DHL Dan CXLVI - Dealing With Pressure

Shank taps out another picked-up pieces column, probably just to meet his monthly quota:

Picked-up pieces while taking a few minutes away from the Cam Newton vs. Mac Jones debate …

▪ America loves Simone Biles. What’s not to love? She’s a decorated champion, a great ambassador and role model. She has overcome a difficult childhood and the unspeakable trauma of being sexually abused by a US team doctor. A case can be made that she’s the greatest gymnast of all time (four Olympic golds, 19 in world championships).

This past week at the Tokyo Games, after a rare poor vault at the start of team competition, she withdrew from the event, explaining, “I’m not in the right head space. I’m not going to lose a medal for this country and for these girls, because they’ve worked too hard.”

DHL Dan CXLV - Mike Milbury Speaks Up

Don't you just hate it when a sports columnist seemingly boils your life down to the most regrettable thing you've ever said?

Picked-up pieces while sending a birthday card to Mick Jagger, who turns 78 on Monday . . .

▪ Hockey was good to Mike Milbury, and Mike Milbury was good for hockey. He played for Walpole High, Colgate, and 12 seasons with the Bruins before becoming head coach of the Black and Gold, taking them to the Stanley Cup Final in his first season behind the bench. He later coached and ran the New York Islanders, then enjoyed a long career of hockey broadcast analysis, where his candor and wit made him a must-listen every year, especially at playoff time.

And then it all went away with nine words uttered last August in the NHL playoff bubble in Toronto when Milbury was on the air with fellow analyst Brian Boucher.

Boucher was discussing life in the bubble during an Islanders-Capitals broadcast, concluding that the no-fan, no-family bubble was a perfect place for teammate bonding and good competition, when Milbury added, “Not even any women here to disrupt your concentration.”

I had mentioned my conversation with Shank earlier this week in a previous post. While we were cordial and all that, I started wondering about his general character during the conversation, thinking that maybe he says something revealing one way or the other. I asked him about his perceived vindictive nature and he dismissed it (weakly, in my opinion) as 'it's just sports'. His attitude in this column, which can in part be rightly described as dredging up the past, leads me back to my earlier opinions of him, few are which are positive. At least Shank lets him defend himself, but I still think there's an element of scumbaggery here, which I suppose is just part of the territory. Doesn't mean I have to like it or agree with it, though.

Nick Cafardo - Baseball Hall Of Fame Writer

A posthumous reward for the longtime baseball scribe:

Saturday in Cooperstown, N.Y., the late Nick Cafardo takes his rightful place on the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum wall next to the likes of Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, and Damon Runyon. He’ll be on the same wall with Peter Gammons and the late Larry Whiteside, Globe teammates who welcomed Nick to our baseball coverage when we got him from the Patriot Ledger in 1989.

Nick died suddenly outside the Red Sox clubhouse at spring training in 2019 and later that year won a landslide election in which more than 420 baseball writers cast ballots for the BBWAA’s Career Excellence Award.

I didn't know he was at the Patriot Ledger before the Globe; the more you know...

Shank The Scold, A Continuing Series

Get vaccinated!!!! pic.twitter.com/Sco8VQyHnC

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 19, 2021

I'm going to e-mail Shank right now and ask about his own vaccination status. I'll update this post accordingly, or the next post will be a full post on his response if matters warrant it.

UPDATE, at 6:32 PM - E-mail sent!

UPDATE, at 8:15 PM - E-mail received! We had a brief conversation and I emphasized the above point that explicitly mentioning his vaccination status, and perhaps the reasn for it, would make his argument better and I left it at that. I mentioned that it's on him to disclose it and although he offered for me to disclose it, I said no - that's on him. We talked about some other stuff but that's tangential to the main point.

Who's Trolling Who?

JUst to confirm the obvious - Shank writes & tweets more about the Red Sox when they're on losing streaks:

Red Sox spanked 9-1 on Sunday Night Baseball. Are 2-6 and have lost three straight series since trolling everyone with this Twitter bio. pic.twitter.com/gWbLhQlzWo

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 19, 2021

Reader reaction is pretty much what you'd expect:

I wrote this about an hour ago: pic.twitter.com/nIHG9Urqvq

— Geoff Walker (@gewa76) July 19, 2021

Hey Dan do you ever say anything positive about the team

— Ben (@bennythebunny22) July 19, 2021

Having read as much of what you’ve written since 2004 as I could stand, I have to conclude that you prefer being miserable. Ain’t that right, CHB?

— Greg Murphy (@MurphyGreg) July 19, 2021

DHL Dan CXLIV - The Covid Column

Shank thinks all professional baseball players should get vaccines for Covid-19, AKA the Wuhan Flu virus:

Major League Baseball needs to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while nervously waiting for the first Olympic fiasco . . .

▪ Memo to Major League Baseball: Just get the COVID-19 vaccine, fellas. It’s not about politics or a government plot to put a microchip in your body. Risks? Of course. There are risks that you could choke on your steak dinner. Have you stopped eating?

This 'logic', as it were, is unpersuasuive. If you could choke on steak, wouldn't you simply stop eating... steak?

Enough with the boogeyman and the tin-foil-hat, science-denying. It’s pretty clear that the personal benefits from vaccination outweigh the potential risks. This is a public health issue. Stop piggybacking on the cooperation of the majority while endangering that majority (and yourself) by exercising your right to refuse. You have the “right” to push your way into a crowded subway car when you have the flu. How about stepping up for the greater good?

What other measures 'for public health' would Shank (and others) advocate mandating? Has he gotten the vaccine himself? Funny how he doesn't discuss that. Full discosure - because of prior heart attacks, I got two Moderna shots back in May.

Thank God smallpox and polio vaccines came along before all-knowing Dr. Google.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has ordered a mandatory vaccination policy for those who work in his office. He should do the same with his players, coaches, managers, and clubhouse workers. Unfortunately, Manfred is a lawyer and knows he’ll never get a mandate past baseball’s all-powerful Players Association.

Another angle Shank doesn't consider - the FDA fast-tracked approval of these vaccines; last time I checked they have not undergone the full approval process, which can take years. In that sense they are considered experimental vaccines and I have no problem with vaccine skeptics. Too bad Shank disagrees with that notion because one fucking baseball game was cancelled on Friday night.

The Pedro Gomez Contribution

There's a book out on Pedro Gomez, the (now deceased) baseball writer and TV guy for ESPN. Here's Shank's contribution - another rip job on Curt Schilling.

(“Remember Who You Are,” a collection of essays about ESPN baseball reporter Pedro Gomez, who died in February, was released on Tuesday. This is the contribution to the book by columnist Dan Shaughnessy. Click here to visit the book’s website.)

Curt Schilling despised both of us. To his dying day — and it’s still painful to type those words — the thing I shared most with Pedro Gomez was our coveted claim as Schill’s two least-favorite baseball writers.

Our small club was formed during the 2001 World Series when Pedro called out the Diamondbacks ace on the day of the seventh game of the World Series against the vaunted New York Yankees. These were not normal times. America’s soul was ripped open when the Towers fell and the presence of the Yankees in the World Series became a metaphor for American resilience. The Yanks and D-Backs helped heal our country with a spectacular seven-game series, but in my capacity as a Boston Globe sports columnist, I was blissfully unaware of Schilling’s fraudulence and clubhouse divisiveness until he was called out by Republic columnist Pedro Gomez on the day of the most important game in Arizona’s franchise history.

A Local Angle

Uninterested in reporting on the baseball All-Star game, Shank takes a predictable parochial angle to the NBA Finals:

Here’s one (local) reason to be interested in the NBA Finals

If you’ve tuned out the NBA Finals because there’s no LeBron, no Steph Curry, and no Kyrie to boo, there’s still reason to watch the Suns against the Bucks.

It’s the local angle. A kid from Arlington is playing big minutes for the Bucks.

Pat Connaughton is running up and down the court with Giannis Antetokounmpo, guarding Chris Paul, and averaging 10 points and four rebounds and 30 minutes in a series that resumes Wednesday night in Milwaukee with the Bucks trailing, 2-1. Connaughton has made eight of his 17 3-point attempts.

“He brings toughness and versatility,” says former Celtics basketball boss Danny Ainge. “He can switch and guard multiple positions. He’s a strong, tough kid who can guard bigger people and smaller people. He makes open shots and gets offensive rebounds. He’s just a really active player that gives everything he’s got.”

Boston Globe Death Watch - XV

Nothing says corporate self-implosion quite like employees in a dying industry making imperious demands of company management:

Three labor unions representing different groups of Boston Globe employees have sent a joint letter to the newspaper company's ownership and executives, criticizing what they called “a series of aggressive, harmful tactics by management” during labor negotiations.

The main union representing Globe journalists and business employees, The Boston Newspaper Guild, also said that a “super-majority” of members has indicated support for a strike authorization vote, should one be called by a bargaining committee. A statement from the unions alluded to “talk of a potential strike vote,” though the timing on such a vote is at this point unclear.

The letter marks the first time the Newspaper Guild and local chapters of the International Association of Machinists and the Teamsters have joined in coordinated action regarding Globe negotiations, according to the organizations.

If these fools went on strike, all fucking hell will break loose, and I'll love every minute of it.

DHL Dan CXLIII - Strip Mining Away

With the Boston Red Sox doing far better than he anticipated earlier this year, and with no other news items to write about, Shank takes a look back and comes up with a new (and negative) way to describe some parts of former Sox GM Dave Dombrowski's tenure as general manager:

Dave Dombrowski doesn’t agree that he strip-mined the Red Sox to win a title, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while thanking Daddy Globe for not sending me to the Tokyo Olympics . . .

▪ Theo Epstein got all the credit for the 2004 curse-busting Red Sox even though Dan Duquette assembled half the championship roster. It was the oft-maligned Duke who brought Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, Derek Lowe, Johnny Damon, Tim Wakefield, and Kevin Youkilis to town.

In this spirit we should recognize contributions Dave Dombrowski made to the Sox’ first-half success of 2021. John Tomase brought this to our attention in his column for NBC Sports Boston this past week and I tracked down Dombrowski to give him an opportunity for a belated victory lap.

Dombro’s been something of a dartboard ornament since Sox ownership dumped him near the end of the 2019 season, but it’s only fair to acknowledge that he brought J.D. Martinez, Nate Eovaldi, and Chris Sale to town, resisted offers to trade Rafael Devers and Matt Barnes, hired Alex Cora, signed Xander Bogaerts to a team-friendly long-term deal, and drafted outfielder Jarren Duran, who is projected to be a big thing at Fenway someday soon. Dombro also won a World Series and three division flags.

Is anyone else irritated bu his use of 'Dombro'? Unless I'm missing out on some sort of inside joke, I think this is disrespectful and juvenile.

The lasting local perception is that he strip-mined the farm system and left the Sox with nothing in the tank.

Any guesses as to which local sports columnist helped to push this notion?

DHL Dan CXLII - Musings, By Dan Shaughnessy

Now that life's returned to normal, Shank gives us some thoughts about it:

After all we’ve been through, baseball is really helping the recovery, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while fondly remembering Arthur Fiedler leading the Pops through the “1812 Overture” at the Hatch Shell . . .

▪ Sitting in my second-floor home office early Thursday afternoon, I was thumbing through seven daily newspapers (the ultimate sign that you are old) and had NESN’s Sox pregame show on in the background. The scalding-hot Red Sox were getting ready to beat the stuffing out of the Royals again.

Focusing on my New York Post sports, some words from TV got my attention. Young NESN sideline reporter Jahmai Webster was leading into a segment about the Sox going back to the West Coast for the first time in two years, after playing to full houses at Fenway for the past week. He spoke of how it felt like things were getting back to normal and said, “Baseball is healing. Just like nature is healing.’’

More like 'ultimate signs that you are old', but whatever...