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!

Guilt By Association / Under The Bus

After all he's done for Shank (or more precisely, Shank's daughter):

Then the Red Sox supposedly bought him off. Part owner Tom Werner gave Shaughnessy's daughter an internship with his Hollywood production company (this has never been denied or refuted by Shaughnessy or the Boston Globe). Now Shaughnessy skips down Landsdown Street singing the Barney "I love you - you love me" song when it comes to anything to do with the Red Sox.

...this is how Shank repays Tom Werner, co-owner of the Boston Red Sox:

From April 8 Boston Globe pic.twitter.com/d9GkR997Tc

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 29, 2018

Roseanne Barr is a freaking lunatic.

I'll make one other note - isn't it funny that liberals can call conservatives every name in the book as well as physically threaten / shooting them, but they get the vapors when the tables are turned, and in this case a mere tweet.

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!

DHL Dan - XXXVI

Coming back from a mini-vacation, Shank treats us to a picked up pieces column, abandoning any chance of his daughter getting another cushy job or internship from Red Sox chairman Tom Werner:

Picked-up pieces while following Jon Lester to Oakland and John Lackey to St. Louis:

■ Tom Werner for commissioner? Please. The Red Sox “chairman” is a nice guy, but he ran the Padres into the ground 20 years ago and nobody ever has been quite sure what he does for the Red Sox, even as John Henry and Larry Lucchino have spent too much precious time trying to make sure folks know he has done a lot.

We have an interesting observation on Patriots coach Bill Belichick:

■ If history holds, look for Bill Belichick to pick the pockets of the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles soon. Just ask fans of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Belichick butters up his opponents by letting them into the circle of trust with “joint” practices, then he kicks their butts in real games and acquires their disgruntled and/or underappreciated top talents such as Darrelle Revis, Aqib Talib, and LeGarrette Blount. It’s foolproof.

And we have another attempt by Shank to rewrite history / lie through his teeth with respect to former Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford:

■ Carl Crawford needs to just shut up about Boston. He was treated with kid gloves here the whole time. His failure with the Sox was his own underachievement. Nothing more. And now he’s the highest-paid fourth outfielder in the game.

Readers may wish to peruse this brief compilation of Shank treating Carl Crawford with brass knuckles kid gloves.

Commissioner Column is Low-Brow Comedy

Tom Werner has had plenty of hits (and made plenty of money) in his TV days on shows with stale jokes, so it is fitting that in response to Werner's interview for baseball commissioner The CHB submits a piece full of unfunny one-liners.

Shaughnessy doesn't think Werner has a shot -- surprise! -- which seems awfully strange given that the last time the owners are (unwillingly) replacing one of their own (Bud Selig) and seem distrustful of outsiders, given the self-inflicted debacle they created during ex commissioner Fay Vincent's reign.

While Selig lackey Rob Manfred appears to be the frontrunner, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is hugely influential and, per many observers, is not yet sold on the MLB lawyer's candidacy, which is notable given Reinsdorf led the charge to oust Vincent.

Indeed, Shank's column resembles Jon Heyman's, and given it comes two days after the CBS sportwriter's, one has to wonder whether The CHB has followed a long Globe tradition and started borrowing other's work.

And yes, he ends with yet another complaint about Jon Lester's departure. (Were they dating or something) Why let that lie?

Bipolar

Today's 'effort' by Shank focuses on just how aweseomely awesome the 2014 Boston Red Sox are:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — When you really start to think about it, the 2014 Red Sox are a lot like “The Lego Movie.’’

Everything is awesome.

Thursday was the much-anticipated first full-squad workout, and the entire Sox organization gathered for the first time since they all came down off the duck boats last November. The Sox released a photo of owners John Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino, plus Sam Kennedy, Jonathan Gilula, and Dr. Charles Steinberg sitting in Kraft-like high chairs, while general manager Ben Cherington addressed the defending world champs behind closed doors.

Obsessed with Patriots owner Robert Kraft much?

I don't know about you, but I think it's a rather small, petty man who feels the need to trash Patriots ownwership when he writes about the Red Sox.

And speaking of trashing ownership:

We’ve had executives on parade this week at JetBlue. John (William Randolph) Henry had his turn at the bench Wednesday

Now, is Shank lauding (falsely, of course) John Henry as the latest & greatest newspaper magnate, or the scumbag who defamed Annie Oakley with a false story just over a century ago?

Just to be on the safe side, Shank makes sure to perform a thorough ball washing:

While Tom was talking, Mr. Henry, the beloved owner of the Red Sox and the Globe, walked from the clubhouse wearing a black sportcoat, holding an umbrella over his head. It was hard not to think of Gene Kelly, Mary Poppins, or Ray Flynn in the Vatican, but Henry will get the last laugh when the rest of us are peeling sunburned skin off our necks.

And now, let's read about a product so profoundly awful it has to be given away:

The big boss no doubt was pleased at the sight of free Globes for everyone. Snowbirds from New England have been denied the pleasure of reading our vaunted broadsheet in Fort Myers in recent years, but this spring the paper is being printed at a site in Southwest Florida. Globe representatives are literally papering the house at JetBlue. Free Abraham and Cafardo for everyone.

Maybe the locals were lining their birdcages with something else the whole time?

Missed Opportunity

The Boston Red Sox have won three World Series in the past ten years. Perhaps the biggest factor in this happening has been the John Henry ownership group, which bought the team twelve years ago:

What a difference a year makes for both the perception and the reality of the Red Sox ownership trio.

Here are subjects that didn’t come up during Saturday’s World Series-celebrating duck boat parade when team owner John Henry (obligatory mention that he is also the owner of the Globe), chairman Tom Werner, and president and CEO Larry Lucchino were being interviewed: the Liverpool Football Club, commemorative bricks, sellout streak, and television ratings.

People often ask what kind of sports town Boston is. Is it a baseball town, a hockey town, a football town, a basketball town? It’s a town that embraces winners, which the Red Sox are again. All the dissatisfaction and anger the Red Sox generated last season has been recycled into adoration and exultation.

That includes the oft-assailed Sox ownership.

Of course Shank didn't write this column - that would be too obvious!

Anything But Quiet

Confirming Shank's presence at Fenway yesterday, we are treated to a column that was predictably written as the Red Sox have lost seven of their previous ten games.

In case there's any doubt that he's pissed off his last ally in the Red Sox organization, here's Shank on Tom Werner, who once got Shank's daughter an internship in Werner's TV production company, a favor long forgotten:

Red Sox “Chairman” Tom Werner (third-most-famous Chairman, trailing only Mao and Frank Sinatra) was not provoked to write another missive summoning the spirit of Jackie Robinson and complaining that the Globe and other media outlets are being unfair to Sox players.

It's a compliment to be compared to a communist dictator responsible for millions of deaths, isn't it?

Shank also quotes the former Baltimore manager Earl Weaver, who for whatever reason Shank did not write anything about when Weaver passed on earlier this year:

What we are seeing is market correction from the 20-8 start. It was Earl Weaver who said “you are never as good as you look when you win or as bad as you look when you lose’’ and the 2013 Red Sox are a good example of this. They have come back to the pack but let’s not get greedy. There is every indication that they are in this race to stay and that is a good thing after what the Nation endured in 2012.

Seven weeks ago, Shank had the Red Sox battling for last place in the AL East race:

The question now is, “Who are you going to pick to finish in last place — the Red Sox or the Yankees?’’

Shank then uses the remaining part of his column to write about himself and the Ortiz kerfuffle of his own making. Way to make some headlines, Shank!

New Book Nothing New

Sports Illustrated is now running an excerpt from Shaughnessy's latest hatchet job book, and as expected, it's heavy on the panting and light on everything else.

Among the breathless revelations:

• Tom Werner cares about television.
• John Henry is really rich, and doesn't always have time to spend making hands-on decisions on  every single one of his international businesses
• The Fenway Sports Group also owns a soccer team
• Fans don't want to watch losing baseball teams or selfish players

And in the course of the fairly short excerpt, there was, as expected, at least one major factual error: "Our owners in Boston, they've been owners for 10 years. They come in with all these ideas about baseball, but I don't think they love baseball."

• John Henry: has been a franchise owner since 1989, first in AAA then since 1991 in the majors (Yankees, Marlins, Red Sox).  
• Tom Werner: franchise owner since 1990 (Padres, Red Sox)
• Larry Lucchino - President/CEO of Orioles (1988-93), President/CEO of Padres (1995-01)

So which person has been an owner for 10 years? Henry and Werner have been owners for more than 20 years each. And who buys a minor league baseball team, or spends his entire career in baseball, if he doesn't love the sport?

The prose is, well, to call it "basic" would be an insult to fifth-graders everywhere.  Fat, drunk and curly is no way to go through life, Shank.

For his part, Francona is now backing away from the harsher parts of it. What a shock.