Bad News For The Celtics Is Good News For Shank

The Boston Celtics got beat like a rented mule last night (mostly in the third quarter) by the Miami Heat. Shank, not unsurprisingly, gets a column about the extra curricular activities in the locker room after the game:

Celtics have gone quickly from feel-good story to family feud

The Celtics have won one championship in 34 years and yet we still talk about them as if they are a dynasty.

Do you talk about them like they're a dynasty? I sure don't. The Red Sox won it all in 2004 and 2007 and I don't recall them being called a dynasty; maybe from some quarters they were. The Patriots however, are another matter, and the Bruins can't be in that conversation, not having won Lord Stanley's Cup in years near or next to each other.

Brad Stevens has never won a championship anywhere and we talk about him as if he’s Red Auerbach or Bill Belichick.

Again - what's with this 'we' shit'? He's simply using the plural form to pretend more people are on board with this notion than they're actually are.

Now this. The Celtics just blew two playoff games, and we have a locker room of young players yelling at one another, throwing things off walls, questioning their coach, and perhaps being restrained from attacking one another in fits of anger.

With a chance to advance to the NBA Finals, we have a team that has blown leads of 14 points and 17 points in back-to-back losses to the Miami Heat.

I didn't watch the entire game (barelyt watched it at all, with an entertaining NFL game on and a buddy coming by to run a few games of cribbage), and that third quarter spurt by the Miami Heat was my roommate's observation. Shank points out some contributing factors as to how Boston and Miami came into this series and then brings up the question of whether they can rebound from all of this (pun fully intended!) and you damn well know whose name he's gonna drop:

The Celtics can rebound from this. When the 1984 Celtics were routed by the Lakers in Game 3 of the Finals, Larry Bird said, “We don’t have the players with the heart sometimes that we need … We played like sissies.”

Those guys came back to win their series in seven games.

What about the 2020 Celtics?

...

It’s time for Stevens to step up. Give us a little less Fred Rogers and a little more Fred Smerlas. Go Cro-Magnon for a few days. Challenge your players' manhood. Call out some of your young players in the media. Draw up a zone offense. Throw the picket fence at the Heat and tell them not to get caught watching the paint dry.

It’s time for the 2020 Celtics to summon the spirit of Red and Russell and Cousy and Bird. Time for them to stop losing games and throwing chairs. Time for the 2020 Celtics to earn the everlasting love they always get around here.

Starting Saturday night in the bubble.

I have to say I agree 100% with this notion. Maybe the locker room argument / fight sets another tone, like another infamous singular act did back in 1984. I'm really surprised he didn't mention that play; that was a clear series turning event. Let's see how this one turns out and I hope the Celtics can come back from this and kick ass.

Tied To The Whipping Post

Is it me or is there always one Red Sox player Shank feels to need to shit on?

J D Martinez sitting on the Mendoza Line as we await his second at bat in Miami.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 17, 2020

Just call him JD Mendoza. https://t.co/VAPmtsCnHL

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 17, 2020

Off By A Year

I was making the call around this time last year, but today Shank finally throws in the towel:

ONE FINAL DAN'S DATES: Tuesday, September 15, 2020. Shaughnessy no longer part of 98.5 SportsHub midday. After Tuesday's with Zo, Beetle, Gresh, and Tanguay, it's over. Enjoyed it.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 15, 2020

He's poorly bullshitting us with that last half-sentence. We at DSW have documented numerous times where, for instance, Scott Zolak would tweet something sarcastic ar Shank (or respond to one of his in a similar manner) and who could forget the near world record Shank set in the 20 yard / two room office steeple chase and escape? I'm not buying that line of his claiming he 'enjoyed it', and neither should you. I can't wait for the scuttlebut / rumors that will inevitably come out from this.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Watch as fellow curmudgeon sports guy Tony Massarotti shocks the hell out of everyone and drops a beat on yesterday's Felger & Mazz show:

Big O just forfeited tomorrow’s rap battle. https://t.co/6liYGD5BBc

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) September 15, 2020

Scoreboard Shaughnessy

Is this Shank's new thing for the 2020 football season?

Bill Belichick 1.

Tom Brady 0.

We are only one week into a 16-game season, but Belichick on Sunday took an early lead in the silent, subliminal spitting contest regarding who was most responsible for the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century.

It was business as usual for Belichick as the Patriots beat the Dolphins, 21-11, at Gillette. With no Brady, no fans, and no help from eight players who opted out because of COVID-19, the Pats beat the Fish easily. Belichick is still the greatest coach of all time, the Dolphins are still Tomato Cans, and New England’s new quarterback Cam Newton is a pretty good runner. The Pats are 1-0 in the coronavirus era.

You know the rest from there - boring game recaps we've read (or avoided) for decades now.

The Tampa Bay Bradys?

The NFL finally returns to start their 2020 season and already Shank is acting like a huge douchenozzle:

Are you ready for the first all-Boston NFL doubleheader of the 2020 season?

For the first time since the Boston Braves and Red Sox split the affections of Hub hardball fans, we have two professional teams playing in the same major league.

The New England Belichicks kick off Sunday on CBS at 1 p.m. The Tampa Bay Bradys play on Fox at 4:25.

Are any of you as irritated as I am when Shank says stupid and unfunny crap like this? Does he think he's being clever or witty? Well, I'm pretty sure he's the only one.

The Belichicks, a.k.a. the New England Patriots, open their season vs. the Miami Dolphins at an empty Gillette Stadium. There will be no cheerleaders, no musket men, no Brady, and no guarantee of winning the AFC East for the millionth straight season.

First off - I'd like to continue to point out how god damn lifeless any professional sports event is without fans in the stands, and now we get insult added to injury by not having cheerleaders to boot? Last night's game between the Chiefs and the Texans had 22% of the stadium filled with fans, who were wearing masks, doing social distancing and all that bullshit. The risk that's run by continuing to shut fans out would be to make this situation worse. We now have, from a financial perspective of an NFL franchise, no gate revenue, no parking lot and concession stand revenue and (this is the big one) an all but guaranteed reduction in future TV rights the next time the contract gets negotiated because the suits at the networks will not pay the same level of broadcast fees to the NFL & its teams when the viewing numbers dip or fall off the cliff. How long can the NFL (and team owners) risk a permanent reduction in its fan base and still expect the same TV revenues? It's not going to happen, and something will have to give. That 'something to give' is a fucking no-brainer in my book - start returning to normal, like yesterday.

The Bradys, formerly known as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, will play the Saints in the empty Superdome in New Orleans. Playing as the Buccaneers for a half-century, Tampa Bay was the losingest team in professional sports. Most recently, the Bucs have finished last seven times in nine seasons. All that is expected to change now that they are the Bradys.

God damn, this asshole's really pissing me off now...

We will be watching. Both games. This weekend and every weekend.

The problem is - a lot of other people won't be watching and the NFL, like all professional sports franchises, better figure out and fix this problem before the the damage is irrreversible.

Oh - Shank continues on with the Belichicks and Bradys shtick - screw that; I'm outta here.

Gut Check

No, Shank is not talking about his efforts at weight loss but about tonight's Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors:

It’s time for a Brad Stevens team to step up and win a gut-check game. The 2020 Celtics will be defined by what happens in Game 7 against the Toronto Raptors Friday night in the Orlando bubble.

Impressive grasp of the obvious...

Six games have established that the Celtics are better than the Raptors. It’s been clear throughout this series. Boston won the first two games, and led Game 3 by 2 points with 0.5 seconds left. The Celtics were a half-second away from a de facto sweep of the defending NBA champs.

Wait a minute - this is a seven game series, and the Celtics were going to sweep the series with three wins? Am I missing something here?

Oh, it's a de facto sweep - silly me!

OG Anunoby’s miracle three gave Toronto new life, but the Celtics recovered and thoroughly pantsed Toronto in an easy Game 5 win. The Raptors needed two overtimes and some critical calls Wednesday to force a seventh game.

I'm not sure I buy that logic; after all of that they're tied with three wins each.

So here we are. To advance to the NBA’s Final Four, all the Celtics have to do is beat a clearly inferior Raptors team.

This is it. No excuses. No complaining about Nick Nurse complaining (maybe Brad could find his inner Red Auerbach and get in the ears of the officials now and then). It’s time for these Celtics to demonstrate that they are as good as their blindly loyal fan base says they are. Time for the Celtics to put on their big-kid pants and fulfill the great expectations fans have for them.

You may have noticed by now the 4,624th interation of one of Shank's finest column templates - place huge (and perhaps unrealistic) expectations on the local pro sports franchise so you can take the mother of all shits on them if they lose ('they simply aren't that good', etc.). Time will tell but I'm a little more certain of this now than I was when the Bruins bowed out of the playoffs.

Boston Radio Death Watch - I

First, to the proprietor of the Boston Radio Watch Twitter page - I do not mean you! I've been following you for months now, maybe closer to a year and it's one of my go-to sites every day, often a few times during the day.

Second, Boston Radio Watch just linked to a story about the two local PBS / NPR affiliates, which are WGBH and WBUR, respectively. Even with presumably large financial backing courtesy of the American taxpayer, the are in the parlance 'consolidating certain operations':

Rivals GBH, WBUR team up on new podcast with local news

By Don Seiffert – Managing Editor, Boston Business Journal

Boston’s two rival public radio stations, GBH and WBUR, will be working together for the first time on a new daily podcast that combines local and national reporting from across the National Public Radio landscape.

Starting today, listeners in Boston will hear a new version of the NPR podcast, “Consider This,” which comes out in the afternoon and includes both national and community news from that day.

GBH, which recently changed its name from WGBH to emphasize its digital media platforms, and WBUR, which is affiliated with Boston University, are two of a dozen stations across the country contributing to the project.

But only Boston and Los Angeles are in the position of having two stations in the same market working together, according to Pam Johnston, general manager of news at GBH.

Both Johnston and Margaret Low, CEO of WBUR, expressed mutual admiration for each other’s organizations in separate interviews today, while maintaining that despite the partnership, they do in fact remain competitors.

Asked about the rivalry, Low said, “Let me put it this way. Only a wonderful town like Boston could support two such great radio stations…. We may compete in the marketplace, but we’re great admirers of each other.”

Likewise, Johnston said that the two stations “absolutely” remain rivals. “We’re not putting our competitive side aside,” she said. “It’s about being able to reach our public radio audience in a new way.”

Both Johnston and Low are relatively new to their organizations, with Johnston starting in June and Low beginning in her role last November. But the rivalry dates back to 2011, when WGBH first changed its format to more directly compete with WBUR. At the time, then-new general manager at WBUR Charlie Kravetz sharply criticized WGBH for the change, saying “This marketplace did not need to have two public radio stations with the same format… If either station flourishes, it will be at the expense of the other.’’

Jon Abbott, CEO of GBH, defended that decision in an interview last year, saying, “I spent two years after we made the launch in community meetings with my board saying, this is not a nine inch pie plate. It's a 15-inch pie plate, or bigger.… What we know is that the overall number of Bostonians, the overall number has increased in those who are compelled to come and spend time with public radio.”

Neither GBH nor WBUR are adding any extra expenses to create the new podcast.

NPR says that it’s partnering with sponsorship vendor, AdsWizz, to deliver this localized news in the same way podcast publishers deliver any localized sponsorship content.

You know why I copied the entire article? It's because I can - it's pretty easy to get around subscription blockers once you get the hang of it. A larger point - most of you that listen to regular radio are familiar with names of former Boston radio stations - WBCN, WFNX anmd WAAF being just three of the more notable stations that have disappeared over the past decade. One would think WGBH and WBUR by virtue of public financing ought to be able to weather all financial storms, but like their sister organization the Boston Globe (in the ideological sense), none of them can escape the fierce financial gravity of today's media environment.

Boston Globe Death Watch - XII

The end must be near if you're pathetically begging the owner of your corporation for your collective jobs:

Well, @John_W_Henry dumped Mookie Betts and just laid off a bunch of @RedSox personnel. I hope he sees your value, but
... https://t.co/KASfkMq7YL

— Bruce Allen (@bruceallen) September 8, 2020

The level of entitlement on display here is astounding. Learn to code, bitchez!

A Friendly Reminder From Dan Shaughnessy

Shank would like you to know what's happening with the 2020 version of the Olde Towne Team:

Mission Accomplished: At this moment, the Red Sox (15-29 -- .340909) are the worst team in baseball.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 9, 2020

As a person who appreciates high-level math, I'm pleased to see Shank carry the 'winning' percentage out to six digits. Accuracy is everything!

DHL Dan CX - The Red Sox Are Really Bad, Aren't They?

Shank has some fun shooting fish in a barrel:

Thoughts on the last-place Red Sox and other topics Picked-up pieces while watching the embarrassing parade of meatball artists the tanking Red Sox send to the mound every day . . . ▪ Does winning four World Series in this century give Red Sox ownership a lifetime pass for biennial last-place finishes and the Triple A product we are seeing now?

Yes. Next question / complaint?

The Sox are about to finish in the cellar for the fourth time since 2012. In 80 seasons from 1932-2011, the Red Sox finished last exactly once (1992 under Butch Hobson). Now the Sox lead the majors in losses and we’re about to see the fourth basement finish in nine seasons. The tanking we’ve seen in the last three weeks is worse than anything the franchise has put fans through since the pre-Yawkey era of 1926-32. And yet still we have NESN feeding us the “Heat Zone” item that features a random “hot” Sox player who has better stats than some slumping Blue Jay. There’s also a Predict The Game app, treating sophisticated Sox fans like 7-year-olds.

Demonstrating once again - if there wasn't a losing team Shank would have nothing to write about. From there, he says nice things about the Celtics, basically calls Patriorts coach Bill Belichick a liar and rags on the Bruins a bit. In other words, the usual stuff

Rewriting History, A Continuing Series

New York Mets pitcher Tom Seaver passed away earlier this week. Shank lets his imagination run wild:

Tom Seaver was the prince of New York City. He was the greatest New York Met of all time and there is no close second. He was the Franchise, Tom Terrific, the Hall of Fame ace of the 1969 Miracle Mets. Books were written about him, movies were made, and when it was learned he died this week, all three New York metropolitan dailies ripped up their front pages and started anew with tributes to Tom Seaver. New York, New York. That was Tom Seaver. But he also pitched the final games of his career for the Boston Red Sox in 1986. And if he hadn’t hurt his knee in Toronto in late September, he would have started Game 4 of the World Series against the Mets instead of Al Nipper. With Seaver in the rotation, I believe the Red Sox would have won that haunting World Series.

NOTE - the new verson of Blogger isn't taking line / page breaks into account, thus resulting in one big paragraph. I'll figure out a solution / workaround when time permits.

Don't Count Them Out

Shank gives us an update on the Celtics and Bruins in the 'playoffs':

You’re never as good as you look when you win and you’re never as bad as you look when you lose.

Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver said this regularly back in the 1970s when the Orioles were usually very good. Earl’s wisdom is my takeaway from a weekend watching the Celtics and Bruins.

The Celtics are up. The Bruins are down.

The Celtics demolished the defending World Champion Toronto Raptors, 112-94, in the Orlando bubble Sunday afternoon. It was the first game of a best-of-seven conference semifinal and gave a legion of Green People hope that their team can advance to the conference finals and maybe make it to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2010.

A decent column ensues from there. Can't wait for the sudden attitude change if, for example, the Bruins lose tonight.

Standing Small

Recent events compel Shank to criticize the 2020 Red Sox more than he usually does:

In a week of American protest and crisis, the Red Sox stood small

The quaint notion that what has happened in Kenosha and elsewhere this week are mere protests is world class sophistry. These are riots by any reasonable / logical definition. Look at this guy's thread and tell me otherwise. Andy Ngo's by far and away the number one chronicler of these riots that Shank and other media rumpswabs try to pass off as protests. False premises like this need to be taken out back and tossed in the dumpster.

The Red Sox are not only a horrible baseball team, they are also ever-divided. And really hard to like.

After playing a game Wednesday — the day the NBA shut down and three major league games were postponed — the Sox had a team vote Thursday and agreed to stand behind Jackie Bradley Jr., who had told his teammates he wasn’t going to play Thursday. In the early hours after the decision to boycott was announced, Sox outfielder Kevin Pillar and reliever Ryan Brasier made their true feelings known.

Participating in a Zoom news conference, Pillar said, “It was not an easy decision for a lot of us . . . We all have different beliefs. We don’t agree on everything . . . I don’t think right now, as a country, we should be necessarily identifying individual groups of people that need to be uplifted . . . ’'

Worth noting - the presence of these ellipses suggest / confirm that Shank (or the guy he copied it from) is doing what's known in the recording business as sampling; in other words using parts and sections potentially taken out of context and other pertinent and inconvenient facts removed for maximum negative impact. That said, I see nothing incendiary about those two semi-sentences. Clumsy for sure, but that's it.

Not to be outdone:

A few hours after Pillar spoke, Brasier retweeted a video mocking Doc Rivers’s emotional response to the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wis. It’s truly hateful and appalling stuff. See if you can find it. Search Twitter for Hodgetwins — conservative comedians with almost 600,000 followers. Brasier evidently is a big fan. Pinky Higgins would be so proud. Color me haunted.

Brasier’s retweet was discovered Friday by NBC Sports Boston’s John Tomase. Brasier did not respond to Tomase’s request for comment, but he deleted the retweet from his timeline. Ron Roenicke said that Brasier reached out to Bradley and the Sox manager to explain his actions. Wonder what Brasier would say to Rivers, whose father was a cop.

I'm sort of two minds with this guy and what he did - on the one hand, getting in trouble for a retweet seems incredibly petty. On the other hand (and the one I'm going with) is that Brasier's always seemed like a knucklehead to me and this merely provides confirmation. Doc Rivers is a class guy par excellence and that was a no-thought classless thing to do.

No, I did not miss the Pinky Higgins reference / name drop -of course not! I'm not a baseball historian / aficionado like my co-blogger, but the guy sounds like a real winner (please note the sarcasm, folks!). You'll see some other name drops later on that you're going to love...

I spoke with Sox baseball boss Chaim Bloom after midnight Friday.

“I talked to Ryan about this today,’' said Bloom. “He was very apologetic and regretted the timing, and the message that the timing sent. He took down one of those tweets and spent time having a lot of conversations in our clubhouse with people he felt he needed to have conversations with. He was upset and regretful about the entire thing . . . This wasn’t something that we felt warranted discipline. He made a mistake, but once he did I think he took a lot of the right steps to try to make amends.’'

This is so Boston Red Sox. In a week of American protest and crisis, the Sox stood small while so many around them demonstrated dignity and unity. While America paused to take a long look in the mirror, the Red Sox provided division and continuation of a culture that has long plagued the Boston baseball franchise.

Again, these aren't protests anymore; they are riots, complete with bullhorns, looting, fire and physical assault, and they haven't been 'protests' for quite a while to the degree they ever were. Siding with rioters and calling it 'dignity and unity' seems to have things like priorities seriously inverted. Fortunately these riots are largely confined to ten or fifteen downtown areas of certain major American cities controlled by Democrats lock stock and barrel for a period on average equivalent to my age.

“You bring any group of this many people together, you’re bound to have people with different views and different thoughts,’' said Bloom. “Peaceful protests are about changing minds. If we can’t look at progress that gets made towards a goal in a room of people with very different opinions — if we can’t look at that and see progress, then we’re undermining our own goals.’'

“We don’t demand that everyone have the same political opinion,’' added Sox CEO Sam Kennedy.

Good. This is America. You are not obligated to agree with everyone else, and a big league ball club doesn’t release a player for being a dumbbell.

Everyone got that? Now watch this:

But why can’t Pillar and Brasier keep their different views behind closed doors? This was an opportunity to back a teammate without pushing one’s own agenda. Most other teams presented as unified. Would a little unity from the Red Sox be too much to ask?

Pillar was asked a question and presented his own viewpoint, albeit roughly. Braiser? He's a knob and not getting a pass on that - a lot of times shut the fuck up is the better part of valor. That said, Shank just contradicted himself in consecutive sentences, and not for the first time.

I truly wish these 2020 Red Sox could play in front of fans at Fenway. It would expose them to the boos they so richly deserve. And not just because they are 10-22. They remind me of the loathsome Joe Kerrigan Red Sox of 2001. Mike Lansing. Carl Everett. You remember those guys, right?

An awesome blast from the past! Behold, the Bing results from typing in 'curly haired boyfriend' - this post is now writing itself!

These Sox certainly honor the ball club’s time-tested legacy of “25 players, 25 cabs.” They have only one Black player, just as they did when they were baseball’s last team to integrate 60 years ago. And they can’t seem to agree on anything.

Remember last year when the defending world champs were summoned to be honored at the White House? All the white guys went to Washington. With the exception of J.D. Martinez and Sandy Leon, all the Sox persons of color stayed home.

That's because it has become a politicized event, aided and abetted by media members like Shank.

Opening night at Fenway, 2020? All the visiting Orioles took a knee during a pregame presentation dedicated to Black Lives Matter. Six Red Sox kneeled — Bradley, Michael Chavis, Alex Verdugo, and three coaches who are men of color. Everybody else stood.

Now we have the last-place Sox stacking loss after loss like a pile of cord wood, then going public with clubhouse division during a week of protest and reflection by every team in every sport.

After Friday afternoon’s unfortunate flurry, Bradley, Brasier, and the rest of the Red Sox participated in a pregame ceremony at Fenway commemorating Jackie Robinson’s first day in baseball. When all players stood at attention, I couldn’t help but wonder what Ryan Brasier was thinking.

I alluded to this point two posts ago, but it bears repeating and a bit more expansion - there's a big difference between overt, direct acts of racism like barring people from businesses, pro sports teams and the like (which I see little to no evidence of in modern American society today) and in the case of Jacob Blake in Kenosha (which apparently triggered this latest pro sports boycotting this week), claiming solidarity with a black man wielding a knife and roaming around menacing other people and when white cops intervene lots of people freak out and call the cops every fucking name in the book. These two things could not be any more different from each other but here we are with some degree of American citizens accusing law enforcement and those who support them of the most vile and wicked motives and behaviour for the act of doing their jobs.

I'm quite sure we don't need to 'reflect' on the notion that thugs are allowed to rampage certain American cities and call the cops racists for doing their jobs.

Boston Globe Death Watch - XI

I'd call this 'arranging the deck chairs on the Titantic'.

Boston Globe employees were told Wednesday that employees should continue to work remotely through the end of the year, although they may choose to come in to the office for no more than two days a week after Labor Day. What follows is the top of the memo from the Boston Globe Media Partners executive team, which I obtained from a trusted source.

Hello all,

On behalf of the Executive Leadership Team and Safety Committee, we want to provide some important updates and clarification on opening the Boston Exchange Place / 53 State Street office, as well as the Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. offices. We have talked before about how the Boston office would reopen after Labor Day to serve as an optional amenity for people who needed a break working from home, and that it would still be limited to not more than two days per week. We want to emphasize that while we greatly miss being together, not only are you not expected to return work in person, but we do not want or need for you to come in.

We are arranging the office to be safe for people who want to use it on a limited basis, but the preference is that you continue to work from home. We have been monitoring the pandemic and will continue to respond based on state guidelines, but in the meantime, we are extending this phase of limited, optional-only use of the office through the end of the year.

To be clear, we want the Boston offices to be as empty as possible for the remainder of 2020. While we realize that there could be an expectation that managers may want you to show up in person, or that you may miss out on an opportunity if you are not in the office, we want to dispel that notion by emphasizing that managers do not and must not expect you to return to the office for the remainder of the year. If you have concerns or questions about this, please talk to your manager or reach out to your HR partner to discuss.

UPDATE AT 2:12 PM - You see, it's much easier to fire people this way!

The 'Shut Up And Dribble' Column

I don't know about you but I'd rather watch sports without politics being added on. In recent times, this has become difficult if not impossible. Witness the latest iteration of the sports protest:

I’m getting “shut up and dribble” emails these days.

I'm not exactly sure why Shank should be getting these kind of e-mails; maybe better to send them to the players not shutting up and not dribbling? Again, with these e-mails to Shank (I'll say it - if they exist) - you're sending them to the wrong guy. But whatever:

This is what happens when professional sports figures speak up and act regarding issues of social justice and racial inequality:

“My wife and I decided to watch a Sox game on a Saturday night. We waited until 7:10 to start viewing to avoid any political action. We feel sports should be an escape and fun. Sports is for sports. I do not care what their religious, political, or ethnicity is. Bringing signs into the ball park is wrong. Do whatever they want outside, not inside. I do not need to sit for hours watching millionaire athletes protesting. I will try the NFL on opening day but starting at 1:10 p.m.”

My general reaction - 'fine, I'll do or watch something else'. At this point I don't freak out about it or complain too much anymore; I just change the channel.

The Celtics and Toronto Raptors are scheduled to begin their conference semifinal Thursday night in the Orlando bubble, but players from both teams spent part of Tuesday and Wednesday discussing a boycott of Game 1 to bring attention to the shooting of Jacob Blake by a police officer and subsequent protests and violence in the streets of Kenosha, Wis.

That's all that Shank writes about the latest police incident involving white cops and a black man. This is wise, as additional information and details are coming out about the incident, with that last link (best I can find right now whilst doing a post) coming out an hour or two after Shank's column. These additional facts and details may or may not change one's opinion about the matter.

Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart have been out front on racial inequality issues throughout America’s long hot summer. It’s in the best tradition of the Boston Celtics.

“Shut up and dribble” folks likely will never accept any spillover of real-life issues into professional sports, but let me remind fans of the Celtics that issues of race and equality have walked hand-in-hand with the franchise since Red Auerbach came to Causeway Street in 1950.

Red was the first NBA executive to draft a Black player, Duquesne forward Chuck Cooper in 1950. Six years later, Auerbach exploited racism in the St. Louis Hawks front office, trading two white players for the Hawks’ No. 1 draft pick. Red used the pick on Bill Russell. He knew St. Louis had no interest in building its franchise around a Black center.

Shank goes on with some sad but interesting tidbits about previous Celtics teams joining in on boycotts, and it's worth a read.

I'd like to make the following point / distinction: What Shank talks about are things that directly affect the players and the team, and what current and other NBA players are now boycotting based on what happened to someone they don't know based entirely on the fact that white cops and a black man were involved. They will argue 'systemic racism' and 'police brutality' (or how Shank generically says 'social justice' and 'racial inequality'), but considering what is known so far, I find those
accusations spurious at best. Should the cops simply let knife-wielding men roam around menacing other people in order to avoid being labeled racists and thugs? Sad to see that being a question at all.

Just What The Boston Globe Needs - Another Shank

Bruce Allen has some fun with the Boring Broadsheet:

Must love baseball and be willing to pledge fealty to John Henry. The ideal candidate will exhibit skill in disdaining and trolling readers, football knowledge not required. https://t.co/jQjEYN4SKD

— Bruce Allen (@bruceallen) August 25, 2020

Sorry, Bruce - that position's already taken!

The Once In A Blue Moon Column

Imagine your surprise at finding Shank's latest column actually has a positive, upbeat vibe to it?

How do you feel about a Distance Championship Parade in October? With virtual Duckboats? Are you ready for a million-strong Zoom rally with Zdeno Chara or Jayson Tatum tossing a bucket of Gatorade at Mayor Marty Walsh from 6 feet away?

Close your eyes and imagine Jack Edwards in NESN’s Watertown studio, waxing poetic about the Bruins’ 2020 Stanley Cup champions. Try to imagine Scal standing alone on Causeway Street, waving Celtics Banner No. 18 and insisting Tatum is better than Larry Bird or Bill Russell.

Our winter sports teams are white-hot here in late August (no one has ever written that sentence before), and Boston woke up Monday morning with that old championship feeling.

Not to go Full Rochie on you here, but events over the weekend have me in a happy place regarding the fortunes of the Bruins and Celtics. It might never feel better than it feels right now, so why not enjoy the speculation and the daily playoff action?

I fully expect this attitude to change with a few losses by either team.

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