We Doin't Need No Stinkin' Handshakes

It's bad enough watching large swaths of U.S. society continue to panic and overreact to a variant of the modern flu virus (it's called Covid-19 for a reason); and now the lead epidemiologist in President Trump's coronavirus task force does his best to throw more gas on the fire:

“We may never shake hands again.”

— Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease expert.

While we continue to hunker and prepare for a day when games may resume (probably without fans for a while), we entertain the prospect of a world without handshakes.

Think about that. No more hands-touching-hands. No more reaching out. No more meet-and-greet events for politicians. No more lessons from dad about the importance of a firm handshake.

No handshakes would shake up sports as much as no crowd noise.

I can’t get my head around the notion of an NHL playoff series ending without the ceremonial conga line of handshakes. One of the best images in sports is watching a gap-toothed demonstration of sportsmanship and civility break out after seven games of cage-rattling, cross-checking, stick-wielding, bare-knuckle brawling.

When's the last time you recall Shank celebrating sportsmanship?

A Walk Down Memory Lane

This is the kind of column Shank used to be known for, before he became a somewhat bitter and vindictive asshole:

More than 50 years later, these sports clippings are still hanging in there

It has hovered over my head and shoulders for more than 50 years, a kaleidoscopic collage of sports photos, clipped from the 1960s pages of Sports Illustrated and Sport magazine. It is proof of a time when I loved sports more than anything, and saw fit to wallpaper my childhood bedroom with the gods of my youth.

I was able to preserve a 17-foot section of the star-studded mosaic when my mom sold the house in 1988, and today it hangs in my cluttered home office, reminding me why I wanted to write about sports in the first place. In April of 2020, as we strain to write sports in a world without games, I close the door to my office, sit at a desk, and regularly glance up at those ballplayers from 50 and 60 years ago. I am alternately inspired and saddened when I ponder how many of those heroes I got to know, and how many are no longer with us.

DHL Dan - C

This Wuhan Tang Clan coronavirus shutdown is starting to get on people's nerves, if it hasn't already. It's also a bad time for sports columnists who now need to create fiction just to get by:

A list of the great ‘what-ifs’ in Boston sports

Not to be greedy, but what if . . .

▪ Brad Marchand didn’t leave the ice early in the final 15 seconds of the first period of Game 7 against the Blues last spring?

▪ Danny Ainge drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo instead of Kelly Olynyk with the 13th pick in 2013?

▪ Harry Frazee didn’t sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees?

▪ David Tyree didn’t make the helmet-velcro catch in Super Bowl XLII?

Boston Globe Death Watch - IV

Just in case you didn't think the Boston Globe is run by a bunch of scumbags with an axe to grind against New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, this 'news' item, this ought to confirm it. Check out the fucking headline:

Medical workers share concerns about masks delivered by Patriots plane

Isn't that the most astounding placing of blame - not on the masks themselves but the courier who delivered them. Was Kraft himself supposed to inspect all the masks before leaving China?

By the way - the story does go on to say the FDA cleared these masks for use; a bitchy complaint from one Mass. General doctor says they're 'not the gold standard' for use in the ER. Good enough for the Globe to run with, though!

Safe to say that will put a bit of a dent in the circulation numbers of the already battered 1988 Hyundai Excel that is now the Boston Globe.

They Don't Call Him Trollin' Volin For Nothing

If anyone was wondering how Boston Globe sports reporter Ben Volin earned that nickname, it's because of stuff like this:

Hey @Patriots, got your new kicker right here pic.twitter.com/b0TgpYtx4G

— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) April 12, 2020

Better that nickname than calling him Shank Jr. ...

Boston Globe Death Watch - III

When Boston Globe sports reporters like these two clowns start banging on the digital tin cup to try and drum up support for a dying newspaper in a dying industry, it would take a heart of stone not too laugh:

$1 per month for six months is pretty tough to beat. Please subscribe to stay informed and support local journalism https://t.co/mT18y1vFBq https://t.co/HTI4EUA8G7

— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) April 9, 2020

It's bad enough we have multiple elected leaders at the state level that ordered large swaths of the economy shut down for at least three weeks and looks like a lot of them will do so for a few weeks more, but of all the industries most vulnerable to outright seismic collapse because of this is the newspaper industry. With the Globe recently announcing 50 layoffs and 55 buyouts sought, their position is precarious at best. That part I have no problem with, but the self-inflicted wound of economic misery that will likely follow is / was entirely predictable and preventable if only these same politicians from both sides of the aisle didn't hit the panic button like they did and force millions of people to stay at home, get fired / laid off and suffer like they are now. The voluntary social distancing and other measures were by and large happening on their own and this massive overreaction is only being done, in my opinion, to save these 'leader's' political reputations at the expense of the rest of us. As far as this cat's concerned their reputations are as worthless as tits on a bull.

We will eventually look back at this and realize what a galaxy-class fuckup it was to force large parts of the economy to shut down by executive orders. Every one of these assholes that ordered this should be tarred & feathered at a bare minimum.

DHL Dan XCIX - Gold In Them Thar Hills

As our sports world dwindles to looking at lots of old reruns (like I'm sort of doing now with last year's Indy 500) and now that Tom Brady has left the New England Patriots, Shank's saying something nice about him:

Even during a pandemic, Tom Brady is ratings gold, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while channel surfing and deciding between the Thrilla in Manila and the 1968 World Series . . .

Don't you have them on Betamax or VHS?

▪ I am reminded today of John Lennon’s unfortunate interview in 1966 when he said the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus.'' Steering clear of that outrageousness, let’s acknowledge that one cannot overstate the local popularity of Tom Brady.

Tampa Bay’s new quarterback went on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show for a couple of hours Wednesday and managed to make himself a topic of conversation even in the middle of a global pandemic.

Metaphorically chained to a radiator at Gillette Stadium for 20 years, Brady is suddenly talking about his marriage, his relationship with Donald Trump, the size of his testicles, freezing out receivers, race relations in the locker room, and his complex relationship with Bill Belichick.

Brady even said that the story Bob Kraft has been circulating for two decades (that rookie Brady allegedly told Kraft, “I’m the best decision this organization has ever made”) is inaccurate. Asked about Kraft’s well-worn tale, Brady told Stern, "I didn’t say that.''

Would that be like a story from two decades ago about Shank not getting invited to a Patriots breakfast at the Super Bowl and Shank to this day holding a world-class grudge against the team and Robert Kraft?

From there it's the usual grab bag of stuff. Might as well read it - do you have anything better to do?

The Hank Finkel Column

I guess Clive Rush wasn't around, eh?

Ex-Celtic Hank Finkel could give Jarrett Stidham an idea of what he might be in for

Hey there, Jarrett Stidham. Want to know what it’s like to take over the starting job in place of the greatest winner in the history of your sport . . . in front of Boston fans accustomed to championships every year? Give Hank Finkel a call. I can get you his number if you want.

Hank is 77 years old, lives north of Boston, and is uniquely equipped to tell you what lies ahead. Nicknamed "High Henry'' by Johnny Most, the 7-foot Finkel replaced Bill Russell as the Celtics center for the 1969-70 season after Russell won his 11th championship in 13 seasons.

So far so good, right?

Russell didn’t play out his contract and leave New England for Tampa. He flat-out retired. And it was pretty obvious that things were not going to be the same once he left.

Now why do you suppose he said that, other than to just be a jagoff? It's probably that, combined with his continuing animosity of the Patriots and owner Robert Kraft, so saying anything remotely negative suits this purpose.

With no Russell, no Sam Jones (who also retired), a rookie coach in Tommy Heinsohn, and newcomer Finkel starting at center, the defending champion Celtics went 34-48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in 20 seasons. Boston fans were not happy, and Finkel got far too much of the blame.

"When you win in New England, the fans love you,'' Finkel said via telephone this week. "But when you lose in New England, they want to run you out of town''

Are we sure that Shank wasn't working at the Globe in 1969?

The rest of the column is solid.

When The Boston Globe Had Real Sportswriters

I whiffed on this one a few days ago, but Shank actually cranked out a solid column:

Remembering our maestro of the sports department: Ray Fitzgerald

There are no games in these dark, scary days. Here in the toy department, we spend a lot of time looking back. We watch grainy footage of World Series played in 1967 and 1975. We watch Larry and Magic in their short-shorts battling in three NBA Finals in the 1980s. We watch "Malcolm, go!'' and 28-3.

We blow the dust off old books, once again savoring Roger Kahn’s "The Boys of Summer,'' David Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game,” and anything by the estimable Roger Angell.

Today I am here to celebrate Ray Fitzgerald, the best sports columnist to grace these Globe pages in my lifetime.

Allow me to point something out:

All of us in this business who were fortunate enough to have read him regularly feel the same way. I grew up reading the Globe and have been lucky to work with a deep roster of Hall of Fame talents, but Ray was the best of those best. Like the man, his columns were funny, thoughtful, sensitive, creative, self-deprecating, and never mean.

The lack of self-awareness in some people is astounding. If Shank was capable of dropping that one attribute from his columns, there's a very good chance this site doesn't exist. Some people are natural born assholes; we now know who one of them is not that.

With that said, I didn't read many actual columns about Ray Fitzgerald, but his reputation was redoubtable. Also, this part is laughable (at least for me):

On the Boston Marathon: "Our city’s contribution to the legend of sport, a day when all America pays homage to the shin splint . . . As someone who reaches the brink of physical exhaustion merely by driving from Boston to Springfield, I find the thought of running 100 miles a week simply inconceivable. You might as well tell me they ride a bicycle to the moon for a bottle of milk.''

Great sportswriter, but a complete driving wimp!

I love driving for the most part - my personal record for a one day drive was 1,013 miles from Sarasota, FL to just outside of Baltimore, MD. I left Sarasota at 11 AM (and I was one very pissed off man when I started the drive, hence the motivation) and got to Baltimore around 3 AM the next day. The one thing that kept me going on that last leg - there was live Van Halen on some FM station and it went on for four hours. Of course, this was a long time ago; I'm not sure I could pull that off now, but I'd give it a shot if I had to. The other good one was from Mt. Ascutney, VT to Quincy in approximately 2 hours, 11 minutes. I charged down I-91 in a 1996 Dodge Intrepid (that car was a fucking beast - really solid V-6 engine and an excellent wheelbase for handling) like no one's business, then took Rt. 2 to Rt. 128, then the Mass. Pike and finally the Southeast Expressway. Google suggests a different route but by my reasoning the more time you spend on interstate highways or something similar, the faster you get there even if total miles is greater than the alternative routes. It also helps a lot to hold 95-100 MPH on that stretch of I-91 about half the time. That car, maybe fortunately, had a governor preventing me from going over 105 MPH, but I-91 was a fantastic stretch of road, no question about it.

Turn On A Dime Dan, A Continuing Series

In his columns about the Astros / Red Sox cheating scandals, it's amazing to see Shank go from 'ban them all for life' to a complete 180 with this lump of horseshit:

Alex Cora back as manager of the Red Sox? Without ever missing a regular-season game?

It’s far-fetched, but it could happen.

Here’s how:

The short answer - pull something out of his ass!

Imagination Used

If reading bullshit like this is what we're going to see from Shank during the Wuhan Virus slowdown, it's gonna be a long stretch of time, and painful to read.

Fantasy baseball: Here’s how I imagine I’d be previewing Opening Day at Fenway

(This is the column you might be reading today if not for the coronavirus pandemic.)

Stunned at being swept by the suddenly surging Baltimore Orioles, the 1-6 Red Sox will face the Chicago White Sox at 2:05 p.m. Thursday in their 109th Fenway Park opener.

"It will be good to finally get back to Boston,'' Sox interim manager Ron Roenicke might have said after Wednesday afternoon’s 4-1 loss to the upstart Orioles. "I’m pretty sure we’ll turn this around quickly when we get home to Fenway.''

Roenicke did not identify the Sox starting pitcher for the home opener.

“Could be Austin Brice, could be Marcus Walden, could be Heath Hembree,'' Roenicke said. "Chaim and the analytics guys will give me a name in the morning.''

Yup - it's that bad, and only gets worse from there. Read it, if you're into limo wrecks and that sort of thing.

DHL Dan XCVIII -

In these difficult times of zero live sports entertainment, Shank knows what ought to happen now:

This would be a good time to release the findings on the Red Sox and Patriots investigations

I think he's right on there - clear the deck of past events and concentrate on what kind of baseball season we're going to have this year. The months of April and probably May are scratches, so alternatives can be drawn up.

But you know Shank's got his own angle on things, right?

▪ Now is a perfect time for MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to drop the hammer on the 2018 Red Sox. The commish says that the investigation has been completed, and nobody is really paying attention, so let’s get it over with and get on with our lives.

The Sox’ transgressions are unlikely to be anywhere near Houston’s trash-can cheating of 2017, but they likely weren’t “nothing” as the Sox have claimed. Best to learn of their punishment now. It will allow them to strike “interim” from manager Ron Roenicke’s nameplate, and we’ll finally learn how long MLB plans to bench Alex Cora.

I bolded the massively contradictory parts - Shank wants to have MLB punish the Red Sox, whose owner pays his salary. That's a big bowl of awkward right there, to borrow one of Shank's favorite phrases. He's arguing for the Red Sox to get punished worse than the Houston Astros were punished by MLB (i.e., a slap on the wrist) even though he readily admits the Sox did far less in the transgressions department.

That's enough bullshit for this cat right there. Further punishment, dear reader, can be borne by clicking on that link.

Boston Globe Death Watch - II

If this is any indication (and I believe it is), ad revenues are drying up:

In an internal memo, Townsquare Media announces it has laid off 65 employees (26 at corporate level) and suspended 401K matching, while 18 executives are taking 10% temporary pay reduction.

— RadioInsight.com (@radioinsight) March 30, 2020

This tweet is courtesy of Boston Radio Watch. He's a sharp, insightful sort who pays serious attention to this sort of thing, and he watches that particular metric (ad revenue) pretty closely, as it's a prime factor into a company's revenue in the newspaper industry. The Globe just shitcanned 50 employees, want to get rid of 55 more through buyouts and now a primary source of revenue is under serious threat. One wonders how long John Henry continues to prop up this money-losing company.

Demanding Dan, A Continuing Series

Every now and then Shank writes the occasional and annoying type of column where he pounds his fists on the table and he wants answers, dammit!

The Red Sox owe us some answers on Chris Sale’s surgery

The Red Sox’ refusal to disclose anything about Chris Sale’s elective elbow surgery in the middle of a national medical-supply shortage is unacceptable.

New York Mets righthander Noah Syndergaard was scheduled for Tommy John surgery Thursday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in West Palm Beach, Fla. The Mets said that team doctor David Altchek would perform the surgery, even though the Florida governor has barred nonessential elective medical procedures in the state.

Doctors in Florida are empowered to determine what is essential, and a Mets official told the Wall Street Journal, "This condition fits within the essential surgery guidelines.''

I'm not disagreeing on wanting the answer, just the semi-imperious manner in which Shank is, um, asking for it.

A little further on:

It’s an unfortunate response while we are in the middle of a global pandemic, with surgical supplies limited and citizens sensitive to the notion of rich and powerful folks receiving preferential medical treatment.

This will work for Shank - he'll complain now, not knowing whether specialized doctors like renowned Tommy John surgeon Dr. James Andrews (who's in private practice) or whoever performed Sale's surgery are required by professional codes to abandon their practices, cancel what may or may not have been previously scheduled procedures in order to assist hospital staff elsewhere. Same goes for Dr. Altcheck, being an employee of the Mets. Maybe they volunteered to help other medical facilities, but I think these are important points to consider. Shank does not because that allows him to piously jump down the throat of the Red Sox. In the case Sale did not have surgery, he will use that to criticize the team and Sale for delaying the surgery and thus Sale's recovery. Either way, he'll also get to bitch more the longer the Sox string this out.

Diabolical trolling genius - Shank's at the top of his game, folks!

There's No Guessing Like Second Guessing

It's just Shank engaging in one of his favorite past times:

The Red Sox’ handling of the Chris Sale elbow situation could hardly have turned out worse.

Boston’s ace lefty needs Tommy John surgery. It appeared to some of us that he needed surgery last summer when he was shut down with elbow pain. But the Red Sox and Dr. James Andrews waited — a decision that appeared to be based on hope more than reality after the Sox signed Sale to a whopping contract extension before the 2019 season.

When Sale again felt pain at the beginning of this month, the Sox waited again after Andrews and at least two other experts viewed Sale’s MRI.

Boston Globe Death Watch - It Begins

I've long ragged on the Boston Globe on this site for many reasons, business model being chief among them in changing times. Industries rise and fall all the time and print media is no exception.

I'm gonna now make the Boston Globe Death Watch official in light of recent events - a tweet from Peter Abraham (below) which I take to be a certain / solid exquisite indication of desperation and loss of business, and now we get this beauty:

NEW: The @BostonGlobe is laying off nearly 50 workers at its Taunton mailroom, and is offering buyouts to 55 more, according to a union official, in conjunction with a plan to outsource its work on its direct marketing business, @globedirect https://t.co/RRaSTTyb1X

— Don Seiffert (@BosBizDon) March 23, 2020

Since financial, employment and other metrics are no longer publicly available, I cannot figure out accurate / ballpark numbers for the Globe. Nor would I care to, because I consider it a waste of time to spend any more thought on a dying company I've hated since the second month I started reading it. Best I care to guess - 15% overall drop, bare minimum. It is clear, however, that they are on a southward trajectory, bleeding slowly from a thousand cuts, or a thousand knives if that's how you roll.

A Picture With Many Possible Meanings

Is this a rallying call? A self-congratulatory pat on the back in this, our most trying of times? The beginning of the latter stage of the Boston Globe Death Watch? Throwing shade at Shank for being a lazy asshole while Pete and the rest of the gang soldier on, bending and never breaking? Is Shank retweeting this because he thinks he's flipping off Pete for ragging on him? A clever way to conserve on wood pulp newsprint by selling newspapers with less paper in it? It sure is a mystery!

Eight-page sports section and 12 staff bylines with no games being played. @BGlobeSports doing our thing. News staff is doing phenomenal work, too. Our digital readership is growing because news matters. pic.twitter.com/Qwues5zFVT

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) March 22, 2020

Turn On A Dime Dan, A Continuing Series

Thanks to Walter R. for pointing out Shank's latest attempt to whitewash what he said a mere four days ago.

First, the column from Monday (link is below, just go down a few stories) about Tom Brady's departure from the New England Patriots:

I doubt it. The longer this goes, the more it feels like Tom isn’t going anywhere. Because nobody wants to pay him $30 million per year for another two or three years.

After Tom Brady signed a contract that's pretty damn close to $30 million per year, Shank's singing a different tune now, in an oh-so-predictable way. Care to guess how, anyone?

Tom Brady is gone, and Robert Kraft should own that

The spin started immediately.

Yes it did, and it only took four words. Congratulations!

As news of Tom Brady’s departure from New England was breaking Tuesday morning, Patriots owner Bob Kraft called ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith during a commercial break to tell Smith that the Patriots would have made a deal work if Tom really wanted to stay. It was part of a campaign by the needy owner, who will always position himself to court favor with Patriots fans.

In reality, of course, none of what Kraft was saying was true. In my opinion, the Patriots did not make a sincere effort to keep Brady. They did everything short of buying him a plane ticket to Tampa.

It could also be that Brady wanted a new challenge. That angle is not considered at all, or even hinted at, in this column. It's all Robert Kraft's fault - Shank has an axe to grind, and grind it he does.

I'll give the last words to Boston Radio Watch, who sums up the situation nicely:

Brady wanted a change. End of story.

Thousands of Americans start at a new job every Monday or move to a new home/city/state every 7 years(on the average - fact, not opinion). Brady is just like everyone else. https://t.co/qM7oOm4ke7

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) March 20, 2020

I am increasingly convinced that no one in Boston sports media knows shit about Brady’s divorce from the Pats. pic.twitter.com/5u8H37kM6d

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) March 20, 2020

Close Enough

Bill Walton. Lee Alcindor. Then everyone else https://t.co/VrKbFam0xM

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) March 19, 2020

He's Gone !

Allow Shank to shed some crocodile tears:

Red Sox pitcher/outfielder Babe Ruth, a three-time World Series champion with Boston, was sold to the New York Yankees in January of 1920.

One hundred years later, New England woke up on a Tuesday morning in the middle of a national public health crisis and learned that Tom Brady has decided to leave the New England Patriots after 20 seasons that yielded six Super Bowl championships. Brady delivered the news in a goodbye message on his Twitter account at 8:45 a.m.

There will be plenty of days to dissect and analyze why Brady is leaving and where he might be going. We may never know whether the Patriots made a serious bid to keep him or whether they effectively pushed him away with a lowball offer. Or no offer.

I'm 100% certain Shank will follow up with this angle. By Stephen A. Smith's account of things, Kraft's saying 'nope, wasn't me', even though he would have been the person responsible for 'working it out' and he didn't work anything out. This will be sports gossip for a while, and Shank will be fanning the flames.

As suspicions rise and conflicting stories surface, we’ll have slices of blame pie for Bill Belichick, Bob Kraft, Alex Guerrero, Gisele Bundchen, TB12, and all the other influencers in Brady’s life.

Two things - with that sentence, the odds of Shank throwing more gas on the fire went from 'sure thing' to 'it's a lock', and like his fellow Boston sports asshole (Michael Felger), they are overly concerned / obsessed over needing to blame someone for this situation. Some things simply run their course and this is one of them. I'm pretty sure that's all part of their schtick - to spice things up and, in Shank's case, cheap and easy shots against Kraft.

The rest of the column reads eerily like the NFL Network special they had on Tom Brady last night.

He's Gone (?)

A decade after first predicting Tom Brady was on the decline, Shank thinks he may finally be right:

Tom Brady finds out that (almost) no one wants a 43-year-old quarterback

The big Tom Brady sweepstakes is now down to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots? That’s the buzz today.

Seriously? The Tampa Bay Buccaneers? The team with the worst winning percentage in NFL history? Tom Brady is going to finish his career with the Bucs?

I doubt it. The longer this goes, the more it feels like Tom isn’t going anywhere. Because nobody wants to pay him $30 million per year for another two or three years.

Because he’ll be 43 bloody years old!

For the last year, it has amazed me that so little is made of Brady’s age. Truly. This is professional sports. Sure, Brady is different and the rules have allowed QBs to extend careers in a simulated bubble, but no athlete is at the top of their game at the age of 43.

This is not a post disagreeing with the notion of a 42 / 43 year old NFL quarterback being eminently marketable; it is my disdain with Shank for reveling so many times on the demise of Tom Brady's professional career.

If I had time right now, I'd go back and do the math on how many times Shank has predicted Brady's end to his career over finally getting it right. We both know that number would be a small one.

Read A Fucking Book, Mate

With all of the coronavirus panic / extreme measures being taken (take your pick there; I'm split 50/50 at this point), Shank asks the evergreen question during these dark, lonely times:

Without sports, what do we do now?

Through the decades the games have been there to distract us from real world problems. Now the games are gone.

What do we do now?

We hunker down in our homes. We make sure we have enough toilet paper and Cheerios. We think about how to open and close doors without touching doorknobs. We avoid checking our 401(k). We pray at home because church is canceled. We dust off old board games (when was the last time you played Scrabble?). We ask friends for recommendations for good TV shows to binge.

We do not watch sports on television. There are no more games on TV. And there are not going to be games for quite a while.

OK, maybe I jumped on him a little quick there! This turns out to be a pretty good start to the column, and the rest of it is promising as well.

This whole exercise with the panic / extreme measures should prove a bit interesting, because as a tax preparer I'm more or less naturally sequestered for the next month regardless of other circumstances. I'll probably pick up more on it because now a lot of other people are doing the same thing. In any event, this stuff will be over sooner than we think (early spring, right around the corner!).

Wipeout, Coronavirus Edition

There's been a ton of recent events related to the coronavirus that makes Shank's previous two whinefests shrink to the insignificance they deserve. Shank ably documents nearly if not all of these recent events & cancellations, and it's a pretty good column which you may want to read more of.

Suddenly, coronavirus wipes almost all of our sports off the landscape

FORT MYERS, Fla. — It is a deadly global threat that has nothing to do with sports. And yet in two days, it has become one of the biggest sports stories of all time.

It is breathless and ever-changing. It moves at warp speed toward . . . the unknown.

And it feels fruitless to say or write anything about it because by the time you read these words, so much will have changed. There is simply no way to keep up with the impact of the coronavirus on our North American sports leagues, teams, and tours.

Our nation’s capital is basically shut down. Kids are staying home from school. College students have been ordered to evacuate. Hospitals are preparing for what could be a dangerous and unmanageable surge. Broadway is dark. Disneyland is shutting down Saturday. Whole Foods has been rendered less than whole.

My biggest takeaway so far from this particular impact of the coronavirus cancellations (which I personally have no problem with whatsoever) is this, which needs to be repeated every now and then - there is more to life than sports.

Classic Media Overreaction, Part Deux

Shank continues to peddle the notion that health related clubhouse restrictions are impeding his ability to do his job, among other notions:

Trying to keep you informed — while keeping our distance — at Red Sox camp

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Nomar Garciaparra was ahead of his time. Come to think of it, maybe David Price can come back to the Red Sox now.

Monday morning was Day One of having no reporters in the clubhouse at spring training. It was the same at every NBA, NHL, and MLS locker room in North America. The coronavirus has temporarily (perhaps) created an atmosphere that players crave. Can’t say that I blame them. Who would want all those prying eyes when you are at your workplace?

Let the record show that I was one of the last reporters to darken the doorstep of the Red Sox clubhouse at JetBlue Park before the ban was announced Monday night.

I bolded that word above for a few reasons. One of them is my omission from yesterday's post that this thought of a permanent clubhouse ban is bollocks. He started out his last column in the same way before he more or less backtracked and by the end said he hoped it wouldn't be for long. It's part of his routine, basically...

It was an uneventful experience, but I’ll tell you about it anyway since I may be the last Globie ever to work the Red Sox room at JetBlue.

It all starts to fall apart when the next chunk of the column talks about Shank's interactions with Red Sox players and personnel, some of whom had to split to catch a bus for last night's game against the Braves, and there were four of them. Maybe this number should be at six to eight because now all the Red Sox players can use this excuse to avoid Shaughnessy. Excellent!

Further - what the new rule(s) actually are:

A few hours after my last loop in the locker room, the Red Sox PR staff sent out a media advisory regarding Tuesday access, stating, “The media relations staff will bring players and coaches out to the media bench between 9:15-10:15 a.m.” The memo advised reporters to request players in advance, and stated, “A minimum distance of 6 feet needs to be kept between the player/coach speaking to reporters.” (I think the Shaughnessy Rule is 10 feet.)

My 'Shaughnessy Rule' is 10 miles - what's yours?

Reporters who requested interviews dutifully gathered by the outdoor interview bench at 9:15 Tuesday morning. They waited for just under two hours. In that time, the only players produced were Barnes and Brandon Workman, at the request of the Associated Press.

Even though this particular one was short on player availability, this would be called at worst 'limited access', correct? Shaughnessy, contrary to the last column's conclusion, clearly thinks otherwise:

Welcome to Nomar Nirvana. More fists. More elbows. No handshakes. No high-fives. No spitting.

And no reporters in the clubhouse.

Except for the ones six feet from the podium! His 'concerns' are exaggerated and overblown, like that of the rest of his media brethren on this subject.

Classic Media Overreaction

The most charitable thing I'll say about the media with respect to the recent coronavirus cases in the U.S. and elsewhere is that they're grossly irresponsible. It is beyond obvious. The first thing I figured about print media after reading newspapers for two months is they love to scare the shit out of people and this is no exception.

Leave it to Shank to preemptively bellyache about losing precious access to locker rooms for a while. Let's cut to the chase:

In this spirit, I resisted the urge to hug Alex Verdugo when I first approached him in the Red Sox clubhouse Monday morning. Similarly, J.D. Martinez and I eschewed our traditional fist bump. But let’s not create a clear path to eliminate locker room access in perpetuity. Sadly, potential media-restriction policies were greeted with applause over the weekend by a couple of well-heeled sportswriters who insulted a century of hard work by beat reporters while simultaneously promoting erosion of media availability in professional sports locker rooms.

All of two people:

“I honestly don’t think we ever need to be in a locker room,” tweeted the estimable Grant Wahl, a 25-year veteran of Sports Illustrated who covers the US women’s soccer team. “Doing mixed-zone postgame interviews with the USWNT outside their locker room has never been a problem.”

Sopan Deb, who identifies as “NBA culture scribe” and has been with the New York Times for at least a half-hour, quickly chimed in with, "THIS IS 100 PERCENT CORRECT. It is so weird that for decades it became accepted practice for reporters to just hang out in locker room watching/waiting for athletes to get dressed.''

Both writers quickly backtracked. Wahl confessed that his tweet was “dumb,” while Deb deleted his message. But that won’t stop a legion of team-loving, media-hating fanboys from rushing to their keyboards to vilify journalists who fuel the 24/7 programming for our sports talk industrial complex.

Incorrect - some of us 'villfy journalists' because a lot of you are assholes, and Shank in particular is an irresponsible asshole in this case.

You'd suppose that would be the end of end of it and it is, for the most part. He also mentions all the reasons locker room access is a good thing and why, then starts retelling stories he's told six hundred times already. By the end of the column Shank dials back the hyperbole and just 'hopes' clubhouse / locker room access isn't banned permanently. He's talking out of both sides of his mouth with this column.

Kirk Minihane thinks he knows why Shank's all bent out of shape about it:

Written by a guy who spends his precious company time drinking at the EMC Club at Fenway during games. https://t.co/uAchSigsBB

— Kirk Minihane (@kirkmin) March 9, 2020

DHL Dan XCVII - Reusable Columns!

Shank rehashes his Tom Brady column from last week and is milking it for all it's worth:

Still waiting on the Tom Brady situation, and other picked-up pieces

If Brady leaves, it will be the biggest non-game-related story in Boston since Babe Ruth was traded

Picked-up pieces while waiting for the interminable (more than 50 days so far) Tom Brady situation be resolved . . .

■ If Brady leaves the Patriots, it will go down as the biggest non-game-related Boston sports story since Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees more than 100 years ago. Brady leaving is bigger than Spygate, Deflategate, and the LeRoux Coup at Fenway. It’s bigger than the sudden deaths of Reggie Lewis, Len Bias, and Harry Agganis. Bigger than the Braves leaving Boston. Bigger than the trading of Nomar and Mookie Betts. Bigger than Haywood Sullivan forgetting to mail Carlton Fisk a contract. Bigger than Bobby Orr going to the Black Hawks. Bigger than Bill Parcells to the Jets and Ted Williams going off to war twice. Bigger than the trade that brought Bill Russell to Boston. There can be no doubt. Tom leaving will be our biggest (non-game) sports story since the selling of the Bambino.

Gearing up to write another crappy book, Shank?

Shank's Mailbag - No Wait For The Hate

In an occasional series, Shank dedicates a column to him being an asshole:

For a columnist in the digital age, there’s no wait for the hate

Is Shank finally accepting the fact he's in 'the digital age'? That's a start.

We write about sports. You (hopefully) read what we write. Increasingly, you tell us what you think about what we write. In today’s free-for-all, everybody-is-a-columnist age of opinions, there are simply so many ways to respond.

I first noticed this on football Sundays on the road with the Patriots. In the old days, a column offered from the press box in Pittsburgh might trigger a small sack of angry mail back at the old home office on Morrissey Boulevard. It would take a couple of days, but by Wednesday it was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that I suck.

Again, Shank is slow on the take or playing dumb oh-so-conveniently. When did you first figure out that Shank sucked, like after the fourth column?

Let Shank explain what we've known for years - he writes his columns ahead of time:

Now I suck on Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh before even leaving the press box.

Let me explain: I am a speedy scribe and sometimes finish ahead of my harder-working colleagues at Patriot games. In some cases, I am done first.

This gives Globe editors back in Boston time to edit and post the column. It gives the readers a crack at being first to call me a knucklehead. By the time all my colleagues are done with their work and ready to carpool back to the hotel, I already have an early exit poll from agitated Globe readers who care deeply about their Patriots.

Might be worth a read, even if it's just to bask in the Shank self-flagellation.

Making It Official

Shank 'officially' wishes Tom Brady would leave the New England Patriots.

I am officially hoping Tom Brady leaves the Patriots

I just want it to be over.

And I officially am hoping Tom Brady leaves the Patriots.

Sorry.

I want Tom to go because his history-making time has run its course here. I like sports drama, and it would be a much better story if Tom goes to a new team. I’d like to see what Bill Belichick can do without Brady. I’d like to see what Brady can do for the Los Angeles/Tampa Bay/Tennessee Bradys.

I don’t want to bear witness to another AFC-East winning, oh-so-boring 10-6 Patriots season with 43-year-old Tom staggering through games, pouting through his postgame press sessions, then delivering cryptic messages on social media.

Kansas City, Tennessee, Baltimore, and Houston were all better than the Patriots in 2019. With or without Tom, it’s unlikely the Patriots will be better than those teams in 2020. It’s time for all of us to get on with our lives.

These are compelling points, and the rest of the column is worth a read. I'm willing to cut Brady all the slack he's earned, but all things must eventually pass.

This part is telling (I've brought it up before):

Please. Make it stop. I’d rather do four hours of sports talk radio solo than listen to any more debate on this issue.

Almost can't wait for his next Zo and Bertrand appearance!

Mill Grist

After writing a positive Red Sox column (in order to show some 'balance', perhaps?), Shank falls right back into form:

More good news for the Boston Devil Rays https://t.co/QojY2KOeXc

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 27, 2020

He's hoping the 'Boston Devil Rays' catches on. My apologies for bringing it up in the first place - that's enough oxygen for that one.

Unearthed

Since I'm not into religiously checking on him, I just noticed a mild Boston Red Sox column from Tuesday in the place of the usual criticism and subdued, poorly disguised vitriol:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — He was there the night the Red Sox collapsed in the Bronx when Grady Little didn’t take Pedro Martinez out. And he was in Anaheim in 1986, catching Donnie Moore after Moore surrendered a series-changing home run to Dave Henderson in the ALCS.

Red Sox bench coach Jerry Narron also was the man who replaced Thurman Munson behind the plate at Yankee Stadium on the night after Munson was killed in a plane crash.

Narron is a hardball Forrest Gump — a humble, unassuming man who always seems to be on the scene when big things happen. This past week he was named bench coach of Ron Roenicke’s 2020 Boston Red Sox.

I wouldn't exactly call the Forrest Gump comparison as a compliment. Some self-promotion (natch) also ensues. I'd say that part was shameless, but you know that already.

When Sports And Politics Collide

Who responds to their own tweet, other than to bask in what he thinks is a clever observation?

I rest my case https://t.co/tkMxzeDTg9

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 26, 2020

It's more like the Lions, Browns and Bengals, but that's just me.

Question for Shank - will your wife be donating to another Democrat from your joint checking account this election cycle?

Stonewall Shaughnessy

Shank does not appear to be terribly thrilled with the pace of the Red Sox sign-stealing investigation by Major League Baseball:

One more week and this “nothing to see here” investigation will be as long as the Astros probe https://t.co/PeDgXgEtcE

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 26, 2020

I wonder if MLB dumps the findings on Super Tuesday next week, when the primary news focus will be elsewhere? If you're gonna clear the Red Sox of wrongdoing, that's when I'd do it.

DHL Dan XCVI - Curiouser And Curiouser

In today's installment of the Picked up Pieces column from Ft. Myers, Shank touches on a wide range of subjects, including the Summer Olympics, the Beanpot from a few weeks ago, and...

Ah - who am I kidding? Of course Shank keeps beating up on the Red Sox!

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Picked up pieces while wondering if the Red Sox are going to promote “Zakim” and “Tobin” nights at Fenway this summer in honor of their 2020 Bridge Year.

Now that the lame humor's out of the way...

■ Everybody loves Big Papi. He’s Boston Baseball’s Father Christmas. He was a clutch and dominant player, great to fans, and stood up for our city in 2013. All of Boston prayed for him when he was shot in the Dominican Republic in June. It’s great to see him looking healthy. But his first day back in Sox camp last week was not his finest hour.

Ortiz is part of Sox management now and Big Papi has become Big House Man. Now that Ortiz is taking the side of Sox ownership on every issue, are we supposed to forget how he groaned about his contract and disrespect from his bosses almost every year? Ortiz insists that the Mookie trade was a good trade. That the Sox had no choice. Got it.

But when a member of the Red Sox brass (Ortiz is identified as a “special assistant” to Fenway Sports Group in the club directory) calls Mike Fiers a “snitch” while the Boston Red Sox are the subject of an ongoing MLB investigation regarding cheating allegations, it borders on witness intimidation.

Would someone like to tell Shank this isn't a criminal proceeding here? Furthermore, MLB has completed their investigation into the matter, further proof that Shank has no editor between him and the Post / Submit button. Will he go for the triple play?

Truth has never been an enemy of baseball fans. We could have used a little more of it during the steroid era and Ortiz has considerable exposure in this area.

...and there it is. It happened for years right under your fucking nose, dickhead; you and every other Boston Globe baseball guy. Too bad Ortiz didn't kick your ass when he had the chance.

Other than that, it's a decent column!

UPDATE AT 4:50 PM - The Astros investigation has been completed; the one involving the Red Sox is ongoing. Shank's getting cute here by conflating the two (i.e., strongly implying Fiers, who was never a member of the Red Sox, is involved in the current investigation).

Five Aces

Shank is clearly delighted with the 2020 'bridge year' Boston Red Sox. He's written 11 columns so far this month, and all but one of them was about the Red Sox. Unsurprisingly, every single one of them was negative in tone and / or heavily critical of the Red Sox in some manner.

And the hits just keep on coming…

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The 1971 Baltimore Orioles famously had four 20-game winners and advanced to the seventh game of the World Series. Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson all made 30 or more starts and all pitched 224 or more innings. Three of them exceeded 280 innings.

The world champion 2004 Red Sox had five starting pitchers who never got hurt. Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe, Tim Wakefield, and Bronson Arroyo each started at least 29 games and logged no fewer than 178 innings.

Fast-forward to 2020 and a Red Sox team with almost zero reliability in the starting rotation. More suspects than prospects.

These are not the Red Sox of “we have five aces.’’

He Chose... Poorly

That would be baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, catching heat from all quarters for not coming down hard on the Houston Astros.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Hey there, baseball fan. Did you ever think you’d be longing for the good old days of commissioner Bud Selig?

Wow. Major League Baseball is imploding in the Sign-Stealing Scandal Spring of 2020, and commissioner Rob Manfred is making Uncle Bud look like Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, or maybe Winston Churchill.

I think Shank's contractually obligated to mention Landis every time some serious baseball history comes up.

The hardball world is furious with the Houston Astros, and virtually no one is happy with the performance of Manfred since MLB announced its findings about the Astros scam Jan. 13. Manfred gave Houston players immunity from punishment in exchange for cooperation, has declined to fire some Astros executives who had direct involvement, and — most egregiously for many — allowed the Astros to keep their 2017 championship even though he has proof that they cheated to win.

Shank brings that up throughout the column, and that seems to be the punishment Shank and others are thirsting for. At least that's an improvement from banning all of them from baseball, which Shank was looking for last month.

Explanation Unknown

Shank's been getting into the Red Sox ownership bashing recently, hasn't he?

FORT MYERS, Fla. — In an attempt to clear the air and explain the motivations behind the trade that sent Mookie Betts to the Dodgers last week, Red Sox principal owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, and CEO Sam Kennedy delivered comments and answered questions for 32 awkward minutes Monday morning at JetBlue Park.

I would not say they stuck the landing. It went about as well as Deval Patrick’s presidential bid and the quest to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Boston.

Little is likely to change in the wake of Sox management’s effort to explain a salary dump that the club refuses to acknowledge is a salary dump. Folks who hate the Betts deal are unlikely to feel any better from what was said at the tense presser. The Red Sox seem to know this.

I'm wondering why ownership can't bring themselves to say 'Mookie wanted to be traded' or 'Mookie wanted to play for the Dodgers' - even this casual fan saw that last year when the subject first came up. It doesn't serve Shank to bring that up, either (though he's done so in the past) so he can continue to bash Red Sox ownership for a little longer.

One other thing - we might start the Mookie Betts Watch, like Mike B. was doing every time His Shankness mentioned Larry Bird in his columns over the years. How many times this year will Shank bring up this trade? I'm going with a dozen, and that's probably low.

Making The Sale

I was anticipating Shank starting to bang out pro-forma player focused articles any moment now. Today's column, with Chris Sale as the player in question, is quite different:

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Chris Sale was 10 minutes into a half-hour press session when he got the first question regarding the sign-stealing cheating scandal that has poisoned Major League Baseball in this spring of 2020.

“Here it is . . . ,” Sale said with a grimace.

And there it was. Indeed.

Sale talked about all of it. He talked about getting lit up by the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the 2017 American League Division Series at Minute Maid Park. He talked about speaking with MLB investigators who are looking into possible rule-breaking by the 2018 world champion Red Sox. He talked about his relationship with former manager Alex Cora, who conspired to beat him in ‘17, then called on him to shut down the Dodgers in the final moments of ‘18. He talked about what he would tell his children about all of it when everything shakes out.

Changeup Thrown

Instead of another column in the recent stream of negative Red Sox columns, Shank breaks with tradition and goes back to beat reporter:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — At last, an Alex Verdugo sighting.

The former Dodgers outfielder, the top prospect coming to the Red Sox in the Mookie Betts deal, made his first appearance Friday morning at JetBlue Park and was seen chatting with new teammates Jackie Bradley Jr. and Kevin Pillar while pitchers and catchers were going through their brief workout.

Neither Verdugo nor Pillar participated in any workouts, and Verdugo was not in the clubhouse during media availability periods.

Pillar, a former Blue Jays outfielder, could be playing in place of Verdugo in the outfield at the beginning of the season if Verdugo’s balky back puts him on the shelf. Pillar, joining the team as a free agent, moved his stuff into a stall in the locker room early Friday. After reviewing his physical, the Red Sox made the one-year, $4.25-million deal official later in the day.

We'll see how long that lasts.

Shank's National Pasttime

... is kicking a team when they're down:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Baseball’s cheating scandal just keeps getting worse. And the Red Sox have it hanging over their heads as they go to work on a season made more difficult by the salary dump of Mookie Betts and David Price.

The cheating Houston Astros — who have shot past the Patriots as the most hated team in America — conducted a hideous press conference in West Palm Beach Thursday that left more questions than answers.

Astros owner Jim Crane spoke, as did new manager Dusty Baker, and we listened to brief prepared statements from Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve, two of the cheatin’ ’Stros who won a World Series in 2017 while employing an electronic sign-stealing system that regularly allowed their hitters to know what pitch was coming.

Shank Pretends To Hate The Mookie Betts Trade

Shank's starting out the 2020 Boston Red Sox season in fine form:

What a week.

What a winter.

What a team.

Desperate for relevance, backpedaling after a wildly unpopular deal that angered the fan base like nothing since Grady Little didn’t lift Pedro Martinez (or perhaps when Haywood Sullivan forgot to mail Carlton Fisk’s contract), the Red Sox officially begin spring training Wednesday at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla.

Almost a full week after initially agreeing to trade Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers, Chaim Bloom finally met with the media at JetBlue Monday and essentially made the same request that ownership did when it was learned that the commissioner’s office was investigating the Red Sox for allegations of cheating in the 2018 season:

Love, Unrequited

Check out this slobberfest from Shank to soon to be departing Red Sox pitcher, David Price:

Dear David Price,

Hope you and the family are doing well and looking forward to your future with the Los Angeles Dodgers. There’s plenty of noise about the trade back here in Boston, and fans are quite upset about the Red Sox dealing Mookie. I have tried to explain that they are going to miss you as well, but most of them aren’t buying.

Looking back, I still can’t understand what happened with you here in Boston.

Why did you hate it so much?

Can't afford a fuckin' mirror, Shank? Snark aside, I'm having trouble coming up with an athlete for whom Shank washed his balls so thoroughly the entire time he was in Boston. And if that's not enough bogus mental imagery to ruin your appetite, I'll do better next time!

One of these things is not like the others:

Why did you make things so difficult for yourself? I know this can be a tough place to play, but you made it much harder by being sulky and stubborn. Every day. It encouraged folks to overlook significant contributions you made in your four seasons.
...
I loved your game when you pitched for the Rays, Jays, and Tigers. I loved it when you stood up to David Ortiz after Big Papi pimped a couple of homers in the playoffs. You seemed like a thoughtful guy with great talent who would be a good fit here. But you were not. It was a disaster. You didn’t like it here and the fans didn’t like you.

The passive / aggressive routine continues on, if you're into that sort of thing - Shank sure is.

Biting The Hand That Feeds?

Why else come out with a tweet like this one?

John Henry to me Jan 11: "This focus on CBT resides with the media far more than it does within the Sox . . . You seem to think Chaim was brought in to reduce payroll. That is simply not the way FSG operates . . . We try to act responsibly so as to be consistently competitive.''

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 5, 2020

Striking Out Early

Shank weighs in early on the 2020 Boston Red Sox season in his trademark optimistic style:

Trading Mookie Betts means the Red Sox have given up on 2020 season https://t.co/ywv29GqKbO

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 5, 2020

Ought to be real fun reading Shank's missives from Ft. Myers next week, once pitchers and catchers report.

DHL Dan XCV - Titletown?

I'm wondering how Shank came up with this first angle - did it dawn on him at some point or did he rip someone off after they brought it up in conversation? I'm going with 'ripped off':

Thoughts on Titletown, TB12, UMass football, and other sports topics

Picked-up pieces while waiting endlessly for Tom Brady to tell us where he’s playing next season . . . for Mookie Betts to be traded . . . for the Red Sox to hire a manager . . . for Rob Manfred to tell us whether the 2018 Red Sox were cheating . . . for Danny Ainge to acquire a big man before Thursday’s NBA trading deadline . . .

■ Imagine my surprise when I heard a guy from San Francisco talking about his region as a home of sports champions. Doesn’t everybody know that Boston is Titletown, USA? Twelve duck boat parades in this century?

It turns out that the Bay area has been our equal over the last decade, and if the 49ers had prevailed Sunday, that region would have more championships than Boston since 2010. Instead, we are tied with six crowns and 11 appearances in finals over the last decade.

Since 2010, the Bay area has won three World Series (Giants in 2010, 2012, 2014) and three NBA crowns (Warriors 2015, 2017, 2018). In addition, its teams have been in five other championship rounds (2012 Niners, 2016 Sharks and Warriors, 2019 Warriors, and 2019 49ers). Boston since 2010 has six championships in 11 finals (Celtics 0-1, Bruins 1-2, Patriots 3-2, Red Sox 2-0).

All that and more at the link.

There's No Promotion Like Self-Promotion

Shank punted on tweets during the Super Bowl and instead reminded everyone he won an award a few years ago:

Proud to be part of a Globe team with four bb writers who were honored with Spink Award In Cooperstown pic.twitter.com/PwWb49MBaT

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 2, 2020

The Royal We

Shank takes a stab at trolling Patriots Nation on Super Bowl weekend:

NOT MIAMI — No Super Bowl party this year. No Star Market sheet cake with little plastic goalposts and a gridiron painted in frosting. No carefully planned delivery of chicken wings Sunday at 6 p.m. No bet on the over/under, or on how many times Tom Brady will be mentioned by the TV commentators in the first 10 minutes.

Sure, we reluctantly will watch the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers at the appointed time, but we don’t really care which team wins. We have no dog in this fight. The Super Bowl will be played Sunday night in Hard Rock Stadium, but we are not into this game the way we’ve devoured it almost annually since the turn of the century.

Super Bowl LIV unfolds on Fox Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Swell. Why would we care? This game does not involve Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the New England Patriots. After all those years of No Days Off, we find ourselves with Too Many Days Off.

That's impressive bandwagon commandeering right there, folks!

In addition to the offense committed by ordering chicken wings and not grilling them yourself, Shank also pretends to be a fan as noted above just so he can take a shit on everybody. Nice guy, isn't he?

Shank Still Hates David Ortiz

...and the (other) organization owned by Shank's boss:

Big Papi now mouthpiece for Sox ownership. https://t.co/xvpV3F8thB

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 31, 2020

NOTE - Meant to post this a few days ago; apologies.

The Kobe Bryant Column

On the recent passing of the All-World NBA superstar:

It’s been more than 48 hours since we learned the tragic news about Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and the seven other souls on the doomed helicopter in Calabasas, Calif.

Hopefully it’s not too early to take a stab at assessing Kobe’s place in basketball history.

Kobe was not the greatest basketball player of all time. But he’s in this observer’s top 10, alongside Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Shaquille O’Neal, and Oscar Robertson.

Bryant was the best player of his generation, a perfectly sculpted bridge between Michael and LeBron. Today’s young adults who grew up thinking Ken Griffey Jr. was better than Willie Mays — because they never saw Willie Mays — might tell you that Kobe was better than Michael or Magic. Maybe because they never saw Michael or Magic.

Confidence, Explained

It seems like Shank has a pit bull like grip on this Red Sox sign stealing saga:

How can the Red Sox be so confident MLB’s investigation will end well for them?

Every day there seems to be another Red Sox person or media report expressing confidence that Major League Baseball’s investigation into alleged cheating by the 2018 Sox will not result in significant punishment.

And I’m wondering . . . how can they know this when it’s an ongoing investigation?

Because, of course, expressing confidence in a particular and favorable outcome is different from actual knowledge of a particular outcome. It's fairly similar to a defense team expressing confidence that the jury will find favorably for the defendant. Shank doesn't see that distinction, or he does and just makes an assumption about the Red Sox having said knowledge, maliciously or otherwise.

He then cites comments from Sox management, a quote from Dan Roche (helpfully identified as a former member of the Red Sox broadcast team) and another one from former player Lou Merloni (likewise identified) who all express confidence of a favorable outcome, further heightening Shank's suspicions.

There are other decent parts of the column, which you should consider checking out if you have any interest in this story. And when a cheatin' scandal is the subject, who else to bring up than your old college basketball coaching punching bag, Rick Pitino * John Calipari:

One could have similar suspicions about how John Calipari was treated by the NCAA. Coach Cal got rung up by the NCAA when he was at UMass and again at Memphis (two Final Four appearances vacated). But not at Kentucky. It’s easy to spank UMass and Memphis. But Kentucky is a blue-chip program. A proud part of the NCAA brand. Like the Red Sox in major league baseball. The Astros at this point are not a blue-chip program.

So it seems to be the developing 'conventional wisdom' that Alex Cora's the only guy to suffer serious punishment, and Red Sox brass will get the proverbial slap on the wrist and a couple of weeks of bad press.

And now, for the closing crescendo...

Because I already know none of them will ever return my phone calls, I e-mailed Red Sox ownership Friday afternoon at 1:25 to ask about the organization’s confidence that this investigation will end well for them: “There seems to be a lot of confidence from you guys, J.D. Martinez, Chaim (he told reporters he is comfortable considering 2018 staffers for managerial opening) that the club feels it will be exonerated by MLB investigation into 2018 Sox. Media reports from Rochie and Merloni echo this. 1. Is it accurate to state you are confident there will be no punishments? 2. Have you been told anything by MLB?”

Yeah, I put that first part in there but I had to make an assumption about Shank's relationship with Red Sox ownership and management, much like he did. Isn't writing great?

(* - 1 point deduction for not ragging on Pitino as well)

UPDATE / EDIT AT 11:48 AM - Small spelling error fixed in the Coach Cal section.

And Now For More Boston Globe Employee Bashing

Step on up and claim your prize, Mr. Tough Streetwise Reporter Guy:

.@kirkmin can call me a liar all he wants, I have thick skin-that’s what working the streets gets you. But stay away from Greg, I was there in Indy for a bachelor party that NFL Combine weekend. The only mistruth told by Greg is that Aaron bought a round. It was all on Big Cully pic.twitter.com/yj6d3LP5ga

— Kevin Cullen (@KevinCuIlen) January 24, 2020

'Working the streets'? Newbury Street & Boylston Street, maybe; I'm guessing Dudley Street and Blue Hill Avenue aren't part of his normal 'beat'. Pompous asswipe is the most polite description I'll use to describe this pompous asswipe.

Infield Shift

Longtime readers are aware of the ferocious negativity with which Shank treats certain Boston athletes, and none of more recent prominence than Red Sox pitching ace Curt Schilling. Imagine my surprise, then, at reading his latest column about the Hall of Fame ballots from yesterday, with Derek Jeter and Larry Walker the only two getting in this year. A positive opening headline:

Curt Schilling misses out on Hall of Fame, but he’ll get in next year

… is then quickly doused with a few splashes of negativity:

If you love the Red Sox and love Curt Schilling, the good news is that Schill is getting into the Hall of Fame one year from now.

As long as he does not do something incredibly stupid.

Take the man’s phone away immediately. Bar him from any form of social media over the next 12 months. Schill is officially on the threshold of baseball immortality. Results of the 2020 election demonstrate that Schilling is a lock for 2021 as long as he doesn’t make it impossible for voters to honor him.
...
Schill’s case for the Hall is complex. The myth of him not getting into Cooperstown — a fable Schilling prefers — is that he is being denied because of his “political opinions.’’

Bogus. Schill’s latter-day, off-the-rails rants and social media posts are not singularly what has kept him out. He is simply not a slam-dunk Hall candidate.

The charge of 'bogus' is, of course, absolute rubbish. Shank is well aware that the printed word, even when emanating from the fetid swamps of the area formerly known as 135 Morrisey Boulevard, carry weight and carry the message as far as it will go. Shank has printed enough negative columns about Curt Schilling that they have a certain momentum that carries on, even to this day. Not to mention that time Shank wanted Schilling thrown in jail because Schilling's software company went tits up after a $75 million loan guarantee from the state of Rhode Island. And Shank definitely didn't like it when Schilling described Shank as 'the second most bitter human I've ever known'. Thus, the battle lines have been drawn for years.

Shank then goes on to make a case that, compared to certain other pitchers, Schilling simply doesn't stack up. Since that part of the column's on much better ground, and perhaps even compelling, do you really need to mention Schilling's political opinion? You bet your ass you do, if you work for the Boston Globe and especially if you've been at war with the other guy for over a decade now.

Reunited And It Feels So Good

Just to show you guys Shank does not have an exclusive lock on lame, cheesy lyrics!

Taking a break from shitting on the local sports teams for the past two weeks, Shank looks back (shocking, I know) at some high school classmates:

Reunited after 50 years, high school teammates are reminded that these memories never get old

You don’t have to make it to the NFL or the NBA to share the universal truth of team sports. Moments and teammates stay frozen in time.

I can’t say for sure if I’ve seen my friend Dave any time in the last 49 years. Probably once or twice in the 1970s or 1980s. I was a year ahead of him in high school and went off to Holy Cross in 1971. He went to UMass a year later and became an eighth-grade science teacher in New Hampshire.

We were not super close. We never kept up. But in speaking with other ex-teammates through the years, I was able to keep tabs on him. I knew that he had a couple of daughters, retired, and lost his wife a few years ago.

Read on if you'd like - I'll pass on the once in a blue moon sentimental columns.

Always The Optimist

Shank wonders if the party's over for Boston sports:

Are the championship days over in Boston?

The championship days may be over. We’ve had it too good for too long, and in recent days things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The Patriots just had their earliest playoff elimination in 10 years and Tom Brady might be done in New England. The Red Sox are a mess, suspected of cheating, with no manager, and Mookie Betts might be on his way out of town. The Celtics don’t have the size or skill to go all the way, and the Bruins lost another shootout the other night when one of their best players whiffed on his attempt.

I have a theory of when everything changed. And I am by no means picking on Brad Marchand, one of our town’s toughest and best performers.

But he is! Read on for more doom and gloom, which isn't unfounded. Bonus World War I reference!

Alex Cora Gets The Ax

Shank just luvs, luvs luvs these 'rise and fall' stories, especially the fall part...

The fall of Alex Cora, one of the most popular managers/head coaches in recent Boston sports history, was swift and stunning.

Just after noon on Monday, Cora was still manager of the Red Sox and the ball club was promoting “Winter Weekend,” where Cora was slated to participate in a “town meeting” with Red Sox owners at an exhibition hall in Springfield.

Just under 32 hours later, Cora was finished in Boston.

Spygate II - Is Alex Cora Getting The Ax?

Generally speaking, it's a time to question Shank when he uses the phrase 'do the right thing', but in light of very recent developments he just might be right here.

Red Sox need to do the right thing and fire Alex Cora

The Red Sox need to fire Alex Cora now. Yesterday, if possible. Don’t wait for MLB to tell you what to do. Just do the right thing.

After speaking with two sources with direct knowledge of the situation, I get a sense that the Sox are going to stand by their man and ride this out. They just love Alex Cora, and we understand that.

But this is not an episode that calls for traditional, media-blaming defiance. This is not the time for the Sox to stick behind their guy. The Red Sox are an important local institution. Firing Cora now, before MLB’s next set of sanctions is issued, before it becomes obvious to everyone that Cora must go, allows the Sox to preserve some institutional dignity and let history record that they did the right thing.

Shank mentions some things that are in the MLB report (which came out yesterday or early this morning) that look pretty bad & incriminating. And when even Pete Rose thinks it's a bad situation, you know the shit's about to hit the fan.

Somethin' Somethin' Bridge Year

Shank's always complaining about the Red Sox, isn't he?

The Ghoul has spoken. https://t.co/tO0kh7mElG

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) January 11, 2020

The story's a hoot, because it was done in part via e-mails between Shank and the principals of the Red Sox (Henry, Werner & Kennedy), reminding everyone once again that he's persona non grata with this team. I love it!

Spygate II - Electric Boogaloo

Didja ever notice when bad news abounds, Shank is all over it? First it was the Patriots losing in the playoffs, which already put a bounce in his step. Now we have yet another late Christmas present for the Shankster:

Throw the book at ’em.

If the new report is accurate — and there is no reason to believe it is not accurate — the Red Sox are an arrogant disgrace.

World champs in 2018? Swell. At this moment, the evidence indicates that when it came to winning the big games, “Our cheaters were better than their cheaters.’’

The 2018 Red Sox were good. They probably didn’t need to cheat to get an edge. But there appears to be ample evidence that they cheated. Just as the Patriots cheated with Spygate in 2007, and most likely again in the Super Bowl-winning season of 2014 during Deflategate.

The Sox of ’18 and the Patriots of most years were better than all the other teams, but that was never good enough. In the spirit of Red Auerbach, the Red Sox and Patriots took it to the next level. They covered all the bases. They uncovered every rock. Even if it made them bottom-feeding cheaters.

Is it just me or do many (if not all) of these cheating allegations vastly overstate whatever competitive advantage you'll get from the specific cheating activity?

No one is going to strip the 2018 Red Sox of their championship banner, but everything from that season is now tainted (do I have to keep saying “if the new report is accurate”?).

Two takeaways - a) I get the clear impression from Shank's tone preceding this sentence he would definitely strip the Sox of that banner if it were up to him. b) Yes, Shank, you do have to keep saying it - it makes you look like less of a jackass if these allegations are proven false.

Last thought - I think Shank was discussing this on Zolak & Bertrand yesterday for the few limited minutes I caught it on the radio. That's classic Shank - talk about it then and do a column on the exact same subject (or vice versa) and since there's no heavy lifting involved, you're not gonna mess up your back!

And if there was ever any doubt about this...

It’s time for Rob Manfred to have his Kenesaw Mountain Landis moment. Eight Men Out. Whatever it takes.

Come down hard, Commish.

Baseball needs to get its game back under control. Time to be harsh. Time to make the punishments hurt.

Ok, one more last thought - Shank is of course referring to the 1919 Chicago White Sox, where eight players threw the World Series and received lifetime bans from baseball. Shank is ridiculously calling for the same level of punishment for people involved in enhanced sign stealing (for lack of a better phrase). It's further ridiculous when you consider the following sentence from this column:

Organic sign-stealing is cool. And fun. Nobody is better at it than Alex Cora.

But Shank wants lifetime bans for a similar behavior? Vastly overstated, this column is.

DHL Dan XCIV - Crocodile Tears

Another predictable column by Shank where he continues to bury the New England Patriots:

Would another team bite on Tom Brady? And other Patriots thoughts . . .

Saturday night at Gillette Stadium felt like the end of everything. Things are going to be very different moving forward in Foxborough.

Some two-day-old takeaways . . .

■ The Tom Brady drama is a 24/7 topic now and it feels like it’s never going to end.

Here’s what I believe: Bob Kraft will do everything in his power to make sure he never gets blamed if Brady leaves (this has already started with a Kraft-Peter King interview). Kraft will say, “We tried, but Tom wanted out,’’ or “We let our coach make these decisions,’’ or Kraft’s ever-handy “I was duped.’’

Since a) the entire column consists of cheap shots at a lot of Patriots players, coaches, ownership and even the fans, and b) it's tax season already, I won't be taking this one apart, although that's exactly what it deserves.

Fini

One of the easiest columns to predict coming from Shank's part of the world - the final burial of the New England Patriots. I bet he's been working on this column all week.

It’s the end for the Patriots, and perhaps, for Tom Brady

FOXBOROUGH — Is this how it ends?

We have visited this dark doorstep before . . . and been wrong before. A decade ago, the Patriots lost back-to-back home playoff games in successive seasons and it looked like the dynasty was over. Three Super Bowl championships later, the Patriots were still kicking butts and taking names. They started 8-0 in 2019, and we were talking about running the table and watching Tom Brady and friends win an NFL-record seventh Super Bowl next month in Florida.

No distance comparisons to another building in Florida, Shank?

But it all fell apart over the last two months, and Saturday night at Gillette, freight train Derrick Henry and the sixth-seeded Tennessee Titans ended the Patriots season with a hard-earned, 20-13, wild-card playoff victory. There was nothing fluky about it. The better team won.

A Man Ahead Of His Time

Shank makes the call (?) on the possible end of Tom Brady's career as a New England Patriot:

FOXBOROUGH — The last moment is sometimes understated, underrated, and unknown.

Ted Williams’s Hall of Fame career with the Red Sox spanned four decades, but only an announced 10,454 came to Fenway on a drab Wednesday afternoon to witness the Kid’s final game. Bill Russell won his 11th championship when he beat the Lakers in the ’69 NBA Finals, but did not announce his retirement until three months later. The Beatles didn’t tell the world their 35-minute show at Candlestick Park in ’66 would be their final concert, and nobody knew mankind was leaving the Moon for good when Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan ascended the steps of the lunar module in ’72.

Now it develops that we may have seen the last of Tom Brady as a Patriot at Gillette Stadium.

Now that the loss is official, expect more salvos over the next week or so, as Shank buries everyone he can.

Introducing Tara Shaughnessy - II

Eventually, you'll be right:

Mediocre Tara Sullivan does get her best Trollin Volin impression this morning. pic.twitter.com/7YnouxKhs0

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) January 3, 2020

The One Where Shank Complains About The Red Sox' Backup Catcher

It's now the new year, the hot stove season's in full swing and Shank is already in bitchin' mid-season form:

Another cost-efficient move by the increasingly embarrassing Tampa bay Red Sox https://t.co/813MVIVnZO

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 2, 2020

I'd Rather Look Away

Remember that awful column from a few weeks ago (which one? - ed) where Shank was trying to be funny and clever? He's at it again:

There are two ways to look at the Patriots right now

The Patriot Hater and the Defender of the Wall have been friends for many, many years. They shared an apartment in Brighton after college, relying on the 57 bus, which roared through Oak Square each morning. They went on to enjoy careers in new cities after the turn of the century, but never stopped talking on the phone, and these last two decades have been filled with lively debate about the dominant and ever-controversial New England Patriots.

The Hater grew up far from New England and never liked the Patriots, but only in the new millennium did his true hatred emerge. He’s wildly jealous. He thinks the Patriots are arrogant cheaters. He keeps a framed photo of Ted Wells in his home office. And after 20 years of watching confetti rain on the heads of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, the Hater finally thinks his time has come.

Sounds like an autobiography!

The rest of the 'column' goes on about a mythical Patriots hater arguing with a mythical Patriots fan. It's unfunny schtick that's now overused to boot. Steer clear of it.

Adding Insult To Injury

To paraphrase Peter in Office Space, 'I wouldn't say I missed this column...'

It looks like Shank wrote something a few days ago speculating on the New England Patriots run in the upcoming playoffs. My first thought was 'great - it'll give him a chance to rewrite some columns from previous playoff runs'. It's actually worse then that:

In all likelihood, get ready for a Patriots-Chiefs rematch in the playoffs

Things could still change, of course. Technically speaking, the Patriots could lose to the Tank-Palooza Miami Dolphins at home next weekend. Lamar Jackson could get hurt if John Harbaugh allows the MVP to play against the Steelers in Week 17. And the Chiefs could lose a wild-card weekend home game against the Steelers or the Titans.

But probably not. In all likelihood, we now know what it’s going to take for the Patriots to get where they want to go.

In all likelihood, the Patriots will get their coveted, hard-earned, first-round bye. Then they’ll have to beat the Chiefs at home, and the Ravens on the road to get to Super Bowl LIV in Miami Gardens, just 73 miles south of Orchids of Asia.

What a classless son of a bitch. For what it's worth, I read the first 50 or so comments on the article, and he was uniformly trashed for saying it, and generally being a douchebag has-been who should retire. On the bright side, this will lead to a few more cancellations of Boston Globe subscriptions.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Second Bite At The Apple

Perhaps realizing his previous column was horrible and sucked big hairy donkey balls, Shank takes another stab at the most recent Patriots sideline taping controversy:

The Patriots and their fans sell more Whoppers than Burger King.

Mini Whoppers. Meatless Whoppers. Whoppers with cheese.

It starts at the top. Remember Bob “I did nothing illegal” Kraft and his army of attorneys after the Orchids of Asia debacle in February?

Here we are again. Spygate II. And again the polygraphs are exploding as we wait for the Patriots to release “Spygate II In Context.’’

Let me see if I’ve got things straight:

It's a fairly persuasive column, primarily because it required research and effort to compile. If only he led off with this one and not that crappy lame attempt at humor from a few days ago, I'd take this column seriously.

The Mothers Of Invention

News came out this week that the New England Patriots were again involved in a sideline filming controversy, this time involving the Cincinnati Bengals. Shank, clearly missing out on an opportunity to bash the team, finally jumps on the bandwagon in that fine tradition of Boston Globe fiction artists like Mike Barnicle (of 'Whitey Bulger kept the drugs out of Southie' fame), Patricia Smith and Kevin Cullen:

Where do Patriots ‘rule benders’ end up?

LOCATION UNKNOWN — Welcome to the Patriots penal colony, the place where the rule benders are stashed so they will never be heard from again.

“We call it the Jerod Mayo Zone, as in Area 51,’’ said Jimmy Hotfingers (a.k.a. “the Deflator”), as he greeted me at the door of the palatial lodge. “Don’t ask, don’t tell. Just Do Your Job and don’t say anything. Ever. That’s what we’re about. How was your trip?’’

A little disturbing, I told him. It was somewhat scary to be blindfolded and rolled into a private jet at Hanscom Field. I wasn’t in the sky that long, but I couldn’t tell if I was in upstate New York or Las Vegas. You lose your sense of time and space in the darkness. Same goes for the bumpy ride to the cabin.

Unfunny, uninteresting and complete bullshit - this is his worst column in some time, and that's saying something.