Looks Like I Didn't Miss Much Here

I just got out of the hospital after spending five days at Beth Israel Deaconess for a cardiovascular problem that's been largely resolved. My normal daily routine involves reading lots of blogs and websites and small amounts of TV for keeping up on news and current events. Instead I watched a lot of CNBC, Bloomberg Business, ESPN, the Travel Channel and Discovery Channel. The latter two channels were amusing in that if there's an episode on with strange unexplained natural phenomena like crop circles or some such, it was explained by 'could it be... ALIENS???'

By way of contrast, Dan Shaughnessy is quite predictable to the point of boredom and parody, hence the reasons this website's been around for fifteen years now. How predictable is he? Well, I'll let him tell it:

Keeping up with the times is a challenge for this ancient sportswriter

We are all young when we start in this business of writing about professional sports; younger than the players.

I remember being petrified and intimidated, trying to ask questions of grizzled vet Carl Yastrzemski when I was 21 years old in 1975.

Dave Cowens — only four years older than me — was already an NBA MVP by the time I got to his locker in 1976. He told me my inquiry was a “high school question.’’ He was right. I was nervous, nerdy, and not ready.

Now I go into those same rooms and most of the players are younger than my own children.

I turned 66 last month. This means I am three times older than Rafael Devers. Not a little bit older. Not twice as old. Three times as old. For every day Rafael Devers has been on this earth, I have been here three days.
…
But now I am three times older than Rafael Devers and I’m still here. (Don’t get your hopes up, this is not a retirement announcement.)

So much for the early Christmas present!

Actually, it's a pretty good column and that could be from a number of factors - he's not shitting on one of the local pro teams & players, and... well, maybe that's the only compelling factor. We see this 'old grizzled veteran sportswriter' type of column every couple of months, one of his half-dozen or so column templates.

Then again, his other column is right back to the business at hand - complaining about the Red Sox:

The Red Sox foolishly rested their starting pitchers in March and April in expectation that they would have more in the tank for October.

Now there is not going to be an October, so Alex Cora probably will be able to shut down Chris Sale and David Price in the final weeks of this lost season.

Sunday at Fenway was one of those maddening losses that so typifies this annoying Red Sox season. The S.S. Dombrowski extended its trip to nowhere and made it clear that there will be no games for this team in October.

In summary, what we don't have here is a case of plus ca change - it just stays the same, without ever changing, and that's Shank in a nutshell.