DHL Dan CCLIV - Loserville?

In this week's Picked Up Pieces column, Shank compares two eras in Boston sports history, with the current era somehat lacking by comparison:

Does the Celtics’ sudden downward spiral mean Boston will soon go from Titletown to Loserville, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if we’re witnessing The Curse of Steve Pagliuca . . .

⋅ Life happens fast when you invest energy and emotion in the fortunes of local sports teams. You go to bed one night in Titletown, USA, then wake up in Loserville.

Remember those dark days of no championships from 1987-2000? It got so bad we actually hosted a Stanley Cup celebration for Ray Bourque at City Hall Plaza in June 2001 because Bourque finally won the Cup after the Bruins traded him to Colorado!

Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.

It looks like we can send out the duck boats for servicing. Replace all parts. It doesn’t matter if materials get held up in the supply chain. There’ll be no parade down the Champs de Boylston next month. It looks like Copley’s Canyon of Heroes will be quiet for many years to come.

DHL Dan CCLIII - Reinstatement

Shank weighs in on the bullshit decision of the current MLB commissioner to undo a determination by another commissioner:

Reinstatement of Pete Rose, others has this Hall of Fame voter wondering why worry about ‘character,’ and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while welcoming Chris Sale back to Fenway . . . and Alex Verdugo, too . . .

⋅ The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball was established in 1920 in the aftermath of discovery that eight members of the Chicago White Sox had taken gamblers’ money in exchange for throwing the 1919 World Series. There was concern that betting would kill the game. In 1921, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was installed as the first commissioner, hired to clean up the sport forever.

One of Landis’s first acts was to banish the White Sox players from the game, making it clear that betting on baseball was something you could not do if you intended to be part of the sport. It was a permanent banishment.

On Tuesday of this past week, commissioner Rob Manfred, at the request of President Trump, made a mockery of the office, reinstating known gambling violators Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and 15 others deceased individuals. Buffered with soft semantics (“permanent ineligibility” ends when you die), Manfred’s message to uniformed baseball personnel seems to be: Don’t worry too much about that rule you were always told was so sacred. It may not happen until after your death, but if you gamble on baseball you will eventually be reinstated by MLB. The commissioner will leave it up to others to decide if you are Hall of Fame worthy.

That's 100 percent right - character is supposed to matter for Hall of Fame eligibility and with respect to gambling on games youre involved with (either for or against your team), they broke written or moral rules, as the 1919 White Sox did. The moral rule, of course, is this - if you tank games and take money to do it, you're a piece of shit and have fully earned your banishment.

Staying Alive, For Now

Yeah, I've been slacking with the timeliness of recent posts, but here's Shank's column from when the Celtics were still sort of, kind of in the 2025 NBA playoffs:

The Celtics heard the rumblings that their season was as good as over and responded loudly in Game 5. Anybody have a bloody sock?

They heard the rumblings about the end of their championship window, and new ownership coming in to break up the band, and the odious prospect of losing a conference semifinal series to the Knicks in five frustrating games.

They knew they’d have to play without their heartbeat franchise forward, Jayson Tatum, who suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles’ tendon Monday night in New York.

So what did they do?

The defending world champion Boston Celtics came home to their Causeway Street Gym and told the hoop world that they are not dead yet. Summoning their 3-point weaponry (22 for 49), they overcame a 9-point first-half deficit and thrashed the Knicks, 127-102, in Game 5 to move a suddenly scintillating series back to Madison Square Garden on Friday night.

...where they got destroyed because they rely on the three point shot to win games and that style of play finally bit them in the ass.

DHL Dan CCLII - Dark Day Ahead?

That's what the son of a former MLB commissioner thinks about the possibility of Pete Rose's posthumous reinstatement to baseball:

Son of commissioner who banned Pete Rose says reinstatement would be ‘a dark day for baseball,’ and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting for the NFL schedule to come out on Wednesday . . .

▪ Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred met with President Trump last month regarding a petition to have Pete Rose posthumously removed from MLB’s permanently ineligible list. Manfred is expected to issue a ruling soon.

If the commissioner reinstates baseball’s all-time hits leader, Rose would be eligible for Hall of Fame consideration in future voting by a 16-member Classic Baseball Era committee.

Pete Rose’s daughter, Fawn, is among those who’ve met with Manfred to lobby for her father’s reinstatement.

Marcus Giamatti, the son of late baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti — who in 1989 famously struck the deal with Rose after MLB confirmed his baseball gambling while managing and playing for the Reds — does not want to see Rose reinstated.

You Were Saying?

Last week Shank was saying the Knicks / Celtics series should be a cakewalk for the Green Team. A few games later, he's singing a different tune:

What in the name of David Tyree is going on here? This Celtics-Knicks series is beginning to look like a Giant upset.

Shock and awe.

Seriously.

I mean, what in the name of David Tyree is going on here? When did the 2024-25 New York Knicks become the 1978 New York Yankees? When did Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson become Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone?

And when did Joe Mazzulla morph into Grady Little?

The Knicks Wednesday came back from yet another 20-point, third-quarter deficit and beat the Celtics, 91-90, to take a 2-0 series lead back to Madison Square Garden Saturday afternoon.

This means the defending world champion Boston Celtics have put themselves into a must-win game in the second round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. No NBA team has recovered from a 3-0 playoff deficit and the Celtics will be carrying a lot of mental baggage into Madison Square Garden.

DHL Dan CCLI - Must See Basketball?

I think that's what Shank's trying to sell us here:

Celtics-Knicks in the playoffs (for the 16th time) is what Basketball America wants to see, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if the betting odds have changed on Pete Rose’s chances for Cooperstown now that commissioner Rob Manfred is considering lifting Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball …

⋅ Celtics-Knicks. It’s official. Game 1 on Causeway Street Monday night.

It’s a playoff series Basketball America wants to see.

The Knicks’ coach is Tom Thibodeau, who won a ring as one of Doc Rivers’s assistants with the world champion ubuntu Celtics in 2008. New York’s best player — indeed its best player since Cambridge’s Patrick Ewing — is Jalen Brunson (40 points, including a 3-point game-winner with 4.3 seconds left in the clincher in Game 6 against the Pistons Thursday), son of Rick Brunson, who played at Salem High School before playing for John Chaney’s Temple squads against John Calipari’s UMass powerhouse.

The modern-day Knicks can’t beat the Celtics and it bothers them. They lost four of five to Boston last season, went out and reloaded (Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges) in the offseason, then came back and lost four of four to the Celtics this season by an average of 16 points.

In other words, it's shaping up to be a series the Celtics should win with relative ease. Is that really what 'Basketball America' wants to see, or just Celtics fans?

All About Advancing

Shank warps up the Celtics - Magic series:

It took longer than it should have, but Celtics finally found their game and advanced

The world champion Celtics beat the pedestrian Orlando Magic, 120-89, in the Causeway Street gym Tuesday to advance to Round 2 of the NBA playoffs. Boston will play either the Knicks or Pistons in the conference semifinals (New York leads that series, 3-2).

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t wait to get these Orlando bums in the rearview mirror. The Magic are rugged and have some good young players (particularly Paolo Banchero), but they were a 41-41 team and supposed to be a mere speed bump on the Celtics’ road to banner number 19.

It was, therefore, somewhat annoying when the Celtics lost Game 3 in Orlando last Friday.

Making matters worse, the Celtics couldn’t hit a three and fell behind by 9 points in Game 5 Tuesday. Boston trailed, 49-47, at intermission and made . . . zero . . . 3-point baskets in the first half. It was as if Marcus Smart and Greg Kite were back in the house.

The Celtics will have to win more games like that.

DHL Dan CCL - Titletown?

Remember when Boston sports teams were winning all those titles and going deep into the playoffs? Shank sure does:

We’re used to titles, and let’s face it, right now the Celtics are all we’ve got, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while thinking hard about the Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots, and Bruins . . .

⋅ When all four of our main professional sports teams are good, this can be the best time of the year. Remember those April/May/June springs when the Celtics and Bruins were deep into the playoffs, the star-studded, big-market Red Sox were jousting with the Evil Empire, and the Tom Brady Patriots were reloading at draft time, bound for yet another AFC Championship showdown with the Colts, Steelers or Ravens?

We lived so well so long.

The New England sports world is very different now.

The once-stable Patriots are coming off back-to-back four-win seasons, working with their third coach in three years, and selected Will Campbell, an offensive tackle (whee!), with the No. 4 pick in the draft Thursday night. The Bruins just failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2016, and this fall will have their fifth head coach since 2017 (unless interim coach Joe Sacco is retained). The Red Sox have been a .500 team and finished last three times in five seasons since trading Mookie Betts in 2020, and they go into this weekend one game over .500.

DHL Dan CCXLIX - It Don't Come Easy

In thi week's Picked up Pieces column, Shank weighs in on the 2024 - 2025 Boston Celtics and their chances of repeat championships:

Since the dynasty of the ’60s many Celtics teams have failed to repeat, so this won’t be easy, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if DOGE recruited its staffers from Driveline …

Your 2024-25 Boston Celtics are hoping to win back-to-back NBA championships.

Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale never did it. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen couldn’t do it. Dave Cowens and Jo Jo White couldn’t get it done, either.

No. The only Celtics teams to win consecutive championships were the Bill Russell-led teams of the 1960s.

And they did it a lot.

Put it this way: When I walked into first grade at Groton Elementary School in September 1959, the Boston Celtics were defending NBA champs.

Bailing Out Early

The 2025 Boston Red Sox are off to a rough start of the season. Here's Shank taking a dump on them:

Recovery helps, but I was expecting so much more from these Red Sox, and they’ve been frustratingly bad so far

Feeling any better about these Red Sox?

After beating the Rays, 1-0, Wednesday night, the Sox come home this weekend to play the White Sox four times. As bad as they’ve been (losses of 11-1 and 16-1 since Friday), your Red Sox could be in first place by the time the Marathon starts Monday morning.

I had faith in them this year. After ripping the Sox for five seasons, I took the cheese. Spent nine days in Fort Myers, Fla., madly applauded the Alex Bregman signing, felt good about ownership getting back in the winning business, and picked these goofy guys to finish in first place in the American League East.

After five years of abject neglect, I was convinced that Boston’s absentee owners were back in the hard-chargin’, Lucchino-driven, contest-living that was the trademark of the first decade of John Henry and the vaunted Fenway Sports Group.

DHL Dan CCXLVIII - Joined At The Hip

That would be Shank and former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, and their apprarent shared disdain for Patriots owner Robert Kraft:

Bill Belichick shows no love for Patriots owner Robert Kraft in new book, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if anybody else is worried about Jaylen Brown’s knee . . .

⋅ Bill Belichick’s new book, “The Art of Winning,” arrived in the mail this past week and I could not wait to pore through it.

Imagine. Two hundred and eighty-nine pages of Bill telling us about the secret sauce of 24 seasons at the helm in Foxborough. I couldn’t wait to read what he really thinks of Bob Kraft and how he’d explain Malcolm Butler not playing in the February 2018 Super Bowl against the Eagles in Minneapolis.

Sorry, it’s not in there.

As an author of many books, I’d estimate this one’s about 80,000 words.

Two words not in the book: Robert Kraft.

OK, this is somewhat predictable, I guess. The obvious snub is yet another demonstration that things often end badly here on the Boston sports scene.

That's right, and sometimes Shank helps out to make that happen.

DHL Dan CCXLVII - Break Out The Bell Bottoms

That's right, folks - let's take a trip back to the disco era!

Red Sox turning back time to the memorable 1975 season and the best World Series ever, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while thinking about the magical Red Sox summer of 1975 …

It forever ranks with the most unforgettable seasons in New England sports lore, sculpting memories that still reside in the minds of Boston baseball’s greatest generation.

Aging Boomers who prayed at the altar of Ted, celebrated the Impossible Dream, and made it to the Promised Land in 2004, have fond recollections of the summer of ‘75 and the greatest World Series ever played.

Early Friday afternoon, before the Red Sox’ 13-9 win over the Cardinals, those gods of ’75 gathered at Fenway for the Red Sox home opener. It was a day to celebrate the Man We Call Yaz, Dewey, Rico, Gold Dust Twins Jim Rice and Freddie Lynn, Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk, and the late, great Luis Tiant, who controlled Sox Nation’s hearts and tears all those years ago.

Back in the day, they wore two-toned, red-and-blue caps and won 95 regular-season games. They swept the three-time defending Series champion A’s in the ALCS, then took the 108-win, Big Red Machine to a seventh game in a Series that temporarily rescued baseball. In a hot Boston summer pepped with busing-stoked racial tension, the colorful and talented Sox gave us daily thrills and a common cause.

Check out the picture - jerry Remy with the porn moustache!

Assume The Position

With the first serious losing streak for the 2025 Boston Red Sox, you can count on Shank to write a column about it:

After just one series, Red Sox find themselves in a familiar position

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Red Sox are in sole possession of last place in the American League East.

Imagine.

After the legit full-throttle winter which saw newly-urgent ownership open the vault and Craig Bres-Lowball trading prospects and handing out one-year contracts like candy . . . after the earth-shattering acquisition of veteran leader/winner/Fenway wrecking ball Alex Bregman . . . after newfound love from pundits across Baseball America (some see the Red Sox playing in the 2025 World Series!) . . . the Sox are back where they’ve lived for much of the post-Mookie era:

Sole possession of last place in the American League East.

Admittedly, this is knee-jerk nonsense, wild hyperbole, and social-media-level overreaction.

Exactly what Shank has made a career out of doing.

Striking Out

Let's see how (former) Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers is doing in his new role as designated hitter after three games:

Something’s amiss in Rafael Devers’s move to DH

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Rafael Devers DH project is not off to a great start in Texas. In three games, Devers is 0 for 12 with 10 strikeouts. That’s an MLB record. Seriously.

In the galaxy of Boston sports stars, Devers has never been a controversial figure. In seven-plus seasons, he’s been a sweet, silent, savant swinger who smiles and keeps to himself. His nickname is “Carita,” which translates to “Baby Face.”

See the ball. Hit the ball. Mind your own business. Show up tomorrow and do it again. That’s been the Raffy Devers Way.

All that changed when Devers signed a 10-year, $313.5 million contract, in the post-Mookie, post-Xander chaos that took the franchise to the bottom of the AL East in 2022 and 2023. The big money brought new attention and responsibilities, and Sox Nation came down hard on Devers last month when he balked at the notion of moving to DH to accommodate new Sox third baseman, Gold Glover Alex Bregman.

Opening Days

Shank takes a trip to Texas to cover the 2025 Boston Red Sox's opening series against the Texas Rangers, winning the first game on a 9th inning home run by Wilyer Abreu, and Shank devoting an entire column to Kristian Campbell's first hit in the major leagues, which may or may not be ruled an error after the Rangers challenged the call.

Petty things - right up Shank's alley...

DHL Dan CCXLVI - Change Of The Guard

The Boston Celtics were sold on Thursday for $6.2 billion dollars, a record for a professional franchise in the United States. Shank, of course, has a few questions about the deal:

Why not Pags? It seems odd that Steve Pagliuca’s Celtics ownership bid was turned down, and other thoughts.

Picked-up pieces while doing the math on a $360 million investment that turned into $6.1 billion . . .

⋅ Why not Pags?

This is the takeaway after Thursday morning’s news bomb, fan agita, official corporate statements, and private equity high-fiving that went on after the Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach broke the story that the Celtics have been sold to an investor group led by complete unknown William Chisholm — a North Shore native who went to Dartmouth and has pledged to “work to bring more championships home to Boston.”

Swell.

So here’s just one little question?

“Why not Pags?” I followed. “Seems to check all the boxes and would make fans super comfortable.”

“Our goal was always to take the best bid from a suitable buyer, and that’s what we did,” responded Irv Grousbeck.

So, there you go. The Chisholm group made the best offer, according to Irv Grousbeck.

And that’s that.

But this isn't as straightforward as it seems:

Pagliuca issued a statement shortly after it was learned he didn’t get the team early Thursday, stating, in part, “We made a fully guaranteed and financed offer at a record price . . . We had no debt or private-equity money that would potentially hamstring our ability to compete in the future. We have felt it was the best offer for the Celtics . . . ”

The Grousbecks did not feel that way.

The Globe has learned that the Chisholm bid was higher than Pagliuca’s.

Not seeing the offer sheets, and not knowing which package had more guaranteed financing, it’s impossible to measure the offers. That is what the Grousbecks do.

Also contributing to the muddy waters - it's not much of a secret Steve Pagliuca and Wyc Grousbeck aren't friends, to put it mildly. I think that's playing a big part in this one.

March Blandness

It seems like Shank's off the NCAA Tournament bandwagon, and maybe with good reason:

The men’s NCAA tournament used to be great. But now that it’s professional basketball? No thanks.

March Madness! How’s your bracket looking? Got tickets to the big subregional in Providence this coming weekend? Do you think Rick Pitino and Coach Cal could match up on Saturday? Is Cooper Flagg better than Bill Walton? How about that Dan Hurley, huh? Think we’ll see a No. 16 beat a No. 1? Do you hate Duke?

Sweet 16 . . . Elite Eight . . . Final Four . . . Whee!

No thanks, Basketball America. I’ll be sitting this one out. I’m not sure I’d watch the men’s championship game if they played it in my driveway on Monday, April 7.

Seriously. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament used to be great, but I have a hard time understanding how folks invest dollars and emotions in today’s farce that has almost nothing to do with colleges and universities.

“With the Power Four conferences, it’s fraud in terms of terminology,” says Leo Papile, former player personnel director of the Celtics (14 seasons) and presently a senior adviser with the Clippers who founded the Boston Athletic Basketball Club (BABC) 48 years ago. “They use the term ‘student-athletes.’ That’s fraud. If you brought that to trial, it would be very easy to prove that that does not exist. I’m not a scholar, but I know that in order to get a degree, you can’t bounce around three or four schools in four years.”

True that. Not that anyone cares anymore, but when we watch the big schools in this tournament, it’s impossible to buy the notion that we are watching students at play. Oregon traveled more than 26,000 miles to play its Big Ten schedule — yes, Oregon is in the Big Ten — this season. That’s more than the circumference of the Earth. Think those kids are cracking the books or interacting with their schoolmates?

Today’s NCAA basketball is unregulated professional basketball. Frothy fans boost their favorite school, screaming their heads off for skilled professional players, most of whom have zero allegiance to said college, and some of whom maybe never set foot in a classroom or interacted with anyone on campus outside of the athletic department and compliance office.

I largely agree with this, because it is really stupid having a West Coast college like Oregon in the Big Ten (Stanford's also in the Big Ten, or maybe it's the Big Sixteen now) and the NIL money's why all this is happening.

DHL Dan CCXLV - It's Anyone's Race

With a week or so to go until Opening Day, Shank takes a peek at the Red Sox and the rest of the American League East division:

Suddenly, the AL East is wide open, so now’s the time for the Red Sox to get it together, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting for this weekend’s Massachusetts high school state hockey and basketball finals . . .

⋅ We are two weeks away from the start of the baseball season and the American League East is suddenly wide open. The reigning division king Yankees are reeling and all five teams think they have a chance.

It’s been awhile since I could seriously consider picking the Red Sox to finish first, but after the winter acquisitions of Garrett Crochet and Walker Buehler, and the stunning signing of Alex Bregman, I was ready to go Full Rochie and pick the Sox to win the division.

And yet . . . the Sox are stalled in Fort Myers. Spring training stats don’t count for much, but the Red Sox seem to have set a record for most players showing up in camp already injured (Rafael Devers, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Lucas Giolito) or sick (Wilyer Abreu, Triston Casas). Meanwhile, Trevor Story has new back issues, the team has no closer, no second baseman, suspect defense, and zero catching depth. Sound like division winners to you?

Disrespected

Some analyst dweeb gave Red Sox legend Jim Rice a hard time at spring training last week:

Red Sox staffer’s disrespect of Hall of Famer Jim Rice is unacceptable … yet accepted in today’s MLB

... I was reminded of all this when I read Sunday’s Globe and learned that one of the Sox army corps of baseball engineers interrupted a casual batting cage conversation between Jim Rice and a prospect, who’d solicited some batting tips from the former American League MVP. The Sox staffer asked Rice to back away from the kid hitter.

According to Rice, the spreadsheet staffer’s message to the Hall of Famer was something to the effect of, Mi>“Please leave our young hitter alone. That’s not the way we teach hitting here. We know better. We want to hit the ball in the air and hit it hard.”

Rice said he asked the uniformed staffer if he’d played and was told no.

DHL Dan CCXLIV - Pete Rose In The Hall Of Fame?

In this week's (or last week's, based on the delay in posting) Picked Up Pieces column, Shank talks about the possibilities:

Has a post from President Trump given Pete Rose’s Hall of Fame candidacy new life? And other thoughts.

Pete Rose.

Hall of Fame.

Here we go again.

I thought this topic was dead, but now that Pete has died, his ever-controversial Hall of Fame candidacy has new life, thanks to the President of the United States and Major League Baseball’s commissioner.

Everyone agrees that Rose was a Hall of Fame ballplayer. He compiled 4,256 hits, more than anybody. He was National League MVP, a three-time World Series champ, and started All-Star Games at five positions.

However, as most of you know, baseball has a specific character clause regarding Hall of Fame credentials. Some cheaters, criminals, and ne’er-do-wells have been denied Cooperstown or delayed entry for a variety of transgressions, on and off the field.

Pro football’s Hall largely doesn’t care about this kind of thing. The late O.J. Simpson is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.