You'll Never Walk Alone

Those of you who are familiar with the Boston Red Sox know that the club is primarily owned by John Henry, who also happens to own what's left of the Boston Globe as well as Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League. A bunch of the top clubs in the English Premier League and a few other European leagues tried to form a semi-breakaway league called the Super League, which is primarily a vehicle for these selected clubs (and only them) to play each other and rake in big bucks. It was shot down after two days due to furious fan / supporter backlash from across the pond, there were a few ceremonial firings in the process, and it wound up leaving John Henry looking like a greedy chump.

When I first spotted this column, I half thought 'Oh, boy - Shank's gonna try and talk about soccer' but soccer's the sidebar here. There is something to be said of Shank's ability to write a decent, engaging column when he's able to blowtorch the subject of the column at hand:

A huge victory for soccer fans, a huge setback for John Henry

You’ll never walk alone.

This is the anthem for the Liverpool Football Club. It speaks to fans’ hopes when all seems lost. And defiance in the face of adversity.

Red Sox/Globe owner John Henry has found great riches and success as owner of Liverpool FC since 2010, but today he walks alone at Anfield in the wake of his role in a botched attempt to form a European Super League.

Plans for the elitist, money-grabbing league were unveiled Sunday night, triggering universal condemnation and galvanizing fans against the 12 owners who proposed the tone-deaf breakaway. In Liverpool, Henry endured a fan-driven pummeling 100 times rougher than what happened in Red Sox Nation after he traded Mookie Betts.

The Super League collapsed under the weight of its own greed less than 48 hours after it was introduced, and Henry posted an apology video hours later in which he said, “The project put forward was never going to stand without the support of the fans. No one ever thought differently in England. Over these 48 hours you were very clear that it would not stand. We heard you. I heard you.”

I saw one Twitter comment about that video - 'Turn the sound down - it looks like a hostage video'.

Check out the rest of the column; it's well worth it.