Nick Cafardo - Baseball Hall Of Fame Writer

A posthumous reward for the longtime baseball scribe:

Saturday in Cooperstown, N.Y., the late Nick Cafardo takes his rightful place on the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum wall next to the likes of Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, and Damon Runyon. He’ll be on the same wall with Peter Gammons and the late Larry Whiteside, Globe teammates who welcomed Nick to our baseball coverage when we got him from the Patriot Ledger in 1989.

Nick died suddenly outside the Red Sox clubhouse at spring training in 2019 and later that year won a landslide election in which more than 420 baseball writers cast ballots for the BBWAA’s Career Excellence Award.

I didn't know he was at the Patriot Ledger before the Globe; the more you know...

Nick Cafardo, RIP

Shank's latest column:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Nick Cafardo worked in a profession peppered with competitive souls, jealousy, and millionaire athletes accustomed to being praised unconditionally. One of the best baseball writers of his generation, Nick managed to cover the sport without generating any hard feelings. Everybody liked Nick. The man had no enemies. For a baseball writer in 2019, that’s impossible.

We lost Nick Thursday at spring training. He was on the job, as usual. Around noon, standing by the work area outside the Red Sox clubhouse where the clubbies clean cleats, Nick collapsed and hit his head on the cement.

He was attended to by Red Sox medical personnel, who are in town to conduct routine player physicals, then transported to Gulf Coast Medical Center via ambulance, with Globe photographer Stan Grossfeld at his side. Once Nick got to the hospital, doctors could not keep his great heart going.

And Now For Some Boston Globe Employee Bashing - V

Earlier in the week, we had a Tuesday column by Nick Cafardo that had the audacity to compare Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts to Angels outfielder Mike Trout. At the time, it faced a decent amount of ridicule, but by the time that series was over, the notion did not seem so ridiculous. Kudos to Cafardo for handling the bashing during the week!

And then there was Kevin Cullen, who stands accused of 'pulling a Barnicle' and fabricating parts of a story from the Boston Marathon bombing five years ago and is currently suspended. The current environment in the newspaper industry is shaky; I'll go out on a limb and say he gets shitcanned within the week.

Satire is Reflexive

Satire is reflexive.

As we have routinely called attention to The CHB's flip-flopping and used quotes from his own columns to mock him when events turned out differently than he predicted -- which is almost always -- The CHB is now borrowing from our technique to take aim at Red Sox management.

Unfortunately, just as John Henry and Co. believe(d) mightily in the team -- and at least said so, and to be honest, what else are they supposed to do? -- so too did The CHB.

• “This isn’t quite Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, but I’m applauding this. [T]hey’re putting money back into the payroll. I applaud that. Some of these contracts may not look so good four, five years from now when you see what these guys look like, but I won’t care.”
• It’s OK now to applaud the Sox for spending money and trying to make their team better and more interesting in 2015. What we’ve seen this week is more like the Red Sox of the old days — a team that would spend buckets of cash to take other teams’ best players; the Red Sox who were more like the Yankees than they ever wanted to admit. ... [L]et’s welcome the Red Sox back to relevancy."

• "Pablo Sandoval ... is a 28-year-old switch-hitter who can rake. He can turn on the high fastball, something nobody does anymore. ... He can hit when it matters most. He’s also a cat-like defender."

So there's that.

What's weird is how he continually refers to the 2013 World Series championship as a "fluke." So if winning 95 games plus three playoff series is a fluke, then what were the crash of 2012, the World Series losses in 1967, 1975 and 1986, etc. -- anomalies?

Advice: Don't bother reading the column. Shank jumps back and forth so much among topics, you'll be convinced he didn't take his dementia meds before writing it.

Afterthought: What the hell is with Nick Cafardo? He writes for the umpteenth time that the Red Sox have to start their youth movement, then in the same column says none of the AAA players the Sox have are major league caliber. Note to Nick: Stop sharing a row with The CHB. It's rubbing off.

CHB, MIA

Shaughnessy, Oct. 4, 2012: "Looking forward, it's very clear Ben Cherington wants to hire John Farrell. It's blatant."

Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe, Oct. 10, 2012: "Source: Red Sox Intend to Interview Tim Wallach"

Unnamed byline, Boston Globe, Oct. 11, 2012: "Brad Ausmus to Interview for Red Sox Manager Job"

So what happened to Farrell? And why is the Globe's main sports columnist getting scooped left and right?