DHL Dan CCIII - You'll Never Walk Alone

It took him a while but Shank's finally, FINALLY! accepting a certain sports reality:

FSG’s message to Red Sox fans seems to be ‘you walk alone,’ and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while finally understanding the message Fenway Sports Group has delivered to loyal Red Sox fans around the world …

From this point forward, you walk alone.

▪ Sadly, that’s it right there, folks. After a couple of decades of all-in, four-championship, money-is-no-object ownership, Red Sox boss John Henry evidently has decided that the Sox are no longer a top priority, but merely a part of “a global sports, marketing, media, entertainment and real estate portfolio.” FSG is out of the winning business with its baseball team in 2024, and Sox fans have every right to feel abandoned.

Red Sox Nation was once like FSG’s prized Premier League soccer team, whose fans locked arms, raised a pint, and sang, “You’ll never walk alone.”

No more. If you still care about the Red Sox, you very much walk alone.

It should be clear to all by now: The Red Sox brass is not going to spend money or make much effort to improve this team. The message to Alex Cora, his staff, and fans, is unambiguous: This is your team. Figure it out. We don’t care if you finish last for the fourth time in five years and the seventh time in 13 years, we are not going to spend another penny to make it better. We are done.

DHL Dan CXCIX - A Dear John Letter

How do you know when someone's close to retirement age and just doesn't give a fuck anymore? Like this:

A Dear John (Henry) letter to the Red Sox owner, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while composing a Dear John (Henry) letter to the owner of the Red Sox …

In all sincerity:

Dear John,

It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken. I hope you are well. Like all who follow the Red Sox closely, I also hope you still love owning this team and value the lifelong loyalty of a fan base that considers the Red Sox something of a public trust.

I know you’re busy expanding the portfolio of Fenway Sports Group, but by now you must have noticed that many of your fans are angry with the way the team is being run. They feel you and your people haven’t done a great job explaining the year-to-year plan for the ball club.

You and your group have been great owners since taking over in 2002. You’ve made the ballpark better and brighter and you’ve delivered four World Series championships, breaking an 86-year drought and giving the Red Sox more rings than any other major league team in this century.

Red Sox Q & A Session, Without The A

Boston Red Sox owner (and also owner of the Boston Globe) John Henry was in Fort Myers today, but he wasn't there to chew the fat with the media:

With John Henry not speaking, all we have are questions and not answers

“If you could afford it, would you own a major league baseball team? I can’t imagine anything more fun … I have nothing to complain about. How could I possibly complain? Everyone in this community loves the Red Sox so much.”

— Red Sox principal owner John Henry, September 2008.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Has owning the Red Sox stopped being fun?

This is one of the questions I wanted to ask John Henry at Fenway South Monday. Henry was there with his wife, Linda Pizzuti Henry, and Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy for the annual ownership meeting with players and team support staff.

But he wasn’t taking questions. Not in the conventional way, at least.

From 2002-20, Henry & Co. engaged in a state-of-the-team press conference after their annual pep talk to the team at spring training. The pandemic and lockout interrupted that tradition in 2021 and 2022, but now Henry won’t take questions in a live setting. He prefers email questions, which produce careful, canned answers.

Safe to conclude John Henry no longer considers it 'fun', with recent teams underacheving and a more hostile than normal media.

Tension

Shank does his first ever column devoted to Red Sox and Boston Globe owner John Henry:

John Henry is no Rob Manfred, and I appreciate that

I am here today to celebrate and applaud John Henry.

Words you never thought you would read.

Here’s the deal. The Major League Baseball Network terminated an outstanding reporter, Ken Rosenthal, evidently because MLB commissioner Rob Manfred thought Kenny was being too mean to the commish and his ideas. By any measure, it goes down as one of the most idiotic management moves in MLB Network history.

Rosenthal is fair and smart, universally respected in big league baseball — by fans, owners, players, team officials, and reporters. Rosenthal is the goods. It is incredibly petty and short-sighted for Manfred to eliminate Rosenthal’s podium just because he can.

You can’t fool fans. Or viewers. Or readers. They always get it.

Henry is no Manfred. There no doubt have been plenty of times when the owner of the Red Sox — who is also owner of the Globe — would have preferred that my thoughts not run in his newspaper. Yet I am still here. Unfortunately for MLB Network viewers, Rosenthal didn’t have a boss who understood the role of the media, was willing to take some hits, and let the viewers make up their own minds.

Definitely worth reading in full.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Those of you who are familiar with the Boston Red Sox know that the club is primarily owned by John Henry, who also happens to own what's left of the Boston Globe as well as Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League. A bunch of the top clubs in the English Premier League and a few other European leagues tried to form a semi-breakaway league called the Super League, which is primarily a vehicle for these selected clubs (and only them) to play each other and rake in big bucks. It was shot down after two days due to furious fan / supporter backlash from across the pond, there were a few ceremonial firings in the process, and it wound up leaving John Henry looking like a greedy chump.

When I first spotted this column, I half thought 'Oh, boy - Shank's gonna try and talk about soccer' but soccer's the sidebar here. There is something to be said of Shank's ability to write a decent, engaging column when he's able to blowtorch the subject of the column at hand:

A huge victory for soccer fans, a huge setback for John Henry

You’ll never walk alone.

This is the anthem for the Liverpool Football Club. It speaks to fans’ hopes when all seems lost. And defiance in the face of adversity.

Red Sox/Globe owner John Henry has found great riches and success as owner of Liverpool FC since 2010, but today he walks alone at Anfield in the wake of his role in a botched attempt to form a European Super League.

Plans for the elitist, money-grabbing league were unveiled Sunday night, triggering universal condemnation and galvanizing fans against the 12 owners who proposed the tone-deaf breakaway. In Liverpool, Henry endured a fan-driven pummeling 100 times rougher than what happened in Red Sox Nation after he traded Mookie Betts.

The Super League collapsed under the weight of its own greed less than 48 hours after it was introduced, and Henry posted an apology video hours later in which he said, “The project put forward was never going to stand without the support of the fans. No one ever thought differently in England. Over these 48 hours you were very clear that it would not stand. We heard you. I heard you.”

I saw one Twitter comment about that video - 'Turn the sound down - it looks like a hostage video'.

Check out the rest of the column; it's well worth it.

The One Where Shank Shits On His Boss

John Henry is the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and owner of what's left of the Boston Globe. The following tweet makes me wonder - does Shank have a professional death wish?

Red Sox ownership gave up on this team in February. Players obviously got the message.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 28, 2020

I'll give him this much - it does take balls to throw out a tweet like that.

Boston Globe Death Watch - VIII

Stuff like this is why Boston Red Sox owner (and for now owner of what's left of the Boston Globe 'newspaper') John Henry is so well liked around these parts:

John Henry's Baseball Team Cuts Employees' Pay by 20-30% and His Newspaper Tries to Keep That on the Down Low https://t.co/mjjdoAT3Zh

— Jerry Thornton (@jerrythornton1) June 1, 2020

Well, it's because they have to. That'll change once some of these shitheads get axed and are thus then free to dish on the guy, which will be amusing as all get out.

Boston Globe Death Watch - V

As we wait for the panic, hysteria and massive overreaction to die down from Covid-19 / The Wuhan Kung Flu, let's check out the Sunday Boston Globe (a real bargain at $6.00!).

First up, the Sports Section - A+ for effort:

11-page Sunday Globe sports section today with 15 staff bylines including columns from @GlobeBobRyan and @Dan_Shaughnessy plus MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL notebooks and Stan Grossfeld photos from Fenway Park.

Read: https://t.co/I4niZH8ZSW

Subscribe: https://t.co/2rxUyK2iyq pic.twitter.com/yZr8DgJyMN

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) April 19, 2020

Next, something I can only describe this as ghoulish; typical of our garbage scumbag media - F grade assigned:

John Henry’s paper created a separate paid obituary section for COVID-19 deaths

“Boston Globe Prints 15 Pages of Obituaries on Sunday https://t.co/7BYkMNqk6o?”source=twitter&via=mobile via @thedailybeast

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) April 19, 2020

Sure, that ought to sell lots and lots of newspapers...

Explanation Unknown

Shank's been getting into the Red Sox ownership bashing recently, hasn't he?

FORT MYERS, Fla. — In an attempt to clear the air and explain the motivations behind the trade that sent Mookie Betts to the Dodgers last week, Red Sox principal owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, and CEO Sam Kennedy delivered comments and answered questions for 32 awkward minutes Monday morning at JetBlue Park.

I would not say they stuck the landing. It went about as well as Deval Patrick’s presidential bid and the quest to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Boston.

Little is likely to change in the wake of Sox management’s effort to explain a salary dump that the club refuses to acknowledge is a salary dump. Folks who hate the Betts deal are unlikely to feel any better from what was said at the tense presser. The Red Sox seem to know this.

I'm wondering why ownership can't bring themselves to say 'Mookie wanted to be traded' or 'Mookie wanted to play for the Dodgers' - even this casual fan saw that last year when the subject first came up. It doesn't serve Shank to bring that up, either (though he's done so in the past) so he can continue to bash Red Sox ownership for a little longer.

One other thing - we might start the Mookie Betts Watch, like Mike B. was doing every time His Shankness mentioned Larry Bird in his columns over the years. How many times this year will Shank bring up this trade? I'm going with a dozen, and that's probably low.

Somethin' Somethin' Bridge Year

Shank's always complaining about the Red Sox, isn't he?

The Ghoul has spoken. https://t.co/tO0kh7mElG

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) January 11, 2020

The story's a hoot, because it was done in part via e-mails between Shank and the principals of the Red Sox (Henry, Werner & Kennedy), reminding everyone once again that he's persona non grata with this team. I love it!

Watch Shank Squirm

On his weekly borefest radio appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub this morning, Shank wasn't allowed to sleepwalk and re-read his columns during the two hours he was on today:

Quality John Henry bashing right now with @ZoandBertrand
More! MORE!

— Jim Murray (@bigjimmurray) September 19, 2019

Oh, @BlindMike_ . @Marc_Bertrand just grilled Dan on the intern draft and mentioned the @kirkminshow. 11:40 segment.

— Nick Montecalvo (@MonteOutdoors) September 19, 2019

Partial squirmage can be found here:

pic.twitter.com/GXivPWOxJl

— Gumbus Maximus (@Gumbus_Maximus) September 19, 2019

Links to the Shank segments can be found here (first hour and second hour).

I'm wondering how things will play out from here. I don't know if this is a one-off from Beetle or if he keeps the pressure on him next week.

Either way, I'm making a prediction - Shank's days on that program are numbered.

New Bud Book Juices Shank's Loins

This is the circular reasoning of someone who knows no logic (aka, sports columnists): Ask a leading question. Get no response. Assume the lack of response means the subject has something to hide.

In financial circles, public companies are notably (sometimes for legal compliance) cautious about speaking out of turn. Given that officers can go to jail for saying the wrong thing, they tend to clam up. They are especially prudent when it comes to speculation, or even commenting on speculation. Reason: If you make a habit of disputing rumor, observers will assume true any rumor you don't comment on. So the safest approach is to decline comment on everything.

Sports commissioners often find themselves in no-win positions. They work for the owners, yet the fans and media tend to assume they work for the consumers. So they ask stupid questions and get their panties in a wad when they don't get the answers they want.

To wit: Bud Selig, former MLB commissioner, has written a book. And Shank, ever opportunistic, feels he need to share an anecdote about ... former NBA commissioner David Stern. (Block that metaphor!)

Likewise, he mentions the conspiracy that baseballs are juiced. This apparently is due to the fact that there are a lot of home runs in baseball. Has the CHB ever actually watched a major league game? Some of these guys could hit marshmallows 500 feet. There are also a lot of strikeouts in baseball. Why? Because everyone is trying to hit homeruns. Duh.

But I digress, as does The CHB. Back to Selig. Apparently Bud Man should have done more about steroids in baseball. I agree ... but keep in mind the keepers of the faith -- aka the sportswriters -- turned a blind eye to what was going on as well. And then -- worse, in my opinion -- those same sportswriters have taken to trying to establish policy by deciding who did -- and didn't -- take PEDs. So Nomar Garciaparra must have cheated. Same with Mike Piazza. And Jeff Bagwell. And so on and so on.

To lay that all at Bud Selig's feet is a bit much, especially when writers like Shank continue to rewrite the same columns ad nauseam.

Then there's the "bag job" -- the story about the sale of the Red Sox to John Henry. Selig allows that Henry was the preferred acquirer. But clearly former trustee John Harrington didn't want to sell to the other bidders. Moreover, Henry, as a minority owner of the Yankees and then owner of the Marlins, had already been vetted. Let's go back to the top: The commissioner works for the owners. The Red Sox were and are a private entity, not a public trust. Why was Shank so PO'd about Henry buying the team? It remains a mystery. Perhaps he was taking graft from one of the bidders to push their candidacy.

Perhaps someday The CHB will write a book, at which time we can remind of of this paraphrased quote: "Refreshing. A man who is no longer a sportswriter is liberated."

The Victory Lap

Shank is there to report on Red Sox owner John Henry's one and only annual press conference.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Red Sox owner John Henry — the only man wearing a sportcoat on a blazing hot and humid Florida afternoon — stood in the shade, chatting, moments after his annual “state of the Red Sox” address Monday.

While Henry visited, camera crews broke down equipment, and it was hard not to notice a piece of red confetti breaking loose from a tripod and fluttering to the ground.

“That was probably a camera used to cover our parade,’’ offered Zineb Curran, Red Sox vice president of corporate communications.

A surprisingly snark-free column from Shank, but hey - you don't go pissing off the man who's cutting your paycheck every two weeks.

Pretty Sure He Has Someone Particular In Mind

What's this that Shank re-tweeted? The first ever criticism of Shank's 'work' by his boss?

How ridiculous is the article questioning excitement about Patriots this week!? Media has questioned and doubted Pats all year. It reminds me of their absurd labeling of this Red Sox edition as “an unlikable team” for an entire year.

— John W. Henry (@John_W_Henry) February 1, 2019

I Wouldn't Worry About It, Shank

guys now john Henry is sitting in next to belichick and Dombrowski probably selling bill the team

— Jen McCaffrey (@jcmccaffrey) August 6, 2018

Hope my name doesn’t come up https://t.co/drDKqQ4Sth

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) August 6, 2018

The One Where Shank Tries To Get Fired

While Shank continues to criticize the Red Sox for not making sufficient trades in the offseason (and which isn't exactly news at this point, beating a dead horse is what's going on here), Shank gives his boss a hard time at today's press conference:

Me: Could you explain to fans your objection to the Yawkey Way street name?

Henry: No, I think I’ve already covered that.

Me: I don’t remember you ever talking about it.

Henry: I was quoted in the other newspaper.

Me: Could you share it with all of us?

Henry: What my objections are? No, I’d really rather talk about baseball and spring training.

Not Shank, though:

Me: But this is the only chance we get to talk to you. Is that [changing the name] something the club is actively engaged in?

Henry: It is something the club is engaged in.

Is this Shank's way of filing for early retirement?

UPDATE AT 6:35 PM - John Henry just threw Shank a bone:

FORT MYERS -- The Red Sox appear to have finally replaced the offensive void left by David Ortiz.

Free agent J.D. Martinez and the Red Sox are in agreement on a five-year contract that would bring the slugger to Boston, according to a source.

Martinez can opt out after the second and third years of the deal, a source said.

Trying To Create Doubt

Smooth sailing for the 2017 Boston Red Sox? Leave it to Shank to take care of that.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Accompanied by club chairman Tom Werner, Red Sox owner John Henry endured his annual “state of the team” press conference at Fenway South Friday morning.

It was positively positive. And dull. Nothing the owner said will change the nap-time narrative of this Red Sox camp. JetBlue Park in 2017 is Tranquility Base. Henry and Werner love it that way.

Me? I miss the bad old days when there was a little hunger, restlessness, and indecision at the top.

Hence the reason for this column.

This week last year, Henry came to Fort Myers and told us, “I was shocked at how bad we were last year . . . We were wrong about everything.’’

In that same session, the owner — the man who hired Bill James and became a billionaire with the help of numbers — also dropped the bomb that the Sox were “overly reliant” on analytics.

News Flash - Shank still hates numbers!

Dan Does Drugs

Expect to see this theme often this year: Papi and PEDs.

It's a one-man meme with The CHB, who can't seem to move off the refrain that no man in his 40s, save for a few dead white guys, could possibly be capable of the assault on pitching that Papi is administering this season.

Perhaps it's because he was so fooled by Barry Bonds, whom Shank feted for years even after Bonds' head had grown to the size of one of those watermelons you might see at an Arkansas county fair.

Let's go back to The CHB's comments from Oct. 18, 2002, on the eve of the Giants-Angels World Series, when he all but proposed to Bonds:

Why does America hate Barry Bonds so much? Is it because he's too good? Is it because we constantly hear that his teammates can't stand him? Is it the phony, Carl Everett-esque point to the heavens when he crosses the plate after homering? Is it because he sounds so insincere? Are we threatened by the prospect of him passing hardball gods Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron on the all-time homer list? Bonds is the central figure of this World Series. It is difficult to come up with another player who's gotten more attention before the start of the event. We want to know how/if the Angels will pitch to him. We want to see if he can finally perform in the clutch. Despite his (relatively) strong showing in the first two rounds, Bonds will still be remembered as a postseason bust if he fails in this World Series. And so many are rooting against him. It should make for fascinating theater.

In the midst of all that manlove, nothing there about steroids. Oops.

Another highlight (lowlight?) of this picked up pieces (of shit) column: A shot at "the increasingly unhinged Curt Schilling," who says Red Sox owner John Henry is "not a good person."

Ironically, snark aside The CHB would probably agree, but honestly, who cares? Henry is there to win World Series and write checks. Personally, if he does those two things, I could care less if he spends his nights putting up all the stray kittens in Brookline into a sack and tossing them into the Charles.

The Joke's on Shank

John Henry just played an early April Fool's joke on the Boston media. Not surprisingly, The CHB fell for it like he was on a high dive overlooking a vat of Budweiser.

To recap, the Red Sox owner said the team has been overly reliant on statistical analysis and that it would attempt to restore some "balance."

To this, the Globe's Great White Whale writes: "While silos gently wept in Lawrence, Kan. — home of smarter-than-everybody stat guru Bill James — Henry acknowledged that his ball club had lost its way in a sea of analytics and needs to get back to some old-school thinking in regards to talent evaluation and performance expectations."

However ... what Shank fails to note is that Henry also said the team is not shrinking its analytics staff. Moreover, it was the stats guys who pointed out that Hanley, Kung Fu Panda, Carl Crawford and many of the other pickups of late were high risks and bad buys -- yet moves The CHB himself applauded. And that's why the Sox have a new GM -- the old ones kept spending big money on the wrong guys.

Yes, indeed, the joke's on The CHB. The question is, when will he realize it?

The One Where The CHB Tries to Keep Pushing the Idea that Larry Lucchino is Being Pushed Out

The CHB is like a dog with a bone now that Larry Lucchino is no longer his best bud/tipster. For the umpteenth time, he pushes the notion that Lucchino has been unseated by Red Sox co-owner Mike Gordon in the pecking order.

That issue, if it even is one, has been repeatedly dispelled by chairman John Henry, not that The CHB is buying it. But keep in mind Shank always thinks management is lying, which is why he looks so foolish now that Ballgate has turned up exactly nothing untoward by the Patriots (not that it stops Shank from beating that dead horse here, too).

Speaking of dead horses, The CHB then tries to tie the Sox with the Yankees via -- who else? -- Lucchino's long-ago spoken words that the former would never try to be like the latter. But he does so off a complete fallacy of an argument, which is that because Boston has spent a lot on free agents, it makes them similar to the Yankees. Hey, here's a thought: How about actually looking at the players signed? Boston is investing its millions in youth, not aged superstars with known drug problems (A-Rod) at easily replaceable positions (Mark Teixiera) who are primed to break down (C.C. Sabathia).

And who blew hardest just a couple dozen months ago when the Sox went cheap on player investments? Oh yeah....

One other thing: Have you noticed how the Red Sox management appears to be denying The CHB any one-on-one time? All these conversations are taken from full media sessions.