Back On The Bandwagon?

With the Boston Red Sox now in the playoffs, their opponet is their traditional rival, the New York Yankees. After shitting on the Red Sox and their ownership team for a majority of the past four years this season, Shank's now back at the front of the bandwagon:

Red Sox-Yankees in the playoffs. Does it get any better than this?

It’s just too good.

The Red Sox are in the playoffs Tuesday for the first time in four years, only the second time since they won the World Series in 2018 . . . and they are playing a best-of-three against the New York Yankees.

Red Sox-Yankees. Again.

Do we need to educate the young’uns and remind everyone what this means?

Red Sox-Yankees is an all-timer. It’s Harvard vs. Yale, Kennedy vs. Nixon, Athens vs. Sparta.

It’s Ohio State-Michigan, Army-Navy, Trump-Comey.

It is the ultimate American sports rivalry and we are getting it in the first round of baseball’s ever-expanding playoffs.

Strap yourselves in for two (possibly three) nights of hard-ball history and histrionics. This could be great. Enjoy the ride.

It's a good column by Shank, but I wonder - if Aaron Judge finally snaps out of his postseason slumps (and it's not pretty), do they win this series?

DHL Dan CCLXX - The Baseball Playoff Column

After the Boston Red Sox wrapped up a playoff slot this season (that next to nobody was able to watch because John Henry wants to nickle and dime us to death by putting these Friday games on Apple+), Shank takes a look at recent (non) Red Sox playoff runs:

Why not the Red Sox this October, and other thoughts ahead of the baseball playoffs

Picked up pieces while waiting for the baseball playoffs to begin . . .

Time to exhale, Red Sox Nation. The Sox are going to the playoffs again. Finally. The Alex Cora Athletic Club (ACAC?) made it official late Friday at Fenway, coming from behind to beat the Tigers, 4-3, in a pulsating walkoff win — probably Boston’s best baseball game since 2021.

Time to dig out that Instagram photo of Red Sox principal owner John Henry, who also owns the Globe, sitting in front of his fireplace smoking a stogie after signing free agent Alex Bregman in February. It’s Auerbach-esque, providing a hazy whiff of winning ways that marked Fenway Sports Group in its first 18 summers (2002-2019) of ownership.

Those “so-good, so-good” championship campaigns went away in recent years as the big-market Sox pivoted toward baseball’s big middle, finishing last three times after firing Dave Dombrowski and trading/salary-dumping Mookie Betts. Chaim Bloom was hired and fired, and Henry and Co. were booed at a mid-winter fan event. There was one outlier season in 2021 — 92 wins and an appearance in the ALCS — but it never felt like the good old days.

It’s better now.

It's better for now...

Just A Little Patience

Bill Parcells was inducted into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame last week. Shank was one of the few people who talked to Parcells after his induction:

Bill Parcells, now a Patriots Hall of Famer, looks back: ‘I should have been more patient’

A few choice words got my attention when Bill Parcells delivered his eight-minute speech as he was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame on Saturday.

“This place has a place in my heart and it always will,” said the 84-year-old former Patriots coach. “We sometimes reflect on things and you wish you would have done things a little different. Well, when I come back here and see this — I wish I would have done things a little different."

If you weren’t around 30 years ago, you might not know the complex, combustible history between Parcells and Patriots owner Bob Kraft.

A two-time Super Bowl winner, and perhaps the greatest team-builder in NFL history, Parcells already was in place when Kraft bought the Patriots in 1994, and the two fought bitterly when Kraft went behind the Tuna’s back on draft day in 1996. Parcells bolted for the Jets immediately after the Patriots were beaten by the Packers in Super Bowl XXXI, triggering a legal battle that had to be settled by the NFL commissioner. New England came away with draft picks and cash, but Parcells got a bigger prize when he signed Patriots running back Curtis Martin, who went on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Parcells-Kraft Border War was every bit as bad as what we’re seeing today between Bill Belichick and the now 84-year-old Patriots owner.

DHL Dan CCLXIX - Nail Biter

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank's happy that the Red Sox are in the playoff hunt:

Thanks to the Red Sox’ nailbiter of a playoff chase, this is our best September in a while, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while checking last night’s baseball scores every morning . . .

⋅ It’s our best September in a while. The weather’s been spectacular and those of us who consider daily box scores one of the major food groups search for results as soon as we get out of bed.

Are the Sox actually going to blow this thing? How’d the Yankees do last night? Will Houston or Seattle win the AL West? Are the billion-dollar Mets going off a cliff? Could Rafael Devers and the Giants actually make it to the postseason?

This isn’t a real pennant race like the Red Sox gave us in the pre-wild-card days, but Rob Manfred’s contrived, inclusive playoff system is working for me in 2025. Today, I’m officially thanking Sox owners for finally making good on their annual offseason pledge to play “meaningful games” in late September and October. It’s been too long and we’ve tolerated too many phony NESN moments hyping the illusion of contention when we knew the Sox had no chance to qualify for MLB’s annual October bakeoff.

This fall is different. The ’25 Red Sox are the proverbial little girl with the curl. When they are good they are very good, and when they are bad they are horrid.

So, no 'illusion of contention' this year, Shank?

Kick Start

After yesterday's thrilling 33-27 win at Miami, Shank wonders if that game's the start of something good for the New England Patriots:

Mike Vrabel’s Patriots may have started a return to good fortunes at, of all places, the Hard Luck at Hard Rock Stadium

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Years from now, maybe this will be where it all began.

Maybe the Patriots will be good again and folks will point to a hot and humid Sunday when they finally threw off the Hard Luck at Hard Rock Stadium, refused to fold, and got a few breaks in a 33-27 road win vs. the Dolphins.

The lasting video clip will be the one of Mike Vrabel attempting to run stride for stride with 27-year-old burner Antonio Gibson while the kick returner was winning the game with a 90-yard dash to daylight, seconds after the Pats had allowed a 74-yard punt return which had all of Patriot Nation moaning, “Here we go, again.”

“We had just given up the punt return, but then Gibby answered,” said Vrabel, who no doubt submitted his best 40-time since he was a rookie linebacker for the Steelers in 1997. “I felt like we were willing to get into a street fight. We had a little lull, but we didn’t pack it up and quit.”

Street fight indeed. At times this looked like two teetering drunks trying to slug it out in the Seaport after last call. Vrabel’s first win as Patriots head coach was a sloppy 60 minutes between two NFL wannabes, but it was wildly entertaining.

DHL Dan CCLXVIII - Fair Or Unfair

Seeing this is a column from Shank, I'll go with unfair:

Fair or unfair, the pressure is quickly mounting on Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces en route to a “big game” for the Patriots in Miami . . .

⋅ Fair or unfair, it feels like every Patriots game now is a referendum on second-year quarterback Drake Maye.

Love the Drake? Hate the Drake?

Drake is the next Drew Bledsoe. Swell.

Drake is the next Mac Jones. Boo.

Maye just turned 23. He has played only 14 NFL games, starting 13. Only once has he won a game in which he started and finished (19-3, at Chicago in November).

He is earnest, athletic, has three older brothers who are all athletes, and was anointed our franchise quarterback when the Patriots made him the third pick of the 2024 NFL Draft.

We know we have to be patient with any young NFL quarterback not named Tom Brady. We remember Bledsoe losing eight of his first nine games in 1993, then finishing his rookie season with four straight wins and taking the Patriots to the playoffs (a 20-13 loss to Bill Belichick’s Browns) in his second. Two years later, Bledsoe had the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

So Predictable!

Yesterday, I mentioned it would take Shank a few losses by the New England Patriots for him to start ripping the team. Boy, was I wrong!

Patriots’ opener was supposed to supply some answers but instead left questions about Drake Maye

FOXBOROUGH — Can we blame this on Bill Belichick, too?

Pete Carroll and the Las Vegas Raiders beat the Patriots, 20-13, Sunday, in New England’s much-anticipated season opener at Gillette.

It rained all afternoon. Top draft pick Will Campbell got beat on a couple of bull rushes and committed a crushing pre-snap penalty late in the fourth. Mike Vrabel’s decision to punt from near midfield, down by 10 with 4:53 left, was right out of the Joe Judge-Matt Patricia playbook. New England generated virtually zero offense in the second half.

Oh, and after the Pats took a 10-7 halftime lead, second-year quarterback Drake Maye threw an interception that tipped everything in the Raiders’ favor early in the second half.

Let’s blame the Hoodie. Relations between the Krafts and the Belichicks are at an all-time low, and blaming Bill for everything always will be easier than swallowing the notion that this might be another long, sad football autumn in New England.

Next week's game against the Miami Dolphins (where they've tended to lose in recent history) will be a barometer for more Patriots bashing by Shank, who doesn't mind doubling his weekly column output if he can continue to take a proxy dump on Robert Kraft.

DHL Dan CCLXVII - Anticipation

In Friday's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank talks up the New England Patriots after a few years in the wilderness:

There probably hasn’t been this much anticipation for a Patriots game since Tom Brady left, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while noting that Tommy Cutlets wears the No. 16 for the Patriots once worn by Scott Zolak . . .

⋅ The NFL season is finally here and New England waits breathlessly for the beginning of the Mike Vrabel era, when the Patriots and Raiders kick off at 1 p.m. Sunday at Gillette.

Patriots Nation is agog. There probably hasn’t been this much anticipation since Tom Brady prepped for what would end up being his final Patriots game: a 20-13 playoff loss to Vrabel’s Titans in January 2020.

A lot of stuff has happened to the Patriots since that day. Most of it bad.

Brady bolted for Tampa in the middle of the pandemic and Patriots Nation subsequently endured a chorus line of QB castaways, wannabes, and never weres: Cam Newton, Mac Jones, Jarrett Stidham, Brian Hoyer, Bailey Zappe, Jacoby Brissett, and Joe Milton.

...

Those were the good old days . . . when the Patriots ruled the football world . . . when Wiggy would say, “They hate us cuz they ain’t us!"

It was great then. It could be great again. And Patriots Nation believes it’ll start this weekend against the Raiders at Gillette.

It's subtle, but still there - set up the team with high expectations so he can rip them down the road when they lose a few games.

The Class of 2029

Shank welcomes the college students who are new to Boston:

New to town, college students? Here’s a few suggestions to assure you’re getting the full Boston sports experience.

Welcome to Boston, college class of 2029. Most of you are scheduled to be here for the next four years and some of you might stick around considerably longer. Maybe forever.

The last week, we’ve seen your out-of-state license plates on the Mass. Pike and Storrow Drive: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Michigan. Hope you’re comfy in your new digs and enjoying the stimulus and fast-paced living of our cities and suburbs. Keep your heads up and ears open.

Warning: There’s a chance you’re going to become a Boston sports fan. Don’t be surprised if you adopt the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins while you’re studying and playing in your college homestead.

It happens all the time. Out-of-towners live the Fenway, Gillette, and Garden experience and carry it into adulthood. We see (and hear) them when the Sox, Pats, C’s, and B’s play in Baltimore, Charlotte, Tampa, and Texas. Boston teams are supported at venues across America and much of it comes from folks who fell in love when they lived and studied here from the ages of 18-22.