DHL Dan CCCVII - The Drake Passage

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank ranks the current top dogs of Boston sports:

With all respect to Jayson Tatum, Patriots QB Drake Maye is Boston’s No. 1 star, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while packing for Seattle …

⋅ Is it OK to declare that Drake Maye is Boston’s No. 1 star athlete? Will this prompt big-time pushback from the formidable Jayson Tatum fan club?

I’m OK with it. The NFL is by far America’s No. 1 spectator sport and Maye is coming off a season in which he completed 72 percent of his passes, took his team to the Super Bowl, and placed a close second to the Rams’ Matthew Stafford as league Most Valuable Player. All that at the age of 23.

Argue for Tatum if you must, but he’s probably never going to be better than what we’ve seen and he’s never been voted the second-best player in the NBA. Give me the Drake. The NFL is far bigger than the NBA and Maye has a chance to become one of the faces of the league. It feels like the best is yet to come from New England’s fast-talkin’, slow-walkin’, humble hero of the hashmarks.

The Playoff Race

Shank does a column on another Red Sox late inning win:

It’s finally September and the Red Sox, with their dramatic comebacks and overachieving no-names, are still winning

Days of miracle and wonder.

Imagine what this must be like for incoming college freshmen on Park Drive, Bay State Road, and Commonwealth Avenue. It’s your first night in Boston and the evening’s periodically interrupted by joyous noise and pulsating lights from inside the ancient, hardball theater across the street from the Cask ‘n Flagon.

The Red Sox did it again Monday at Fenway Park. Winning a game that featured three lead changes and runs scored in every inning except the fourth, they rebounded from a three-run deficit in the eighth and bested the Mariners, 9-8, in the 10th when Trevor Story — playing his first Fenway game since May 14 — cracked a gapper to left-center with the bases loaded and one out.

“I’ve been watching the boys do it all year,” Story said. “It inspires me. These guys have done some great work. It’s what this team has been doing all year and I’m proud to be part of it.”

DHL Dan CCCVI - Induction

In last week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank looks forward to some awkwardness next year:

Patriots sure to be prominent when Pro Football Hall of Fame induction rolls around, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering why the Seahawks are only 3½-point favorites against the Patriots in Seattle on Opening Night . . .

⋅ The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2026 was inducted in Canton, Ohio, a couple of weekends back, and we got to see Adam Vinatieri take his rightful place in the shrine alongside new inductees Luke Kuechly, Larry Fitzgerald, Drew Brees, and Roger Craig.

With the Patriots set to kick off their regular season Sept. 9 in a Super Bowl rematch in Seattle, I got to thinking about potential Patriot presence on the HOF stage next summer.

Rules require that Tom Brady must wait until the summer of 2028. It’s the price he pays for playing until he was 45. The good news for New England fans is that all-world tight end Rob Gronkowski hung up his cleats a year before Brady and has a great shot to wear a gold jacket in Ohio next August.

But what about Bill Belichick and Bob Kraft, the bookend backbones of pro football’s greatest dynasty? Their omissions from the Hall last winter were a loud statement on the confusing process required to gain admission and the troubling tonnage of jealousy and hard feelings generated across Football America (Spygate and Deflategate, anyone?) during the two decades they dominated the sport. It’s also fair to say that since they won their last Super Bowl together, post-dynasty failures, salvos fired at one another, and non-football shenanigans have dented the legacies of New England football’s real men of genius.

I can't wait to see Belichick and Kraft pretend to like each other at this ceremony.