Instant Classic

Shank wraps up last week's World Series matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays; Games 6 and 7 were the best games I can remember in a long time:

Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series Game 7 was one for the ages, as well as one for all ages

It’s been several days and some of us are still talking about the seventh game of the World Series that unfolded late Saturday in Toronto.

In the ninth inning alone we saw Miguel Rojas’s (zero hits in a full month, 57 home runs in 12 seasons) unlikely homer . . . Toronto pinch runner Isiah Kiner-Falefa called out as he slid across home plate when he should have run straight up . . . Andy Pages making a Series-saving catch seconds after being inserted for defense. And there was so much more.

When baseball is played well in high-stakes games, it provides indelible moments frozen in time, easily summoned decades later.

Even though the 1975 Series was a half-century ago, Baby Boom New Englanders still carry on as if the thing ended last weekend. And why not? That epic had Looie’s shutout, Armbrister’s bunt, Fisk’s homer, Dewey’s catch . . . oh, and what do you think would have happened if Darrell Johnson hadn’t pinch hit for Jim Willoughby in the bottom of the eighth of Game 7?

Make the column about Boston - that's our Shank!

On The Ropes Already?

The Los Angeles Dodgers jumped out to a 2 - 0 lead in the 2024 World series last night, and Shank's wondering if it may be over already:

Despite Shohei Ohtani injury, Freddie Freeman and the Dodgers have the Bronx in a panic

LOS ANGELES — Dodgers two. Yankees zero.

The Bronx is down. And the Los Angeles battery is up.

Japanese rookie Yoshinobu Yamamoto stuffed the high-powered Yankees on one hit over 6⅓ innings and the Dodgers won their second straight Saturday, beating the Yanks, 4-2, to take a 2-0 lead over New York in a 2024 World Series that’s already supplied a ton of memorable moments.

The only drawback for LA was the sight of latter-day Babe Ruth, Shohei Ohtani, writhing on the dirt around second base after he was caught stealing in the seventh. The Franchise sustained a partial dislocation of his left shoulder while sliding feet-first into the bag and no one knows much about his availability for the rest of this Series.

“I hope he’s OK,” Dodger hero Freddie Freeman — two homers in two games — told the MLB Network. “I haven’t heard anything. But when you’re in pain, holding your arm, it’s probably not a good thing.”

Lame World Series?

That's what Shank thinks, at least with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers in this World Series:

This World Series threatens to take apathy toward baseball to an even lower level

If a World Series falls in the Arizona desert … does it make a sound?

I love October baseball. I love the World Series. In October of 1962, I was the kid speeding home from school on my red Rollfast to catch the early innings of Yankees vs. Giants on our black-and-white Zenith. That Fall Classic featured Mickey Mantle vs. Willie Mays, Whitey Ford vs. Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal vs. Yogi Berra. The final out of a 1-0, Game 7 Yankee win was immortalized in a “Peanuts” cartoon when Charles Schulz had Charlie Brown asking, “Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?”

I can tell you the winners and losers of every World Series from 2022 going back to 1953. Sometimes when jogging, I do this in my head as a kind of weird memory exercise. I have a couple of friends (Bob Ryan is one), who can recite every World Series matchup going back to the first one in 1903 when the Boston Americans beat the Pittsburgh Pirates without the help of a single analytics employee.

There’s nothing original about “death of baseball” sports columns. I wrote one from Houston last year, and that was a pretty good Series. Baseball’s October narrative is no longer followed by most American sports fans. In 2023, football is king. Television is king. Baseball is a quaint pastime from ancient days of transistor radios and a weekly Sporting News in the mailbox.

But the 2023 World Series threatens to take MLB apathy to an even lower level because the two contestants have almost zero star power and play in markets with little hardball tradition.

Also - add in the fact that the first three games were competing with various other sports happening at the same time - Celtics, Bruins, and of course the NFL last night, which is what I was watching instead of last night's Game 3. With Game 4 tonight you won't see these other teams / games crowding out this game, but Shank's not optimistic about this World Series in its entirety setting the world on fire.

You First

Isn't this an interesting take from a guy who's run enough Red Sox players out of town over his career to field an entire team:

Five years after the Astros’ trash-can transgressions, maybe it’s time to let our grudges go

PHILADELPHIA — The Phillies thrashed the Astros, 7-0, in Game 3 of the World Series Tuesday. The Phils hit five homers in the first five innings. It’s almost like their hitters knew what was coming.

And America no doubt loved it. Everybody still hates the Astros.

They trail the 118th World Series, two games to one, but still have a chance to win their second World Series in franchise history.

It would be their first legit title.

I'd say their first unquestioned title, but go on...

We all remember 2017 when Alex Cora’s trash-can dream came true. The Cheatin’ Stros beat the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers in succession, only to live forever in disgrace when it was learned they enjoyed the benefit of an illegal sign-stealing system designed in part by the man who would become manager of your Red Sox. The Astros instantly became America’s most hated team since the Spygate/Deflategate, Belichick/Brady Patriots pantsed the NFL for the better part of two decades.

Houston’s transgressions were worse than anything the Patriots ever did, but New England fans haven’t had much high ground in this area, given the hiring of Cora, two celebrated football scandals, and the 2017 Red Sox Apple Watch malfeasance.

Not to go all “Trash Can Report In Context” on you, but the ‘22 Astros might be good without cheating. They won 106 regular-season games, and eight of their first nine postseason games. They swept the 99-win Yankees in the ALCS and went into Tuesday’s Game 3 with a combined record of 114-58, including playoff games.

They hope this Fall Classic will be their redemption tour.

Gotta love the warped mind that can take a World Series baseball game and make it about the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots, like that grudge will ever be let go.

Familiar With The Subject Matter

Longtime readers of Dan Shaughnessy Watch will know Shank writes about a theme that's right in his wheelhouse:

Philadelphia and Boston sports fans have a lot in common, especially when it comes to holding grudges

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia is bigger than Boston, but when it comes to sports, the two towns have much in common. Both have history, success, epic failures, and edge. It’s personal. Nobody ever forgets anything.

Neither does Shank!

Folks here still talk about ‘64 and Gene Mauch the way we talk about Denny Galehouse, Bucky Dent, and Bill Buckner. We’re still mad that Bobby Clarke and Co. beat the Bruins in the Cup Finals in ‘74, and they won’t talk about Donovan McNabb barfing in the huddle at Super Bowl XXXIX.

Here In the autumn of 2022, Philadelphia’s Phillies and Eagles are championship caliber at the same time. They have a World Series baseball team and a 7-0 football team with designs on the Super Bowl.

We did this multiple times already.

After the ‘04 Sox won the World Series, the Patriots beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl in Jacksonville. After the ‘07 Sox swept the Rockies, the Pats went 18-0 before losing the Super Bowl to the Giants. Alex Cora’s 2018 Red Sox won the World Series less than four months before Tom Brady and Bill Belichick won their final Super Bowl together.

Its Appeal Has Become More Selective

Shank's at another World Series and laments the lack of fans in recent times:

The World Series is a huge deal in Houston and Philadelphia, but not so much elsewhere

HOUSTON — Picked-up pieces from the World Series and beyond . . .

This is the 32nd World Series I’ve been privileged to cover. Friday night’s Game 1 was everything a baseball fan could want. The Phillies came back from a 5-0 deficit, we saw a great defensive play extend the game to extra innings, and the Phils won in 10 when a catcher hit a solo homer. Just like Carlton Fisk in 1975.

But I write with sadness in my hardball heart. I love the World Series. And baseball. And it feels like this once-national event is shrinking by the hour.

We all know the old saw about how baseball no longer grips the nation as it once did. We know the games are too long, played too late at night, with not enough balls in play. We know that America’s true pastime is almighty football. Baseball fans are an older crowd — folks who grew up when everybody knew who was heavyweight champ, and people still read newspapers, went to the track, and maybe attended daily Mass.

Revisiting Dave Dombrowski

Never one to shy away from kicking a hornet's nest, Shank catches up with former Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski:

Dave Dombrowski clarifies his feelings about the Red Sox, declaring he wants Boston ‘in the past’

HOUSTON — Terry Francona. Theo Epstein. Grady Little. Nomar Garciaparra. Manny Ramirez. Roger Clemens. Bobby Valentine. Carl Crawford. Adrián González.

"Name the Red Sox players and personnel Shank has run out of town over the years!"

It almost always ends badly for Boston baseball figures. And we can surely thank Shank include former Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski in that.

In September 2019, Dombrowski was fired less than 11 months after winning 119 games and the World Series.

It’s still amazing when you think about it. And the announcement of his dismissal came in old-timey cut-throat fashion. A midnight surprise, minutes after a Sunday night loss to the Yankees, while the Patriots were unfurling a championship banner and beating the Steelers at Gillette on “Sunday Night Football.”

For more than three years, Dombrowski has taken the high road, eschewing opportunities to gloat while the Sox finished last twice. Now that he’s brought his Phillies to the World Series, he’s admitting hard feelings about his final Boston days.

Unforgettable

That's the theme for Shank's latest column as he goes back nearly half a century to recall some of the best stuff in World Series games.

My unforgettable World Series moments over the last 43 years

NOT IN ARLINGTON, Texas — There are a million great things about being a sportswriter (a million and one if you count reader comments that accompany online missives). Big events create a timeline of your life. It’s one of the things I’ll miss as I stay home while the Dodgers and Rays slug it out at Globe Life Field.

I can’t claim a streak like the Washington Post’s great Tom Boswell, who this week wrote about not attending the World Series for the first time since 1975. Bos covered 44 straight Fall Classics and 252 games. I have press passes from 30 World Series.

Some collectible moments:

▪ Game 6, 1977. Yankees-Dodgers. Yankee Stadium. Reggie Jackson hits three homers on three swings to clinch the deciding game. It’s my first Series as a reporter, and in a dangerously packed postgame clubhouse, I get squeezed into Bill White’s live ABC-TV interview with Mr. October.

It’s a Gumpesque moment that lives forever online, and I still get asked about it when the Yankees replay the scene on the stadium video board during rain delays.

A solid column; go check it out.

Old School Baseball?

That would be Shank's words, not mine:

Old-school Nationals, at last, are first

HOUSTON — They were born as the Montreal Expos in 1969 and made the playoffs only once in 36 seasons. Montreal’s best team, the 1994 Expos, might have won a World Series, but there was no World Series that year because of a work stoppage.

When the Expos became the Washington Nationals in 2005, they were wards of the state, literally owned by Major League Baseball. MLB hired their manager and general manager. Until this year, the Nats never won a playoff series. They were legitimate heirs to the old Washington Senators.

And now they are Faustian champions of the baseball world, with a team that started the season 19-31.

Shank expands on the aforementioned 'old-school' angle:

The Nationals are an homage to old-school baseball. They rely on scouts more than analytics. They still have guys in the front office who chomp on cigars and go with their instincts. General manager Mike Rizzo has a staff that includes six former scouting directors, four former managers, and two former GMs. All of Washington’s scouts played pro baseball. The operation is about people more than numbers. They’ll take a lunch over a launch angle.

The rest of it is game recappage, etc.

Shank On Game 6 Of The World Series

It's pretty much what you'd expect:

This World Series was a dud. Then Game 6 happened, and now we get a Game 7

HOUSTON — Something about Game 6.

Game 6 gave us Carlton Fisk and the home run for the ages in 1975. It gave us Don Denkinger blowing the World Series for the Cardinals with a bad call in 1985. It gave us Bill Buckner and a late Saturday nightmare in 1986. It gave us Kirby Puckett’s walkoff in the Metrodome in 1991.

Game 6 is only truly great when it gives us Game 7 and that is what we now have. Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals stunned the hardball universe Tuesday, beating Justin Verlander and the Astros, 7-2, to force Game 7 at Minute Maid Park.

UPDATE - Fixed the typo in the headline - sorry!

Shank On Game Five & The Rest Of The Series

Pretty good column by Shank, actually:

An Astros World Series championship sure feels inevitable

WASHINGTON — It feels like the old Senators could have done better than this.

The World Series is not over, of course. Stephen Strasburg could mow down the Astros on Tuesday and then anything could happen in a Game 7, right? That’s what Kevin Millar would say.

But a ’Stros championship feels inevitable after watching Houston sweep the Washington Nationals three straight by a 19-3 aggregate at Nationals Park. The Astros hit three two-run homers in Sunday’s 7-1 win.

The Nationals were already having a bad weekend when righthander Max Scherzer awoke Sunday morning with neck spasms and was unable to raise his pitching arm. Already reeling from back-to-back dull losses on their home field, the Nats no longer had their trusty ace available for a critical Game 5 of the World Series.

That's Because They'll Let Anybody In

48th MLB park for me pic.twitter.com/c9ngvaPB0K

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 25, 2019

Reader responses were positive and constructive:

You’ve trolled at 48 parks?

— Johnny Fontane (@JohnnyFontane1) October 25, 2019

It’s all about you Shank

— Gil Aguiar (@GilAguiar5) October 25, 2019

And something negative to say about each one

— DMD (@dmd031474) October 25, 2019

Cut your son off after the the 4th inning cuz; well, you know

— Richard Chavez (@richavez81) October 25, 2019

Is that also the pick number you had at the intern draft?

— Pete (@SawDustMaker88) October 25, 2019

Do they hate you yet?

— Tony Diliberto (@del4819) October 25, 2019

The Provincial Shaughnessy - A Continuing Series

Here's another column template for which Shank has based countless columns on - it's all about Boston!

HOUSTON — The Houston Astros and Washington Nationals are engaged in the 115th World Series and a lot of folks in Boston have tuned out because the games are too late, the pace is too slow and . . . in case you hadn’t noticed . . . the Red Sox are not here.

But the Sox are always here, don’t you know? Everything in life traces back to New England and the Red Sox. So here’s a clip-and-save, handy-dandy guide to how New England and the Red Sox are represented in a Astros-Nationals World Series:

And this is part of what Shaughnessy considers 'representation':

■ If the Nationals win the World Series it might help the Red Sox in their PR campaign if they have to trade Mookie Betts. Bryce Harper was The Franchise for Washington, but the Nats couldn’t re-sign him and then went out and won the National League pennant anyway. A championship for the Nats makes it easier for the Sox to justify trading their best player. They can point to Washington and say, “Look what happened after the Nationals lost Harper.” Meanwhile, if you are thinking about a logical place to trade Betts, consider the White Sox.

■ The Red Sox have David Price in the middle of a seven-year contract that pays him $31 million per season. Chris Sale next year starts a five-year, $145 million deal that puts him on the threshold of Price. This series has Stephen Strasburg (seven years, $175 million), Max Scherzer (seven years, $210 million), Zack Greinke (six years, $206.5 million), and Justin Verlander (two years, $66 million). It also has Houston righty Gerrit Cole, who is a free agent and will be making more than any of them by the time spring training rolls around.

To save the reader some time, these two brief examples purporting to demonstrate how 'the Red Sox are always here' - baseless speculation and player salary comparison that amounts to a huge non sequitur, for lack of a better way to explain the useless nature of that comparison. There are other attributes of this column that make it suck like a bilge pump but you don't need me to point the rest of them out, as you may be familiar with them by now. If he was trying to make a convincing case about this series being 'the Red Sox are always here', he fails poorly.

It's Shetland Pony Time Again - 2019 World Series Edition

As with the Antonio Brown situation, Shank gets into high dudgeon with the Houston Astros:

HOUSTON — Before the World Series even started, the Washington Nationals were America’s team.

It’s got nothing to do with the fact that the Nats play in our nation’s capital. Or that they’ve never been to a World Series.

No, the Nats are the team to root for because the Houston Astros’ organization has framed itself as arrogant, shifty, tone-deaf, stubborn, and completely unaccountable. And that is why on the night of the first World Series opener ever hosted in Houston, the Astros were dodging arrows from across America as they attempted to defend the indefensible.

A little background: On Saturday night, after the dominant ’Stros defeated the Yankees in walkoff fashion to win the American League pennant, assistant GM Brandon Taubman decided to play muscle-flexing, tough guy with three female reporters who were in the clubhouse as the perfunctory champagne celebration was winding down. The 34-year-old Taubman, out of nowhere, turned on the female reporters and started shouting.

Let's cut to the chase:

Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein was one of the three reporters targeted in Taubman’s tirade and wrote a piece about the episode Monday. After initially not commenting, the Astros furnished a statement in the wake of Apstein’s story late Monday. The statement acknowledged Taubman’s clubhouse comments, but said the team was “extremely disappointed in Sports Illustrated’s attempt to fabricate a story where one does not exist.’’

It appears to me that this 'big stink' Shank and others are making is primarily because Taubman yelled at female reporters and dropped F-bombs in the process. It also may be due to the fact that one of the reporters tweeted about domestic violence and for some reason Taubman decided to be a dick about things after the Astros won the AL pennant. Much like former president Barack Obama, criticism of a black person is somehow defined by leftists certain people as racist, criticism of gay people is now homophobic and, naturally, offending women is sexism.

Again, maybe this guy Taubman's a genuine dickhead but it seems to me that this story doesn't become as big without the female reporter angle and Shank and his fellow media parasites are going to milk this as much as possible, or make Mt. Everest out of the Blue Hills.

Rewriting History, Yet Again

Shank has another disingenuous post / column / podcast or whatever up today, where he continues to pretend he was in the 2018 Red Sox corner the entire time. Some credit may be given for his sheer brazenness, if it wasn't so completely counter to the majority of his columns about the team over the past nine months. Again - this guy is completely shameless.

The 2018 World Series Champs - II

This is simply stunning, and borderline outrageous. Shank has ragged on, belittled and discounted the 2018 Boston Red Sox on a consistent basis from the first spring training game to Game 2 of this year's World Series. Behold the world-class mental gymnastics involved at justifying eternal pessimism:

LOS ANGELES — My parents went through their high school and college years during America’s Great Depression. My mom had seven siblings, my dad four, and there was never extra money for anything. They never felt financially secure.

They had what we all came to know as the “Depression Mentality,’’ and passed it on to their children. The message was: Take no risks and always say yes to a steady job. You never know when it might all go away.

This is how I explain my year-long skepticism about the 2018 Red Sox — the greatest Boston baseball club in history and now in the discussion with the 1927 Yankees and a handful of others as among the best ever.

I have the Depression Mentality about this franchise, and I believe it’s because of the times I grew up in.

As long as I've been following this asshole over many, many years, it is difficult to come up with a more disingenuous column than this one. It conveniently ignores the positive aspects of the change in ownership with John Henry and company, who were clearly committed to a winning culture from the start and his heavily discounting of the three World Series since that time, to the point they may have well been dismissed outright.

The only question I'd have is his motivation for writing this column in the first place. He's done the occasional mea culpa type column in the past, but nothing on this scale. It's not obvious from reading the column and I'm sure as hell not going to waste any time thinking about it, knowing he's going to start shitting on them again as soon as the trucks are unloading the bats & gloves in Fort Myers in a few months.

The 2018 World Series Champs

Shank writes a decent column about the winners - the 2018 Boston Red Sox:

LOS ANGELES — You can go back to bed now, New England. There’ll be no more late October nights watching the Red Sox thrash assorted Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers.

The 2018 baseball season is over and the Boston Red Sox are World Series champions for the fourth time in 15 seasons. Led by David Price’s seven-plus stellar innings and home runs by Steve Pearce (two), Mookie Betts, and J.D. Martinez, the Sox defeated the Dodgers, 5-1, in Dodger Stadium (a.k.a. “Fenway West”) Sunday night, winning the 114th Fall Classic in dominant fashion.

So there. New England has another masterpiece for its professional sports High Renaissance.

Swing And A Miss

Seems that Shank did write a column after Game 4. Seems that Shank didn't mention his last two columns on Twitter, but there they are on the (ugh!) Globe's sports section.

Turn On A Dime Dan - VIII

Two days ago Shank grabbed the steering wheel and hijacked the bandwagon of Red Sox Nation. After Game 3, he's not so sure anymore:

What once seemed certain for the Red Sox is now in doubt

Need I remind you of one columnist who, a mere two days ago, was all but providing that certainty?

LOS ANGELES – It was the longest game in World Series history.

It lasted 18 innings, consuming seven hours and 20 minutes.

And it may have seriously pivoted things in this suddenly-fascinating 2018 World Series. The Dodgers rallied from almost certain October death in the bottom of the 13th Friday night/Saturday morning and went on to beat the Red Sox on Max Muncy’s leadoff homer in the bottom of the 18th.

Los Angeles’s 3-2 victory ended at 3:30 Eastern Daylight Time.

“We could have put them away and we didn’t,’’ admitted Red Sox manager Alex Cora.

And all we can ask is . . . why?

From there, Shank engages in the usual second guessing of a manager whose balls he was licking in the previous weeks and conveniently reminds you multiple times of this being the anniversary of the Bill Buckner game. This guy did a complete 180 degree turn in one game / two days - he's completely shameless.

He Loves LA

A comment from a few days ago:

Wait, what? No Boston has/LA has column?

That's not far off the mark, as Shank hijacks the bandwagon yet again!

A great place for the Red Sox to beat LA is in LA

I have framed copies of all Globe front pages from Boston sports championships won in this century. The datelines under those happy headlines are NEW ORLEANS, HOUSTON, ST. LOUIS, JACKSONVILLE, DENVER, VANCOUVER, GLENDALE, and HOUSTON (again). Two of the 10 titles were won in Boston and required no dateline.

Now, with plenty of wall space available, I am ready to add: LOS ANGELES.

The Red Sox play Games 3 and 4 of the 2018 World Series at Dodger Stadium Friday and Saturday. Game 5, if necessary, would be played Sunday night at Chavez Ravine. This means the historic, 117-win Red Sox have a chance to win Boston’s first championship in Los Angeles since Bill Russell and Sam Jones beat the Wilt Chamberlain/Elgin Baylor/Jerry West Lakers at the Los Angeles Forum 49 years ago.

You can see where it's going from there, as Shank regales us with the Boston / L.A. matchups across all sports from the past six decades, which of course features a few Larry Bird sightings.

Best comment from that column:

How big is the wall for Boston athletes who won't talk to you ?

I'm pretty sure that would require an entire room...