Carry That Weight - II(a)

With all the excitement of Hurricane Irene now past us, I stumbled upon Shank's latest CNN / SI offering. If you've read his August 15th Globe column on Wakefield, then you've already read the CNN / SI column.

Recycling is environmentally friendly!

Where's Waldo? II

Bob Ryan manages to crank out four Globe columns in the span of a week while Shank does one. Since I saw him on the Baseball Insiders yesterday, I doubt he's on another 'vacation'. Lazy as always?

Sybil's Back!

Shank's month long hiatus from his CNN / SI gig ended today.

Brace yourself, NFL. It looks like Bill Belichick plans to come back from the lockout with guns blazing.

...

Playoff failure is a sore subject in Foxborough these days. While putting together some pretty nifty regular-season records, the Pats haven't gone anywhere in the tournament. Fact is, they haven't won a playoff game since the 2007 AFC Championship Game. This means that 13 teams -- the Seahawks, Jets, Ravens, Packers, Steelers, Bears, Cowboys, Cardinals, Colts, Vikings, Eagles, Chargers and Giants have all won playoff games since the last time Belichick and Brady won a playoff game.

Safe to say there's some obvious 'sampling' from today's Globe column (see below)?

About the Sybil comparison - why does Shank lack the balls to rip the Patriots in the CNN / SI columns, as he's free to do in the Globe columns?

There's A Fat Albert Joke Somewhere

My only question - what took Shank so damn long?

First, he calls a perfect season for the Patriots:

It looks like the 2011 Patriots are destined to be the greatest team in the history of football. This is going to be revenge for Glendale, Ariz., and don’t you forget it.

Tell Mercury Morris and friends to put away the champagne. Even though the Seahawks, Jets, Ravens, Packers, Steelers, Bears, Cowboys, Cardinals, Colts, Vikings, Eagles, Chargers, and Giants have all won playoff games in the four years since the Patriots last won a playoff game, it’s pretty clear that this is the best team ever.

And we know how Shank's predictions usually fare.

I wonder why Shank took this long to bitch about Albert Haynesworth?

Best of all, they have a secret - and we mean secret - weapon that is almost never seen, rarely practices, and is unlikely to be deployed in a preseason game. Don’t tell the Dolphins, but the Patriots plan to surprise them in the season opener Sept. 12 when they wheel out the great Albert Haynesworth.

Remember that Shank used up his quota of saying nice things about the Patriots for quite a while. This column makes it official:

The legion of Patriot sycophants constantly remind us that the Patriots never claim to be different from other organizations. That’s just a creation of the media, they say.

Wrong, fanboys. The Patriots regularly distance themselves from the rest of the league with comments like Kraft’s.

Misery Loves Company

The only time we get three Globe columns in a week from Shank nowadays is when there's something bad to write about.

Four losses in five games. Nine hits and three runs in 27 innings over two days at home against the Rays. David Ortiz is wearing a ski boot on his right foot and Carl Crawford is harder to find than Albert Haynesworth.

These three games marked the first time since 1974 that the Red Sox failed to get more than three hits in three consecutive games. They have gone five games without a double.

Is this a slump? Is it time to panic here in the hardball hub of the universe? Does anybody really care about finishing in first place anymore?

It's not time to panic yet - we'll wait until after the Royals series, then we'll panic!

Carry That Weight - II

As we wait for Tim Wakefield to earn his 200^th major league win, Shank devotes a column to it, complete with cheesy alliteration, a Rolling Stones reference, and quoting a song lyric by The Band.

Nothing says 2011 like quoting bands that are older than dirt...

Hybrid Column - Like A True Globie

Shank straddles the fine line between a normal worthless column and a picked up pieces column, a perfect piece when you're on a West Coast trip and a game column has no chance of meeting the dead tree deadline.

SEATTLE - Forgive me if there are any typographical errors in this column. I just shook hands with Wily Mo Pena and I’m now soaking my right mitt in a bucket of ice, hoping the feeling returns by the middle innings.

Wily Mo was called back up to the bigs last night by the Mariners and batted in the No. 5 spot against Josh Beckett at Safeco Field.

I did a double take myself when I saw him at the plate last night. Pena looks like one of the few former Red Sox players not vilified by Shank during or after his tenure with the team.

The second half of the column reads like your typical, semi-interesting picked up pieces column. My favorite nugget:

Tomorrow is the two-month anniversary of the Bruins’ Stanley Cup win. Sweet memory.

Yup - no bigger supporter of the Bruins than our man Shank...

Shank On Big Papi

Shank puts together a pretty good column on David Ortiz today. It covers Big Papi's career from the Dominican Summer League through the current year.

Remember when Big Papi was all done?

Is it me, or does Shank only write about any Red Sox road series when the Globe sends him there (and thus forced to write about them)?

I wonder how that Twitter thing's working out for him?

It Must Be "Be Nice To Your Boss Day"

Shank covers the last game of the Yankees / Red Sox series and spots Carlos Slim in the stands:

You never know who’s going to show up when the Yankees play the Red Sox.

Take last night, for example. ESPN game. Sox and Yankees tied for first place. Two of the top three payrolls in baseball. Baltimore-style humidity. Four hours and 15 minutes of hardball tension. A stunning, walkoff win by the Sox when Josh Reddick singled home pinch runner Darnell McDonald in the 10th. And who do we get hanging around the Sox clubhouse late in the afternoon?

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. The richest man in the world.

Go ahead, look him up. According to Forbes, in March of 2011 Carlos was worth something north of $74 billion.

Carlos loaned the New York Times $250 million in January of 2009, which the Times is soon to repay in full. Until the debt is settled, Slim is indirectly connected to Red Sox ownership. The Times still owns 7.3 percent of the Sox, so you might say Carlos has a piece of John Henry’s team.

For some strange reason, Shank forgets to mention that the New York Times still owns the Globe, which may explain why Shank's blowing smoke up his ass. That, and the NYT is paying 14 percent interest on that loan, which is one of the reasons that company's on financial life support.

After Four Hours, Consult Your Physician

That's the first thing that came to mind after reading Shank's over the top praise for the Red Sox after beating the Yankees yesterday. The hyperbole is worthy of an Al Pacino movie.

Jacoby Ellsbury is the new Fred Lynn.

Seems like only yesterday when Shank was trashing Ellsbury like Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciaparra, et. al.

Carl Crawford may not be Edgar Renteria, after all. John Lackey gets the ball in Game 3 of the playoffs.

Can we just fast-forward to the American League Championship Series?

Really. These Red Sox-Yankees games are great theater. Fox and ESPN are delighted that the kingpins are tied for the best record in the AL and scheduled to play another seven times in this 2011 regular season.

But I’m impatient. Enough with the overhyped regular-season jousts of yesterday and today. Can’t we just cut to the chase?

It’s been seven years, my friends. That’s right. Seven long years since the Red Sox and Yankees met in a playoff series. That was quite a memorable event; Boston’s biblical comeback from an 0-3 series deficit. It was better than any Stanley Cup, Super Bowl, or NBA Finals against the Lakers. Given the century of history and Sox frustration, coupled with the new millennium introductions of Alex Rodriguez and the Evil Empire, the Sox-Yankees ALCS of ’04 forever will be the greatest sports story ever told.

This is the first column that mentions Grady Little without Shank pissing on him. Throw in a Beatles reference, and it's your usual back on the bandwagon 'effort' by the Boston Globe's bravest columnist.

High praise, indeed...

Group Hug, Everybody!

Shank's in Foxboro covering the patriots, and happens on Chad Ochocinco:

I still can’t get my arms around it.

The inimitable Chad Ochocinco, a man destined to make us forget about Bill Lee, Oil Can Boyd, Shaquille O’Neal, and every other free spirit who played for one of our teams, concluded his first Foxborough media session Saturday by suggesting a group hug involving himself and the assembled reporters.

“Before I go,’’ Ochocinco said after a mass interview on the side of the Gillette practice field, “I don’t know you guys - can I get a group hug, really quickly?’’

Shank goes on to tell some funny stories about other athlete / reporter, um, 'physical interactions'. This is one of Shank's better columns in a while, only if it's for things like this:

Our own Bud Collins probably wishes former Sox manager Pinky Higgins was a hugger. Higgins once smashed Bud’s face into a plate of beef Stroganoff.

I have a new favorite dish!

A Lackey Lackey

The only memorable line in an otherwise straightforward column on Shank's pick for the third starter in the Division Series (that won't start for two months).

Sorry, but I’m a Lackey lackey. Granted, he was downright horrible at the start of this season. He’s got a ridiculous 6.23 ERA. But have faith. Mike Scioscia did. Lackey won the seventh game of the World Series for the Angels when he was a rookie in 2002. Lackey’s ERA in seven ALDS games is 2.40. His career ERA in four ALCS games is 3.70.

It's interesting to note Shank's attitude towards newly acquired pitcher Erik Bedard:

We’re all anxiously awaiting Bedard’s first words to the Boston media (kind of like Albert Haynesworth, minus the rap sheet). Without setting foot in town, Bedard has been portrayed as a guy with the big-game toughness of Matt Young and the disposition of Sean Penn. Maybe he can bring Nomar’s red “line of death’’ back to the Sox clubhouse.

It’s a bit much, actually. Bedard might be the first player run out of town before he gets to town. Even police-blotter Haynesworth didn’t get crushed like this before he joined the team.

And who would know best about running a player out of town than our resident fifth degree black belt in the art, Shank Shaughnessy?

UPDATE, at 8:45 PM - Gerry Callahan does the research on Erik Bedard Shank can't / won't.

The End Of An Era?

No, I'm not talking about Randy Moss' retirement, although I think that's the strong horse candidate for his next Globe hit piece column.

I'm talking about the lack of recent CNN / SI columns. I couldn't find any rumors / scuttlebutt through a Google search, but truth be told, in Shank-like fashion, I didn't exactly search long and hard for it!

From early November 2009 to mid-July of this year, Shank had a CNN / SI column every Monday, and two (!) on April 19, 2010, when Shank proudly yanked his meat waxed ecstatic about how awesome a sports city Boston is. Maybe with the recent "Shank, thou shalt tweet" order from on high in the Globe management structure, he can't do that gig anymore. Which is too bad, as his CNN / SI articles are far superior to his Globe columns. That, and if this Twitter page is for real, Shank tweeting is laughably banal and insipid, much like, well, you know...

Patriots Glass Half Empty?

The lockout is over, the Patriots are coming off a 14 - 2 regular season and training camp has started with a flourish of free agent signings and the like. Leave it to Shank, after having used up this decade's quota of saying nice things about certain members of the Patriots organization, to mount his high horse of sanctimony and piss on the parade:

Strap yourselves in, Patriots fans. Free agent frenzy is just getting started and - given Haynesworth’s rap sheet - the Patriots have sent the message that they’ll take a chance on anyone with talent. This means there might still be room for Pacman Jones, Dave Meggett, and Manny Ramirez. Too bad The Juice is behind bars.

Once a bastion of teamwork, character, and sanctimony (remember “The Patriot Way’’?), Gillette Stadium is the new Oakland Alameda County Coliseum. The franchise that said “No’’ to Christian Peter is now the place you go to restore your tattered reputation. Ochocinco calls it “Heaven.’’

In this spirit, why don’t the Patriots expand their Misfit Haven to the front office? Anthony Weiner would make a nifty team photographer. Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson could work in public relations, and Tiger Woods might be a good fit as director of the cheerleaders. Why not hire Hells Angels for stadium security on Sundays?

As Monkeesfan noted in a previous comment, some dumb bastard gave Shank the one and only microphone for which to ask questions of the coach during yesterday's press conference. Smart move?

The amusing thing about this article is that Shank undercuts the entire premise of his column towards the end, followed up by a gratuitous Warren Zevon lyric, which in this context is extremely lame:

Tom Brady watched Corey Dillon and Randy Moss come and go in Foxborough. For the most part, those bad dudes behaved while they were in New England. Brady is open-minded about all of his new teammates.

Knowing Shank's rooting against Haynesworth & Ochocinco is all the motivation you and I need to root for them.

What's Wrong With Shank?

(Apologies - my internet connection was hosed for the past 45 hours)

Did you get a load of this column?

Now 70 years old, Kraft has been the face of the Patriots since Jan. 21, 1994 when he bought the franchise from James Orthwein. He went through some growing pains in the early years - announcing he was moving the team to Hartford, publicly feuding with coach Bill Parcells, and sometimes getting a little too involved with football operations. His first coaching hire was Pete Carroll. There was embarrassment when beloved Curtis Martin was pilfered by Parcells and the Jets.

But Kraft proved to be a quick study and today he’s rightfully recognized as one of the more powerful and respected owners in the NFL. In our region, he’s emerged as a latter-day Walter Brown. Trust me when I tell you there is no higher praise for a Boston sports owner.

He hasn't exactly covered himself in glory in many numerous previous columns about Kraft; I find this column very stunning. After a lot of further review, I have to say the summation of his previous venomous columns toward Robert Kraft do not offset this otherwise graceful effort. Not even close...

Shank Says Something Nice About A Kraft

Unfortunately, it's in passing:

She was the conscience and soul of the Patriots, a woman who came to football reluctantly, through marriage, then used the currency of football fame to enhance her lifelong missions of fund-raising and philanthropy.

Myra Kraft was a wonderful wife, mother, and grandmother. She spent her life trying to make things better for everyone else. And we can pay tribute to her here on the sports pages today because by any measurement, Myra Kraft was one of the most important women in the history of New England sports.

“Without Myra Kraft, it’s quite possible we’d be going to Hartford to watch the Patriots,’’ former Globe plagiarist columnist Mike Barnicle said yesterday after it was announced that Myra succumbed to cancer at the age of 68. “Obviously, Bob Kraft has deeps roots in this area, but Myra was so much a part of this community - the larger community beyond the sports world - she was never going to allow her husband to leave.’’

I wonder why it seems that we're only hearing about Myra's philanthropy now; maybe she was just really low-key about it?

Slow News Week

Just as I was saying the best thing about Shank's picked up pieces columns was their infrequency, along comes Shank with another one.

Pardon me if I sound like Larry King, but what’s up with this Twitter madness? It strikes me as trendy, immature, and entirely unnecessary. What you had for lunch is of no interest to me. Increasingly, tweeting seems to be getting athletes in trouble.

Remember Rashard Mendenhall on Osama Bin Laden? The Raiders and Steelers on Hines Ward? All those players ripping Jay Cutler after the loss to the Packers? It’s just too easy to rip off an inane message of 140 characters and hit the “send’’ button.

Or rip off (so to speak) an inane message of a thousand or so words, send it to your editor and call it a column. Besides, Shank's already tweeting!

The last part of this column is rich with irony / hypocrisy as it involves Jacoby Ellsbury:

Q and A with agent Scott Boras from the All-Star Game. On the public relations beating the Red Sox’ Jacoby Ellsbury took in Boston last season:

This S.O.B. led the charge against Ellsbury in print and on the radio, and now he has the nerve to present the situation in the passive tense, as though he had nothing to do with it? For a newspaper columnist, he's got balls...

Was Ellsbury hurt by the criticism?

Translation - did I get to him?

Did Boras ever think Ellsbury and the Sox would have to part company after the wasted year of 2010?
...
Any talks regarding a contract extension for Ellsbury:

Translation - did my trashing of your client get to you?

This guy really knows how to hold a grudge, doesn't he? Throw in the shot earlier in the column at the Krafts, and that point's a big 10 - 4.

A Winning Combination

With this week's CNN / SI column, Shank combines his two favorite things - baseball and himself.

Football and basketball are still locked out. The Women's World Cup, the British Open and Nathan's Hog Dog Eating Contest have all come and gone. The Roger Clemens trial was over before it started.

All we have is baseball. God bless the summer game.

Well, there is a bike race going on in France...

How many of you remember playing summer baseball? Who remembers when your next baseball game was the only thing that mattered?

Growing up in Central Massachusetts, I played all the traditional programs of pre-college baseball -- Little League, Pony League, Babe Ruth and high school. Little League and high school ball were highly structured and the season was always over by early June. Pony League and Babe Ruth were different. There was less structure, fewer rules; not as many coaches and parents getting in the way of our fun. We played when it was hot outside. Summer ball was always the most fun.

A nice piece of youthful nostalgia, or self-indulgent baby boomer claptrap? You make the call!

Another Bandwagon For Shank To Jump On

Not exactly a news flash, but still:

The tipping point for me came Thursday morning when my friend Ken Nigro called from Florida. We covered baseball together in Baltimore a million years ago. Ken is over 70, still reads seven newspapers per day (actual newspapers, my friends),

Finally - we found a Boston Globe subscriber!

He wanted to know if I was going to be in Tampa to watch the Red Sox this weekend. I told him, ‘No.’ Then he switched topics.

“Forget about baseball,’’ said Nigro. “This week I saw the greatest sporting event I’ve ever seen.’’

Loudon, NH?

“Brazil, right?,’’ I asked.

“Yeah,’’ he replied. “That women’s soccer game was the greatest game ever. I’ve never been a soccer fan, but I gotta admit, this is pretty good.’’

Shank then proceeds to bore the hell out of anyone reading the column. You've been warned!

Mistrial

Shank reacts to yesterday's mistrial of Roger Clemens.

You should be infuriated. I am. A lot of sports fans were opposed to this trial on the grounds that it was a waste of money. You know the argument - “who cares if Roger cheated and lied? That was a long time ago. He’s a baseball player. He’s not a threat to society.’’

Did anyone see a hint of this infuriation in Shank's previous article about Clemens? How about this recent one? Yeah, me neither.

I was in the other corner, defending the feds. I wanted to see Clemens stand trial and try to explain how he could stand on front of Congress with such defiance in the face of so much contrary evidence.

What a crock of shit - Shank couldn't have been more firmly planted on the middle of the fence in case something like this happened. Again - read his last two offerings, much like his stances on a number of issues, he deftly straddled the fence so he can have it both ways.

How's Clementine doing, Shank?