Red Sox Report - Roman Anthony

He's only been down there a few days and it's silly season already:

Roman Anthony has rocketed through the Red Sox farm system. Are the major leagues the next stop?

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Even his name is perfect.

Roman Anthony.

How can a kid miss with a name like that?

It rolls off the tongue and onto your scorecard like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Clint Hurdle, Bombo Rivera, Oil Can Boyd or Roy Hobbs.

The name is regal. Almost fictional. Too good to be true.

Just like the young Red Sox outfielder himself. Twenty-year-old Red Sox phenom Roman Anthony.

Welcome to Boston baseball’s spring training, 2025, where the frugal, suddenly middle-market Red Sox sell the future instead of their dismal, recent past. After some jackpot years picking high in the draft (finishing in last place has its benefits) fruits of Boston’s farm system are maturing and JetBluePark fans this spring will feast on a regular diet of 22-year-old second baseman Kristian Campbell, 22-year-old shortstop Marcelo Mayer, and last year’s No. 1-ranked prospect in all of baseball, Roman Anthony.

I think it's way too early for Shank to compare this kid to names like that, but we'll see.

Live, From Fort Myers

I think I know one reason why Shank goes to nearly every Red Sox spring training:

Spring training is here. Did Craig Breslow follow through on the Red Sox' offseason promises to fans?

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Forty-four-year-old Craig Breslow, the chief baseball officer of the Red Sox, may be the smartest man in baseball.

Here’s what it says about him in the Red Sox media guide:

“Breslow graduated in 2002 from Yale University with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He was named the ‘Smartest Man in Baseball’ by the Wall Street Journal in 2009, and in 2010 he ranked No. 1 on The Sporting News list of ‘Top 20 Smartest Athletes.‘ ”

Boston’s baseball boss has fortified his cerebral image with some spellbinding statements in his 18 months on the job. My personal favorite came when the Sox were struggling last summer — playing defense like guys wearing shoes on their hands — and Breslow told the Globe’s Alex Speier: “We have been poor clusterers or sequencers of performance.”

Spring traqining = no snow shoveling!

DHL Dan CCXL - Threat Level Reduced

Super Bowl 59 (or LIX for you fellow Roman Numeral dorks) is on the horizon, Shank says 'fear not, Patriots fans':

No matter what happens on Sunday, the Chiefs are no threat to the Patriots’ dynasty, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while at Star Market buying a Super Bowl sheet cake with tiny goal posts . . .

▪ Don’t be threatened, Patriots fans. The Kansas City Chiefs pose no threat to the greatest dynasty in the history of the NFL.

The Chiefs are slight favorites to win their third consecutive Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans against the Eagles. Not surprisingly, a portion of paranoid and ever-defensive Pats fans (folks still talking about the ideal gas law and “The Wells Report In Context”) fear that a Kansas City victory will somehow tarnish the legacy of the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady Patriots.

Fear not, you footie-pajama-wearing Pats fans.

Taylor Swift or no Taylor Swift, the Chiefs aren’t going to top the Patriots.

Andy Reid will never be better than Bill.

Travis Kelce will never be better than Gronk.

And Patrick Mahomes will never be better than Tom.

It’s all about the numbers.

Keep On Truckin'

As the Boston Red Sox continue to be a team hovering around the .500 line, Shank sees it carry over into something that used to be news worthy:

Much like the Red Sox, Truck Day just isn’t what it used to be

The man was elderly. Older than me, even. He’d emerged from one of the Fenway Park gates on Van Ness Street and as he approached, he asked, “Is this really an event worth covering?”

I chuckled and said something about tradition. When he passed, I turned around and noticed the stenciling on the back of his red windbreaker.

“Red Sox Tours,” it read.

Yeesh. Even team employees know that the expiration date on Red Sox Truck Day has come and gone.

And yet, we soldiered on — myself and several dozen Red Sox diehards — on a balmy February day as the Sox equipment truck was loaded with 20,400 baseballs, 1,100 bats, 200 batting gloves, 200 batting helmets, 320 batting practice tops, 160 white game jerseys, plus family cribs and bikes, and a couple million sunflower seeds that will be needed for eight weeks of spring training in Fort Myers, Fla.

DHL Dan CCXXXIX - All Hail The King!

What is this? A Boston Globe writer, jumping on the Trump Train?

If elected King of Sports, here are my Day 1 decrees, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering what the crowd’s going to look like for Monday’s Truck Day festival at Fenway . . .

▪ Pardons and executive orders are all the rage in these early days of 2025. In this spirit, I am here to tell you what I’ll do when elected King of Sports.

On my first day as King of Sports I’ll call the media to my Ovaltine Office — I drink the delicious malt every day — and wave my pen as a ceremonial sword, righting all wrongs and making sports great again.

This revolution of sports common sense no doubt will be controversial, but it’s necessary. We’re going to take our sports back.

Henceforth, I decree:

▪ All postseason baseball games will be played in the afternoon.

▪ From this day forward, there will be only two ways to score points in basketball: Free throws and 2-point field goals. I am eliminating the 3-point shot. End of story.

▪ No more offside in hockey or soccer. Let’s open up these games.

▪ No more analytics departments. The reliance on analytics in sports ends.

▪ No more corruption-ridden “extra time” in soccer. There will be a clock that winds down to 0:00, just like in football, basketball, and hockey.

▪ NFL kickoffs will go back to the good old days when men were men.

▪ The Calipari statue comes down in Amherst.

Is power dangerous in the wrong hands? Just asking!

DHL Dan CCXXXVIII - What Might Have Been

Shank's wondering whether a late season win by the New England Patriots might've shaken up the draft board:

If not for a late-season win in 2023, the Patriots may have drafted playoff hero Jayden Daniels, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while praying the pipes don’t freeze …

▪ Three questions on this cold conference championship weekend:

1. Did Bill Belichick and Bailey Zappe inadvertently crush the Patriots on the way out the door when New England beat Denver on Christmas Eve 2023?

2. Had the Patriots drafted second instead of third last spring, would they have selected Drake Maye over Jayden Daniels?

3. At this hour, would Patriots fans rather have Daniels than Maye?

The performance of Daniels in these playoffs coupled with the nonstop news spilling out of Foxborough has me wondering how we’re going to be feeling 15-20 years from now when the dossiers of Daniels and Maye are complete.

Maye certainly made a strong showing in his limited time as New England’s starting quarterback in 2024. Surrounded by the worst roster in the NFL, he demonstrated good pocket poise, completed 67 percent of his passes, and averaged 7.8 yards when he ran. He didn’t start until Week 6 in Houston, and wound up throwing 15 touchdown passes with 10 interceptions while being sacked 34 times.

Comparison Made

Leading up to the Super Bowl gives us many columns about one or both teams that'll be playing next Sunday night. Shank sets his sights on the Kansas City Chiefs and makes a comparison of them with... the New England Patriots!

These Chiefs will never be the Patriots, but it’s time for New England to embrace their modern-day dominance

Don’t fight it any longer, New England.

It’s time to adopt the Kansas City Chiefs.

They are you as you are they and you are me and we are all together. Kansas City’s coach, Andy Reid, is “The Walrus.”

There’s a lot of regional and national negativity directed at the Chiefs. Fans outside of Kansas City largely hate them. They win too much. They are always programmed in coveted prime-time slots. They get all the calls from the officials. They have an ever-clutch quarterback who’s constantly on TV selling us something. They are invariably lucky.

Sound like any team you loved from 2001-19?

Face it, Pats fans. Aside from the cheating and the paranoia, today’s Kansas City Chiefs are your New England Patriots in the first 18 years of this century.

DHL Dan CCXXXVII - Staying In The Past

Kind of sensing a theme with these last two columns...

It’s still weird, five seasons post-Brady, to be on the outside looking in during NFL playoffs, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while reminding myself that nobody knows anything when it comes to betting on the NFL playoffs …

▪ Five seasons into our post-Brady world, it’s still weird to be on the outside looking in during the NFL’s biggest weekends of the year.

I still have flashbacks of walking across the sprawling acres surrounding Arrowhead Stadium en route to the AFC Championship game in January 2019. Eyeballing thousands of festive/frozen Heartland fans, many barbecuing ribs and blissfully boasting about how they were going to beat the Patriots, I remember thinking, “Poor dopes and losers. These people have no idea what they’re in for. They think they’re Super Bowl-bound, but they don’t stand a chance. Something hideous will happen to their team at the end of this game and the Pats will prevail.”

Sure enough, that’s how it went. What appeared to be a game-losing Tom Brady interception in the final minute of regulation was negated because Chiefs pass rusher Dee Ford lined up offside. Ford’s transgression had no bearing on the turnover, but it gave the Patriots the ball back. Naturally, Brady tied the game, then won it in overtime when … you guessed it … the Chiefs lost the coin flip and never touched the football.

Read on for unsurprising digs at - you guessed it - Robert Kraft. Talk about never letting go!

Where Past Is Prologue

Shank has a few thoughts about the New England Patriots new head coach, and dates himself in the process:

Mike Vrabel is another former Patriot, but now they need to let go of the past and let him truly run the show

I love the past and am not an agent of change.

Just like the Patriots.

I have a land line in my 125-year-old house. Also a VCR, CD player, Rolodex, and weekly calendar where I scribble appointments and to-do lists. I have never Tik-Toked, still carry cash, and own shoes older than Globe Patriots beat reporter Nicole Yang.

I read printed newspapers, seven per day, and Monday those ink-stained rags featured these headlines:

“No surprise, Patriots turn to their past and hire Vrabel as next head coach,” The New York Post

“Vrabel is Returning to New England as Patriots Head Coach,” The New York Times

“Glory daze,” The Boston Globe

Beautiful. The Patriots love the past. They can’t let it go. They love anything and everything that reminds them of their great triumphs in the first two decades of this century.

The Patriots aren't the only ones that can't let things go...

DHL Dan CCXXXVI - On To The Offseason

Shank's weekly column features an unusual admission:

The real season — the offseason — is finally here for the Patriots, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while crediting Bob Kraft for having the smarts and fortitude to take questions from the media when there’s a lot to explain about his team . . .

▪ Mid-winter has emerged as the most important season for the Patriots.

For the first 20 years of this century, New England football’s January/February was about Saturday night home playoff games, Tuck Rules, snow angels, Tom Brady comebacks, Lombardi Trophies, cheating scandals, paths to perfection, revenge tours, sore losers in Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, Mona Lisa Vito, “Malcolm, go!,” 28-3, and The Continuing Story of Bill and Ernie.

All of that is gone, but these freezing, post-holiday weeks with no playoffs for us still represent the most important stretch of the season.

In 2025, the Patriots are annual NFL losers. Those 13 regular-season losses and four feeble wins mean just about nothing. Almost all the games were tedious and unmemorable.

Sincere praise for Kraft or a huge head fake by Shank? You make the call!

If You're Not First, You're Last

Here's Shank on the firing of New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo:

In Jerod Mayo’s case, nice guys really do finish last

Weep not for nice guy Jerod Mayo. This wasn’t his fault.

Smart, sensible, stoic, Mayo will be a coveted commodity for many decades as an NFL assistant coach, commentator, or just about anything he pursues. He may become an NFL head coach again, perhaps a good one. He is only 38 and it’s all ahead of him.

Mayo was fired as head coach of the Patriots, less than two hours after the hapless Patriots beat the playoff-bound Buffalo Bills, 23-16, in New England’s season-finale “Stupor Bowl” at Gillette Stadium Sunday afternoon.

It was a “win” that cost the Patriots dearly, dropping them from first to fourth in the NFL’s annual April meat market. The hollow victory supplied the perfect coda for Mayo’s disastrous single season as Patriot head coach:

The 2024 Patriots: even when they win, they lose.

It’s fair to state that Mayo’s disastrous one-year reign was an ownership blunder, residue of Bob Kraft’s considerable hubris and pain from the final years of Bill Belichick’s quarter-century at the helm. Mayo should never have been handed the job in the first place and likely was promoted out of sheer loyalty to the boss. After 25 years of perceived disrespect from Belichick, Kraft wanted a head coach who was polite and beholden to the boss. The result was abysmal. Mayo was wildly inexperienced and unprepared for the lofty position.

Another Patriots column for which the real primary target is Bob Kraft.

Losing By Winning

If it weren't for the fact there's always a losing team, Shank would have nothing to write about.

One of the best comments ever at Dan Shaughnessy Watch, and the theme of Shank's second column from Sunday:

Patriots lose big (No. 1 NFL Draft pick), even in victory

Say it loud and say it proud. Print bumper stickers and T-shirts.

The 2024 Jerod Mayo Patriots: Even when they win, they lose.

Through the decades, we’ve seen some unforgettable teams here in Greater Boston.

The 1967 Red Sox were the “Cardiac Kids,” who forged “The Impossible Dream.” Our Causeway Street skaters of the 1970s were the Big Bad Bruins, who later ceded to “The Lunchpail A.C.” We had the “Cowboy Up” Red Sox of 2003, and the Curse-bustin “Why Not Us?” Sox of ‘04. Kevin Garnett led the “Ubuntu” Celtics to the NBA Championship in 2008.

Now we have the ‘24 Patriots who gave us a 17-game clown show festooned with turnovers, pre-snap penalties, and embarrassing losses from September though the holidays. Going into Sunday’s season finale, their 3-13 record put them in dandy position for the No. 1 pick in the entire NFL draft. All they had to do to secure the top spot was lose to a 13-3, playoff-bound Buffalo Bills team.

DHL Dan CCXXXV - The Axe Falleth?

Just an hour before Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo became former Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo, Shank was thinking ownership will do nothing:

The Patriots need to do right by their fans and fire Jerod Mayo, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if Route 1 will be easy to navigate Sunday . . .

▪ Welcome to the Stupor Bowl. Sunday in Foxborough we get the 13-3 Buffalo Bills, a playoff-bound team with absolutely nothing to gain against a 3-13 Patriots team that has much to lose by winning.

Ugh. Wake me when it’s over.

When this finale mercifully concludes, Bob and Jonathan Kraft — visible this season only when network pals featured them rattling jewelry from a cozy midfield suite — need to do right by fans and fix their mess of a football team.

Regrettably, I can pretty much guess how this is going to go: Bob will send out his now-annual letter of apology, telling fans they deserve better and promising a better product. The Krafts will feebly fire a coordinator or two, Bob will reluctantly take a few questions, and announce that Jonathan is busy elsewhere at a very important corrugated cardboard meeting.

I'm getting the feeling Shank doesn't like the Kraft family a whole lot...

Time To Catch Up?

Sorry, folks - took a bit of a break from Shank, as we all need to do from time to time...

Let's start from a few weeks ago, when Shank correctly pointts out the half-assed effort by the Red Sox to go after free agents again this offseason:

Red Sox have struck out on big-name talent, but they rule one aspect of free agency: They’re kings of interest

Last winter, Red Sox chairman Tom Werner gave us a punchline for the ages when he pledged that the Sox would go “full throttle” after their last-place finish of 2023.

We all know how that worked out. The Sox were a virtual Paul Cézanne still life in the winter of 2023-24, unless you want to count trading 2024 Cy Young winner Chris Sale to the Braves for a bin of rosin bags, and signing Lucas Giolito, who got hurt in Fort Myers and didn’t throw a pitch all season.

This winter is different. Sort of.

The Sox have indeed added some name players (Aroldis Chapman, Walker Buehler, Garrett Crochet), but they’re still tire-kickers on the free agent market, ever MLB’s “Kings of Interest,” and no longer serious players for big-name talents seeking multiyear deals.

DHL Dan CCXXXIV - On The Hot Seat?

There's a great deal of speculation about the future for first year head coach Jerod Mayo. Even with a current 3 - 13 record, Shank thinks he'll stick around because of Bob Kraft:

Bob Kraft is stubborn, so it’s doubtful that he fires Jerod Mayo after this dismal season, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while roasting chestnuts and listening to Mitch Miller carols . . .

▪ Any chance Bob Kraft fires Jerod Mayo at the end of this terrible season? Doubt it.

Kraft is stubborn and unlikely to admit he acted hastily and erred hiring Mayo one day after firing Bill Belichick in January.

We all know Mayo inherited a terrible roster. This sorry season has been torpedoed by poor drafts, second-tier assistant coaches, and the team’s failure to spend.

Every coach deserves more than a one-year tryout, right? Bill Parcells wasn’t let go when his first Patriots team started 1-11. Belichick was retained after going 5-11. Both got plenty of slack.

Bring Back Rod Rust?

With the New England Patriots losing on Sunday, it brings back some bad memories for Shank:

Jerod Mayo’s powerless, flat Patriots channeling every bit of the bad old days

GLENDALE, Ariz. — These are games we mocked not so long ago: A 3-10 team against a 6-7 team in mid-December. A couple of Tomato Cans duking it out in a quiet stadium while Football America was riveted to Bills at Lions (48-42, Buffalo) on CBS.

If you were home in New England, forced to watch Patriots-Cardinals ahead of the true Game of the Week, too bad. Instead of a possible prelude to this year’s Super Bowl, you were hostage to the Dumpster Fire In The Desert. It was just like the bad old days of 20th century Patriot-watching.

Under the robin’s egg blue skies of State Farm Stadium’s open roof, the Cardinals pantsed the moribund Patriots, 30-17, Sunday. Jerod Mayo’s 11 dropped to 3-11, clearing the way for 3-14 and another top three pick in this spring’s draft.

New England showed little sign of life, and Bob and Jonathan Kraft looked pretty unhappy in their midfield thrones. Maybe deciding to hire Mayo five years ago because he demonstrated good manners on a trip to Israel wasn’t such a great idea.

When local teams are at their worst, Shank's writing comes alive. Funny how that works...

DHL Dan CCXXXIII - Innocent Until Proven Guilty?

That's Shank's somewhat disingenuous statement on certain professional athletes accused of domestic violence:

When employing those accused of domestic violence, teams weigh quest to win against damage to brand, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting for more Red Sox news to come out of the Winter Meetings . . .

▪ Aroldis Chapman. Milan Lucic. Jabrill Peppers.

All three are Boston athletes on teams that have not enjoyed a lot of success lately; all were accused of violence against women; none were convicted (Peppers doesn’t go to trial until January); all of them raise questions about the responsibilities professional sports teams face when allegations of domestic violence collide with a team’s quest to win and the experience of its fans.

Every case is different. Like the rest of us, millionaire professional athletes are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But teams hiring baggage-laden players are ever measuring fairness and the quest to win against potential damage to the team’s brand. It’s a high-wire act filled with mixed messaging.

Unlike the rest of us, our names and faces aren't splashed across the sports pages in print and on the Internet, which tends to cause the ' potential damage to the team’s brand'. To me, that's the disingenuous part.

Playoffs?

That's Shank's tone after watching the Boston Celtics so far this year:

Can we get to the playoffs already? This year’s Celtics might be even better than last year’s.

The defending world champion Celtics have played only one quarter of their regular-season schedule. We still have four weeks left in 2024.

I have only one question: When do the playoffs start?

Sorry. I know the NBA regular season is a marathon, not a sprint. I know there are critical games left in the quest for the coveted NBA Cup; the idle Celtics were eliminated Tuesday night. I know we are supposed to take a deep breath, hope everyone stays healthy, and monitor the NBA readiness of Neemias Queta and Drew Peterson.

Not me. I watch the 2024-25 Celtics when I think they might be in for a close game or playing a team that could be a speed bump in the quest for Banner No. 19.

Also, to ponder their place among the greatest Celtics teams of all time.

DHL Dan CCXXXII - Hitting The Century Mark

As the Boston Bruins turn 100 today (Happy Birthday, Bruins!), Shank writes one of his three yearly hockey columns to commemorate the event:

There is so much to remember in 100 years of Bruins hockey, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while refusing to take the cheese on the Juan Soto nonsense …

▪ The Bruins turn 100 Sunday and plan a centennial birthday party before their 3 p.m. game at the Garden against the Montreal Canadiens.

Nice symmetry there. The Montreal Maroons were the Bruins’ opponents for their first game ever — a 2-1 win at Boston Arena Dec. 1, 1924.

The Zamboni of those days was a horse-drawn, plow-like scraper followed by a team of broom-toting sweepers (no jokes about slow horses playing for the 2024 Bruins).

As much as anything, Sunday’s celebration will be a salute to the Hub’s hockey culture, and the grip the Bruins have had on this region for as long as Jimmy Carter has been alive.

DHL Dan CCXXXI - The Juan Soto Pursuit

Shank doesn't think much of the Red Sox going after free agent Juan Soto:

Red Sox deserve no benefit of the doubt with their Juan Soto pursuit, and other thoughts

Picked up pieces while prepping to watch the Super Bowl-bound Lions on Thanksgiving …

▪ The Red Sox sent a contingent to Orange County last week to meet with outfielder Juan Soto and his agent, Scott Boras. The Sox were represented by Sam Kennedy, Tom Werner, Alex Cora, and Craig Breslow. It’s been reported that the meeting went well, but that no offer was made. Other teams courting Soto include the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Phillies, and Blue Jays.

Boston’s toe in the water has seamhead dreamers and innocents convinced that the Red Sox actually have a chance.

Not this typist.

When pigs can fly and cows jump over the moon . . . when hell freezes over . . . when an NBA guard gets called for “palming” . . . when Larry Bird picks up a check . . . when California tumbles into the sea . . .

OK, the Larry Bird quip was funny!