Stupid Ideas

Shank latches onto one and gives it some rightful mockery:

$100 to hang around a Warriors game but not actually see it live? I’ll pass

Just when you think we have reached the height of absurdity regarding sports saturation and “event people” who will do absolutely anything to be part of a major sports experience, we learn of something that on the surface seems so mind-numbingly stupid, it defies all logic.

Say hello to the “In The Building Pass” currently being offered to fans of the Golden State Warriors.

For a mere $100 per month, Warriors fans who’ve been unable to score tickets can buy an “In The Building Pass,” which gives them access to all regular-season home games. For that $100, they gain entry to Oracle Arena and are invited to watch the game from Club 200 level TVs. They’re eligible for giveaways, like if it happens to be Draymond Green bobblehead night. They can use the concourse bathrooms, buy beers for $15-$17, and maybe score a bottle of water for $6.50. They can watch all the beautiful ticketed people file in and out of the arena.

But that’s it. There is no access to the actual arena. Not even standing room.

It goes on from there, but this sounds like something to be avoided. It's worth reading the whole column, just to catch riffs like this one:

This feels like paying $100 per month for the privilege of driving to Logan Airport, parking for $50, standing in line for a half-hour where you will be strip-searched and humiliated by TSA, then buying some bad food and gazing at the duty-free stuff that you can’t buy on the long walk to Gate E-10. Finally, you get to watch happy travelers board a plane bound for Madrid.

Well, that might be the best one, but you be the judge.

Hot Takes, By Dan Shaughnessy

Having said nothing about the NBA Playoffs since the Celtics lost in the first round and Shank's oh-so predictable burial thereof , he took to Twitter earlier today to predict the future like Nostradmus:

Count me as one who believes OK City has NO chance tonight. Game 6 at home was elimination game for them and they caved. Over now.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 30, 2016

During the game, Shank feels the need to troll:

No team unravels like Thunder

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 31, 2016

Next up - a pro forma column or two about the NBA Finals where Shank can remind you of his pick to win it all. Or not!

Shank On The NBA Finals

Shank's weekly CNN / SI column focuses on Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James, who start the NBA Finals tonight. Well trodden ground is covered; one of these players needs a ring to vaunt themselves into discussions of the greatest players of all time. And Shank manages to do this without a reference to baseball players. Amazing!

Shank Goes Provincial

Not exactly a stretch for Shank, but he latches onto UConn's Jim Calhoun as the Huskies make another Final Four appearance. I can picture Shank doing Kevin Garnett-like chest thumps when he's laying this out on the keyboard:

But Jim Calhoun belongs to Boston. And we take some pride when one of our guys keeps showing up in the Final Four.

Calhoun was born and raised in Braintree, Mass., just a few miles south of Boston. He was a three sport star at Braintree High, home of the Wamps. He earned a degree in sociology at American International College in Springfield. That's fitting because basketball was invented in Springfield and Springfield is home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, where Calhoun was enshrined in 2005.

Calhoun's first coaching job was at AIC. In 1971-72 he was back in the Bay State League, coaching against the Braintree Wamps for Dedham High. Then it was on to Northeastern University on Huntington Avenue in Boston.

Perhaps a bit over the top, but Shank does indeed like Calhoun, which ran counter to my initial reaction to this column, that Shank was just shamelessly jumping on yet another bandwagon...

You Know It's A Good Morning...

...when you turn on the radio and listen to Dennis & Callahan goof on Shank's Sunday column!

Any guesses on Shank's CNN / SI column subject today? Does he have the brass to give them yesterday's piece of work?

Recycling - Good; NCAA Tournament - Bad

Shank mounts the Shetland pony and tell you what he thinks of the Big Dance:

Sorry to disrupt the dance, but I’m here to tell you that the NCAA Tournament is one of the more fraudulent, overblown media creations of our time.

Shank started his radio show yesterday with a similar statement, where he used the word 'fraud' instead. I might add that the entire 11:00 - 12:00 hour on 98.5 FM yesterday morning is summed up in this article.

I wonder - is it 'fraudulent' to say things on the radio for an hour, summarize them and submit it to the editors the next day for a Boston Globe column, and not disclose it anywhere?

68 Teams, No Harvard?

Shank's weekly CNN / SI column concerns Shank's outrage at Harvard being left out of the Big Dance.

It might amuse you to know that there were folks in Cambridge and greater Boston who actually watched CBS' Selection Show thinking that Harvard had a chance to receive an at-large big to the NCAA tournament.

They had a chance, it just wasn't a huge chance, but Shank writes a solid, spirited column with good points in their defense (Harvard's RPI, their defeats of BC & Colorado). For the most part, I agree with Shank, but the fact that two Ivy League teams have never made the tournament in the same year indicates it's tough to fight history.

Bonus shot in on John Calipari:

There's always going to be room for John Calipari, who has already had two Final Four appearances vacated, but there's no room for Harvard.

Good column, start to finish.

Impressive Team; Column, Not So Much

Shank recaps yesterday's Patriots 38 - 7 win over the Miami Dolphins. It's an average Shank effort, chock full of absurd hyperbole ("Certainly the sad Dolphins would have been better off sending cardboard cutouts"), non football related comparisons (Sinatra, Churchill, Wade Boggs, etc.) and really lame song references (Hootie and the Blowfish?), all of which serve to detract from the column and make it the average effort that it is, maybe less so.

What? No Blue Christmas?

Not content to write yet another meandering picked up pieces column, he even manages to choose weak Christmas music:

Picked up pieces while listening to Mitch Miller Christmas carols . . .

How can you not pick The King?

What follows from the dreadful opening sentence is the fruitcake of sports opinion columns. Feel free to regift this one!

Despicable

That's Shank's take on the self-indulgent spectacle of LeBron James' one hour ESPN special to announce his decision to play for the Miami Heat.

Truly, has there ever been a more hideous sports-related hour than what we saw Thursday night?

It’s hard to know where to start. We had MeBron speaking of himself in the third person and saying, “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.’’ We had ESPN lying to us about at what point MeBron would announce his move, then morphing into game-show mode. We had Gray forever forfeiting all semblance of integrity, taunting America (particularly Clevelanders) by intentionally delaying the only question we wanted him to ask. And now we have the Miami Heat — a veritable team of A-Rods, the team we will root against in every game as long as LeBron, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh are together.

Despicable. All of them.

No argument here.

Thanks for Nothing

Shank's first column in over a week was posted on CNN / SI, lamenting the lack of action with respect to the NBA's free agents. For those who follow the NBA, there's next to nothing in this column in terms of new information:

So far, it's been a big, fat, nothing. LeBron is still in Cleveland, D-Wade is still in Miami (no thanks to Heat fans who were sent to the wrong airport terminal to welcome him home), Joe Johnson has agreed to stay in Atlanta, Dirk Nowitzki signed on with Dallas, Rudy Gay stayed with Memphis, and Paul Pierce opted out, only to stay with the Celtics. Wade, Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer are waiting to see what LeBron is going to do.

On the contrary, seems to me there's been, in fact, quite a bit of activity. Of the eight big names, four have made decisions and four have not. Does Shank really have a problem with a few people taking less than a week to make what will be for them the biggest professional decision of their lives?

With Doc Rivers and Paul Pierce re-upping with the Celtics, Shank also reminds us in nine hundred different ways that the Celtics are old, man. Granted, a team that was within one game of winning its 18th championship (which, curiously enough, was not mentioned), but why let that get in the way of a sour column?

I Love Cleveland

Expecting a column on last night's Celtics win over the Cavaliers, and the first good game from Rasheed Wallace since joining the team, we are instead treated to Shank's new favorite city:

CLEVELAND — I love this town.

That’s right. Cleveland. You call it “The Mistake By the Lake.’’ You make it a punch line for every Rust Belt joke.

Not me. I call it a once-great American city in need of a comeback . . . and a championship, of course.

No fooling. Cleveland is great. It’s got a real downtown. It’s got clean, wide streets that are (unfortunately) never crowded with traffic nor people. Cleveland’s got cab drivers who speak English and know their way around town. Many of them remember when Jim Brown toted the pigskin for the Browns and when Rocky Colavito hit majestic homers for the Tribe.

It's a decent article but would have been better timed between Games 1 and 2.

Stack 'Em High

Shank focuses on LeBron James in yesterday's dispatch from Cleveland. While recognizing the two-time MVP as the best player in the league, he states the semi-obvious: LeBron needs to win championships to be considered one of the greatest to ever play the game. That's interesting, considering how he leads off:

Sorry, I know this is sacrilegious, but I’ll always be a Wilt Chamberlain guy. The man averaged 50 points and more than 48 minutes per game over an entire season. His dominance forced multiple rule changes, including widening the lane.

You can’t go wrong with Bill Russell, of course. He won 11 championships in 13 NBA seasons. Russell never lost an NCAA Tournament game, an Olympic game, or a Game 7. Including Game 5’s (in best-of-five series), Russell went 21-0 in those contests.

You can't go wrong, but sometimes you manage to...

Old School

Shank offers a few reasons why the Celtics lost to the Cavaliers last night:

And then it was just . . .

Old.

...

And then the big lead evaporated faster than you could say “Rasheed Wallace.’’

...

...but in the end it was the Celtics who looked worn down.

Old bones.

...

This is the last roundup for the old guard.

Old starters and Rasheed Wallace, The Human Pylon. This will be a tough series to watch.

Going Green

Our Danny Boy repeats his prediction from nearly a fortnight ago:

The Celtics will beat the Cavaliers in Round 2 of the NBA playoffs.

There. I said it.

Call me a knucklehead. Call me old-school. Call me a fool (Cedric Maxwell did). This was my pick before the start of the playoffs.

It's right there in black and white, on the sports pages of The Boston Globe on April 15:

"I'm picking the old green guys to at least make it to the Eastern Conference Finals. That means they'll beat Miami in the first round, then beat Cleveland in the second round.''

I think he's putting too much faith in Rasheed Wallace coming through in any meaningful way, and he's definitely putting way too much stock in the following:

The Cavaliers carry the weight of all Cleveland teams that failed in the last half-century. They are burdened by Earnest Byner's fumble and John Elway's Drive, and Jose Mesa spitting the bit in the 1997 World Series. Clevelanders live with the Curse of Rocky Colavito. The Cavaliers have not recovered from the stunning loss to the Magic in last year's conference finals. They play with the pressure of knowing that LeBron might be gone at season's end.

You know, you could probably write a book on such a phenomenon...

More Hondo, And More

You turn your back for one day, and what happens? Shank comes out with three columns, that's what.

Shank compares Glen Davis to Hondo and other Celtics:

No problem. In the proud tradition of Frank Ramsey, John Havlicek, and Kevin McHale, Glen Davis reminded us that he’s good enough to start every night in the NBA. Baby Grande torched the Heat last night, scoring a bull-rush 23 points with eight rebounds in 29 minutes of a too-easy 106-77 Game 2 victory.

Shank then doubles up on Beatles (ok, one John Lennon) song references when discussing Red Auerbach:

Kevin Garnett, Boston’s most important player, could not play in the second game of the Celtics-Heat first-round playoff series. When Kendrick Perkins and Jermaine O’Neal jumped center just after 8 p.m., Garnett was reported to be watching from an office inside the New Garden. The combustible KG was serving a one-game suspension for throwing an elbow in a stupid incident that unfolded near the Miami bench in the final minute of Game 1.

Red never would have allowed this to happen. In Red’s world, you instigate, then let the other team get penalized for hitting back. Or maybe you send Jim Loscutoff into a game to mix it up with Wilt Chamberlain, hoping they both get ejected. You’ll gladly swap Loscy for Wilt. It’s a good deal for the Celtics.

Losing Garnett while the Heat lose no one? That’s a horrible deal. It’s an example of the Celtics getting whupped at the game Red invented.

It would not be incorrect to say that Red wrote the book on basketball gamesmanship. Because . . . Red literally wrote the book on basketball gamesmanship.

Then Shank watched the Bruins in double overtime while working in a Simon & Garfunkel reference:

The Bruins last night beat the Sabres, 3-2, on Miroslav Satan’s backhander past Ryan Miller in the eighth minute of the second overtime. Boston takes a 3-1 series lead back to Niagara Falls tomorrow night.

After a spring in which we worried about early tee times for our winter franchises, the Celtics and Bruins are both on track to make it into the second round. Certainly there will be no sounds of silence on Causeway Street this month.

Steppin' Up

That was Shank's challenge to the Boston Celtics, who host the Miami Heat for the first round of playoff basketball.

Shank makes another fearless prediction:

I’m picking the old green guys to at least make it to the Eastern Conference finals. That means they’ll beat Miami in the first round, then beat Cleveland in the second round.

That’s right. They’ll beat Cleveland. The Cavs have the best record in basketball and they have LeBron James, but the Celtics match up well with Cleveland and the Cavaliers know it.

I hope they can pull this off, but I won't be this bold.

Shank also throws in a column during a rain delay. These aren't the highest quality of column types, but at least it's a good use of time during a rain delay.

Man For All Seasons

Shank keeps the Boston College theme going for another article, writing about BC's athletic director Gene DeFilippo and the 24 / 7 search for a basketball coach that resulted in the hiring of Cornell's Steve Donahue.

Shank Goes National

Writing the obligatory underdog column about last night's Cornell (+8.5) vs. Kentucky basketball game results in lots of positive feedback from Wildcat fans:

■“You can have Boston, the Northeast, Ted Kennedy, and the Red Sox.’’

■“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a more inane, pointless profession than a sports writer — Wait, I got it . . . how about signholder — you know the guy who holds a small placard and stands right outside of the business he’s promoting. That guy . . . that’s who you are Dan.’’

■“You and many others, especially the eastern and northeastern press, love to hammer lowly ‘hillbilly’ Kentucky for no reason while lettin the same stuff we are accused of go unreported with northeastern teams.’’

■“You should be ashamed of your elitist self. Tough job market? For the Ivy League Cornell players, that’s laughable. Try the job market for Kentucky seniors. The Cornell players have been handed everything their entire lives.’’

■ “While many people in my state can only laugh at your intolerable lack of sports knowledge and your ‘please pick me’ infatuation with appealing to people’s underdog bones, I actually feel pity for you.’’

■“Your [sic, told you] a disgrace to your paper and your readers. Know your facts a little better before you go and play the ‘world against Cornell’ role up next time. Also, what exactly are you implying by using the words ‘bags of cash’ to run a Kentucky program?

■ “Boston makes Mississippi and Alabama look progressive on race relations — proud of that, are ya?’’

■“I am a graduate of the University of Kentucky from the year of our Lord 2008, and I take superlative umbrage to your comments regarding the Cornell/UK basketball game.’’

Thanks to Shank, the image of the stodgy, elitist New Englander is further entrenched...

Walking Tall

Shank returns from sunny Fort Myers to watch Cohasset high school win its second girls basketball state championship. As with nearly all his articles that don't deal with professional athletes, it is well written and venom free. There's a bonus Red Auerbach mention; unfortunately there's no room for the obligatory Larry Bird reference.