DHL Dan CCXC - Not Gonna Fold

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank looks at a looming battle in Foxborough:

If you’re expecting Foxborough to bow to FIFA, think again. The town has a history of standing up to power.

Picked-up pieces while waiting for the return of Jayson Tatum . . .

⋅ Forgive me for enjoying the wonderful David vs. Goliath dustup unfolding in Foxborough (pop. 18,000-plus), where the town’s five-person select board is telling greedy global giant FIFA and the all-powerful Krafts to “show us the money” if they want a license to play World Cup games at Gillette Stadium this summer.

News outlets from near and far gathered Tuesday at Foxborough Town Hall for the latest installment of Foxborough vs. FIFA. No agreement was reached during the animated session, and the board sent lawyers for Boston 26 (FIFA) home with a March 17 deadline for the town to receive $7.8 million in federal funds to provide security for seven scheduled World Cup matches.

There was more noise from Boston 26 and the Krafts on Thursday, with both parties sending letters to Foxborough, pledging ultimately that the money will be there. This led to some reporting that a deal had been struck.

Not quite.

“We appreciate that the Kraft Group and BS26 are moving toward addressing the concerns of the Town but, to be clear, we have not reached an agreement with respect to their proposed funding arrangement,” board chair Bill Yukna told the Globe late Thursday. “What they have presented is essentially an agreement with themselves but such terms are not responsive to the town’s requirements and will not suffice to address the Town’s needs for providing security services for these events. We look forward to continue working with all stakeholders on this matter.”

Sorry, FIFA. Sorry, Krafts. There’ll be no license until the $7.8 million has been delivered.

Not promised.

Delivered.

Seems like a no-brainer - always get the money up front.

Black and White and Dumb All Over

It was an unusual night -- two international soccer teams squaring off at Fenway Park -- but The CHB gives it his usual treatment. To wit:

1. Mock soccer
2. Mock John Henry
3. Mock Red Sox
4. Offer off-topic history lesson in which the Boston Patriots, Carl Yastrzemski and Gino Cappelletti are mentioned
5. Mock Dr. Charles Steinberg

But the point, which Shank writes yet somehow misses, is captured in this line: "This was not a baseball crossover crowd."

Henry, upon buying the Red Sox, was asked about the fate of Fenway. He immediately recognized the possibilities in generating greater revenue from the park without necessarily having to increase the costs for baseball fans. Concerts, Bruins games, fan tours and other such sidelights are generating significant monies, which should be appreciated, not mocked, because they permit his investors to pay for the Sox from Sox monies only, not underwrite the cost of capital improvements by diverting cash from the baseball operations.

Instead, The CHB only seems to care about the (low) score, forgetting -- for a night -- how much he appreciates such baseball treasures as complete game shutouts and no-hitters.

And We Have A Bridge In Brooklyn To Sell You

Shank now claims he loves soccer, supposedly because the guys fixing his car love the game as well. Totally believable!

I gave it one more try. Mocked, ridiculed, and threatened by soccer krishnas around the globe, I pledged to give the Beautiful Game one more chance on the occasion of the World Cup semifinal featuring host country Brazil and Germany.

And it was ugly. Who knew this would end up being the equivalent of the 1940 NFL championship game that resulted in a 73-0 victory for the Chicago Bears over the Washington Redskins? Germany beat Brazil, 7-1, Tuesday. The Germans will play the winner of Wednesday’s Netherlands-Argentina match in Sunday’s World Cup final.

It does not matter. I am sorry for the disgrace of Brazil, but I now love Futbol. I love it because I have seen it through the eyes of the owners, workers, friends, and customers of J & K Auto Body, just a few feet from Oak Square in Brighton.

Liar, douchebag, hypocrite or world-class professional troll - take your pick, or just mix and match.

World Cup Ignored

Shank takes another piss on the game of soccer:

It was almost 9 p.m. Tuesday when I finally realized why I was at Fenway on the same day that the US World Cup team played the most important American soccer game of all time.

It came to me when a young man in the Fenway elevator asked if there was any score in the sixth inning of the Red Sox-Cubs game.

“No,’’ I told him. “It’s nil-nil.’’

There it was. The overrated sport of soccer and the overpaid/overhyped Boston Red Sox have one thing in common:

Nil.

And they both lost, 2-1, on Tuesday.

These are your Red Sox. There are your American Futbolers. They should be captained by Nils Lofgren and Zero Mostel. They should endorse Coke Zero. They should star in “Zero Dark Thirty” and promote the Zero-Sum game.

Noted - Dan Shaughnessy hates soccer, except for that one time he didn't (hat tip - Awful Announcing):

That seals it. Soccer has arrived. The Worldwide Leader is right again. Like millions of other Americans, Ken Nigro is setting his Old School Timex to watch today’s women’s World Cup final, featuring the United States and Japan, in Frankfurt.

Count me as one of the last holdouts. I’m one of those ugly Americans who’d normally prefer to stick needles in my eyes than watch soccer. Parental duties required days on the soccer sideline when my kids were little, but that was different. Watching grown-ups play soccer on television has forever been a chore.

So much for consistency!

DHL Dan XXXIII - World Cup Edition

Did you ever get the feeling that Shank isn't the most original columnist around? You would be right!
(hat tip to Tim Marchman at Deadspin)

Stop trying to make Dan Shaughnessy feel guilty about not liking soccer

June 22, 2014


I am done apologizing for not loving soccer. I am guilt-free. This is America. Land of choice. Land of freedom. I choose to ignore the World Cup on television... when the World Cup is over, soccer will be over for most of us. We will go back to football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. And we will not feel guilty about it.

June 17, 1994


Of course, we're going to be made to feel guilty in the upcoming weeks.

July 5, 1990


I just hate watching soccer and I'm getting pretty fed up with the guilt I'm supposed to feel.... We were doing fine before the big guilt trip set in.... Men in foreign lands love their soccer teams the way they love their families. This is great. But do we have to keep feeling guilty because we don't feel this way?... I am through feeling guilty. Call me ignorant. Call me an ugly American.

Soccer fans are strange cultists

June 22, 2014


If you don't like soccer the Futbol Moonies will insist that you are an aging, unhip, xenophobic, uncultured dolt. Soccer is the world's most popular game. It's the game of the future.

June 26, 1994


They are the Soccer Krishnas. They are the Futbol Moonies. They are the Scientologists of Sport... The Soccer Krishnas do not know when to stop... Soccer Krishnas have no sense of humor.... There's only one man on the field who has a clue how much time is left, and the rest of us have to guess. Maybe the Futbol Moonies could sell this to David Stern, Paul Tagliabue and Gary Bettman. It would be a perfect way to make basketball, football and hockey as primitive and mindless as soccer.

June 17, 1994


Nothing is ever enough for these Soccer Krishnas...

Soccer will never be a popular spectator sport in America

June 22, 2014


Millions of kids in our country have been playing soccer for more than 40 years. This has not translated into an adult population of folks who'll pay to watch professional soccer games. Millions of kids also play hopscotch, kickball, and lacrosse. It doesn't mean those games can become mainstream American professional spectator sports.

June 17, 1994


Let's have no more of this "soccer is the next major spectator sport in America." Just because we're indulging the world for a few weeks doesn't mean anybody here really likes watching this stuff...

July 5, 1990


Kids love to play the game. Great. Does that mean we have to pretend it'll someday be a major spectator sport in this country?

There is no sense of progression toward the goal; soccer is just 90 minutes of turnovers

June 22, 2014


Soccer doesn't have natural progression leading up to scores... It's pretty much 90 minutes of turnovers.

June 26, 1994


Soccer to me is 90 minutes of nonstop turnovers with no natural progression to the goal.

July 5, 1990


Like hockey, there is no organized progression toward the goal. It's nonstop turnovers...

Hands are what separate man from beast

June 22, 2014


Soccer takes away our hands. This makes the game incredibly skillful and exhausting, but also robs fans of much of the beauty of sport. Hands and opposable thumbs separate us from creatures of the wild.

June 17, 1994


And what's with the hands? How good can any game be when you can't use your hands? Hands are what separate us from the animal kingdom.

July 5, 1990


Finally, there is the hands problem. Hands and thumbs, that's what separates us from the beasts of the jungle.

He Gets No Kicks from Soccer

The CHB doesn't care for soccer, so he writes a 948-word piece to tell us.

OK, fine, lots of people don't like soccer (or football, as the rest of the world calls it). But let's look at Shank's rationale:

1. "Soccer doesn’t have much scoring." Watch hockey lately?

2. "How would we have even known the athletic greatness of Pedro Martinez, Larry Bird, Bobby Orr or Tom Brady if they could not have used their hands? Soccer takes our hands out of the game."  Except, of course, that soccer involves running, which requires, you know,

3.Soccer lovers tend to be an elitist, intolerant lot." Those last three words perfectly describe Shaughnessy. Projection!

4. The US hasn't adopted the metric system, therefore we will never adopt soccer.  Seriously; that's his point.)

Shank also takes yet another opportunity to bash Bob Ryan. What kind of lover's spat did these two clowns get into, anyway?

Next week, The CHB will tell us how he doesn't like cooking.

*Larry Bird watch!

His Reputation Precedes Him

Searching for Shank columns (so you don't have to!), I ran across this soccer column at SB Nation. Brian Stultz has his number:

I expect Aaron Ramsey to save an orphanage full of children from a blazing fire the way he has been going lately. If this was an American sport, every sports columnist would be accusing him of PED use. I would love to know who the British equivalent of Dan Shaughnessy is. Wait, no I don't. I already despise that guy and I don't even know who it is yet.

Dan Shaughnessy - making friends & influencing people...

UPDATE AT 5:35 PM -Title corrected for the missing third 'e' in 'Precedes'...