DHL Dan CCLX - The Trump Bump?

In this week's picked up Pieces column, Shank can't help but notice a possible cause and effect:

After a visit to the White House, the Red Sox have been in command, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while taking the temperature of your white-hot Boston Red Sox . . .

Is this it? Are the Red Sox finally ready to take flight? After winning six straight against tomato cans Washington and Colorado, the Sox just won three consecutive one-run games against the estimable Tampa Rays, winning Saturday in a 2-hour-8-minute, 100-pitch, 1-0 classic delivered by All-Star ace Garret Crochet.

I know this much. The Red Sox haven’t lost since a bunch of players visited with President Trump in the Oval Office a week ago Thursday. The Sox go into Sunday’s series finale with nine straight wins — their longest streak in four years — winners of 11 of 12 and are a season-high seven games over .500. They are 23-11 since June 3.

So. Much. Winning.

DHL Dan CCXXXIX - All Hail The King!

What is this? A Boston Globe writer, jumping on the Trump Train?

If elected King of Sports, here are my Day 1 decrees, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering what the crowd’s going to look like for Monday’s Truck Day festival at Fenway . . .

▪ Pardons and executive orders are all the rage in these early days of 2025. In this spirit, I am here to tell you what I’ll do when elected King of Sports.

On my first day as King of Sports I’ll call the media to my Ovaltine Office — I drink the delicious malt every day — and wave my pen as a ceremonial sword, righting all wrongs and making sports great again.

This revolution of sports common sense no doubt will be controversial, but it’s necessary. We’re going to take our sports back.

Henceforth, I decree:

▪ All postseason baseball games will be played in the afternoon.

▪ From this day forward, there will be only two ways to score points in basketball: Free throws and 2-point field goals. I am eliminating the 3-point shot. End of story.

▪ No more offside in hockey or soccer. Let’s open up these games.

▪ No more analytics departments. The reliance on analytics in sports ends.

▪ No more corruption-ridden “extra time” in soccer. There will be a clock that winds down to 0:00, just like in football, basketball, and hockey.

▪ NFL kickoffs will go back to the good old days when men were men.

▪ The Calipari statue comes down in Amherst.

Is power dangerous in the wrong hands? Just asking!

Questions Nobody Is Asking - II

Or - Shank officially joins the Boston Globe editorial board:

This is a great message. Perhaps this letter should be delivered to Bob Kraft’s close personal friend in the White House. The guy he donated $1 million to in 2017. The guy he flies with on Air Force one https://t.co/w9geBSSmGb

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) June 14, 2020

It's clear from the tweet that Shank's main problem is with President Trump, and he uses Kraft as a cudgel of sorts. Which is rich, considering the source - do you consider Shank the type to promote healing? He's been picking at scabs for decades.

Punted

It looks like we're not getting the predicted Celtics bashing; instead we get some Red Sox bashing:

White House ceremony honoring Red Sox awkward from the start

The White House Thursday morning sent out a scheduled post on its website stating, “President Trump Welcomes the 2018 World Series Champions The Boston Red Socks to the White House.’’

I am not making this up.

Red Socks.

In a time-honored and now-controversial tradition, a portion of the Sox gathered at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Thursday and heard laudatory remarks delivered by President Donald Trump. The president spoke for nine minutes (my favorite moment came when he asked Steve Pearce how his season was going), called upon Chris Sale, J.D. Martinez, and Sox owner John Henry to make remarks, then thanked everybody and gave the Socks entourage a tour of the Lincoln bedroom.

More awkwardness at the link.

UPDATE AT 3:50 PM - A commenter points out the obvious, and that is this: the Boston Globe / Dan Shaughnessy coverage of Boston sports teams at the White House is a function of the occupant of the Oval Office. If it's a Democrat, the primary focus is on the player(s) who do not attend and what bad people they are. If it's a Republican, the focus is on the President and what a 'thorny issue' this is and how the players involved should 'start distancing themselves from some of his polarizing policies'. Good to know Obama never had any polarizing policies!

The White House Visit

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (of paint-by-numbers profiles of a handful of Red Sox players during spring training) to bring you a favorite Boston Globe pastime - a column designed to paint a Republican president in a less than flattering light.

Could a White House visit divide the Red Sox? Team brass says no

Funny how I get the impression Shank's going to do some 'dividing' soon...

White House, scheduled for May 9 after the team plays a series in Baltimore, projects to be an awkward affair as we continue to get feedback regarding who plans to go and who plans to skip the event.

In November, days after the Sox won the World Series, manager Alex Cora initially said he would go to the White House with the team. Cora backed away from that pledge when he came to Boston in late January. Saturday morning here, the manager said he’s still undecided.

An unfortunate byproduct of winning a championship in any professional sport is the inevitable controversy around the traditional visit to the White House, this being Donald Trump’s White House.

Interesting to note that no controversy seems to exist when World Series winners visit the White House when there's a Democrat president. Read on if you want your intelligence insulted with disingenuous 'arguments'.

UPDATE AT 7:05 AM - Just remember - White House visits are totally different when you're the beat writer covering the Boston Celtics in the 1980's or when there's a Democrat in office.

When Sports And Politics Collide

Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. In this case, Shank stirs the pot by calling out not the players boycotting the White House visit, but those in the Patriots organization who support Donald Trump.

These empty-calorie ceremonies have traditionally taken place in the White House’s Rose Garden. That’s fitting because the Patriots’ support of Trump has become a thorny issue.

It's only a thorny issue for the reporters covering the Patriots, because they're all fucking Democrats.

The Patriots made history in Super Bowl LI, but some feel they’re on the wrong side of it with their coziness with Trump.

And one of these 'some feel' people is Dan Shaughnessy. Gotta love the use of the passive voice...

The Patriots don’t have to stiff-arm the president, but they would be wise to at least start distancing themselves from some of his polarizing policies..

This has to be the most bogus charge, making a politician's supporters speak out on every damned policy. Do you recall reporters shoving a microphone in a Democrat's face every time John Kerry or Joe Biden said something galactically stupid? Me neither.

Oh, one more thing - remember that time Shank's wife tried donating some money to Nikki Tsongas from a joint checking account? Shank didn't have anything to say about that, yet he now expects the Trump supporters in the Patriots organization (all of three the last I checked) to 'start distancing themselves from some of his polarizing policies'? Funny how that works when the shoe's on the other foot, isn't it, Shank?

This is classic Shank - making a mountain out a molehill.

UPDATE AT 2:25 PM - See what I mean? This USA Today reporter put words in Tom Brady's mouth / deliberately misquoted him to get a clickbait headline. And people wonder why the media is nearly universally hated?

A Rhetorical Question For Shank

If Curt Schilling's post of a picture saying 'Rope. Tree. Journalist.' bothers you to the point that you devote part of a column to it in addition to withholding your Hall of Fame ballot for him, does it also bother you when yet another fellow journalist wants President-elect Donald Trump killed?

Just curious.

Final Nail In The Coffin?

Who better to complete the financial ruin of the New York Times (parent company of the Boston Globe, AKA the Boring Broadsheet) than the most overrated, headline grabbing, self-promoting U.S. businessman of the past thirty years, Captain Combover?

Billionaire Donald Trump wants it known that he really, really wants to buy The New York Times (NYT +0.23%) even though the paper is not for sale -- and even if it were, the Sulzberger family, which has owned it for more than a century, probably would never sell it to him in a billion years.

"I have watched Mr. Trump over the years navigate much tougher acquisitions," writes Michael Cohen, a Trump spokesman. "Mr. Trump is so smart and so rich that if he wants it, he will get it. If Mr. Trump elects to purchase the NY Times, commits his time and resources, there is nothing he can’t do."

Shares of the company, which also owns the Boston Globe, were barely budging on the news, indicating that Wall Street isn't holding its breath for a deal to happen. A spokesperson for the Times couldn't immediately be reached.

Probably because the spokesperson is still laughing. Aside from my own feeling of same, skepticism is seeping out:

I could question just who are the “sources familiar with the situation” that served up this scoop, and whether they were authorized by the notoriously publicity-hungry Trump to leak it to an outlet of repute and thereby win him another day of fleeting relevance.

If, however, you're rooting for someone to run a company or two or more into the ground, and overpay for it at the same time, you got your man, Pinchy! Make the deal!