Quality Reporting, By Ben Volin

It looks like a colleague of Shank's got punked by a commenter on Barstool Sports:

EXCLUSIVE: Ben Volin's "Report" That The Whole Building Hates Mac Jones Is Based On A Stoolie's Fake DM

If you heard this on Greg Hill this morning it was a real mess. Volin, very sheepishly, said he got a DM (according to the tweet "from someone that would know" but I didn't hear that in the audio, might've been in a different part of the interview) that "everyone in the building knows it." I retweeted it because it was pretty dumb, particularly considering that as the same time this interview was happening Jason McCourty was on Good Morning Football saying he was hanging out with the team on Monday night and everyone loves everyone.

DHL Dan XCIX - Gold In Them Thar Hills

As our sports world dwindles to looking at lots of old reruns (like I'm sort of doing now with last year's Indy 500) and now that Tom Brady has left the New England Patriots, Shank's saying something nice about him:

Even during a pandemic, Tom Brady is ratings gold, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while channel surfing and deciding between the Thrilla in Manila and the 1968 World Series . . .

Don't you have them on Betamax or VHS?

▪ I am reminded today of John Lennon’s unfortunate interview in 1966 when he said the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus.'' Steering clear of that outrageousness, let’s acknowledge that one cannot overstate the local popularity of Tom Brady.

Tampa Bay’s new quarterback went on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show for a couple of hours Wednesday and managed to make himself a topic of conversation even in the middle of a global pandemic.

Metaphorically chained to a radiator at Gillette Stadium for 20 years, Brady is suddenly talking about his marriage, his relationship with Donald Trump, the size of his testicles, freezing out receivers, race relations in the locker room, and his complex relationship with Bill Belichick.

Brady even said that the story Bob Kraft has been circulating for two decades (that rookie Brady allegedly told Kraft, “I’m the best decision this organization has ever made”) is inaccurate. Asked about Kraft’s well-worn tale, Brady told Stern, "I didn’t say that.''

Would that be like a story from two decades ago about Shank not getting invited to a Patriots breakfast at the Super Bowl and Shank to this day holding a world-class grudge against the team and Robert Kraft?

From there it's the usual grab bag of stuff. Might as well read it - do you have anything better to do?

Welcome To The Jungle

Shank sat in for Michael Felger today on 98.5 The Sports Hub radio show Friday afternoon, co-hosting with Tony Massarotti. The first half-hour had one guest, Ron Borges of the Boston Herald. Borges co-wrote the Rolling Stone article on Aaron Hernandez that came out on Wednesday and has dominated local sports talk radio ever since. Borges largely defended the article.

The second half of the hour featured weekly Friday guest Jerry Thornton of Barstool Sports. I've come here to say that Jerry is my newest hero. While I'm not familiar with Jerry's previous dealings with him, if any, Shank feigned (disingenuously, in my opinion) ignorance of Thornton and his work with Barstool Sports. Jerry then proceeded to lay into Shank and absolutely mauled him for the next few minutes, bringing up past works of art like this one and I believe this one, and mentioned past battles with Curt Schilling, and a few others. It was a pleasant walk down memory lane!

While it's possible I'm overreacting to what I thought was a complete beatdown of Shank, especially those first three minutes, I thought for a second - 'Is this guy's name Jerry Thornton or Shawn Thornton?' After a few minutes of that, Mazz finally stepped in to give Shank a standing eight count, then they went back at it to the top of the hour, mainly discussing the Rolling Stone article and Patriots related stuff.

This post cannot do that segment justice. Audio link is here.

UPDATE, 10:52 am - Here's the other column mentioned by Jerry Thornton.