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.