Lockdown Dan

I guess it's not much of a surprise to see that strains of health puritanism would make it to the Boston Globe's sports section, as Shank believes the BC Eagles shouldn't play football this fall:

The list of bad ideas introduced to Boston sports fans through the years is long and winding. The Red Sox once tried to sell us Jack Clark. Then Bullpen by Committee. Now they’re all about Payroll Flexibility. TD Garden officials thought it would be a swell idea to reconfigure seating in the lower bowl of the arena last year. Oh, and remember the campaign to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston?

Now we have the crazy notion that the Boston College Eagles are planning to play their ACC football schedule this fall while our region tries to get back on its feet in the middle of a global pandemic.

For the record, the Wuhan coronavirus is now considered an epidemic, which is a disease less prevalent in a population than it is in a pandemic. I'm certain the CDC downgraded the virus to this epidemic status a month ago, but they don't seem very willing to advertise it explicitly (and easily findable) on their website. In any event, one of the tricks I don't appreciate the media playing is this exact sort of bullshit. By continuing to call it a pandemic they keep doing the media's Prime Directive, which is scaring the shit out of people.

What in the name of Buddy Garrity is going on around here? Who do we think we are — Clemson, S.C.? Odessa, Texas? Tuscaloosa, Ala.?

Seriously. I understand folks who live in football hotbeds going for this. But Boston, a place where absolutely nobody knows your name if you are associated with college football? Boston, a hub of science, medicine, high-tech, and deep thinking? We are going to have big-time college football here on autumn Saturdays in 2020?

So, if it's not popular we shouldn't do it? Like me not reading your newspaper?

We knew Harvard and Yale weren’t going to play this year. Same with the Patriot League, the NESCAC, and all the quaint little schools that play small-time college football. Those were easy calls. Even Division 1 pretenders UMass and UConn had the good sense to pack away the shoulder pads for the fall. Massachusetts high school football is also closed for the season.

But BC is planning to play North Carolina, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, and Louisville in an empty Alumni Stadium. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that BC is going forward to protect its share of ACC TV money. The Eagles’ slice of the ACC pie is in the neighborhood of $30 million annually.

So, you overlooked that league affiliation thingy back there, didn't 'cha?

I won't bore you with the rest of it but he repeats the notion a few times - we're in Massachusetts, not Georgia or Florida and thus they shouldn't be playing. How dumb of an argument is that? By the way, that's the primary argument and health concerns are of a secondary importance. Just look at this bullshit conclusion:

We are Boston. We are about science and knowledge.

This is insanity. And it’s dangerous.

What is insane and dangerous is continued efforts to lock people down and restrict their freedom of association (or movement, at a physical level) and it all that entails in the name of a virus that is slightly more infectious and roughly as non-lethal as many of the others I've lived through. The widespread lockdowns and declaration of sizeable portions of the economy as 'non-essential' and thus forced to close shop is a) unprecedented in my lifetime, b) does have harmful side effects and c) will always be seen by me as a galaxy-class fuckup by those in charge of these measures, most of them fucking Democrats.

But let me instead talk about the players. It's bad enough there will be online courses (they simply aren't the same thing) but for all of them, they are also there to play football and if / when a few of them make it to the NFL or CFL, all the better. My buddy Eddie swears up and down that the experience of hanging in a college locker room getting ready for and playing college sports is like nothing else, and I don't doubt it for a second. Shank's position deprives them of this opportunity. To hell with that - let's get back to our normal lives, the sooner the better.

Guilt By Association

Shank's been on a scumbag tour de force the past few weeks, hasn't he?

“We Build the Wall” board member Curt Schilling with the indicted Steve Bannon pic.twitter.com/ulgDnGLDbS

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) August 20, 2020

The implication's clear - Schilling's a bad guy because he posed for a picture with someone who was indicted in the past 24 hours. I read the first seven pages of that indictment (link is here) and found that part of the document to be fairly hyperbolic.

To use Shank's 'logic', then, he's as reprehensible as Schilling is made out to be because Sam Shaughnessy was arrested for drunken disorderly, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Is that how the game's played now?

DHL Dan CIX - The Next Guy Outta Town?

The leadoff subject for Shank's latest Picked Up Pieces column is Xander Boagerts and whether he's going to stay with the Red Sox:

A sweep for Boston, but here’s hoping Xander Bogaerts doesn’t get the Mookie Betts treatment

Pretty good Wednesday. The Bruins closed out the Hurricanes, 2-1, to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Celtics spanked the Sixers, 128-101, to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round series. And the lowly Red Sox snapped a nine-game losing streak with a 6-3 win at home against the Phillies.

Some picked up pieces from three games in front of the flat screen . . .

▪ Mookie Betts. Now Xander Bogaerts? Say it ain’t so, Red Sox.

The estimable Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic floated the trade rumor this week, noting that the period between now and Aug. 31 represents Boston’s last chance to move Bogaerts without the shortstop’s approval. Bogaerts will reach seven years of service Sept. 6, which means he can veto any deal after this trading deadline passes.

Bogaerts is signed to a team-friendly six-year, $120 million contract, but has an opt-out after 2022. If things don’t improve on Jersey Street, abandoning the Red Sox might be an attractive alternative to any good player who’s still here in 2022.

Sox CEO Sam Kennedy and baseball boss Chaim Bloom say no Sox player is untouchable. Kennedy is quick to remind us of the Nomar Garciaparra bombshell from 2004.

And we're quick to remind you about Shank's involvement in that whole shitshow.

The rest of the column is what you'd expect - lots of subjects covered in minute form, plenty of grousing, etc.

Shank Hardest Hit

So much for his next Patriots column:

JUST IN: Court rules secret videos can’t be used in Kraft massage case https://t.co/CI9q6Wevvc

— Boston 25 News (@boston25) August 19, 2020

Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

It's been nearly a week since we've last heard from the local curmudgeon - let's check in to see how his Monday went, shall we?

Pass the remote.

Monday offered a sports smorgasbord for New England fans. Celtics playoffs. Bruins playoffs. Red Sox-Yankees (hold your laughter). All in a single night in August.

The sum total? Two playoff wins for the Hub’s winter teams and another worthless evening for Boston’s boys of bummer at Yankee Stadium. The Celtics beat the Sixers, 109-101. The Bruins scored four third-period goals to beat the Hurricanes, 4-3. The last-place Red Sox dropped to 6-17, suffering a 6-3 beatdown in the Bronx, their eighth straight defeat.

Our late-summer TV feast tapped off just after 6:30 p.m. when the third-seeded Celtics beat the sixth-seeded Philadelphia 76ers, 109-101, in Game 1 of their first-round best-of-seven series in the bubble in Orlando. Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 32 points and 13 rebounds. Jaylen Brown scored 29.

From there it's the usual Shank column templates - pine for Boston / Philly matchups from the 60's and '80's, complain about lots of stuff (especially the Red Sox), refer to J.D. Martinez as 'the new Adrian Gonzalez and misspell Celtics coach Brad Stevens name three times (that was spotted by a commenter and since corrected).

Milking It, By Dan Shaughnessy - A Continuing Series

Shank manages to write a positive New England Patriots story, if only to congratulate Dont'a Hightower and the start of his and Morgan Hart's family:

FOXBOROUGH — Dont’a Hightower wanted to inspire his fiancée Morgan Hart as she labored in the 17th hour to deliver their first child. She was exhausted, but the nurse said it was time to push.

He started chanting, “28-3, 28-3.” Adding, “Never give up.”

The standout Patriots linebacker laughs as he recalls his delivery-room audible. It’s New England lore to recite the score of Super Bowl LI, in which the Patriots trailed the Atlanta Falcons, 28-3, with a little more than two minutes left in the third quarter. They rallied to win, 34-28, in overtime in the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.

Let the record show that Grayson Hightower heard about it in the womb from his father.

Hart, Hightower’s sweetheart since their days at the University of Alabama, says the “28-3″ mantra gave her strength.

An animus free column by Shank about the Patriots (even if it's focused on one awesome player) should be savored like a fine wine.

That first part's really overboard with the 28-3 angle, but it's an otherwise decent column.

DHL Dan CVIII - Wish Upon A Star

Shank would like you to know the obvious: :

Hoping former MVP Cam Newton is more Kevin Garnett than Bob McAdoo, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while mailing a birthday card to the great Bob Cousy, who turns 92 Sunday . . .

Just want to emphasize the 'mailed in' notion, since it seems like a confessional.

▪ Patriots quarterback Cam Newton is one of a long list of former league MVPs who came to Boston to resume or finish their careers. The list includes (among others) Kevin Garnett, Bob McAdoo, Bill Walton, Shaquille O’Neal, Jaromir Jagr, Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco, Andre Dawson, Don Baylor, Orlando Cepeda, Elston Howard, Lou Boudreau, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove. How many of you remember that 1989 National League MVP Kevin Mitchell played 27 games for the 1996 Red Sox? Newton was MVP of the NFL five years ago. He’s 31 now and comes to the Patriots after subpar seasons owed to injuries. Patriots fans would love it if Newton turns out to be another Garnett. KG was 31 when he came to the Celtics four years after his MVP season with the Timberwolves and he was still a dominant player. Garnett led the Celtics to a championship in his first season here. Baylor was American League MVP when he drove in 139 runs for the Angels in 1979. Seven years later, at the age of 36, Baylor was still good for 31 homers and 94 RBIs with the pennant-winning Red Sox. A lot of former MVPs had forgettable stints in Boston. Jagr was 14 years past his MVP prime when he played 33 games for the 2012-2013 Bruins. Henderson was near the end when he played for the Red Sox in 2002. McAdoo was only 27 when he came to Boston in 1979 and his 20-game stint with the last-place Celtics was completely forgettable. McAdoo is best remembered here as the key piece in a trade with Detroit that ultimately delivered Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to the Celtics.

Given the recent ferocity of his criticisms of the Red Sox, it won't take anything more than a two game losing streak for Shank to start Cam Newton's run out of town. The rest of the column is the usual hodgepodge mix of Red Sox criticism and other laundry list complaints.

Boston Globe Death Watch - X

Things are getting desperate at the good ship Boston Globe:

Reporters, editors, photographers, & other staffers of the @BostonGlobe will hold a socially distant #FairnessAtFenway rally at Fenway Park on Aug. 9 to demand that Red Sox & Globe owner John Henry provide a fair contract to the nearly 300 employees in the Boston Newspaper Guild. pic.twitter.com/GiIF6cFaFZ

— Boston Newspaper Guild (@BostonNewsGuild) August 7, 2020

The One Where Shank Selects His Newest Whipping Post

That would be J.D. Martinez, who to be fair is playing on a bad team right now. Allow Shank to cut loose:

J.D. Martinez. This guy. In case you missed it, J.D. is not his usual slugger self thus far this season. He’s on pace to finish the Red Sox’ 60-game slate with a .244 batting average, zero homers, and 15 RBIs. Martinez has not driven home a run since Opening Day, two weeks ago. He has 13 strikeouts, only four walks, and a puny OPS of .720. Oh, and he also has an excuse. No video. Seriously. Players can’t review their in-game at-bats on video this season, and this has J.D. out of sorts. Because of both the pandemic and the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, there are new protocols in place, and Martinez is lost without the ability to retreat to the video room and break down his swing in between plate appearances. He is Roy Hobbs without Wonderboy. He is Wade Boggs without chicken. He is Nomar Garciaparra without batting gloves to tug on.

The John McNamara Column - The Follow-Up

Shank actually got off his lazy ass and made some calls:

Former Red Sox manager John McNamara died Tuesday in Tennessee. McNamara last managed in Boston 32 years ago, and his worst moments happened 34 years ago. But as with Bill Buckner, Bob Stanley, Rich Gedman, and a few others, the pain of the 1986 World Series is still very fresh in the McNamara household.

I made a few calls early Wednesday after I learned Mac had passed. I spoke with Bruce Hurst, and left messages for Roger Clemens and Dwight Evans. I reached out to a funeral home in Nashville to let the McNamara family know the Globe was attempting to confirm his passing.

And he's just getting warmed up, folks:

Say “Too Many Men on the Ice” and everybody knows you are talking about Bruins-Canadiens Game 7 in 1979. It’s the same with “David Tyree,” “Bucky Dent,” “Sugar Bear Hamilton,” “Grady Little,” and “Game 6.”

“Game 6” sets off Red Sox fans of a certain age. It’s like Niagara Falls to the Three Stooges. Game 6 is when Mookie Wilson’s grounder slithered between the hobbled ankles of Buckner. Game 6 is when Steamer threw the wild pitch that should have been a passed ball. Game 6 is when we saw those Calvin Schiraldi eyes.

Game 6 is when McNamara pulled Clemens for a pinch hitter with the Red Sox leading the Mets, 3-2, in the top of the eighth. Clemens was sailing along with a four-hitter and had retired the last five Mets he faced. He was coming off his 24-4 MVP season. He was primed to deliver the Red Sox their first World Series championship in 68 years. And then he came out of the game and everything fell apart.

After the loss, when the manager of the Red Sox was asked to explain the move, McNamara answered, “My pitcher asked out of the game.”

When Clemens heard that, he had to be restrained. He has always maintained that McNamara made the decision, then lied to cover his mistake.

Am I off base for stating this is pure scumbag journalism? It's little wonder print media is on its last legs. Successful pot stirring's always been a specialty of his, and now he's got Clemens' allegiance (note the link above) in the war of words between the Rocket and McNamara over an event that happened over a third of a century ago, and McNamara can't speak for himself now because he's dead.

For the record, Roger Clemens was indicted for lying to Congress about his use of steroids and HGH; character counts in my book.

I don't believe I'm being hyperbolic in saying this might be Shank's worst column (in terms of raw scumbaggery) since this one, and the more I think about it, it just might be his all-time nadir.

The John McNamara Column

John McNamara, one-time manager of the Boston Red Sox, has passed away. Shank pays respect to the former skipper:

John McNamara, manager of the ill-fated 1986 Red Sox, died Tuesday in Tennessee at the age of 88. His death was confirmed to the Globe by his wife, Ellen McNamara of Brentwood, Tenn., and his nephew, Joe McNamara of Sacramento.

McNamara managed 19 seasons in the major leagues with the Oakland A’s, San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds, California Angels, Red Sox, and Cleveland Indians. His career mark was 1,160-1,233-2 (.485).

He was hired by Haywood Sullivan to replace Ralph Houk in Boston, and the 1985 Red Sox went 81-81 in McNamara’s first season in the Fenway Park dugout.

A year later, McNamara was American League Manager of the Year as the Red Sox took over first place for good in late May.

Naturally, that's not what piqued my interest - this is (emphasis mine):

He was second-guessed for pinch-hitting for Roger Clemens with the Sox leading Game 6, 3-2, in the eighth. He also was criticized for leaving a hobbled Bill Buckner on the field when the Sox led in the bottom of the 10th. Buckner’s error on Mookie Wilson’s grounder became the iconic moment of the Sox’ collapse.

The use of the passive voice by Shank is the surest sign of an attempt to deflect from the fact that Shank was a prominent second guesser and a criticizer of McNamara. I have zero doubt about this. I've asked my co-blogger Mike to weigh in on this one, since I lack his knowledge of baseball and access to the Boston Globe archives to point out the numerous examples of Shank doing just that. That said, I was able to come up with a few examples:

Sometimes cause-and-effect is obvious and immediate. In 1988, the moribund Red Sox fired miserable manager John McNamara at the All-Star break. Tollway Joe Morgan took over as "interim" skipper and the revived Sox rattled off 12 straight wins and 19 of 20 en route to the division title. The same thing happened to the Celtics after Bill Fitch ran them aground in 1983. K.C. Jones was hired and the lads won two of the next three NBA championships.

And this one:

Baseball bards and pastime poets may claim that last night’s game was lost when Sox manager John McNamara named Al Nipper to start Game 4, but Nipper did his job. He was roughed up for three runs in the fourth, but he kept his team in the game for six serviceable innings (seven hits, one walk). It was only 3-0 when Nipper left.

So far the criticism of McNamara seems pretty light and tame. We all know Grady Little was treated far more harshly by Shank.

UPDATE AT 6:45 PM - comments have been turned off for this column; can't imagine why!

The One Where Shank Shits On His Boss

John Henry is the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and owner of what's left of the Boston Globe. The following tweet makes me wonder - does Shank have a professional death wish?

Red Sox ownership gave up on this team in February. Players obviously got the message.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 28, 2020

I'll give him this much - it does take balls to throw out a tweet like that.

And So It Begins

Well, that didn't take long, did it?

Source: Marlins’ game tonight against Orioles in Miami has been cancelled. Team still in Philadelphia.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 27, 2020

Feels like it’s over https://t.co/JTdqEUVdR8

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 27, 2020

The One Where John Henry Supports A Domestic Terrorist Organization

...whose members and leadership advocate the murder of white policemen and want to abolish capitalism to boot. Great way to piss off your fans, folks.

#BLACKLIVESMATTER pic.twitter.com/bnHZuyo6Qs

— Red Sox (@RedSox) July 23, 2020

The Unwatchable National Pastime

Shank does his best to put a positive spin on 'Opening Day':

The Red Sox annihilated the moribund Baltimore Orioles, 13-2, at empty Fenway Park on Friday. It was the Red Sox’ 120th Opening Day, and by any measure it goes down as the most unusual sporting event in our city’s history.

It was the first real game involving a Boston team since March 10, when the Bruins blanked the Flyers, 2-0, in Philadelphia and the Celtics beat the Pacers in Indianapolis. Since then, we’ve consumed grainy rebroadcasts of the Larry Bird Celtics, the Tom Brady Patriots, and the Curse-busting Red Sox of 2004.

I hope that last one hurt, bucko...

For the sake of television, the Red Sox and Orioles went though all the traditional pre-game rituals. There was red, white, and blue bunting on the upper deck facade, and four rows of cardboard-cutout fans filled the Monster Seats — it looked a little like the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album — but the official attendance was 00,000 when Nathan Eovaldi threw a 100 mile-per-hour first pitch to Baltimore center fielder Austin Hays at 7:33 p.m.

Worse than reading this pedantic column was watching the game last night; I could do it for about a minute, then I changed over to The Bourne Ultimatum. No fans and fake crowd noise - baseball in its current form is unwatchable and I still maintain the corporate suits calling the shots here are doing irreparable harm to the game.

What Passes For Thoughts

Here's Shank penning a litany of cheap shots and complaints as 'thoughts' on the upcoming sports shitshow known as the 2020 baseball season:

Thoughts on what will be a brand-new baseball season in more ways than one

Baseball is back. No more Red Sox batting practice, intrasquad scrimmages, or exhibition games after Wednesday night. No more watching the last game of the 2000 World Series. No more painful replays of the Dent Game, the Buckner Game (“behind the bag!!!”), or the Grady Game.

Nope. This is the real thing. And as the Red Sox prepare for their season opener Friday night at Fenway Park against the Orioles, here are some thoughts, questions, and observations about the much-anticipated return of our national pastime:

▪ If you can stand the pain, tune into the Giants-Dodgers opener from Los Angeles Thursday night on ESPN at 10 and get your first look at Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts.

It looks very much like Betts is going to be a Dodger for 10 or more seasons. The Red Sox’ inability to pony up for their best player will haunt them for years to come. Their party line will be the tired old “he wasn’t going to stay here anyway,” but he could have been a Red Sox player for life if they had been willing to pay for his services.

Must be nice being a professional asshole, lecturing other people on how to spend their money, and it's his putative boss to boot.

▪ Chaim Bloom has more meatball artists on this Sox staff than Mother Anna’s Italian restaurant in the North End. Righty Dylan Covey was added to the Wasdin stable Tuesday. Covey’s 7.98 ERA last year was 340th of 341 big league pitchers with at least 50 innings. Where is Andrew Cashner when you need him?

We've heard this one for a few weeks already and, like the above complaint about Mookie Betts, it will be a column staple for months, if not years to come.

▪ Can’t wait to see those first designated hitters in a National League game. I witnessed the first DHs in an American League game, at Fenway in April 1973. Ron Blomberg for the Yankees and Orlando Cepeda for the Red Sox.

Just for some perspective, the band Black Sabbath released their fifth studio album (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath) four months later.

That's enough Shank intake for this guy.

The Usual Suspects

Missed from a few weeks ago:

Oh, Mike Felger, Dan Shaughnessy, Gerry Callahan, to name a few. https://t.co/JjxMexPsmD

— Bruce Allen (@bruceallen) July 2, 2020

Tough Circumstances

Maybe that's a bit of an understatement with respect to the 2020 Boston Red Sox and new skipper Ron Roenicke:

Ron Roenicke couldn’t be starting his term as Red Sox manager under tougher circumstances

He is 63 years old and has been in professional baseball since the mid 1970s. He has 29 years of coaching and managing experience. He was manager of the Milwaukee Brewers for four-plus seasons from 2011-15. He has three World Series championship rings — one from his playing days with the 1981 Dodgers, one from coaching with the 2002 Angels, and another from his bench coach work with the 2018 streamroller Red Sox.

Ron Roenicke is smart, tough, and stoic. He doesn’t want or need anybody feeling sorry for him.

But I do anyway. The poor guy had no idea it was going to be like this when he was elevated to the position of manager of the Red Sox after Alex Cora was fired. He’s working on a one-year contract, and that “year” is going to be a 60-game regular season in the summer of COVID-19.

I'm getting the feeling that the 2020 baseball season's going to be a complete shitshow, and I think this is too easy a prediction to make - we're one half of a COVID infected clubhouse or two away from the baseball suits curling up into the fetal position and declare the season over.

DHL Dan CVII - Now With More Recycling

In the sense of going with certain well-worn column templates:

It looks like a long year at Fenway Park, and other thoughts while waiting for baseball to begin

Picked-up pieces while waiting to watch the Yankees and Nationals on Thursday night . . .

▪ Do the once-proud Boston Red Sox have the worst starting pitching in baseball? It’s certainly the worst in my lifetime, and I go back to the not-so-golden early 1960s, when the Sox regularly finished eighth or ninth in a 10-team league but at least had guys such as Bill Monbouquette, Earl Wilson, and Gene Conley in their rotation.

At this hour, Sox fans can expect Nate Eovaldi, Martin Perez, Ryan Weber, and Brian Johnson as the Sox’ top four starters with a cast of unknowns slated as “openers” for the fifth spot. Wow.

Eovaldi last year won two games with a 5.99 ERA. Perez is a grade-A meatball artist who’s 12-14 with a 5.49 ERA over the last two seasons. Weber is a career 3-9 with a 5.04 ERA, and Johnson was 1-3 with a 6.02 ERA in 2019. To think that in 2004, Terry Francona rolled out Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe, Tim Wakefield, and Bronson Arroyo.

At least Shank's in fine form with the hyperbolic negativity; knock yourselves out with the rest of it.

Happy Anniversary!

How did I miss this one from five years ago?

Today is the 5-year anniversary of the @BostonGlobe’s “#investifarted” tweet. pic.twitter.com/l3ca6UUNE9

— Don Seiffert (@BosBizDon) July 17, 2020

Recycled Columns

Shank's written variations of this column at least three times now...

Picking Paul Pierce first in an all-time Celtics draft is an easy second-guess

It was a great idea in the middle of our gameless, COVID-19 spring/summer. Globe Celtics beat guy Adam Himmelsbach suggested we produce an all-time Celtics draft. Choosing from 75 years of a franchise that produced 17 championships and more than two dozen Hall of Famers, five Globe scribes had a chance to assemble their own teams. Himmelsbach, NBA columnist Gary Washburn, self-described Celtics honk Chad Finn, de facto NBA commissioner Bob Ryan, and yours truly had a chance to build our own teams in a Zoom draft.

We Zoom-gathered on the evening of Monday, June 29. We’d had a week to study the rules and prepare our depth charts. But we did not yet know the draft order.

After our official Globe Draft Ping-Pong balls fell into place, our commissioner, deputy sports editor Scott Thurston, informed us that Wash would be picking first. Then me. Then Chad. Followed by Himmel and Ryan. It was a snake draft, so Ryan would get picks 5 and 6.

Swell.

Knowing I was going to pick second made it easy. Wash would of course select Bill Russell or Larry Bird, and then I would start my team with the one he didn’t take. I was hoping he’d go for Bird. Russell was clearly king of the hill, cream of the crop, top of the heap, and A-number one.

And then it happened. With the first pick in the Globe’s 2020 all-time Celtic draft, Gary Washburn selected . . . Paul Pierce.

You know the rest, don't you?

Noted But Not Missed

Shank / the Boston Globe posted some bullshit last week that is unreadable with normal desktop browsers.

Like we're going to a game anytime soon...

Bob Cousy On The (Not Gonna Happen) 2020 NBA Season

Shank talks to the great Boston Celtics guard, who weighs in on the unlikelihood of something resembling a basketball season:

He will be 92 next month. He has his daughter and son-in-law living with him at his home in Worcester and like the rest of us, he’s been watching TV, and staying alive.

Bob Cousy came back from his annual Florida winter stay in early May and, as ever, he’s on top of the news. Cousy’s not confident the NBA will be able to carry out its plan to resume games in the Orlando bubble next month and crown a 2020 champion in October.

“My guess is that nothing is going to happen,” Cousy said over the phone Monday. “I think everything is going to shut down. They’re going to continue having cases pop up where it’s going to be simply not viable to hold a season. I hope I’m wrong. What the hell do I know? I’m sitting here in Worcester.”

I'm so disgusted with this overreaction, I'm one of a fair number who will severely intake further sports viewing; complete league-wide shutdowns that, in certain sports, did not even happen during World War II.

Throwing In The Towel

Shank doesn't think college sports should be played this year:

Colleges should follow the Ivy League, again, and shut down sports this year

Laugh at the Ivy League all you want, you tailgate-lovin', rib-eatin', under-the-table payin', FBS-series-playin’ college football towns across America. You’ve got All-Americans, spring games that draw 100,000 fans, and a legitimate shot at a national championship. You know who you are. We’re talking to you, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, ACC, and Pac-12.

But never forget that the Ivy League is where today’s big-time college football started. And take these next couple of days to ask yourself if you really want your young men congregating and sweating and tackling one another with hopes of starting a college football season around Labor Day.

It’s over for this year, people. The Ivy League just told you so. Listen to them. And give it up for this year.

The Ivy League announced Wednesday that there will be no varsity sports this fall. The league will perhaps attempt to play its football season next spring. No sooner.

I'm for this - colleges overall are churning out way too many idjits nowadays and this will result in a price mechanism fix in the other direction. Who wants to go to college under current conditions? The sports ban will only make it worse.

Bandwagon Dan / Double Standards

Shank comes out (again) as a cancel culture warrior:

This one really isn’t very difficult.

The Washington Redskins need to change their name. Today.

It’s been obvious for such a long time.

This is not a new thought, or an idea owed to the challenge flag thrown regarding US history. I’ll spare you the discussions about the Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Kansas City Chiefs, Golden State Warriors, and Florida State Seminoles.

Knock yourselves out arguing which nickname is an honor and which one is an insult. I admit I have never been insulted by the mascot of the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Or the Celtics’ leprechaun. Others are welcome to be offended.

So if you're a pasty white Irishman like Shank is, you can fuck off about changing those nicknames. These nicknames for people of a lessor pallor, however, must be changed.

He's mentioned this one in the past but it seems to have a new urgency now. I wonder why that is? Let me know when you want to start burning some Seminole game programs, Shank.

The Eck Weighs In On The 2020 Season

Shank mails in a column just before the start of the July 4th weekend:

Dennis Eckersley is not sure what to expect in this oddest of baseball seasons

To be fair, I don't think any of us know what to expect, except for empty stadiums that make the game less watchable than it already is.

He’s a Hall of Famer with an MVP and a Cy Young trophy in his den. He pitched 24 big league seasons and has been broadcasting Red Sox games for NESN since 2003. But at this hour, Dennis Eckersley doesn’t know much more about the 2020 Red Sox than anybody else. Eck never made it to Florida for any spring training games (the Sox played 21) and admits he has some catching up to do.

“[Expletive], I haven’t even thought about that team,” Eck said with a chuckle. “Seriously. I really haven’t thought about them. I was just about to join them in Florida when all this happened.”

Eckersley has been in California since the baseball world shut down along with everything else in mid-March. He’s planning to return to Greater Boston this coming week and hopes to be broadcasting all 60 Red Sox games along with Jerry Remy and Dave O’Brien when the season begins later this month.

These guys will be doing the games from NESN's headquarters, just to make the games a bit more awkward. Good luck with all this, Red Sox and Major League Baseball.

The Obligatory Cam Newton Column

On occasion, I'm not sure what to make of certain columns by Dan Shaughnessy. Today is one of those times.

For instance - how often do you see two lead paragraphs in a column be about something else besides the main column theme / subject? If you're Shank and you can use them to take cheap shots at the Patriots, that's what you do:

If Cam Newton is healthy, this is a Patriots signing to get excited about

There was Patriots news everywhere Sunday night. For the third time since 2007, the Patriots were spanked by the NFL in a cheating scandal, this time losing $1.1 million and a third-round pick for videotaping an upcoming opponent’s sideline.

While this story was breaking, The New York Times resurfaced a Globe report that a three-judge panel in Florida this week will review a ruling that tossed video evidence from Bob Kraft’s solicitation charges at the Orchids of Asia spa in early 2019.

Oh, and in the same evening, we learned that Cam Newton, a former Super Bowl quarterback who was MVP of the NFL in 2015, is signing a one-year, make-good contract with the Patriots.

The rest of the column is cliche-filled evenhandedness in discussing Newton's potential contribution to the team. And we get hit with this kind of laughable bullshit:

The Patriots just replaced a Super Bowl, NFL MVP quarterback with a Super Bowl, NFL MVP quarterback.

This is a big story in our news-starved sports summer of 2020.

He probably wrote that just to troll people, right?

Old School Baseball, By Terry Francona

Shank hasn't rang up his book buddy in a while; let's see how the Cleveland Indians manager is taking the shortened 2020 baseball season:

For old-school Terry Francona, this won’t be routine, but it’s still baseball, and it still counts

Baseball is scheduled to be back July 23 or 24. Teams have to submit 60-player rosters by Sunday afternoon. Players are to report to their home parks for “spring training” by July 1, which is this coming Wednesday. There will be a 60-game season. With no fans in the stands.

Everything is different now, and veteran Indians manager Terry Francona knows what that means.

“If you don’t run a ball out, there’s not going to be a crowd there to let you know that that’s not good enough,” Francona said in a telephone interview. “There’s no checks and balances. We have to live by what we believe in more than ever now.

“We have to furnish our own enthusiasm. Me and the coaches have talked about that a bunch. The players will take their cues from us. The one thing I’ve told players — once we start playing, what happens goes on the back of your baseball card. So it may look and sound different, but it counts.

The best part of this column is Shank's lack of input, as he lets Tito do most of the talking.

A Question For Astronomy Buffs

If you have a rising star at a dying newspaper, that's called a red dwarf, isn't it?

Julian new globe star on the rise https://t.co/thLCzPiLQW

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) June 24, 2020

Dan Shaughnessy, Wrong Again

Shank jumps on Curt Schilling for being 100% right:

What a guy. He so deserves to be honored https://t.co/opO4PKmrrm

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) June 24, 2020

Two things - anyone faintly familiar with recent history can recall many / dozens of these fake noose hoax crimes, and that's precisely what l'affaire Bubba Wallace has turned out to be. It should be standard practice to require proof of a 'crime', unless you're a leftist trying to score points against racist redneck NASCAR fans.

Secondly, I mentioned months ago that for Curt Schilling to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, all he has to do is lay low and not give his critics any ammunition to use against him. Aside from the fact he was right in making the Smollett 2.0 call, this is not how you lay low. It's another unforced error for Curt in my book and it's all but guaranteed Shank won't vote for him next time around, which I believe is Schilling's last chance.

DHL Dan CVI - He Came, He Saw, He Groused

Shank's latest version of the Picked Up Pieces column somehow manages to be one sour note:

Picked-up pieces while wondering if we are all kidding ourselves . . .

▪ Far be it from me to be negative, but I’m seriously contemplating the notion that no big league baseball, basketball, hockey, and football games will be played this year. This has nothing to do with MLB’s preposterous labor crisis. It’s everything else

The daily drumbeat of athletes testing positive across the country, coupled with safety protocols that appear impossible to follow, make me think maybe the book is closing on sports in 2020. Hope I’m wrong.

▪ How is it possible that MLB players and owners came away from their March agreement with two separate understandings regarding player compensation? The players believed the agreement was ironclad and assured them pro-rated pay regardless of the potential for empty stadiums. The owners believed the agreement was ironclad and assured them that player compensation would be open for further reduction if games were played without fans.

Who was the lawyer who drew this up? You and I can’t buy a house with that kind of contract ambiguity.

▪ Who ever thought baseball fans would be longing for the good old days of Bud Selig? Rob Manfred is making Uncle Bud look like Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Obligatory name dropping aside, note that every subsequent paragraph / paragraphette either complains about something and / or casts some sort of negative light on it. There may be not be many sports being played now, but Shank is in midseason form once again.

Keeping Hope Alive

Shank talks to former Red Sox skipper Alex Cora, currently serving a one year suspension from Major League Baseball for his role in the 2017 Houston Astros sign stealing kerfuffle.

Alex Cora speaks on his suspension, the Red Sox, and if he’ll return to baseball

Alex Cora is serving his one-year suspension from baseball at home in Puerto Rico, hunkering down with his family during the global pandemic, but he has not stopped thinking about baseball.

I spoke with Cora for 15 minutes Thursday afternoon, Cora’s first interview with a Greater Boston media outlet since mid-January when he was canned by the Red Sox after Major League Baseball released the findings of its investigation into the Houston Astros 2017 cheating scandal (Cora was Houston’s bench coach).

Does he want to manage again when he’s first eligible in 2021?

“If this was a regular time and they were playing games, I would say yes,” said Cora. “I would love to be back in 2021 in some capacity. I love managing at the big league level.

“But right now, I’m still kind of like putting my game plan together. It’s not where I want it to be. But obviously with everything that’s going on, with my daughter going into her senior year of high school, we as a family have to see what we want to do.

Shank has mentioned Cora coming back to coach the Red Sox in previous months (color me skeptical), so he keeps that flame lit:

He knows there will be plenty of buzz about him returning to the Red Sox in 2021. Cora’s former bench coach, Ron Roenicke, is Boston’s manager for 2020, but he is working on a one-year deal and may never have a chance to manage if baseball’s owners and players can’t agree on a return plan after the game was halted in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Does Cora think another team would hire him to manage?

“I know it’s not going to be easy, as far as people giving me a chance,” he said. “They are going to look back and then they are going to have to make up their minds. But at the end, I’m paying the price.

“I’m embarrassed. I’m sorry for what happened. And we have to move on.

Boston Globe Death Watch - IX

WBUR (political sisters-in-arms with the Boston Globe) performs the ancient ritual of bloodletting:

WBUR lays off 29, freezes salaries and says goodbye to four senior leaders

This is heartbreaking.

Show of hands? That's what I thought.

WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) is laying off 29 people “because of the economic fallout of the past several months,” according to a memo sent to the staff by the station’s chief executive officer, Margaret Low. A salary freeze has been imposed. In addition, senior executives Tom Melville, John Davidow and Peter Lydotes are leaving, and Sam Fleming will retire later this year.

Overall, Low says, the current budget of $46 million will be reduced to $40 million in the next fiscal year.

The memo also contains some ideas and observations about increasing the diversity of the staff and about the station’s ongoing commitment to local news.

Learn to code, assholes.

Questions Nobody Is Asking - II

Or - Shank officially joins the Boston Globe editorial board:

This is a great message. Perhaps this letter should be delivered to Bob Kraft’s close personal friend in the White House. The guy he donated $1 million to in 2017. The guy he flies with on Air Force one https://t.co/w9geBSSmGb

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) June 14, 2020

It's clear from the tweet that Shank's main problem is with President Trump, and he uses Kraft as a cudgel of sorts. Which is rich, considering the source - do you consider Shank the type to promote healing? He's been picking at scabs for decades.

DHL Dan CV - Questions Nobody Is Asking

Another day, another attack on New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft:

Are Patriots players uncomfortable at all with their management’s White House friendships?

Picked-up pieces while wondering whether the Red Sox will promote Truck Day 2.0 if they have a second spring training in Fort Myers . . .

▪ Drew Brees has apologized for stating that he believed those who take a knee during the national anthem are "disrespecting the flag of the United States of America.''

Brees cited two grandfathers who served in World War II when relaying his opinion, and his words were met with outrage from scores of professional athletes. Patriots defensive backs Devin and Jason McCourty were among the loudest objectors, tweeting, "This is a disgrace,'' and "Don’t avoid the issue and make it about a flag or the military. Fight like your grandfathers for what’s right.'' Well put.

But it makes me wonder how Patriots players feel working for owner Bob Kraft, who pals around with a president who said this when NFL players took a knee during the anthem in 2017: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now! He’s fired!' ”

As always, Kraft likes to have it both ways. Two days after those remarks, he issued a statement citing his disappointment with the president’s comments. But in that same year, he donated $1 million to the president’s inauguration celebration, flew with Trump in Air Force One, and told the New York Times, “He [Trump] has been a wonderful friend.”

Meanwhile, I also wonder how Patriots players who raged vs. Brees feel about Bill Belichick, who wrote a glowing letter to Trump that the then-candidate used as a virtual campaign ad on the eve of the 2016 election?

All of two people in the Patriots organization are friendly with President Trump and Shank feels like most Patriots players ought to have a problem with it. To me, kneeling is subservience regardless of the circumstances. My first thought at seeing cops kneeling during these protests (many of which inevitably devolved into rioting, assault and massive looting) - "Guys - you're not kneeling in solidarity with these people; you're kneeling to them." To hell with that.

The rest of the column is the usual collection of complaints about lots of things.

Got Some Time For A Lecture On Race?

Well good, because that's what Shank, via Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (a Muslim name, by the way) is delivering after fifty-plus cities across the United States got trashed and looted.

I've been thinking about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lately.

Abdul-Jabbar is 73 years old and has been part of American sports fans’ consciousness for more than a half-century. Here in Boston, we remember him as Dave Cowens’s nemesis in the 1970s and a big part of the Celtics-Lakers, Larry-Magic wonder years in the 1980s.

There’s a lot more regarding Abdul-Jabbar and New England. Did you know he played a high school game against Catholic Memorial in Providence in 1964? Did you know he came to Holy Cross for a sham of a recruiting visit in 1965 when he was a senior at Power Memorial High School in New York City? Did you know he dominated kids from Boston College and Holy Cross when he was a national champ at UCLA?

Abdul-Jabbar has been in the news a lot these last few days. A lifelong activist, and a gifted speaker/writer, he has been a smart voice in the tumultuous days since George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. Abdul-Jabbar penned a thoughtful essay for the Los Angeles Times (“Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge”) and has appeared on major TV networks discussing American issues of race, rage, and protest.

Let's have a sample of this 'discussion' (it's the only part):

"Yes, protests often are used as an excuse for some to take advantage,'' Abdul-Jabbar wrote. "Just as when fans celebrating a hometown sports team championship burn cars and destroy storefronts. I don’t want to see stores looted or even buildings burn. But African Americans have been living in a burning building for many years, choking on the smoke as the flames burn closer and closer. Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere.''

Does that sound like a 'discussion' to you, or is Kareem telling you you're a racist? That's rich, coming from an adherent to Islam, whose holy book 'The Quran' declares adherents to the Muslim faith are by default superior to all others. I read that piece of shit book for about twenty pages (Sura 2 / Surah 2) and you know what? I got real tired real fast about being called kufr at least a dozen times, then parked it right next to a copy of Mein Kampf, which is fitting. Kufr does not mean 'non-believer', it means (Surah 2, footnote on the bottom of page 11) 'denial of the truth', and you might well be aware by now how they tend to regard nonbelievers and what they do to them. So forgive me, dear reader, for dismissing every word of this guy's commentary. Plus, he was on the Lakers, so fuck him twice.

You're All Out Of Order!

That's the general theme of this column:

Baseball owners are odious. Players are repugnant. Watching this baseball labor fiasco slowly unfold is the ultimate lose-lose exercise.

It is the most tone-deaf, callous, self-centered, stupid, and clueless behavior these eyes have seen in 45 years of covering professional
sports. Do I make myself clear?

A global pandemic has killed more than 100,000 Americans and put nearly 40 million people out of work. A video of a Minneapolis police officer killing a handcuffed Black man has triggered the worst civil unrest in decades. Our nation weeps, pleading for justice and fairness, while we watch American cities looted and burned.

And in the middle of all this death, outrage, and economic collapse . . . baseball players and team owners are arguing about player compensation in a hostile and selfish negotiation that threatens to cancel the 2020 major league season.

It's not just this season; it will be long-term, serious and permanent damage.

Boston Globe Death Watch - VIII

Stuff like this is why Boston Red Sox owner (and for now owner of what's left of the Boston Globe 'newspaper') John Henry is so well liked around these parts:

John Henry's Baseball Team Cuts Employees' Pay by 20-30% and His Newspaper Tries to Keep That on the Down Low https://t.co/mjjdoAT3Zh

— Jerry Thornton (@jerrythornton1) June 1, 2020

Well, it's because they have to. That'll change once some of these shitheads get axed and are thus then free to dish on the guy, which will be amusing as all get out.

Question Of The Day

Do you think Bruce Allen had anyone particular in mind when he responded to this tweet? I bet he does!

"And the Boston sports media spent most of that time period telling fans that the teams actually all sucked." https://t.co/ro3HUIr3xF

— Bruce Allen (@bruceallen) May 31, 2020

Boston Globe Death Watch - VII

Well, this is interesting...

Boston Globe employees, according to a survey of Guild members by the union, are nervous the Henrys are pushing for removal of the successors and assigns provision because they intend to sell the newspaper.https://t.co/1JRAFucN1z

— CW Magazine (@CommonWealthMag) June 1, 2020

Spoken Like A True Misanthrope

Shank attempts to find a positive side to the reopening of professional sporting events, sans fans:

If professional sports resume in July, August, or September, it’s going to unfold without fans in the stands.

We don’t know if promoters will try cardboard cutouts, crash-test dummies, carpool-lane mannequins, or blowup dolls to populate the seats. And we don’t know about simulated crowd noise. Teams and leagues might go the Indianapolis Colts route and pump in artificial crowd noise.

This could give Miami Sound Machine a whole new meaning (date yourself much? - ed). Maybe teams will play Kenny G and “Jock Jams.” The summer and fall of 2020 could be a good time for Queen with lots of “We Are The Champions,” “We Will Rock You,” and "Another One Bites The Dust.''

If I want to hear that shit for the four millionth time, I'll just go tune into WZLX where, like Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and Pink Floyd, it's played once every single fucking hour. Come to think of it, I can also tune in WBOS and hear the same stuff, or WROR, and now add a fourth Boston area radio station to the 'classic rock' genre, WODS.

I know what I’m rooting for: the sounds of silence. And I don’t mean Simon and Garfunkel’s epic hit.

What's a column by Shank without a song reference from the 1960's?

Let’s have some peace and quiet. Do not disturb. Fenway Park could become like the reading room at the Boston Public Library.

I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment. I tried watching some Bundesliga soccer last week (also without fans), which lasted about ninety seconds. It's simply not the same without fan interaction; it's lifeless and sterile. I also think professional sports runs the risk of losing decent sized chunks of its fan base on a permanent basis. For myself, I refuse to watch any of this substandard 'product' when it comes back - no NBA, no NHL, no MLB. I'll probably make an exception for NASCAR and Formula One and even then, this will be in the back of my mind, and I believe it will be in most people's minds as well. Time will tell if Shank changes his mind on this one once he starts watching this crap.

Oh - and of course he takes another shot at Robert Kraft. This guy, in the words of Curt Schilling, really is one of the most bitter humans on the planet. As befits miserable people, Shank devotes the rest of the column to focus exclusively on poor / negative fan behavior, which is why it needs to return as soon as possible.

Silver Linings?

In a rare departure from normal business, Shank does his best to find some positives from the lockdown panic:

We are 11 weeks into our quarantined, gameless spring of 2020, and it got me to thinking about sports figures who have (inadvertently in most cases) somehow benefited from this scary, horrible pandemic. Truly this is a time with no winners, but we can identify a few teams and sports figures who’ve taken some positives from the daily darkness.

▪ NHL commissioner Gary Bettman Tuesday afternoon revealed his plan for the league getting into playoff mode. It turns out that eight teams that had no business being in the playoffs are going to be skating for the Stanley Cup because of COVID-19. This is no small break for teams like the Chicago Blackhawks and Montreal Canadiens that could advance when they didn’t deserve to be in the postseason.

This could be particularly galling for Bruins fans. We know that hockey is a sport where playoff upsets are the norm, and how’s it going to feel around here if the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins get sent home by a Habs team that didn’t even deserve a playoff spot? Mon dieu!

And on it goes - as passive / aggressive as it gets. Robert Kraft, the Red Sox, the Patriots and David Ortiz get similar treatment.

Fox News Watch

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft will be on Hannity tonight. What are the odds of Shank writing or tweeting about it?

Like He Really Cares

Shank's trying to bullshit us again:

A year ago at this time, all we cared about was the Bruins’ shot at the Stanley Cup

Remember the last weekend in May of 2019? One year ago? It felt like the only thing that mattered was Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, featuring the St. Louis Blues and your Boston Bruins in a packed TD Garden on Causeway Street.

Here on the Globe sports pages, we had you covered from crease to crease and everywhere in between. We talked to Bobby Orr about his memories of playing the the Blues in the Finals way back in 1970. Orr spoke of the old days, then went out of his way to defend 42-year-old defenseman Zdeno Chara, who was getting some criticism on local sports radio.

"I've been hearing a lot of crap recently about Z,'' said Orr, who rarely says anything controversial. "Are you kidding me?''

In that same Sunday sports section, we had a lengthy profile of Chara written by Christopher L. Gasper (whatever happened to that guy?). We had a nifty account of a Red Sox loss to the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park. The story was accompanied by a photo of Red Sox manager Alex Cora making a mound visit to talk things over with Sox lefty David Price (whatever happened to those two guys?). The Red Sox were 27-25, still claiming that it wasn’t a mistake to shut down all of their starters throughout spring training.

Yes, indeed - lots of Bruins coverage at the Boston Globe. Shank cared so much about the Bruins / Blues Stanley Cup finals he didn't write a column about the series until the Bruins lost in Game 2, three days after Shank's purported interest in the series. For the record, Shank did columns for the remaining games, but let's not try to rewrite history here by claiming ex post facto that he gave a shit until the Bruins lost, which is classic Shaughnessy.

DHL Dan CIV - The Tone Deaf Column

It sure seems like Shank's been pretty critical of former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady after he was traded to Tampa Bay. Then again, this isn't a great look:

Picked-up pieces while fondly remembering a year ago when we were readying for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Blues on Memorial Day …

▪ Please stop it, Tom Brady. We’ve been grudgingly OK with you being amazingly tone-deaf in the middle of this COVID-19 crisis, but your latest sales pitch borders on wartime profiteering.

Brady’s high-end “we are superior to you” TB12 company released a new "immunity supplement'' this past week. The new product is a lot like the supplement bundle TB12 promoted at the end of March. Company CEO John Burns shamelessly told Yahoo! Sports, "Now more than ever, it’s important to have daily support for a healthy immune response.''

Now more than ever.

Get it? Now. In the middle of a global pandemic. You need this stuff to fight off the coronavirus. A 30-day supply goes for $45.

Well, these are challenging and difficult times and we're all in this together! Get with the program, Shank!

UPDATE, 5/24/2020, 10:29 AM - I meant to post this yesterday; whoops!

Assimilated By The Borg

I really like him as a athlete, but this is just pure bullshit:

Gerry Cheevers says forget your ego and wear your mask — and he should know

You know, there just might be different reasons for wearing each type of mask...

More than 50 years ago, he put a mask on his face in the name of safety and he has no regrets. He thinks folks who resist wearing a mask during today’s pandemic are letting their egos get in the way.

Say hello to Gerry Cheevers, the 79-year-old Stanley Cup-winning goalie of Bobby Orr’s Big Bad Bruins in the 1970s.

"People that won’t wear the mask are underestimating the seriousness of this situation,'' says Cheevers, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla. "Put it on. That’s all you can say. Don’t resist it. Don’t let your ego get the best of you.

"It’s not fun having a mask on. But if you won’t do it, I think it’s egomania.''

If you're looking for a reason / justification for healthy people to be effectively quarantined in an unprecedented fashion by the mask measure (and all the other restrictions you're being 'asked' to follow), you won't find it here. And do you think Cheevers is walking around with his a) goalie face mask and / or b) the stupid looking one you need to cover your mouth and nose with? I know it's not the former. It's a weak and unconvincing column in the extreme.

Phyllis George, RIP

Shank writes a sports obituary to one of the pioneers in sports broadcasting for ladies.

Former Miss America and CBS Sports television pioneer Phyllis George died last week at the age of 70. A lovely and talented woman, George was an underrated TV talent who joined CBS’s “The NFL Today” in 1975 and blazed a trail for female reporters who later covered the National Football League.

George also had an amazing number of connections to the Celtics. Her breakthrough at CBS came when she interviewed Dave Cowens in Weston in 1974. The foreword for her 2002 book “Never Say Never” was written by Rick Pitino. In 1979, George married John Y. Brown, owner of the Celtics and the man who triggered a trade that forever altered the future of the franchise and almost made Red Auerbach quit.

George might have had something to do with Brown’s fiasco trade. She was engaged to him in February of 1979 when he traded three of Red’s first-round draft picks to New York for scoring champ Bob McAdoo. Nobody ever said anything on the record, but it has long been speculated that Brown made the trade to impress Miss America, who was a McAdoo fan.

The Mea Culpa Column, An Occasional Series

Shank needs to get some stuff off his chest:

Regrets? I’ve had a few. And not too few to mention.

There was that prediction last winter that there was “zero chance” the Patriots could lose to the Texans (Texans 28, Patriots 22). It was the same with Super Bowl LII in frosty Minneapolis in 2018 when I told you that there was no bloody way Nick Foles and Doug bleepin’ Pederson could dethrone Tom Brady and Bill Belichick (Eagles 41, Patriots 33).

Wrong and wrong. When you write approximately 5,000 sports columns over 32 years, you are going to make some wrong calls. I can, for example, affirm that on the front page of the Oct. 17, 2004, Boston Globe (hours after the Red Sox lost to the Yankees, 19-8, in Game 3 of the ALCS), I stated, "So there. For the 86th consecutive autumn, the Red Sox are not going to win the World Series.''

An enjoyable column, if for nothing else chuckling at all these great calls!

Getting Stir Crazy?

It sure sounds that way:

We need to have baseball — and not the same tired negotiating rhetoric

Surely he has someone in mind with that surly statement?

I got an e-mail from Hall of Famer Jim Palmer Tuesday night. Subject line: “Pettiness.”

Talk about a perfect subject for Shank...

Palmer’s missive read (in part): "The players union just will never get it. People dying, out of work, can’t pay their mortgage, no Senior proms, MLB abbreviated draft to disrupt lifelong dreams, and people need a diversion, and Tony Clark doesn’t want to set a precedent! Full pay for games with no fans! The players know it’s all about revenue — less $, less pay and be glad you have a job. Otherwise, stay home and drive your wife crazy!''

This came on the heels of former All-Star first baseman Mark Teixeira saying on ESPN, "Players need to understand that if they turn down this deal and shut the sport down, they’re not making a cent. I would rather make pennies on the dollar and give hope to people and play baseball than not make anything and lose an entire year of their career.''

Exactly - stop fucking around and acting like the coronavirus is the next Black Plague. At least that's my attitude toward the continuing lockdowns; has been for months.

Shots Fired!

I think this one's spot on, if you're into the soap opera part of sports:

So here we go. Shot fired. Worst possible optic. Embodiment of tone deaf. Guaranteed to make America hate baseball https://t.co/aZrxgCxMbO

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) May 11, 2020

I remember the third baseball strike in 1994 - 1995 (the first two were in 1972, the next in 1981) and my main takeaway was pretty much this - 'WTF - millionaires going on strike?' However, after reading some of those links about the earlier strike, coupled with the balls it must have taken to organize and execute the first one, it doesn't irritate me as much anymore. In this environment I believe some flexibility is needed from the players and the union, if only to realize everybody's affected by the upcoming empty stadiums (i.e., no gate revenue), not to mention what's in the TV contracts that affects that revenue stream. It's a shit sandwich and they all gotta take a bite.

DHL Dan CIII -

Shank does what he can given minimal recent sports events - here he gives us an update on the eventual restart of Major League Baseball:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for the final two hours of “The Last Dance” . . .

▪ This is a crucial week for Major League Baseball. Owners finalized a return-to-play plan Monday and will offer it to the Players Association Tuesday, but it’s going to get ugly if the parties engage in a public spat about player compensation.

The pandemic has reminded folks how much they miss sports — even baseball — and there is no public appetite for one of those well-worn, old-fashioned, players-owners scraps over compensation. Citizens are dying in large numbers and a huge chunk of America is out of work, so this would not be a time for millionaires to haggle over finances. Commissioner Rob Manfred and the Players Association need to work this out nicely without their customary sabre-rattling.

The issue is going to be proposed player pay cuts motivated by playing games without fans. The players and owners have already agreed to pro-rated salaries based on the number of games played, but owners are going to want additional cuts if they stage a product with no fans.

He keeps this fire burning:

▪ It was announced Monday that Richard Seymour won the fan vote to gain admittance to the Patriot Hall of Fame. This means Bill Parcells is still out. Embarrassing. The Krafts circumvented the fan vote/popularity contest and inducted Billy Sullivan and Gil Santos independently. Will they ever do the right thing for Parcells?

...and you know the rest from there.

Another Walk Down Memory Lane

It'll be nice to have live sporting events again, if only to rid ourselves of yet another self-indulgent / self-referential piece by the Shankster.

Fifty years ago . . .

Did I just say that? Did I actually just start a sentence with fifty years ago?

You never think it will happen to you. It’s something your dad would say. Or maybe an uncle. Or a granddad.

On May 10, 1970, a Mother’s Day Sunday just like this year, if somebody started a sentence with “50 years ago," they would have been talking about May 10, 1920, when 100 women took ill with ptomaine poisoning after a church breakfast in Melrose.

When you are 16 years old in 1970, you are never thinking about the past. You are thinking only about today and tomorrow. You have a baseball game Monday and you could use a couple of hits to boost your batting average.

You are working a nine-hour shift scooping ice cream because you’re going to need $25 for the junior prom ($10 for the ticket, $10 for the tux, and $5 for the corsage for Joanie McGovern).

And that's as far as I got - how'd you do?

Shank Roundup

Sit back, folks - in the span of one day we have not one, not two but three columns from Shank! Fifty years ago some guy named Bobby Orr scored a goal, some perspective on this goal from the man himself (and a bad kitty!), and Shank has another chance to take shots at the New England Patriots, specifically coach Bill Belichick:

It will be awkward as Bill Belichick chases Don Shula’s records

Awkward... for who?

Bill Belichick, still coaching the Patriots at the age of 68, will go into his 70s chasing the ghost of Don Shula, who died Monday at the age of 90.

Belichick is all about football history, and that makes him all about Don Shula. Shula is the winningest coach in NFL history with 328 regular-season wins and 347 including playoffs. Belichick is at 273 and 304. There can be no doubt Belichick wants the record.

That's reasonable speculation / supposition.

The Hoodie already came close to Shula’s “other” record. Shula’s 1972 Dolphins are the only perfect team (17-0) in NFL history. Belichick’s 2007 Patriots got to 18-0 before the bubble burst in Glendale, Ariz., against David Tyree and the New York Giants.

Dan Shaughnessy, always accentuating the positive!

The rest of this column's pretty good, with maybe a bit of iffy and non-iffy speculation here and there but still worth a read. What else are you gonna do under the bullshit lockdown anyway?

And Now For Some More Boston Globe Employee Bashing

Just a reminder - for any of us folks to the right of Joe Lieberman, this is what some liberals want to happen to you:

What a surprise - the tweet in question has been deleted.

You know what is going to die soon? Many careers at the Boston Globe. Great business strategy - antagonize about half of what's left of your reader base in the face of sharply declining ad revenue. This newspaper can't shit the bed fast enough.

UPDATE AT 10:15 PM - Too good not to post (and Du Pont's a disingenuous asshole):

50 percent asshole, 50 percent coward. 100 percent Boston Globe. https://t.co/BJ69DUMrkH

— Kirk Minihane (@kirkmin) May 4, 2020

DHL Dan CII - The Big Loss?

Shank shares a few thoughts on current sports topics, which don't include recent live sporting events:

Thoughts on a big loss for the US women’s soccer team and other sports topics

Picked-up pieces while wondering if there’s an old Gerry Cheevers mask I can use when I go to 7-Eleven to pick up the daily newspapers …

▪ In a big story that got small attention, Federal District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner quickly and decisively dismissed the equal pay complaint of the US women’s national soccer team Friday.

The US women were the darlings of the sports media when they steamrolled all competition en route to winning the World Cup last summer, led by glory hog Megan Rapinoe (ever the charmer, she dropped an “MF-bomb” into a live microphone after the team’s parade through New York’s Canyon of Heroes).
…
As has been repeatedly and accurately noted, these players agreed to terms of their compensation in collective bargaining. The courts are not a tool to get you out of an agreement that you signed and later regretted.

Surprising conclusion, sort of, for a Boston Globe employee; rest at the link.

DHL Dan CII - The Larry And Me Column

The surest sign of cabin fever yet is this column:

There were a few bumps in the road between me and Larry Bird

Larry and me.

It was complicated.

I spend a lot of hours in the Wayback Machine these days. Hard not to. I am surrounded by old photos, old journals, and yellowed newspaper clips. I turn on ESPN and there’s Larry Bird going up against the Lakers in the “Heat Game” in the 1984 NBA Finals. And there’s young me at the courtside press table wearing gigantic eyeglasses that Michael Caine made famous in the 1980s.

This column's a bit too self-indulgement for my tastes - your mileage may vary.

Old Tyme Trolling

Shank's latest column has him going back to the well on a theme. See if you can pick up on it:

Worried about the Patriots’ standing in the AFC East? Don’t be

Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are gone. Bill Belichick has quarterbacks named Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer. The Hoodie used his first draft pick on a player from that well-known football factory Lenoir-Rhyne. Patriots players and staffers are fleeing Foxborough. Belichick has no cap space and the toughest schedule in the NFL this year. USA Today has New England 19th in its latest power rankings.
Clearly, the Patriots are a shell of their former selves.

It’s almost as if Belichick is intentionally handicapping himself — like when Larry Bird pledged to take only lefthanded shots in a road win at Portland back in 1986.

I mean, besides the gratuitous mention of Larry Legend!

How can Belichick be so Bird-like, cocky and calm, while the Patriot dynasty seems to be crumbling?

I give you three words: Bills, Dolphins, Jets.

Meet the New Tomato Cans. Same as the Old Tomato Cans. The Jets, Dolphins, and Bills are still Moe, Larry, and Curly. They are knuckleheads, porcupines, and lamebrains.

The reemergence of the Tomato Can meme aligns completely with the other part of this theme - The Patriots suck, but still no one else can beat them. He will not, of course, be bothered with this self-contradictory statement because he'll be singing a different tune in a few weeks or so.

Useless Award Postponed

Shank has a case of the sads for his compatriot in the Boston Globe sports department:

We will wait a year and honor Nick in July 2021 https://t.co/EsKB862nue

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 29, 2020

I wonder if that includes another paid mini-vacation for Shank in Cooperstown next year? You know how I'm betting...

Hackles Raised

Thar she blows! Another twofer type column from Shank:

It’s ridiculous that Bill Parcells isn’t already in the Patriots Hall of Fame

Bill Parcells is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

He is not in the Patriots Hall of Fame in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Parcells is good enough for football's ultimate shrine, but not good enough for a gallery in the shadows of Bar Louie and Skipjack's at Patriot Place.

You folks know exactly where this column is going, don't you?

It is ridiculous and embarrassing. It’s like somebody gaining admission to Harvard, then getting a rejection letter from the University of Kentucky. It’s like serving two terms as President of the United States, then losing an election for state rep. It’s like Jack Nicholson auditioning at your community theater and not getting the part.

Do I make my point?

Yes, you do - it's just not the one you think you're making. More on that in a moment.

It was announced last week that for the fourth time since 2011, Parcells is a finalist for the Patriots Hall. He’s on a ballot with Richard Seymour and Mike Vrabel, two worthy candidates. Between now and May 8, fans can vote for their favorite candidate at patriots.com/hof. The Patriots will announce the winner in mid-May. If form holds, the winner will not be Parcells. Petty and preposterous will prevail.

And there you have it. This column exists for one reason only, which will be obvious by the end of it - to further criticize and pile on Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and nothing more. The twofer is using Parcells' Patriots HOF selection to praise him, a halfway clever manner to conceal the other part (dumping on Kraft yet again).

Dan Shaughnessy, NFL Draft Guru

...or at least he thinks he is - here's Shank, criticizing one Patriots draft pick:

Can’t believe he was available. Best available athlete. What a steal. Bill has done it again! Blah blah blah.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 25, 2020

An intelligent person might want to wait until the draft's finished and evaluate the picks as a whole before criticizing any of them; and then there's Shank.

DHL Dan - CI

If you were under the impression that Shank would stop complaining about the punishment handed out to the Red Sox on the sign-stealing scandal, guess again:

Picked-up pieces while rooting for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to go 0-16 …

Now what kind of an asshole wishes a team would go winless, simply because there are two people on that team he hates? Yes, this is a rhetorical question.

▪ The Red Sox look weak for letting J.T. Watkins, a low-level employee, and a West Point grad no less which means what, exactly? - ed), take the hit for their latest cheating scandal.

It’s a Big Nothing to the fanboys, but at least 11 Sox “witnesses” told MLB that they concluded Watkins had broken the rules by supplying them with information gained illegally. It’s certainly possible to assume most or all used the information. They all knew. And none of them were identified or punished.

The Sox baseball boss and manager also were absolved even though they’d been instructed that the team would be punished for future infractions after the Apple Watch incident in 2017. Nope. It was all J.T. Watkins. This 30-year-old guy had the power to move the video room at Fenway Park to a spot next to the dugout. All by himself.

It quickly devolves into unfunny comparisons, from there, one of them being a Bill Buckner name drop, and other odds & ends, some of which are good to read. Like many of Shank's picked up pieces columns, it's a mixed bag.

Dead And Buried

Shank takes note of Major League Baseball's punishment of the Red Sox in l'affaire sign-stealing from 2018:

As cheating scandals go, it’s nothing like the 2017 Houston Astros watching video in real time and banging on a trash can to tell their hitters what pitch was coming. It’s probably not even up there with letting a little air out of footballs, or videotaping NFL coaches’ sideline signals during games.

In other words, there's not much of a story here, unless you just want to pile on.

But despite what rose-colored Red Sox apologists might insist, it wasn’t nothing. And if you think a second-round draft pick is nothing, tell that to Fred Lynn, Jon Lester, and Dustin Pedroia, all Sox second-rounders.

After more than 100 days, 65 witness interviews, and a review of cellphones and in-house e-mails, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred released his findings into cheating allegations against the 2018 world champion Red Sox in a perfectly timed (the NFL Draft begins Thursday night) news dump Wednesday afternoon.

Actually, it's the classic Friday afternoon news dump. Must be a short work week this week!

Concluding that an MLB video replay rule was broken and “potentially benefited" the 2018 Sox, Manfred took away Boston’s 2020 second-round draft pick and suspended Sox video replay system operator J.T. Watkins without pay for a year.

OK, the draft pick's gonna hurt and aside from former Red Sox manager Alex Cora serving a one-year ban for his part in a bigger sign-stealing scam the year earlier with the Astros, one other guy gets two in the hat, metaphorically speaking.

Bonus - Nathan Jessup reference!

Manfred stated that Watkins “did not provide a persuasive explanation” for why he sometimes altered his information to Sox hitters during games.

Not much, right? Reminded me of the scene from “A Few Good Men” when Colonel Nathan Jessup tells the young attorney, "These two Marines are on trial for their lives. Please tell me their lawyer hasn’t pinned their hopes to a phone bill.''

There's Always Something To Complain About

There's never an offseason for Shank criticizing the New England Patriots.

Looks like Shank isn't too pleased with Rob Gronkowski's decision to unretire in order to go to Tampa Bay and play football with Tom Brady:

So I guess it was never The Patriot Way. It was The Brady Way. Good luck to Gronk playing tight end with his new David Bowie body. In the end, he totally screwed the Patriots.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 21, 2020

Compared to Gronk, Manny Ramirez left Boston in a blaze of glory

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 21, 2020

Jimmy Fund people told me many times over the years that Gronk did more stuff with no publicity than anyone. And somehow Dan hates him more than Aaron Hernandez. Was Dan this pissed when Gasper left for another job? https://t.co/3PBQZyYczD

— Kirk Minihane (@kirkmin) April 21, 2020

Boston Globe Death Watch - VI

You know it's a bad environment for the newspaper / media industry when the capo di tutti of left-wing rags (Guardian UK) says they're all about to get buttfucked wicked hard:

US newspapers face 'extinction-level' crisis as Covid-19 hits hard

As journalists across the US scramble to cover the impact of the coronavirus, they are grappling with a bitter irony: as demand for their stories soars, the decline of the business model that funds them is speeding up catastrophically.

The devastating sweep of Covid-19 is the biggest story in a generation, and for most newspapers and news sites it has triggered record numbers of readers. Yet the virus, industry experts warn, will spell the end for “hundreds” of those organizations, laying off journalists and closing titles.

Media outlets across the US have already responded to a huge drop in advertising triggered by the economic shutdown by sacking scores of employees. Some newspapers, just as demand is at its highest, have stopped printing – reverting to a digital-only operation that is just as vulnerable to the whims of advertisers.

The decrease in advertising was swift, as businesses tightened spending due to the economic impact of Covid-19. For a journalism industry already barely scraping by, the impact was almost immediate.

It's poetic justice, if you ask me - the US media is / was over the top and gleeful of reporting on this new strain of the influenza virus, the operating phrase 'if it bleeds it leads' never being more evident in their reporting. I can't wait to watch these assholes queueing up in the unemployment line.

Marathon Man

As most of you Massholes know by now, the Boston Marathon will not take place today; it's rescheduled for Monday, September 14. Our Man Dan manages to get a story out of this, and who better to help with such a column than Mr. Boston Marathon himself, Bill Rodgers?

No Marathon Monday.

No early morning buses shuttling runners to within walking range of the starting line. No piles of sweat pants and pullovers discarded on Hopkinton common. No kids along the route with orange slices and cups of water. No undergrads from Wellesley cheering runners when they pass through the Scream Tunnel. No massive gathering at the Newton firehouse on Comm. Ave. No breakfast club Red Sox fans atop the Green Monster, turning away from the infield to watch runners come into Kenmore Square. No thousands of Mylar sheets sheltering runners as they stagger from Copley Square after finishing the race.

For the first time since 1896 there will be no Boston Marathon in mid-April. This is the spring of 2020, which we will remember as a time when every path and roadway was Heartbreak Hill. If COVID-19 allows, the 124th Boston Marathon will be run on September 14.

Bill Rodgers, who won the race four times between 1975-80, says, "The world is upside down now, but it will be righted. It’s like a marathon, you feel your way through it. Think of the days ahead and what you’ll be aiming for. But right now, we’ve got to deal with this.''

There weren't too many comments on this article, but this one was really tasteless funny:

Sea Bass

4/19/20 - 5:31PM

And now, a moment of silence for the late great Rosie Ruiz.

Boston Globe Death Watch - V

As we wait for the panic, hysteria and massive overreaction to die down from Covid-19 / The Wuhan Kung Flu, let's check out the Sunday Boston Globe (a real bargain at $6.00!).

First up, the Sports Section - A+ for effort:

11-page Sunday Globe sports section today with 15 staff bylines including columns from @GlobeBobRyan and @Dan_Shaughnessy plus MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL notebooks and Stan Grossfeld photos from Fenway Park.

Read: https://t.co/I4niZH8ZSW

Subscribe: https://t.co/2rxUyK2iyq pic.twitter.com/yZr8DgJyMN

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) April 19, 2020

Next, something I can only describe this as ghoulish; typical of our garbage scumbag media - F grade assigned:

John Henry’s paper created a separate paid obituary section for COVID-19 deaths

“Boston Globe Prints 15 Pages of Obituaries on Sunday https://t.co/7BYkMNqk6o?”source=twitter&via=mobile via @thedailybeast

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) April 19, 2020

Sure, that ought to sell lots and lots of newspapers...