Vomit-inducing: randy moss interviewing Gronk for MNF. Why not Deion Sanders and Antonio brown? Hate-watch is underway
— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 24, 2020
I think we all know that Brady’s greatest weapon in 2020 is pass interference
— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 24, 2020
Brady gets away with another fumble that’s not called. What a joke
— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 24, 2020
Today we turn to The CHB's favorite subject -- baseball -- and his favorite punching bags -- baseball players.
Specifically, yet another Hall of Fame column column on the Hall of Fame. And, ad nauseam, a shot at David Ortiz for NOT being a talented ass like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and countless others who might well miss their opportunity at immortality.
"Big Papi has Hall of Fame numbers and is beloved by the baseball community, especially commissioner Rob Manfred. On the day Ortiz retired in 2016, Manfred flew to Boston and gave him what amounted to a presidential pardon, instructing Hall voters not to trust results of the 2003 baseball drug testing in which Ortiz came up positive."
Thankfully, this is just the lede of one of his lazy man "picked-up pieces" columns, so long-suffering readers need not suffer too long.
As we know, The CHB finds abhorrent any data more complicated than an RBI. So it's strange, but not out of form, that he takes yet another shot at the Red Sox, whose received low marks in a recent fan poll.
Apparently, the Sox finished tied for last of the five major local pro sports teams (yes, the Revolution were included. Has soccer taken off yet?) for “most admired team for the way they run their organization.” But let's be real: Fans are fickle. The Red Sox had a shit year and people are down on the team.
To further the point, when asked which team’s ownership has done the best job over the past year, the Celtics jumped 36 percentage points from a year ago, and the Pats fell 44 percentage points.
These are constantly moving targets, like a Top 40 radio list. It's barely worth a mention, even in a Shaughnessy column.
This is the best part. In the same column where -- frontrunner that he is -- The CHB fetes Theo Epstein, calling him a future Hall of Famer, and credits him for the Sox World Series championship in 2018 (not a typo), he manages to excoriate him for being "a Moneyball, card-carrying member of Bill James Youth."
So it's no surprise, a few grafs later, when he takes the the Red Sox to task for recruiting the wrong kind of staff: "... qualifications include 'advanced understanding of statistical methods or machine learning techniques, proficiency with modern database technologies including SQL, demonstrated experience with programming languages (e.g. R or Python).' So much for a veteran scout who can tell you when a young hitter has trouble with the curve."
Do you think he noticed that Theo's Bill James Youth methods led to (by Dan's count) three WS winners?
How'd all those veteran scouts work out for the Red Sox between 1919 and 2003?
About as well as this column does.
This is the next to last year Curt can make the HOF. Like I mentioned last year, all Curt has to do is not say anything political from now until mid-January and he's a shoo-in, because Shank and a good swath of other HOF voters hate conservatives.The ballot is out and Curt Schilling will be voted into the Hall of Fame when results are announced in January.
— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 17, 2020
Patriots fans season reactions
— Jordan Moore (@iJordanMoore) November 16, 2020
Wk 1: same ‘ole Pats
Wk 2: best loss ever
Wk 3: who needs Brady?
Wk 4: would’ve won w/ Cam
Wk 5: just gotta get healthy
Wk 6: wtf was that?
Wk 7: blow it up, have to tank
Wk 8: Cam is terrible, tank!
Wk 9: we won! But barely
Wk 10: playoff bound!
Midway through the third quarter, with the Patriots about to take a 23-10 lead on the Baltimore Ravens, NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth assessed the Patriots' prospects in the 2020 AFC East and uttered words that will be repeated 1 million times on Boston sports talk radio this week:From there we get a Rod Rust reference and a quote from Napoleon and the rest of the column is readable, devoid of the trademark snark and pessimissim.
"They’re right back in it.''
Seriously.
The Patriots, who were 3-5 coming into “Sunday Night Football.”
The Patriots, who struggled mightily to beat the 0-8 Jets last week.
The Patriots, who have no Tom Brady, who had eight guys opt out, and are decimated with injuries.
Right . . . back . . . in it.
I’m not so sure about this. But after three weeks of hearing about Tanking for Trevor, New England’s narrative changed when the Pats beat the Ravens, 23-17, on a dark and stormy Sunday night at Gillette Stadium.
With seven games left in their season, the 4-5 Patriots trail the 7-3 Buffalo Bills by 2½ games. The Pats are two games behind the 6-3 Dolphins. But suddenly there is hope. Now we are going to hear about Tomato Can Houston (2-7) next weekend, December rematches with both Buffalo and Miami, and an expanded playoff format that rewards mediocrity.
Picked-up pieces while mourning the loss, and celebrating the life and times, of Tommy Heinsohn …He also complains about Tom Brady, a new book titled "The Dynasty" because he thinks it was practically written by Bob Kraft, says more nice things about recently deceased Celtics legend Tommy Heinsohn, and thinks the college football season should be cancelled - right now.
▪ Chaim Bloom is a devout man with the highest standards of integrity. Given the way he lives his life, was it hard for Bloom to hire a manager who got caught cheating?
“It was certainly something I had to wrestle with, that I had to think a lot about,” the Red Sox chief baseball officer acknowledged in a phone call Thursday night. “I didn’t take it lightly.
"I also came to the conclusion that it wasn’t something that should disqualify him. It wasn’t something that should be held so heavily against him that he should never work in the game again or that I would be unwilling to employ him again.”
It’s hard to believe rehiring Cora was Bloom’s call. Tuesday’s carefully crafted press conference didn’t convince me otherwise.
No. 15 in the rafters. No. 1 in the heart of every Celtics fan.
Tommy Heinsohn. Boston Celtics. Impossible to separate, one and the same. He was a Hall of Fame player, coach, and broadcaster. If you are a New England sports fan under the age of 75, you have no memory of a time when Tommy Heinsohn was not part of the Celtics.
Tommy died Monday at the age of 86. It’s a huge loss. Bet he had some NBA draft tips he was ready to share with Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens. Tommy always had an opinion and never lost his fastball. Ask those smart young folks at NBC Sports Boston who remember a huge man in his mid-80s still driving himself to Burlington two or three times a week for lively, late-night analysis duty. Who does that at that age?
A Red Sox fan’s dilemma: Does the return of Alex Cora make you happy or disappointed?Just a reminder - Shank was on both sides of this one.
The Red Sox are bringing back Alex Cora to manage for the 2021 season.
How does this make you feel?
The Sox made it official Friday, anointing Cora as the 49th manager in team history.From there he goes on in that vein, with nary a hint of prior (dis)agreement.
As a Red Sox fan, does this make you happy or disappointed?
It’s been almost six weeks since the Sox fired Ron Roenicke after an uninspired, underperforming team finished in last place in the 60-game pandemic summer of 2020. In this span, Boston baseball boss Chaim Bloom has interviewed at least nine candidates, including Cora. None of the others were former big league managers. None of them were Alex Cora.
...How long do you think the first serious losing streak of Cora's 2021 Red Sox season will need to be before Shank changes his tune once again?
Here’s hoping they play it straight. The Red Sox should just come out and tell everyone, "We believe in second chances. Alex Cora is our guy. He was our guy all along.''
Just say it, live with it, and move forward.
My favorite sports trivia question of all time comes into play today.Yaaaaaaawn...
As of this minute, there are four American institutions of higher learning that can claim 1. at least one student who went on to become President of the United States, and 2. at least one other student who went on to become a Super Bowl-winning quarterback.
Hint: Harvard is not one of the schools. Five US presidents were Harvard undergrads, but no former Crimson QB has won a Super Bowl ring. If Ryan Fitzpatrick somehow leads the Dolphins to a Lombardi Trophy in February, we can add Harvard to our list.
For Patriots, Bills loss means it’s over: the division, the path to playoffs, and the dynastyOff the bandwagon in what, three weeks? What a dismount this is!
Ghoulish. Halloween-worthy.The game recap, as well as the season & dynasty burial, is the rest of the column.
We have flat-lined this dynasty many times before today. We have announced that it is over for Bill Belichick and the Patriots. And we have been premature. Wronger than wrong.
This time it’s an easy call. There is no coming back from this one. A guy named Zimmer (DeForest Buckner was occupied at a game in Detroit) punched the ball out of Cam Newton’s hands in Orchard Park, N.Y., sealing a 24-21 Bills win and drawing the curtain on a 19-year run that included 17 playoff appearances, nine Super Bowls, and six Lombardi Trophies.
The Patriots are not very good this year, but until now, they still had a chance. They still had a path to the playoffs. A win against the Bills Sunday would have enabled them to pull to within 1½ games of Buffalo with nine to play. A win against the Jets next Monday would have made New England 4-4 and positioned the Pats to win the AFC East for the 12th straight season.
