. All the time. A 10-strikeout effort by a starting pitcher is no longer a big deal. For the first time in history, baseball features more strikeouts than hits. This will be the 11th consecutive season in which MLB sets a record for strikeouts.

Whoop dee bloody do.

See what I mean?

In case you're wondering, Shank still hates numbers and the people that use them:

Aanalytics (copy desk - get me rewrite! - ed.) are out of control. Even commissioner Rob Manfred agrees. Manfred recently told The Athletic, “There is a growing recognition that analytics have produced certain trends in the game that we may need to be more proactive about reversing. There are owners that feel that way. There are fans that feel that way.’’

Meanwhile, as the game is taken over by geeks, the players become more faceless. Mike Trout? Great player. Why isn’t he as popular and well known as Kevin Durant or Steph Curry?

I don't know, Shank - maybe columnists could write about him some more?

This is fairly irritating - Shank bitches and moans about a lack of certain sports conversation, yet he is in a position to rectify this in two ways - in print and in media. If he chooses not to do so, I think he should shut the hell up about it. That is the root of passive-aggressive behavior, which is in my book a character flaw.

Larry Bird Watch?

Well, not exactly! The Boston Celtics picked Jabari Bird in the second round of last year's NBA draft, and he had a couple of nice dunks in a recent NBA Summer League game. I can hardly wait for Shank to take notice and make some cheesy wordplay between the two Birds. Of course, that would require Shank to actually watch a few games.

Is Correlation Causation?

With respect to certain columns written by Shank, it sure as hell is. His last column concerning the Red Sox was after David Price got shelled in a 11-0 loss to the New York Yankees. Since then, the Red Sox have reeled off four straight wins. Anyone else notice a lack of Red Sox columns from that point to this afternoon?

DHL Dan LXXI - The Edelman Quandry

If your name is Dan Shaughnessy, there's no offseason when it comes to ragging on the New England Patriots:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for the World Cup to end so we can resume our daily lives . . .

Remember when Shank used to like World Cup soccer? Good times!

■ Julian Edelman’s four-game PED suspension has been upheld. Far be it from me to be cynical, but is anyone still wondering what he took and where he got it? Tom Brady’s shady training guru, Alex Guerrero, was quick to distance himself in the hours after Edelman’s failed test became public (Edelman is a TB12 client). In those same early days, Albert Breer of The MMQB wrote that Edelman’s positive test was “triggered by a substance that wasn’t immediately recognizable and there are scientists analyzing it.’’ The fact that we still don’t know what Edelman took (the NFL never discloses the substances in failed tests) strikes me as unfortunate and suspicious given Edelman’s status as a Guerrero client. Like it or not, the ongoing ambiguity casts suspicion and doubt on all things TB12. Maybe Edelman can take his case to court and have Fanboy Judge Richard Berman sort things out.

Rag on a Boston Celtic player while we're at it? Shank's got you covered!

...
■ When do we stop hearing rumors about Kyrie Irving going to the Knicks? Irving will not commit to Boston beyond next season. He also will not be called away to appear at the Oscars in March to celebrate the abomination that is “Uncle Drew.’’

Some people would take issue with that characterization....

And why does Shank continue to shit on former Red Sox players - because boss / owner John Henry told him to stop ragging on current Red Sox players?

■ Could David Ortiz get himself out there just a little bit more? Sandy Koufax he is not. It’s hard to turn on any device without finding Big Papi providing analysis or selling you something on the other end.

Repeat Radio

Shank was on 98.5 this morning:

Sitting in on ZoandBertrand today from 11-1. With Adam Jones and Christian Arcand. We at vacation Tomato Cans for Sports Hub.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 3, 2018

I listened in at 11:10; it was a rehash of his David Price columns from the past couple of days, someone mentioned Tomato Cans, and... off went the car radio.

Color Me Shocked! - II

Well, that didn't take long, did it?

NEW YORK -- It’s not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It’s Lincoln Tunnel Syndrome.

Mercy!

David Price willingly put the bull’s-eye on his back. He teased about not being able to pitch against the Yankees because he’d played too much fortnite. He said this was going to be just another game.
And then he submitted perhaps the loudest, worst starting performance of his decorated career.

Too hot (91 degrees Sunday night)? Too cold (42 when the Yanks lit up Price in Fenway in April)? Allergies?

Without a doubt.

We know for sure now that Price is allergic to Pinstripes. He is allergic to the Bronx.

In what was billed by everyone as the most important non-playoff start in Price’s three-year career with the Red Sox, he surrendered five homers and eight runs in 3⅓ innings of a 11-1 loss to the Bombers Sunday. The Yankees vaulted back into first place and Price slinked off to Washington, spitting out pieces of his broken luck.

With the 2,000'th utterance of that little Jethro Tull lyric (an otherwise enjoyable song) in his column, time for this cat to stop reading...

Color Me Shocked!

Red Sox pitcher David Price just got lit up for four runs in the first inning against the New York Yankees, and he's not taking a major shit on him via Twitter. I reckon that's because he's furiously typing out his next column, lowering the boom on Price in his initial effort to run him out of town, like he's done with so many Red Sox players. Stay tuned!