DHL Dan - XVII

How lazy is a Boston Globe sports columnist when they send you out to Buffalo, supposedly to cover yesterday's Patriors / Bills game, you devote your Sunday column to saying next to nothing about the game, then on the day after the game you explicitly say nothing about the game by not even writing a column about said game?

Did Shank close the Anchor Bar again, either / both nights?

A rhetorical question - do you mail in a column when you don't even bother to write one? This editor says YES!

DHL Dan - XVI

Shank takes a trip to Buffalo to cover today's Patriots - Bills game, then says next to nothing about the game he's ostensibly there to cover.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — A year later, once again, we have Patriots, Bills, Red Sox, Orioles, and Yankees.

We have Ralph Wilson Stadium, Camden Yards, and Yankee Stadium.

We have a football coach hoping to make it to the Super Bowl, and a baseball manager scheduled for a firing squad at the end of the week.

It is the last weekend of September, and our local teams are playing the same opponents in the same places where they played at this time last year. Everything is the same . . . and everything is different.

Much like the content of this column. The casual Boston sports fan already knows what's going on with the Patriots and Red Sox; Shank simply restates the obvious in order to fill up column inches. He devotes three thin paragraphs on the subject he's allegedly in Buffalo to talk about:

The view is a little different now. The 2012 Patriots arrive in Buffalo with a two-game losing streak. They are in last place in the AFC East, trailing both the Bills and the hated Jets by a full game.

Once again, we have questions about the young New England defense. The Patriots couldn’t stop Joe Flacco in the fourth quarter last week at Baltimore, just as they couldn’t stop Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick when they played in Buffalo last year.

We are no longer talking about the Patriots as a 16-0 team. We are no longer certain that they will finish first in the AFC East. The Patriots have lost three of their last four games. They are suddenly vulnerable.

At least we are updated on the important things, like "Where do New England area sportswriters go after a football game?"

A few hours after the football game, members of the New England media gathered at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo. It’s the birthplace of Buffalo wings. When you cover sports for a living and travel to Buffalo, you are required to close the Anchor Bar.

We did the job.

Bars in Buffalo close at 4:00 AM. I know Mike will be shocked, SHOCKED at Shank's revelation. Any bets that Shank wrote this column on the back of a napkin while he was waiting on his order of chicken and beer?

His Head Is Spinning

Is Obnoxious Boston Fan a nom de plume for The CHB?

Chip Buck at Fire Brand of the AL thinks he might be.

Something seems really fishy.  OBF criticized the ”family comes first” comment by Lester.  Then, he calls Boston ”The Hub” a couple of paragraphs later. ... Finally, in a single paragraph he’s alluded to a Cherington/Lucchino power struggle, criticized John Henry for owning the Liverpool Football Club, and mentioned Carmine in a negative light.  I could be crazy, but the only person who regularly mentions these things (and he does it in nearly every article) is Dan Shaughnessy.

Yowsa. If Shaughnessy is now imitating Shaughnessy, then his head must be spinning worse than the morning after a typical night at The Fours trying to keep straight which is the Real Shaughnessy and which is the Fake Shaughnessy. I mean, who aspires to imitate idiocy? And what does that mean for those of us who mock it?