DHL Dan CCXLVIII - Joined At The Hip

That would be Shank and former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, and their apprarent shared disdain for Patriots owner Robert Kraft:

Bill Belichick shows no love for Patriots owner Robert Kraft in new book, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if anybody else is worried about Jaylen Brown’s knee . . .

⋅ Bill Belichick’s new book, “The Art of Winning,” arrived in the mail this past week and I could not wait to pore through it.

Imagine. Two hundred and eighty-nine pages of Bill telling us about the secret sauce of 24 seasons at the helm in Foxborough. I couldn’t wait to read what he really thinks of Bob Kraft and how he’d explain Malcolm Butler not playing in the February 2018 Super Bowl against the Eagles in Minneapolis.

Sorry, it’s not in there.

As an author of many books, I’d estimate this one’s about 80,000 words.

Two words not in the book: Robert Kraft.

OK, this is somewhat predictable, I guess. The obvious snub is yet another demonstration that things often end badly here on the Boston sports scene.

That's right, and sometimes Shank helps out to make that happen.

'Word For Word', You Say?

My co-blogger Mike ably pointed out the massive hypocrisy of his Bill Buckner eulogy column, saying it is 'unfair' to define him by one play but having said the exact opposite over numerous columns and platforms since 1986. It has practically been a mini-cottage industry of his, a poor man's 'Curse of the Bambino' without the matching book sales.

Mike spotted the Bob Ley interview where he repeated a fair amount of this column (i.e, 'word for word') in that interview. So imagine my 'surprise' when I tuned into 98.5 The Sports Hub this morning:

On today with @ZoandBertrand from 11-1. Bruins wall-to-wall. Bill Buckner, of course. Dan's Dates at 12:50.
PS: The St Louis Blues are 0-13 lifetime in Stanley Cup Final games.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 28, 2019

My trip to the grocery store this morning was marred by the exposure to the following segment - between 11:45 and 11:50 it was largely a regurgitation of the Bill Buckner column, and we at Dan Shaughnessy Watch have documented this hackery on numerous occasions.

Disingenuous, hypocritical and lazy - what a combination!

The CHB's Buckner Eulogy Just Another Botched Play

Revisionist history abounds today in the wake of the news of Bill Buckner’s passing.

Exhibit A: Shank himself. Eulogizing the former Red Sox star, he writes: “But for the final 33 years of his life, Buckner was best known as the guy who missed the ground ball. For many fans and media members, it defined him. And it was unfair.”

It was unfair alright, but there's a shell game going on and The CHB is behind the table. Let's start with the fake plaudits: “Bill Buckner had more big league hits than either Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams. He was an All-Star and won a batting title. Playing on ankles that had to be iced almost round the clock, he knocked in 102 runs for the pennant-winning Red Sox in 1986.”

Now it’s true The CHB has said this before. Indeed, it’s almost a word for word repeat of his ESPN interview with Bob Ley in 2016, when the Cubs and Indians were battling for their first respective World Series championship in decades. (Note that he credits Buckner with 103 RBI in the clip.)

But a trip through the Globe archives shows that, much like Shaughnessy’s soul, the actual record is much darker. It ranges from the trite (after the Sox won the 2004 World Series, their first in 86 years) … “The suffering souls of Bill Buckner, Grady Little, Mike Torrez, Johnny Pesky, and Denny Galehouse are released from Boston Baseball's Hall of Pain.” 

… to the random (at the Hall of Fame ceremonies last summer): “Hall of Famer Wade Boggs is here. He can talk about 1986 when the Sox took over first place in May, never looked back, pulled off one of the great comebacks in playoff history against the Angels, then broke New England’s heart in the Bill Buckner World Series against the Mets.”

The CHB coverup continues The flashbacks were in full force each time the Sox made it to October: 

• “But if they somehow lose the 2018 World Series, Game 3 will stand forever as Boston’s baseball’s Buckner moment of the 21st century…”
• “The Cardinals had won 13 of their last 14 postseason homegames, and Saturday's stunner was the first Series game to end on an errorsince Mookie Wilson's grounder went through Bill Buckner's legs in 1986.”

Indeed, almost any time he wrote about the Red Sox and the World Series in the same column, Buckner’s error was cited. “Game 6 also gave us a little dribbler by Mookie Wilson, Vin Scully exclaiming, ‘Behind the bag . . . !’’ and Bill Buckner riding a Train They Call Infamy all the way to a featured role in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.’’ “

He even found ways to insert gratuitous references into writeups that had nothing to do with the Red Sox or Buckner, like this from the Royals-Mets World Series in 2015: “It featured the first series late-inning go-ahead run due to a first baseman's error (Eric Hosmer) since Bill Buckner's gaffe-for-the-ages in 1986.”

Shanughnessy himself spent column after column writing about it. (Not to mention using the episode to frame an entire book.)

He even took shots on his Twitter account.

Hang on! Here’s one, from 2012, where he plays it straight (mostly). “[Tom House] caught Hank Aaron’s 715th homer in 1974 (only because Dodgers left fielder Bill Buckner couldn’t scale the fence — thank goodness Doug Mientkiewicz wasn’t there).”  Surprised he didn’t sneak in a bit about the Hammer’s record-breaking blast being too high to go through Buckner’s legs? Me too.

On the bright side, it kept The CHB away from the Garden and the Stanley Cup finals, where the Bruins were thumping the Blues. 

Billy Buck, Bruins Nation thanks you for your service.