We Love L.A.!

After the Red Sox wrap up a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday night, beating them 8 - 1, Shank sums up the road trip, and the series.

LOS ANGELES — On the one-year anniversary of the biggest trade in baseball history, the first-place Red Sox hit three homers, got a three-hitter from Jake Peavy, and defeated the first-place Dodgers, 8-1.

There was plenty of off-the-field action before the rubber game of the potential World Series matchup.

Pregame in the Sox clubhouse, we had Ryan Dempster explaining the he was not upset when David Ortiz told USA Today he “didn’t like” Dempster hitting A-Rod last weekend. In the dugout, John Farrell said he was OK with Jon Lester’s snappishness after Lester was pulled from Saturday’s brilliant start. Behind the batting cage we had Adrian Gonzalez talking to some of his ex-Sox teammates who pretended to be happy to see the Cooler.

Carl Crawford, meanwhile, continued to avoid anyone who’s ever set foot in Boston and said he would never eat the cream pie for which the city is named. In front of the Sox dugout, we had Dr. Charles Steinberg, who once worked for Frank and Jamie McCourt, and got fingered as the guy who assembled a position paper for Jamie’s planned presidential campaign.

While all this was going down, Janet Marie Smith, the Hall of Fame-bound architect who rebuilt Fenway before she was unceremoniously dismissed by the Sox in 2009, graciously walked her former Boston bosses (Red Sox/Globe owner John Henry, Linda Pizzuti, Tom Werner, Larry and Stacey Lucchino) around the famous LA ballyard. The unfailingly polite Smith has overseen a stunning renovation of Dodger Stadium and can make any situation comfortable.

Then, just when it felt like things couldn’t get any more awkward, ESPN analyst Curt Schilling walked into the pressbox.

Yeesh. Talk about no place to hide . . .

I wonder if they exchanged pleasantries?

Throw in a Larry Bird reference, and it's done.

Vin Scully

Since the Red Sox are playing the L.A. Dodgers this weekend, it makes sense to have a column on Vin Scully.

Ted Williams, Jimi Hendrix, Bill Russell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jim Brown, Winston Churchill, Bobby Orr, Yo-Yo Ma, Muhammad Ali . . .

And Vin Scully.

The best who ever lived.

On Friday, the Dodgers announced that Scully will be back as team broadcaster for his 65th year in 2014. A humbled Scully, now 85, gracefully participated in a press conference, telling the assembled media that he wished the Dodgers had simply released the news with a single line in the evening’s game notes.

In all of sports, there is nothing like the Scully-Dodgers relationship. Ernie Harwell was the sweet honey voice of the Tigers for a million years and Marv Albert has been the signature caller of the Knicks forever. We came to associate Keith Jackson with college football and Al Michaels with believing in miracles. Boston has been graced with the iconic Curt Gowdy, the mellow Ned Martin, Drano-gargling Johnny Most, steady Gil Santos, puckish Fred Cusick, and pom-pom Joe Castiglione, who moved thousands of “can you believe it?” bottle openers after the Red Sox finally won in 2004.

And now have pom-pom Dan Shaughnessy, who moved thousands of books after the Red Sox finally won in 2004.

The Day Skynet Became Self-Aware

Shank wonders aloud why his good buddies Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez (& Josh Beckett) won't talk to him anymore.

Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford won’t talk about Red Sox

Truth in advertising - Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford won’t talk to me about Red Sox

LOS ANGELES — I am standing in the swanky, though not overly spacious, Dodgers clubhouse. It is just after 3:30 p.m. Friday and the room has just been opened to the media. No sign of Josh Beckett. No sign of Adrian Gonzalez. No sign of Carl Crawford.

I am not discouraged. I have emptied bigger rooms than this.

This should surprise none of us! Surely he didn't just figure this out?

Suddenly, Crawford is at his locker. A radio guy is with him and it looks like they might be planning an interview for later. I walk toward Carl. He sees me and bolts for the door that leads to the “no media” area with the food room and trainer’s room.

Shank not scoring free food; war has just been declared...

Carl is muttering something as he disappears into the safe haven. From my distance, all I made out is, “[expletive] talk to the [expletive] Boston media . . . ’’

What could have ever been responsible for this change of heart, I wonder?

It’s not like we weren’t warned. Back on Wednesday in San Francisco, Boston reporters asked Red Sox PR people to approach Dodgers PR people to see if Crawford and Gonzalez would be made available before the first game in Los Angeles. Early Friday afternoon, we got word that Carl and the Cooler (Gonzalez in the last three seasons has been part of historic folds by the Padres, Red Sox, and Dodgers, hence, “the Cooler”) would not be speaking with us.

“You can try,’’ a Dodgers PR guy told me. “But that’s what they’re telling us. Adrian was pretty firm about it.’’

...

Despite failing after signing a $142 million contract, Crawford was rarely critiqued in Boston. But he has reinvented his time in the Hub, characterizing the Boston baseball experience as “toxic,’’ and telling the LA Times, “I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me. It puts you in a kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out.’’

The italicized part of the first sentence, to be blunt, is a lie. Shaughnessy has a well-documented three decade history of criticizing professional athletes in Boston, and in particular members of the Red Sox. I've already noted numerous instances of Shank giving Carl Crawford the business. He writes (at a minimum) five articles where he rips Crawford, not to mention anything he may have said about Crawford when he's on the radio with Gresh & Zo on 98.5 The Sports Hub, and has the balls to write something so demonstrably false? That's just further evidence that Shank does not have an editor looking at his columns.

DHL Dan - XXII

Even with a 4:00 PM start time for the Sox - Giants game yesterday, Shank wasn't able to come up with a game summary. Instead, he takes the easy way out and inflicts another picked up pieces column upon us.

And - let the ass kissing continue!

■ I e-mailed John Henry and Larry Lucchino to get a statement regarding Ryan Dempster’s suspension. Nothing. Crickets. And here I thought we’d be toasting one another on John’s boat and swapping secrets now that Henry is buying the Globe.

Dempster's Mini Vacation

Since it's difficult to write game stories and meet Globe deadlines when the Red Sox play on the West Coast, Shank writes a column on Ryan Dempster's suspension instead.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sorry, but Major League Baseball had to suspend Ryan Dempster for throwing at Alex Rodriguez. Yankee manager Joe Girardi correctly noted that it would have been “open season,’’ on A-Rod if baseball did nothing. The message of a non-response from the league would have been, “Yeah, we hate him, too. Take your shots.’’

Certainly many fans would have been just fine with that, but as much as everyone hates A-Rod, it’s not OK for pitchers to have diplomatic immunity when they throw at the Prince of Loathe.

Hitting A-Rod Sunday gave most of you a tickle. It felt good. It was like unleashing a wild elbow in a crowded elevator of Sabermetricians, Jets fans, and folks wearing bicycle shorts. Anybody remember Dave Cowens taking a linebacker run at flopping Houston guard Mike Newlin and then declaring, “Now THAT was a foul!’’? Everybody loves a little frontier justice and nobody likes A-Rod, but gleeful Sox fans should remember that on Sunday night Rodriguez was standing in the same batter’s box where Tony Conigliaro was hit, on the exact same date 46 summers earlier.

A spot on column, I'd say.

A Little Over The Top, Please

Shank goes a bit overboard for the newest member of the Red Sox, Xander Bogaerts.

This is big; something along the lines of the first moon walk and/or the Beatles debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February of ’64. Seriously, Bogaerts’ first start could be an important event in Red Sox history; like Tony Conigliaro’s first game in 1964 at Yankee Stadium when he was only 19 years old. Maybe it’ll be like Dwight Evans’s debut in 1972 when Evans was 20 and the Sox were in a first-place dogfight with the Tigers.

We went through a phenom false alarm at the beginning of this season when Jackie Bradley Jr. came north with the “Please Don’t Hate Us” Sox. It was the start of Boston’s Redemption Tour back when everybody thought Boston would finish fourth or fifth in the American League East.

Don't let this column fool you. Just remember who was hyping the hell out of Jackie Bradley Jr. in April, and who was also leading the call for a last place finish by the Red Sox this year. And nothing says hip and relevant quite like bringing up an event that happened a mere half century ago. Wait until Shank figures out Sir Paul McCartney's a Liverpool FC supporter...

Birds Of A Feather

Look who's sticking up for Shank - the biggest asshole sportswriter to ever walk the planet (given the context, that's saying something):

Mr. Mariotti: When people like (Boston Red Sox owner) John Henry buy the Boston Globe, I'm petrified (petrified? really? - Ed) for every writer on that staff. What happens when Dan Shaughnessy covers another story about a Red Sox clubhouse scandal. Is it going to make the paper? No. Shaughnessy has made a living on criticizing owners including Henry. Is he going to have a job in a year? These are the sort of people I have in mind down the road for this.

A reminder - Shank did not break the 2011 clubhouse story. He followed up on the story two days after it broke.

So, if / when Shank gets shitcanned, he has another job lined up. Sweet!

But wait - it gets worse (from another article):

Dan Shaughnessy is a sportswriting bad ass. He’s one of the country’s best columnists, opining fearlessly in the bosom of a readership base that is one part religious, one part romantic, one part provincial and one part lunatic. That is a dangerous mix that could get a hard-line commentator killed — I once called Dan for advice in that regard after some Chicago death threats — but Shaughnessy has carried on boldly with his coverage of the Boston Red Sox, taking on the beloved David Ortiz earlier this season by asking Big Papi if he also is a Big PEDer.

I’m afraid he’s about to be silenced.

I'm not. I'm also not worried about Shank getting kneecapped on his arduous one mile runs by the grandsons of Al Capone.

While it's good blog fodder to joke about the Dan Shaughnessy Death Watch, I've come to believe that this will not happen. For starters, Shank appears to be pulling his punches, based on his most recent Globe column. Second, I don't believe John Henry views him as anything more than a minor irritant. Third, shitcanning Shank would only play into the conspiracy theories of the likes of Jay Marrioti, and I seriously doubt John Henry would give a prick like that (or anyone else) the satisfaction.

Last thought - I've not noticed until today that Jay Mariotti and Shank appear to have some sort of professional friendship, a Brotherhood of Assholes, if you will. This may be a one sided thing, as I'm not aware of Shank throwing hosannas Mariotti's way, which is a good professional non-move. If I've missed anything about this bromance that Jay has with Shank, I'd appreciate some feedback in the comments section.

Doubting Dan

Now he's just being a dick.

The CHB pretends the Red Sox, who bested the Yankees Saturday, are a lovable bunch of resilient overachieving stragglers who have miraculously turned into a better behaved version of the Bad News Bears. They have, it's true, but that's not why Shaughnessy is struggling to keep down copious amounts of bile (as well as a case or two of Bud Lite) to fete them today.

Of course, it's likely he's just being ironic, for The CHB is no more a fan of the Red Sox than he is of hearing the bartenders yell "last call" at The Fours.

But at this point, he's writing not for the reader but for his job, and his career -- if we can call it that -- is now in the hands of one John Henry, the owner of the Red Sox and soon to be owner of The Globe.

Oh to be there when Henry goes Donald Trump on Shank's butt. This is gonna be great!

Of Whom He Really is Speaking

He has emerged at the most hated man in sports, one of the most hated people in all of America. He is a living, breathing, ballplaying, piñata— the Prince of Loathe.

So in theory The CHB is writing about Alex Rodriguez. But, it's pretty clear he is also writing about himself.

The Prince Of Darkness

Move over, Ozzy Osbourne - there's a new Lucifer in town:

You could use plenty of choice words to describe the Red Sox after they dropped three out of four to the Royals over the weekend.

But the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy, speaking on Sports Sunday with Damon Amendolara, has his word: fragile.

"I am the prince of darkness with these guys right now," Shaughnessy said of the Sox. "People think I'm negative? I am negative. They've done a great job. This is a wonderful season. It's a gift, it's magic, it's great. They are very fragile in my view right now. Every time it looks like something bad is going to happen, they come back and rip off four out of five or something like that. Maybe that's going to happen again. I would be very worried about them right now."

So, when does Shank officially step up his campaign to run Jacoby Ellsbury out of town? If you're the Prince of Darkness, that requires biting someone's head off, doesn't it?

Laying Low

You'd think the recent performance of the Red Sox, losing three of their last four games to the Kansas City Royals, would be enough to get Shank to write a panicked column, comparing them to the 2011 'chicken & beer brigade', or whatever other excuse he'd have to take a piss on the Olde Towne Team.

Did John Henry lay down the law already, or did Shank clam up on his own, thinking self-preservation? Is Shank on extended vacation? Did Whitey Bulger rub him out? Theories are welcome!

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XXII

The hits just keep on coming:

The New York Times Company [$NYT] reported second quarter 2013 earnings 48% below last year's quarter due to severance and other "special" items but digital paid subscriptions rose 40%.

The full results are here: www.nytco.com/pdf/2Q_2013_Earnings.pdf

Despite rising numbers of readers and paid subscriptions, the company continues to struggle as advertising revenues continued to fall again— 6% in this quarter. This is the eighth sequential quarter of declining print and digital advertising revenues.

"Print and digital advertising revenues decreased…largely due to ongoing secular trends and an increasingly complex and fragmented digital advertising marketplace."

Jeff Bercovici, media reporter at Forbes, noted that the good news on digital was not enough.

Digital subscriptions still represent a smallish part of the company’s overall revenue picture — just 15% of circulation revenue and 7.8% of total revenues, which fell 1% in the quarter, to $485 million.

This is just a further indication that John Henry's recent purchase of the Boston Globe is a simple real estate play.

I'll Have A Bowl Of Awkward, Please

Fresh from updating his resume, Shank runs a copy by the folks at Boston Public Radio. Oh, and he also sits down with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan yesterday to discuss his imminent demise the recent purchase of the Boston Globe by Red Sox owner John Henry.

(full audio at the top of the page, 4:09)

Dan Shaughnessy: Globe Sale To John Henry A 'Bowl Of Awkward'

Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who at times has been critical of owner John Henry's management of the Boston Red Sox, spoke with Boston Public Radio about his new boss.

Kind of an understatement, don't you think?

"It's amazing how life works," he told Boston Public Radio's Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Monday. "It is a whole bowl of awkward. It's hard to get your head around it, and it is amusing to a degree."

You might not be laughing in a few weeks, mate...

Henry purchased The Boston Globe for $70 million early Saturday morning. Shaughnessy said he hopes the purchase of the newspaper by the principal owner of the very baseball team he has covered for three decades will not change his expectations as a columnist.

"What I've seen so far in statements by Mr. Henry - he's going to allow the Globe to do what it does, which is practice good journalism (first time for everything! - ed),” Shaughnessy said. “We've covered this team like nobody's business and when good things happen it's all good, and when bad things happen it's not so good. And I expect it to be that way, and hope that we have a wonderful run under new ownership."

Shaughnessy said the change in Globe ownership will not change the way he approaches his work as a columnist covering the Red Sox.

That will change when he has the sitdown with the new Vito Corleone...

"This is sports, and my agenda is running Red Sox players out of town how I feel about things," he said. "I feel I've always had the independence to have those opinions, and will continue to have those opinions and hopefully have the independence to put them out there."

Shaughnessy called Henry a 'forward looking guy.'

“This is a guy that likes devices, and he's always been a computer guy and the way the industry's going, that could be just the ticket," he said. “This is evolution. You can't fight it."

Fight the power, Shank!

To this point, I'll give Shank credit for taking it in stride.

DHL Dan - XXI

Nothing says "I'll write a halfassed picked up pieces column today because I'm probably getting shitcanned any second by the new owner I've been trashing for the past decade" like this one.

Picked-up pieces while reminding all of you that John Henry’s greatness has been vastly underappreciated . . .

It's gonna be fun watching Shank grovel over the next few weeks.

Or will he?

A losing Boston Globe contender is claiming his San Diego media company outbid Red Sox owner John Henry — and would have gone even higher — a bombshell allegation that he says could delay the deal and leave the New York Times Co. open to shareholder backlash.“We bid significantly more than Henry,” said John Lynch, the CEO of U-T San Diego, one of the Globe finalists. “At the end of the day, I’m certain our bid was higher and could have been a lot more higher if they had just asked. I’m just stunned. I thought this was a public company that had a fiduciary duty to get the most by its stockholders. ... From the beginning, I don’t think they wanted to sell to us.”

Probably because the owner & the newspaper are insufficiently liberal:

Douglas Manchester, the owner of U-T San Diego — the newspaper formerly known as the Union-Tribune — has come under fire for aggressively influencing his paper’s editorial content.

Here's another indicator that may be the case:

PS Two years ago they could have sold it to my friends at Freedom Communications (publishers of The Orange County Register) for 300 grand (and unloaded the pensions), but they would have been ideologically uncongenial to the Times. So the Gray Lady bravely took a quarter-billion hit in the cause of liberal torpor.

Popcorn time!

As The Globe Turns

Could this mean the end of The CHB?

Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that first owner-employee conversation.

The Big Tuna

Former Patriots coach Bill Parcells will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, and Shank pens a righteous column about him and his time with the Patriots.

Bill Parcells takes his rightful place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, and there will be noise about his two Super Bowl championships with the New York Giants (remember Scott Norwood and wide right?), and his rebuilding of the Jets, Cowboys, and Dolphins. Parcells is the only man in NFL history to lead four franchises to the playoffs and he is one of only five men to take two franchises to the Super Bowl. He is renowned as the great, almighty Tuna, the quintessential Jersey guy who engaged reporters and insisted, “You are what your record says you are.’’

All swell. The Tuna deserves props and is overdue for a bust in Canton. But it is his four-year stint as head coach of the Patriots that matters most to us here in New England. Parcells is the man who rescued the Patriots from irrelevance and maybe from a move to St. Louis.

More than Bob Kraft, Tom Brady or Bill Belichick, Parcells is the man who changed the culture of football in Foxborough.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XXI

The Boston Globe continues to flounder:

Circulation and advertising revenues at the New England Media Group — which runs The Boston Globe — took a dive last quarter, just as The New York Times gets ready to announce a sale of the broadsheet any day now.

New England Media’s overall revenue fell 7.4 percent last quarter compared to the second quarter of 2012, the Times announced during a quarterly conference call earlier today.

Advertising fell 9.5 percent last quarter. Circulation revenue dropped 2.3 percent, even though the Globe hiked up home delivery prices in May, Times execs reported. Other revenues dropped 14 percent.

Um, I'm pretty sure circulation revenue dropped because home delivery prices were increased, but maybe it's just me...

This part's interesting:

Times Chief Financial Officer James Fallo told analysts it’s “unlikely” that pension obligations will be included in the sale of New England Media, which also includes the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Boston.com.

Does this mean the NYT assumes the pension obligations, or are they gone completely (i.e. - no pension for you!)? It could also mean that the bids are structured in a way not to assume those obligations (asset purchase only).

...

The long-awaited Globe sale could come any day now with several bidders reportedly in the mix, including a team consisting of former Globe execs Steve and Ben Taylor and former Time CEO Jack Griffin; Red Sox owner John Henry; and the Revolution Capital Group, which owns the Tampa Tribune.

Bid prices, however, have reportedly ranged between $65 million and $80 million — far less than the $120 million analysts had once projected and a shell of the $1.1 billion the Times paid for the Globe in 1993.

This tends to support what I said in previous Globe bashing posts - these bids look like a play only on the land, building & equipment at 135 Morrissey Boulevard (asset purchase), since there's no reason to offer a premium on a money losing operation. At least the Times will have a nice tax writeoff on the $1 billion loss, so they have that going for them...

Reggie Lewis

Twenty years ago, Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics died of a heart attack, and Shank writes an otherwise good column about it (emphasis mine):

Twenty years ago today, folks picked up their morning Globe and saw a front-page headline that read, “Celtics captain Lewis dies after collapse while shooting.’’

It was the story of the death of Reggie Lewis at the age of 27. It was a story that was as tragic as the premature deaths of Harry Agganis, Tony Conigliaro, and Len Bias. Until last month, when a star Patriots player was arrested for murder, the death of Reggie Lewis was perhaps the worst story involving a Boston athlete.

I say 'otherwise' because Shank poorly telegraphs his future punches against the Patriots:

For those of us who cover sports in Boston, it was one of the worst stories ever.

Until now.

Who does he think he's kidding? For Shank, it will be one of the best stories ever.

Big Bill Belichick

Shank was there to cover yesterday's Bill Belichick press conference, and gave it high marks.

FOXBOROUGH — Bill Belichick came up big Wednesday. Facing the media for the first time since his tight end, Aaron Hernandez, was charged with murder June 26, the legendary Patriots football coach was fair, measured, empathic, remorseful, dignified, ever-secretive, and best of all, human.

News flash - Bill Belichick is NOT a cyborg! I knew it!

Throughout the column, Shank lays it on thick in spots, and takes some shots along the way (emphasis mine):

This was necessary. The Hernandez case is nothing like Spygate, Tebowing, Fourth and 2, or hating on Eric Mangini. A young man is dead, an ex-Patriot is in jail, and the hard-earned brand of the local football team is forever tarnished.

There were still some toady Patriots fans who felt that their beloved coach (“In Bill We Trust”) could stay in the bunker forever, but Belichick put that nonsense to rest in his opening statement when he said, “I’m primarily responsible for the people we bring into the football operation . . . most of those decisions have worked out but some don’t. Overall, I’m proud of the hundreds of players that have come through this program but I’m personally disappointed and hurt in a situation like this.’’

Perfect. The coach knew that this was not the day to play the “stupid game,’’ that’s worked so well in Foxborough over the last 13 seasons. Belichick has demonstrated uncommon disdain for disclosure and public relations during his tenure with the Patriots. Ask him about tight end Rob Gronkowski’s status two days after a surgery and the coach might say, “I haven’t talked to the doctor yet.” Ask him if today is Thursday and he’ll deadpan, “Traditionally, Thursday is the day that follows Wednesday.’’

You get the sense from reading the column that Shank wants to rip Belichick a new one but never has an opening to do so, or just doesn't take it. With football season just around the cornere, there's still five more months to be an asshole. Patience, young Jedi...

Libel & Slander?

I'm kicking myself for not posting a prediction on Shank's next column last night, as it seemed to me almost too easy to predict this self-righteous column. Funny how a baseball writer can spend the entire part of the previous decade ignoring the likes of McGwire, Sosa and Bonds, and now takes a sudden interest in PED's.

Just call him Lyin’ Ryan.

In the pantheon of sports dirtbags, Ryan Braun goes down as one of the worst. He forever will be a baseball pariah.

Unfortunately that’s not enough. The disgraced Milwaukee Brewer got off easy. He deserved at least a one-year suspension. Probably more. I’d have been OK with a lifetime ban, which may be what’s coming for Alex Rodriguez.

As I was reading this column, I wondered if Shank would double down on his questioning of a certain Red Sox player earlier this year; and, sure enough:

It’s only going to get worse. At this hour, the Red Sox are engaged in a playoff hunt that no doubt involves players who someday will serve suspensions for their involvement with Biogenesis. You can guess some of their names and some of them already have prior positive tests. It makes you think twice about the “action” unfolding from now through October.

I wonder if Shank somehow got a list of names about the players involved in the Biogenesis matter? As of today, there are five names linked to this matter, none of whom are on the Red Sox roster.

I don't think it takes Albert Einstein to figure out who he's talking about. Good thing he didn't use his name in this article, or the Globe would be sued into bankruptcy.

Mr. Right (For Now)

Shank says many nice things about current Red Sox manager John Farrell and his positive influence on the 2013 Red Sox.

OAKLAND, Calif. — It was late morning on a splendid Sunday in northern California and John Farrell was holding court in the first base dugout at O.co Coliseum.

He was asked if he might name his starting rotation for next weekend’s big series with the Yankees at Fenway Park when the Sox return from the All-Star break.

“We’ll announce that as soon as we tell the guys who are making starts for us,’’ Farrell said politely.

There you go. More boredom from the top. More keeping things in-house. More respect for the major league ballplayers.

Naturally, Shank needs to remind you how bad the previous manager was:

A year ago the manager of the Red Sox might have spilled the beans, or ripped one of his pitchers, or asked “who cares?’’ or answered his cellphone before answering the question. He certainly wouldn’t have told his pitching coach who was starting against the Yankees.

That was then. This is now. Chaos and calamity have been displaced by peace and tranquility. Speaking in tongues has ceded to actual communication. Last place has become first place.

Which keeps with traditional Shank themes - say lots of nice things about the manager until the first big losing streak, then it's time for the manager to walk the proverbial plank and get run out of town.

The Oakland A's Road Trip

Shank joins the Red Sox on their annual trip to Oakland to play the Athletics. So far he wrote two columns while in Oakland, the first noting the number of former Red Sox on the A's roster, and what a lovable dump their ballpark is.

The second column, a game recap of the Saturday game, naturally comes after a 3 - 0 Red Sox loss. It seems to be a general rule of Shank's only to write about the Red Sox after a loss:

OAKLAND, Calif. — They started the season in New York, still shamed by 2012, promoting Jackie Bradley Jr. as the face of the franchise, admitting their phony sellout streak soon would end, and hoping to return to respectability. New manager John Farrell said he liked his team and Boston’s embattled ownership group promised “What’s Broken Can Be Fixed.’’

Sunday night the first-place Red Sox pause for the All-Star break. David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, and Clay Buchholz will travel to New York for the Midsummer Classic, while their teammates go home for a well-deserved rest.

After stumbling through their worst season in 47 years, the 2013 Red Sox own the best record in the American League, and a significant lead (3½ games entering Sunday) in the ever-competitive AL East. The Sox have 58 wins, tops in franchise history at the All-Star break.

How did this happen?

Eventually there will come a day where the near-constant reminders by Shank of how awful the 2012 Boston Red Sox were will run its course and deprive him of his much needed cudgel to bash the Red Sox over and over and over. Today is not that day.

Coliseum Column's a Dump

The Oakland Coliseum is a dump. Who knew?

It's not like the Athletics haven't been trying to move to San Jose for, oh, at least four years.

But that doesn't stop The CHB, in a hugely disjointed column, from first pointing out all that's wrong about the facilities, then noting all the former Red Sox players on the A's roster.

At least there's no reference to "MoneyBall" or "Billy Ball" (Martin or Beane). Probably because the A's are in first place.

Oh yes, and there's a random Larry Bird mention.

Monthly Update

Shank hasn't written a column for a few weeks, so we're treated to a monthly recap of the local professional sports scene.

Two things to note - he's using the column to suck up to the Red Sox; I wasn't aware that you could rebuild a bridge that Shank clearly nuked a few months back:

3. Red Sox. No team in baseball has more wins. And now that John Henry appears serious about buying the Globe (don't do it! - ed.), I must admit that, upon further review, everything the Sox do is just swell with me.

Since you have been away you need to know that the Sox have eight walkoff wins, love one another unconditionally, and clearly have the best chemistry in the history of baseball. The Sox lead the majors in runs scored and apparently can win the World Series without a legitimate closer. David Ortiz — teetering on the brink of outright release three years ago — has discovered the fountain of youth and simply gets better every day. Truly amazing. Jose Iglesias is putting up numbers that would make Rogers Hornsby blush and an outfield of Jonny Gomes, Daniel Nava, and Mike Carp is infinitely superior to those lean years when the Sox only had Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, and Dwight Evans. I am not the least bit worried about the Tampa Bay Rays, who have a cake schedule and just got David Price back. The Yankees and Orioles (both five back in the loss column entering Wednesday) also appear to be mirages. The Red Sox have 25 great guys who love each other. They are the envy of baseball. And John Henry might be the greatest human being who ever lived.

Also, Shank continues his jihad against the Patriots:

4. Patriots. Supreme tight end Aaron Hernandez has been arrested for murder, is a suspect in a 2012 double homicide, and owns a trail of guns and violence that resulted in at least one punctured eardrum and one lost eyeball. Some of this happened before the Patriots made the decision to reward him with a $40 million contract extension last year. Tuesday, Patriots owner Robert Kraft (looking more and more like Ralph Lauren and/or Hugh Hefner) broke the franchise’s extended silence and told a handpicked trio of reporters that the Patriots were “duped,’’ while still clinging to the whopper that it was Hernandez’s idea to donate $50,000 to the Myra Kraft Giving Back Fund when Hernandez signed his extension.

Please. Duped? This is an organization that requires media members to report to “security command,” then videotapes useless press sessions involving coach Bill Belichick and said reporters. Nothing is left to chance at Gillette Stadium.

Duped? Did Belichick ever talk to old pal Urban Meyer about this kid? Did the Patriots speak to any of their own players (check out the Matt Light quotes) before deciding that Hernandez, not Wes Welker, was the guy who should get the long extension and the bag of money? Players don’t know everything about one another. But they know whom they like and whom they trust.

The Patriots can’t win this one. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

And Shank will do his best to keep it that way. He'll milk this one for the next two years.

Man Of The Year

Shank bags another prestigious reward:

NASHUA – While most of New England rejoiced when the Boston Bruins advanced to the Stanley Cup Final this season, Dan Shaughnessy was nervous.

Shaughnessy, a sports columnist at The Boston Globe for over 30 years, anxiously awaited the release of the Finals schedule with hope that Game 7 – which he would’ve had to work for the Globe – wouldn’t fall on June 27.

Fortunately for Shaughnessy and the Nashua Police Athletic League, it didn’t, and the worst that could happen would be Shaughnessy making a quick turnaround from Chicago to Nashua in one day to attend the PAL Sports Dinner at Conway Arena on Thursday.

However, the Bruins’ season ended Monday and Shaughnessy was in attendance to accept his 2013 PAL of the Year award.

You might be wondering what ties Shank has to the Nashua, New Hampshire area:

Shaughnessy, originally from Groton, Mass., was relatively unfamiliar with PAL when he was first offered the award. But his ties to the Nashua area – he has family in Hollis and Hudson and his brother-in-law, the late Don Marquis, was a longtime history department chairman at Nashua High School – and his appreciation for the police and youth sports made him proud to receive it.

Kind of a reach, if you ask me.

Refresh Time

"I hate to break it to everybody, but chemistry in a baseball clubhouse is way overrated. Winning requires talent, pitching, and three-run homers." - Shank, March 31, 2013

AL East Standings at Halfway Mark

Boston 48 33 .593 - Baltimore 43 36 .544 4 NY Yankees 42 36 .538 4.5 Tampa Bay 41 38 .519 6 Toronto 39 39 .500 7.5

Handwringing - II

Completely predictable.

Through the years, when real-world issues have visited the Sports Department, there have been some bad stories. Some of them strained the limits of believability. Others were simply sad.

Harry Agganis and Reggie Lewis died while they were in their 20s. Len Bias killed himself via cocaine intoxication before he played a game for the Celtics. The Patriots lost a Super Bowl, then revealed an in-house drug scandal. Tony Conigliaro had his career cut short by a beanball, then suffered a stroke and died at the age of 45. Rocky Marciano died in a plane crash. Ted Williams’s head was separated from his body and cryogenically frozen in the hours after his death.

More than a few of our professional athletes have landed on the police blotter. Players who were cheered at Fenway, Foxboro, and the Garden turned out to be gun-toters, wife beaters, drunks, drug abusers, thieves, and deadbeat dads.

But there has never been anything like this.

It gets better:

Please. No need piling on the franchise here. Hernandez’s associates and alleged actions are not the Patriots’ fault. But at a time when “Patriot Way” has become a sickening parody of its own mythical origins, New England’s front office needs to stop with the self-congratulation.

So, what does Shank do later on in the column? He piles on, of course!

The Hernandez saga brings up questions about the collective judgment of a conservative franchise that typically does exhaustive research before making the smallest decisions. How did the Patriots arrive at the conclusion that Hernandez was worthy of a $40 million contract extension, which included a $12.5 million signing bonus? Where were the background checks and red flags? What about Belichick’s deep roots with Hernandez’s college coach at Florida, Urban Meyer?

I know that there are a few things worse than being a raving, disingenuous hypocrite; right now, I can't think of them...

UPDATE, 6/28/2013 at 10:45 AM - From reader Walter, with a rhetorical question:

"How out of touch are the folks over on Morrissey Boulevard?

For years the readers have been subjected to articles on the editorial page and by their Metro columnists urging Boston area corporations to hire disadvantaged youths with perhaps checkered backgrounds.

And yet, Robert Kraft / Bill Belichick did just that with Aaron Hernandez and now they are being blamed for it."

Handwringing

Any bets that Shank will write yet again on Aaron Hernandez with a column tomorrow?

Good News, Bad News

The bad news first - the Bruins lost last night, 3-2, to the new Stanley Cup champions, the Chicago Blackhawks.

The good news? This is Shank's last Bruins' column for the next few months!

The Bruins were going back to Chicago. The New Garden was as loud as it’s ever been, the Stanley Cup was going to stay under wraps, and the greatest puck series of a generation was going to play out in a seventh game Wednesday night at the United Center.

And then it melted like a snowcone on Causeway Street on the hottest day of the new summer. Before you could say Grady Little or David Tyree, the Chicago Blackhawks had their own Miracle On Ice and captain Jonathan Toews was hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head.

Because we all know the impact Grady Little and David Tyree had on the outcome of the game. What garbage...

A Master Of The Obvious - II

Shank's Sunday column was so underwhelming, none of us wanted to post on it. Guess I drew the the shortest straw...

CHICAGO — Five games of blood and thunder. Three overtime contests and five overtime periods. Three wins for Chicago, two for Boston. An aggregate score of 14-13. Heavy hits and breathless action that raises the hair on your forearms. Midnight confessions after each game.

Is this the best Stanley Cup Final in the history of the National Hockey League?

“This is as good as I’ve seen,’’ said Hall of Fame hockey play-by-play announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick. “I can’t remember any better than this. The play has been at such a high level. You think there is nothing left for these guys, and then they keep coming back with more.’’

The Blackhawks beat the Bruins in Game 5 Saturday night, 3-1 (empty-net goal in the final, furious seconds) and will have a chance to win the Stanley Cup Monday night at TD Garden.

Don’t count on it. This thing has to go seven. And maybe a few more overtimes. Then it can be the best ever.

We live in an age of hyperbole and absolutes. Nothing can be simply great. It has to be the best of the best. There is a rush to anoint the latest as the best.

Adele is the best singer of all time. “Mad Men” is the best television show ever. Floyd Mayweather Jr. claims he’s the greatest fighter of all time, and Tiger Woods was on his way to being the best golfer ever.
LeBron James has two championships, so now he’s better than Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan. He’s the best of all time.

Just like Bruins-Blackhawks, 2013.

Early Football Season For Shank

Never let an opportunity to bash the Krafts go to waste.

Traditionally, the Patriots take the field to the tune of “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne. It’s part of all-important game presentation.

Might be time to switch to Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.’’

The Patriots are a football team. They are all about winning football games. Nothing more. The deadly serious Aaron Hernandez situation is the latest reminder of this hard fact.

Bob and Jonathan Kraft need to stop trying to make us think the Patriots are different from all those bad boys in the NFL. You know, all those guys who only care about winning.

Generally speaking, that's what separates successful sports franchises from the others. It looks to me that the Patriots have been better at this sort of thing than, for instance, the Cincinnati Bengals.

“If you’re going to be a part of this organization, there’s a responsibility and a sense of obligation that comes with it, because in my family’s mind, you’re carrying our last name as well,’’ Jonathan Kraft said after the Patriots signed Albert Haynesworth in 2011. “We just want [them] to understand what it means to be a Patriot and that there are certain things that are as important to us, and in some cases, more important to us, than winning.’’

No. The Patriots are no different than any other team. They’ll take a chance on trouble, which apparently is what they did when they drafted Hernandez in the fourth round in 2010.

Hernandez slipped in the draft because of maturity issues and failed drug tests while at the University of Florida. A lot of teams passed on him, but the Patriots took a shot. And so he came here and he played well. In August of 2012, the Patriots broke from standard operating procedure and rewarded Hernandez with a $37 million contract extension, which included a $12.5 million signing bonus. When Hernandez immediately gave $50,000 to the Myra Kraft Giving Back Fund, Bob Kraft called it, “one of the touching moments since I’ve owned the team.’’

I do recall Shank bringing up the issue of character with respect to the Patriots bringing in Haynesworth; memory and research both indicate that character was not an issue for Shank when Hernandez was drafted. To paraphrase a comment to Shank's article, when Mother Teresa lines up at tight end, consider the problem resolved.

UPDATE at 1:48 PM = Deadspin piles on.

A Tale Of Two Columns

Dan Shaughnessy, June 18th, 2013:

Before this Stanley Cup Final is over, the Bruins will be our Boys of Summer — on skates. And at this hour they are a feel-good team on a par with the 1967 Red Sox, the 1970 Bruins, and the 2001-02 Patriots.

There was a rainbow over Causeway Street when fans filed into the West End ice palace before Game 3 Monday night. By the end of the evening, Garden legions were thinking about the silver chalice that is the pot of gold in the National Hockey League.

On the latest date an NHL game has ever been played in Boston, the Bruins defeated the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-0, to take a 2-1 series lead in the Cup Final, which resumes Wednesday night at the Garden. If the Bruins win Game 4, they will have a chance to hoist the Stanley Cup on the ice of the United Center in Chicago Saturday night. Call JetBlue and American Airlines ASAP.

OK, that would be getting ahead of ourselves. But it’s easy to get swept away by the Black-and-Gold tide washing over New England in the spring/soon-to-be-summer of 2013. The Bruins are the team you love to love.

Dan Shaughnessy, two days later:

If you really want to know the truth, we were getting a little greedy about the whole thing.

It wasn’t a matter of if the Bruins would win the Stanley Cup. It was all about when. And where.

Would the Bruins win it in five in Chicago Saturday night? Or would they win it in six back at home on Causeway Street?

Six would be nice, we reasoned. The Bruins haven’t won the Stanley Cup on home ice since Mother’s Day 1970, when Bobby Orr flew through the air.

The parade route was another hot topic. Down Boylston Street seemed like a good idea. That would certainly be a triumphant moment after everything that’s happened this spring.

And who was the favorite for the Conn Smythe Trophy — Tuukka Rask or Patrice Bergeron?

So many premature questions. So many premature thoughts.

So, who was it getting ahead of ourselves, again?

Number 4

Shank interviews Bobby Orr, who played for both the Bruins and Blackhawks. It's an excellent column, because Bobby Orr does most of the talking.

False Expectations

Shaughnessy doesn't really get sports, does he?

Today he calls the Bruins a feel-good team on the level of the '67 Red Sox, the 1970 Bruins or 2001-02 Patriots.

For anyone who was watching, there's a big difference. The 1966 Red Sox finished 9th in the American League, 26 games behind the World Series winning Orioles. They has not been to the World Series since 1946 and were not expected to break that streak in 1967.

The 2000-01 Patriots finished 5-11 and in last place in the AFC East. They had missed the playoffs the year before as well, and had never won a Super Bowl.

The 1970 Bruins, on the other hand, were coming off one of the best seasons in club history, having set a franchise record 100 points and making it to the Eastern Division finals. They did not sneak up on anyone.

As for the 2011-12 Bruins, they won the Northeast Division with 102 points. They were the defending Stanley Cup Champions. They did not sneak up on anyone either.

The Red Sox and Patriots teams were utter surprises. The two Bruins teams are just doing what we expected them to do.

Look away.

Working Overtime

The Boston Bruins won the second game of the Stanley Cup final in Chicago, 2 - 1. Since the Bruins did not lose, Shank can't bring up the Finals loss to Edmonton in 1990 or the playoff loss to the Flyers three years ago, so instead we get a column about Tyler Seguin:

CHICAGO — Tyler Seguin is 21 years old. He can skate all night and stay up late and bounce back the next day. He might be the poster boy for this closing time, 2013 Stanley Cup Final.

Don’t make any plans for Tuesday or Thursday mornings this week. The Bruins and Blackhawks are coming to Boston and can’t settle things in three regulation periods of hockey.

Powered by Seguin’s best game of the playoffs, the B’s beat the Hawks, 2-1, in overtime late Saturday on a wrist shot from the left circle by Daniel Paille after a pinpoint cross-ice feed from Seguin.

Taking care of business and working overtime. That is the theme song of this Cup Final. And the later it goes, the better Seguin gets. He is Boston’s midnight rambler.

Nothing says hip & modern like quoting lyrics that are four decades old!

When you're doing a column on Tyler Seguin and the Bruins, you just have to mention other local sports teams:

Sometimes we give up too early on a player. Remember Chauncey Billups? Celtics coach Rick Pitino grabbed him with the third pick in the entire draft (small consolation for not getting Tim Duncan), then traded Billups three-quarters of the way through his first season.

Sometimes we wait too long on a player. Remember Laurence Maroney? The Patriots used their first-round pick on the running back from Minnesota and waited four years before dumping him. Bill Belchick’s patience with Maroney reminded me of Earl Weaver’s explanation for sticking with aging ace Mike Cuellar. Weaver said, “I gave Cuellar more chances than my first wife.’’

And then there's this:

He has not been “The Next One.’’ We don’t know exactly what he is. We’re not even certain if he’s a center or a winger.

Might want to confirm that he's a center with one of your colleagues, Shank...

Cold as Ice

Shaughnessy on hockey is like nails on a chalkboard, except nails do have their place in a classroom while The CHB has no business anywhere near anything with ice, except maybe a scotch glass.

All it took was one loss for Shank to roll out those tired tropes about bad bounces from-- get this -- 1990. Let's just forget that those Bruins were facing modern hockey's equivalent of the
'27 Yankees, while this year's edition won the Stanley Cup just two seasons ago.

And thank god the B's won in 2011, lest we be treated to a new CHB money grab: The Curse of the Zamboni.

The One Where Dan Goes to the Stanley Cup and Reports on a Baseball Game

It was a game about nothing.

That's the takeaway from The CHB's recap of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup. Comparisons abound to the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007, the Patriots-Bears Super Bowl in 1986 (when Mike Ditka was a coach!) and the 1918 World Series.

Oh yeah, and a Larry Bird mention. What more could we ask for in a column about hockey?

His Cup Runneth Over

The CHB thinks a Stanley Cup would be the ultimate response to the Boston Marathon bombings. This smacks of a future book.

Callous and calculating as ever, be His Shankness.

Shaughnessy on Drugs?

Shank gets treated to a taste of his own medicine.

The Midnight Hour

Shank stayed up late last night to give us a pretty good column on the Bruins' double overtime win over the Pittsburgh Penguins:

This was a Wilson Pickett Special. Wait Till The Midnight Hour. That’s when your love comes tumblin’ down.

The Bruins took a commanding 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals at 12:13 a.m. Thursday when Patrice Bergeron slipped the puck past Penguins goalie Tomas Vokoun in the 16th minute of the second overtime to give Boston a 2-1 victory.

“We found a way,” said Bergeron. “It wasn’t necessarily our best effort in the first 60, but we regrouped in overtime. We are pretty tired, but it’s rewarding when you get results.”

Some of Boston’s most memorable sports moments have transpired in the midnight hour. Carlton Fisk’s moonshot off the foul pole in 1975 was struck at 12:34 a.m. David Ortiz’s Game 4 ALCS walkoff against the Yankees was hit even later. Adam Vinatieri’s overtime kick against the Raiders in the final game at snowy old Foxboro Stadium was a midnight-hour special. The Bruins and Edmonton Oilers went three overtimes in the Stanley Cup Final here in 1990.

Surprisingly, Shank does not mention a previous Bruins' 3 - 0 series lead that evaporated. Instead:

It’s the midnight hour for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Bruins are going to the Final and the once-dominant Penguins are just trying to avoid the indignity of being swept.

Of course, Shank's trademark optimism is subject to change...

Flopping Column

You know you're expecting a terrible Shank column about Game 3 of the Bruins / Penguins series when it starts out like this:

“We were not just beating this team. We were destroying it. As much as I wanted to win that championship, I remember being disappointed that the Lakers were not playing better.’’

— Bill Russell, recalling a 1965 title-clinching game in which the Celtics scored 20 consecutive points, running to a 36-point lead over Los Angeles.

Welcome to Boston, you Pittsburgh Penguins.

This is just another irritating example of Shaughnessy having to interject some other sport into a given column; in this instance, it may well have to do about his, um, lack of expertise in the area.

Because we read him so you don't have to, he redeems himself later in the column, since he has a chance to take a dump on someone:

All eyes will certainly be on Sidney Crosby. Now that LeBron James has rescued the Heat in a Game 7, Crosby is the sports star with the most to prove in the spring of 2013. His reputation has taken a massive hit in the first two games of this series and he risks morphing into a Wilt Chamberlain/A-Rod pinata if he continues to pout and put up zeroes.

The sub-headline in Sports Illustrated’s May 13 cover story on Crosby reads, “You can’t keep Sidney Crosby down. You can only marvel at how hockey’s best player keeps coming back even better than when he left.’’

Well, the Bruins certainly have kept him down for two games. And the only thing to “marvel” about is the new notion that Crosby is a baby and a no-show on the big stage. He’s supposed to be the face of the NHL and the successor to Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, and Mario Lemieux, but thus far in this series, he’s not nearly as good as Torey Krug. And let’s not embarrass him with the numbers about his faceoff failures against Patrice Bergeron.

And the coup de grace:

When an infant was heard crying on a JetBlue flight out of Pittsburgh Tuesday, the pilot asked whether it was Crosby crying in the back of the plane. This is not the image you want to take into Game 3 when your highly favored team was just outscored, 9-1, in the first two games of the conference finals.

A mixed bag, indeed.

Master Of The Obvious

Nothing gets past Shank:

NEW YORK — Clay Buchholz at this hour is the best pitcher in baseball.

Care to argue? Go ahead. Whom do you like better? Justin Verlander? Clayton Kershaw? Felix Hernandez? Stephen Strasburg? Matt Moore? Patrick Corbin?

Buchholz has outpitched all of them this year. He shut out the Yankees for five innings in Sunday night’s rain-shortened 3-0 victory, lowering his ERA to a major league-best 1.62. The Red Sox led in the sixth when the hard rains fell and the game was eventually called after a pair of delays. Buchholz improved his record to 8-0.

He hasn’t had a bad game. Not one. He pitched at least six innings in his first 10 starts and went only five Sunday night because the rains came while the Sox were hitting in the top of the sixth. There was no way manager John Farrell was sending Buchholz back to the mound after a 37-minute rain delay, especially given the fact that Buchholz missed his last start with stiffness in his throwing shoulder.

That's why Shank gets the big bucks - to tell you what you already know...

Rip Job?

Shank can't seem to write a story about positive things, like the Bruins' 3 - 0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, so instead he returns to beating the crap out of Jacoby Ellsbury. The reader is tipped off almost immediately:

This is not a rip job on Ellsbury. There’s no calling into question Ellsbury’s toughness or willingness to play hurt.

Then Shank proceeds to rip Ellsbury:

No need for MLB.com columnist Tom Werner to run to the keyboard and defend his player. Ellsbury missed the first two games of the Yankee showdown this weekend, but he’s played in 54 of 57 games in 2013. He’s practically been Cal Ripken Jr. Let’s call him Iron Man Ellsbury. Everyday Ells.

Nope, no rip job here!

The Boo Birds

Dan Shaughnessy, a man not exactly known for his civility, would like to inform you on manners at the ballpark:

NEW YORK — Boo.

This is not about Boo Radley, Boo Weekley, Honey Boo Boo, Boo Williams, Boo Ellis, Halloween, or Yogi Bear’s partner in picnic basket thievery.

This is about the noise fans make when they are displeased. This is about the nightly referendum at professional sports contests.

Whom do you cheer? Whom do you boo? And why?

This week, Jonathan Papelbon became the latest former Boston sports star to feel the wrath of fans who once worshipped at his size-13 feet. Pap returned to Fenway with the Philadelphia Phillies and was roughed up by Hub fans when he came out of the bullpen to face the Red Sox in the ninth.

Emotionally, this makes sense. I guess.

Being a fan is an emotional experience. It does not require reason or common sense. Cheering and jeering is all about laundry, right? Booing is on the fans’ Bill of Rights.

Still, booing Papelbon seems too dumb for words. It’s sort of like booing Johnny Damon when he came to town with the Yankees or booing Adam Vinatieri when he lines up for a field goal while wearing a Colts uniform.

It's unintentionally funny for him to acknowledge booing as not rational, then have him lecture us on who should be booed and who should not. You'd also think that a Boston Globe columnist who's infamous for writing the occasional nasty column about local athletes ought to have a level of awareness when he writes an ironic column such as this one.

Colorful History

Shank gives us an offbeat drive down memory lane before the Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins start the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday night:

The Bruins play their next game sometime before the World Series (Saturday in Pittsburgh, to be precise), and in our effort to deliver all things Bruins-Penguins, we ask you to hop into the Jerry Trupiano Wayback Machine for some history of this rivalry and these old-timey sports cities.

■ The Penguins wore dark blue, light blue, and white as their colors when they first came into the league in 1967. They changed to black and gold in 1980, claiming it was an homage to the neighborhood champion Steelers and Pirates. Bruins boss Harry Sinden protested the change, claiming the Penguins were stealing Bruins colors.

Enough All Right, Shank

Dan Shaughnessy believes his Boston Globe readers are stupid, gullible and have short / nonexistent memories. This might be the explanation for him to write the following faux fanboy bandwagon column, presumably without the slightest hint of irony or self-awareness:

Never a doubt the Bruins were better team

Enough.

Enough of John Tortorella and his annoying press conferences. Enough of the goal-challenged Rangers pretending they had a chance against the Bruins. Enough of the antics of Derek Dorsett. Enough silly talk about the Bruins blowing another 3-0 series lead.

The B’s Saturday night put the Rangers and their fans out of their misery with a 3-1 Game 5, series-clinching victory over the New Yorkers. The Bruins advance to play the Penguins in the conference finals, starting next week at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh. It’ll be Black & Gold vs. Black & Gold. Sidney Crosby is the only thing standing between the Bruins and another trip to the Stanley Cup Final.

It’s nice to have the Rangers in the rearview mirror. New York was merely an annoyance in Round 2. There was never a moment when the Rangers looked like the better team. They deserved to be swept, and were spared that indignity only because Tuukka Rask slipped on the ice at Madison Square Garden in Game 4. This led to a lot of hysteria about 2010 and the B’s collapse against the Flyers with Rask in net.

The word 'never' would apply to the columnist himself, wouldn't it? Once again, note the passive tone of 'Enough silly talk about the Bruins blowing another 3-0 series lead' and 'lot of hysteria about 2010 and the B’s collapse against the Flyers with Rask in net, as though he didn't have a damn thing to do with any of it:

But they will be reminded that three years ago — with Tuukka between the pipes — they blew a 3-0 series lead against the Flyers.

They will be reminded that they seem to have a big problem closing out playoff series.

They will be reminded that they gave away Game 4 in Madison Square Garden. Big time.
...
Or they’ll have to come back to New York and there will be thousand more reminders that Rask was between the pipes in 2010 when the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead against the Flyers.

Do these sentences sound like someone who supposedly never had a doubt about the Bruins winning this series? To me, it sounds like a columnist who at best takes his readers for fools and knaves, at worst openly lies to them.

Didn't See This One Coming

The Bruins lost to the New York Rangers last night, 4-3, on a series of mistakes; Tuukka Rask falling down, Zdeno Chara coughing up the puck near his own goal, and a penalty for too many men on the ice leading to three of the Rangers' goals.

Of course, Shank reminds us once again of a certain playoff series loss from three years ago:

But they will be reminded that three years ago — with Tuukka between the pipes — they blew a 3-0 series lead against the Flyers. They will be reminded that they seem to have a big problem closing out playoff series. They will be reminded that they gave away Game 4 in Madison Square Garden. Big time.

Note the use of the passive voice - 'they will be reminded'. Of course they'll be reminded - time and again, with Dan Shaughnessy leading the charge.

Just in case anyone missed the point:

They’d better win Saturday. Or they’ll have to come back to New York and there will be thousand more reminders that Rask was between the pipes in 2010 when the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead against the Flyers.

There will be reminders, all right - half of them will bear Shank's byline.

Whaddya Mean, It's Not Hockeytown?

Shank's been in New York City for the past few days, following the Bruins - Rangers series as we await Game 4 any minute now. He delivers a pretty good column as he takes the pulse of the city and finds little life interest in the hometown hockey team.

NEW YORK — Hockeytown, this is not.

The New York state of mind is not focused on the neutral zone trap. It’s hard to be a Rangers fan in the city. Spike Lee and Whoopi Goldberg don’t splice Rangers footage into their films.

Sure, the Rangers have fans and sellouts and Original Six tradition, and they even won a Stanley Cup back in 1994. But I have been here since Monday and I am here to tell you that there is no buzz in this town for the New York Rangers. (closing some bars - now that's a different story! - ed.) The House of Blueshirts is the hockey house of blues.

It’s not just because the 2012-13 Rangers can’t score goals, have no power play (2 for 38 in playoffs), and are teetering on the brink of elimination. No. It was like this in the days leading up to Tuesday night’s de facto clincher by the Bruins.

Hockey Hyperbole

A week removed from Shank jumping back on the Bruins bandwagon, we have seen the Bruins win three straight games over the New York Rangers, with the latest win being last night's 2-1 road win at Madison Square Garden. Naturally, Shank overreacts to this win streak:

NEW YORK — They may never lose another game.

Maybe this is the year. Again. Maybe Dave Goucher’s Game 7 Toronto call of “Bergeron! Bergeron!’’ is destined to go into the Boston sports audio Hall of Fame, alongside Johnny Most’s “Havlicek stole the ball!’’ and Joe Castiglione’s “Can you believe it?”

On the strength of Daniel Paille’s goal with 3:31 remaining, the Bruins beat the Rangers, 2-1, Tuesday night and now hold a 3-0 series lead in their best-of-seven conference semifinal. They have been a rocket sled on Bauer blades since they stared into the face of elimination in Game 7 against the Maple Leafs.

Then throw in a mistake that hockey novices make:

Tyler Seguin got away with a stick to the face of Chris Kreider...

Tyler Seguin was shooting the puck when that happened, and the follow-through on that shot is what caused his stick to hit Kreider in the face. Might want to consult the rule book on that one, Mr. Associate Editor at the Boston Globe...

Picked Up Pablum

Shank could have used some positive, hometown themes with his most recent column; he had the opportunity to write about the Red Sox and their recent five game winning streak, or he could have chosen to get near his quota of yearly Bruins games by writing about yesterday's 5-2 thumping of the New York Rangers.

Instead, he used the guise of yet another underwhelming picked up pieces column in an attempt to justify his May 11th column all but accusing David Ortiz of using performance enhancing drugs:

Facts, not opinions: According to Major League Baseball, there have been 636 professional players suspended for violating MLB’s drug policies since 2005. Two hundred and thirty-four of those 636 are from the Dominican Republic. That’s 37 percent. Players from the Dominican Republic made up 10.4 percent (89 of 856) of Opening Day rosters in 2013. Of 38 positive tests involving major league players, 13 players (34 percent) hailed from the DR. This doesn’t mean all Dominican players use steroids. It means the steroid issue is significant in the DR. Some of you old-timers might remember a time when East German swimmers were more likely to test positive for banned substances than other swimmers. An exhaustive ESPN.com report from 2009 (headlined “Steroid problem reaches critical mass in the DR”) stated, “According to numbers provided by MLB, in 2004, the inaugural year of drug testing in the Dominican Summer League, 11 percent of teenage prospects signed by major league clubs tested positive.’’

I'm pretty sure the only relevant fact here is this - did David Ortiz use PED's this year? Big Papi himself reported a random drug test conducted on the same day (May 11th) of the original column. Unless Shank has some undisclosed inside information, I don't see the logic of this portion of the column, which is nothing more than a defense of the May 11th column. Since Ortiz has every motivation to shut Shank up, we'll have to wait until Big Papi's test results come out.

Back On The Bruins Bandwagon

There are sure signs of spring in Boston - the sun is out, birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and Dan Shaughnessy climbs back on the Bruins Bandwagon after a first round playoff series win.

Thank you, Bruins, we needed that win

We?

The Day After was almost as much fun as the Night Before.

"I mean, I had a column half written when I was going to compare Claude Julien to Grady Little and everything! That was fun too!"

You could not tend to daily business without talking or hearing about the Bruins’ Game 7 miracle comeback Monday night at the Garden.

Where were you when they fell behind the Maple Leafs, 4-1, in the third? Did you (gulp) leave the game? Did you turn off the TV and go to bed? Did you sit up with new hope when Nathan Horton scored to cut it to 4-2 with 11:22 left? Did you wake your kids when the Bruins tied it with two goals in 31 seconds in the final 1:22? Did you have trouble getting to sleep after the epic comeback? Did you get calls, texts, and e-mails from friends and relatives around the country?

Everyone, it seemed, had a story. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had hope. Everyone was buoyed by the Bruins.

The words 'we' and 'us' are used conspicuously throughout the article, which is your surest sign that Shank's back on board, at least until next week. Other than Shank's shameless bandwagon hijacking, it's a decent column. Better get those leaf springs checked out!

Hacktastic!

There is no doubt whatsoever that Mike's excerpt below is precisely what Shank wanted to write after Game 7 of the Leafs - Bruins series. Actual events have a nasty habit of upsetting the apple cart:

It was only a first-round series, against a team that hasn’t won a playoff series in nine years.

It was not Bobby Orr scoring to win a Stanley Cup championship. Or Adam Vinatieri splitting the uprights at the Superdome. Or coming back from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees.

But it was one of the great moments in Boston sports history. In a pulsating Game 7 against the Toronto Maple Leafs Monday night, the Bruins trailed, 4-1, with 11 minutes left, but rallied to tie the game (two goals in the final 1:22 of regulation), then beat the Maple Leafs, 5-4, in overtime on a goal by Patrice Bergeron. Bergeron’s follow-up shot in the sixth minute of OT pushed the Black and Gold to a second-round series against the New York Rangers.

And what's a column about the Bruins without yet another comparison to the Red Sox?

The Bruins were done. They were Toronto toast. They were going down hard. They were going to be scorned. Julien was going to be Grady Little (there's still time for that one, Shank! - ed) and the Bruins were going to be the Manila Folders of ice. They were going to exit from the playoffs in a seventh game for the fifth time in six seasons. They were going to blow a 3-1 series lead. We were going to have the sounds of silence at TD Garden.

That's Our Man Shank - rooting for the loss!

Iced

Dan Shaughnessy, typing away with 2:30 left in the Bruins game last night:

"Here in the Stub of Hockey, they are Wrong Ways on Causeway, the Not so Fleet on Center Ice. Claude (as in "Clod") Julien may never have to buy a drink in this town again, but that's a good thing since he will be looking for a new job come Wednesday. Can we say another 40 years between Cups?"

Dan Shaughnessy, at 6:05 of overtime in the Bruins game last night:

"Oh crap."

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!

Making Friends

Check out Shank's latest trip to the Red Sox clubhouse:

As David Ortiz prepared to leave the Red Sox clubhouse after the team’s 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays, he did a double-take. The sight of Dan Shaughnessy, the Boston Globe columnist who confronted the slugger directly with suspicions about the possibility of his use of steroids, standing with a group of reporters, caught Ortiz’s attention.

“Look who it is,” Ortiz said.

He paused for a moment, then noted — loudly enough that all in the clubhouse were party to his address — that on the very day on which Shaughnessy interviewed him, he took a test for PEDs. Ortiz said he would be sure to pass along results of that test to the columnist. Ortiz became slightly more animated as he noted that he’d taken 40 tests administered by Major League Baseball.

“I’ve never tested positive,” Ortiz told the columnist, who had referenced the fact that the New York Times discovered in 2009 that the slugger had tested positive for a performance-enhancer in 2003 (at a time when a) there were no penalties for positive tests and b) test results were supposed to be anonymous).

When the report surfaced four years ago, Ortiz disputed that he had ever knowingly used PEDs, something that he mentioned anew to Shaughnessy as he walked towards the clubhouse door.

“By the way,” Ortiz said, “let me know what I tested positive for in 2003.”

As he spoke, while Ortiz was clearly upset, his tone remained relatively measured. He did not seek a response from Shaughnessy, nor did the columnist say anything while Ortiz spoke, though he did position himself to speak to Ortiz if the slugger wanted to do so.

Awkward!

The Long March

Shank's first column on the Boston Bruins in two months, naturally, comes after a loss. Would it be fair to question whether Shank's been advised by his boss not to write about the Red Sox for a few weeks?

We should know by now that the Bruins never, ever do it the easy way. They rarely get the job done in five games. It’s usually seven.

And so the Bruins must return to Toronto to give the emboldened Maple Leafs another shot Sunday night.

With a chance to close out the desperate Leafs, the Bruins dropped a 2-1, Game 5 decision on Causeway Street Friday night and now must go back across the border before they can advance to the second round of the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Careful, B’s. The Maple Leafs are to the NHL what the Red Sox were to the American League before 2004. They are an Original Six team in a hockey-crazed town and they haven’t won a Cup since the Dave Keon team of 1967. When you get ahead of them, three games to one, it’s a good idea to put them away. The Bruins couldn’t do that and you know the good folks of Toronto will go all Kevin Millar on us. They’ve got Phil (rhymes with Schill) Kessel in Game 6 and anything can happen in Game 7.

This column irritates in so many ways. In addition to the negative timing & angle (as this column comes after a lackluster loss, we expect no less from Shank!), he is compelled once again to make numerous references to the Red Sox, which no Shank column should be without, provides (if that is the right word) a paint-by-numbers recap of the game (better read elsewhere) and offers little in the realm of substantive analysis. Like last night's game, this is a half-assed effort by the home team.

And Shank, as has been mentioned before, continues to dwell on the Bruins' loss to the Flyers three freakin' years ago:

“We played good in the second half of the game,’’ said Rask, who was goalie when the Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead to the Flyers three years ago. “We have to take that with us and start the game up there like we finished here. We have to learn from it.’’

Other than the obvious point that Shank just loves beating up on the home team when they lose, I fail to see any reason whatsoever why this needs to be brought up time and time again.

Last Red Sox Bridge Burned

... or was it nuked? When Tom Werner, Red Sox chairman, feels compelled to respond to Shank's column on Wednesday all but accusing David Ortiz of using performance enhancing drugs, you're pretty much blacklisted.

Wednesday, the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy suggested that David Ortiz might be using performance-enhancers because "it is not natural for a guy to hit .426 out of the gate."

He said that David's 27-game hitting streak was suspect, in part, because older players "do not get better" and, most disturbing to me, because he is from the Dominican Republic.

The story soon became Topic A on talk shows, on ESPN.com and on NESN. In fact, Wednesday night, Tim Wakefield was drawn into the conversation and tried to restore order by saying, "I'm tired of people pointing fingers because somebody is doing well. David is producing because he is a great hitter."

The swirling story prompted Ortiz, after going 0-for-5, to tweet, "End of my hitting streak tonight, the season still going and I hope Dan Shaughnessy is a happy man now. ... Not more .426 enjoy it."

Earlier last week, a Toronto radio host accused Clay Buchholz of doctoring pitches. He made this claim despite the fact that no Major League player that Buchholz faced this April had made any such suggestion regarding how Clay had pitched this year. Instead of Boston celebrating Buchholz's 1.60 ERA, we had to read and hear these charges, which went viral. Clay was naturally frustrated and had to issue this comment, "To have somebody say that I'm out there cheating is doing me an injustice."

I fully acknowledge the right the media has to ask difficult questions and to express controversial opinions. Freedom of the press is fundamental in our culture.

They had the right, but was it right?

We're in a new media world, and fact-less accusations stick.

Those who publicly ask questions must take responsibility for their words.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that...

Asking The Tough Questions

Our man Shank talks to David Ortiz about his performance thus far in 2013.

“How do you think he does it? I don’t know! What makes him so good?’’

Pete Townshend, “Pinball Wizard”

Hitting is not this easy. Athletes do not get better as they mature into their late 30s. Baseball has been peppered with performance-enhancing drugs for the last 20 years. The cheaters are always ahead of the testers. A number of players from the Dominican Republic have tested positive for steroids. Injuries to the Achilles’ tendon are consistent with steroid use. It is not natural for a guy to hit .426 out of the gate without the benefit of any spring training.

So David Ortiz knows. He knows he is a suspect. He knows there are people out there who think he’s cheating. His name appeared on a list of players who tested positive for PEDs in 2003. And what he is doing now just doesn’t look possible.

When you cheat at cards, they tell you to lose a couple of hands to make it look good. Ortiz can’t even seem to do that. He just keeps raking. Ortiz Tuesday night extended his hitting streak to 27 games, dating to last July, before he got hurt.

‘My bat speed has been the same since the first day I got here.’

This is an uncomfortable topic, but it’s preferable to question a man face-to-face than to tarnish him by whisper and innuendo (how about in print, Shank? - ed.). I went to Ortiz Tuesday afternoon in the Sox clubhouse and put some hard questions to him. I told him he looks dirty.

Big Papi's been down this road before. Nice to see the scales finally fall from Shank's eyes, isn't it?

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XX

LeBron James won his fourth MVP award in the past five seasons, garnering 120 of 121 first place votes. From this, a minor controversy arose - why wasn't LeBron a unanimous selection, and who was the lone idiot holdout?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe!

The End Has Arrived

The New York Knicks won their first playoff series with Carmelo Anthony, beating the Celtics, 88-80.

Last call on Causeway Street.

The end of a game.

The end of a season.

The end of an era.

The Celtics came back from a 26-point deficit in the fourth quarter — cutting the margin to 4 — but could not catch the Knicks in Game 6 Friday night. Overrated ball hog Carmelo Anthony scored 7 straight points, snapped a string of 19 consecutive 3-point misses, and led the Knicks to an 88-80 victory over the gritty, graying Celtics.

Shank, in a pretty good column, then discusses the future of the Celtics, with the obligatory comparison to the other local teams:

Clearly, it is time to break up the old gang that brought one championship and multiple playoff wins since the start of the 2007-08 season. The Celtics have become the local team with the least amount of hope. Would anyone dispute the notion that the Patriots, Bruins, and Red Sox (yes, even them) are closer to a championship than the Celtics?

Would anyone dispute the notion that Shank will be raising similar issues, and conveniently forget what he wrote here, when the Bruins end their playoff run, or with the first three game losing streak by the Red Sox, or when he starts writing about the Patriots & trashing Bill Belichick in the process?

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XIX

Alternate title - can't wait for the New York Times' 10-K, if this article is an accurate leading indicator of performance in the industry.

The Washington Post Co. on Friday reported bad news for its newspaper division, with revenue totaling $127.3 million for the first quarter of this year — down four percent from 2012 — and an operating loss of $34.5 million.

Overall, the company posted a profit of just $4.7 million, an 85 percent drop in earnings from the net income of $31 million for the first quarter of last year.

In the newspaper division, daily and Sunday circulation at the Post dropped 7.2 and 7.7 percent, respectively, compared to 2012. Average daily circulation totaled 457,100 copies, with Sundays at 659,500. The report also noted that in January of this year, the Post increased the paper’s price for daily home delivery and daily and Sunday single copies. And print advertising revenue at the Post in the first quarter of 2013 dropped 8 percent to $48.6 million, down from $52.7 million in the first quarter of 2012.

Every dark, dark cloud has it's silver lining:

As for online — primarily washingtonpost.com and Slate — the company had better news to report. Revenue generated by the company’s online publishing increased 8 percent to $25.8 million for the first quarter of 2013, compared to $23.9 million for the first quarter of 2012. The company also posted a 16 percent increase in online display advertising, although online classified advertising revenue on washingtonpost.com fell 6 percent for the first quarter of 2013.

The company, meanwhile, has announced plans for a paywall this summer.

I wonder how that's working out for the Boston Globe? We'll find out when the 10-K comes out, which should be in the very near future. Astute observers of this site will note this has not been an issue here in quite a few months; it's amazing what can happen when you put your mind towards solving a problem and trading notes with others.

The End Was Near

The Celtics have staved off elimination in the NBA playoffs in two successive games, with yesterday's win coming at New York, 92 to 86. Shank's Thursday column is one of the few times a Red Sox reference is fitting.

NEW YORK — Perfect.

The Knicks are choking. They haven’t won a playoff series since 2000 and now they have a chance to be the first team in NBA history to blow a 3-0 series lead in a best-of-seven playoff. The wait of 13 years has become the weight of the basketball world.

Suddenly, Celtics-Knicks has morphed into Red Sox-Yankees, circa 2004. Carmelo Anthony is Alex Rodriguez. James Dolan is George Steinbrenner. Jason Terry is Dave Roberts, and Doc Rivers is Terry Francona. We’re not quite sure who’ll get to play Curt Schilling with the bloody sock. Game 6 is Friday night on Causeway Street and the Knicks are certain to be tighter than Kevin Brown before Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS.

No team in baseball ever came back from 3-0 . . . until the 2004 Red Sox did it against the Yankees. Now the Celtics have a chance to do the same thing . . . to the Knicks.

Throw in some good old-fashioned trash talking, and now you have an interesting and entertaining series.