DHL Dan CXXXVI - Amazing Grace

Shank, as he's wont to do, jumps all over David Ortiz for his, um, inconsistency:

Examining an ‘amazing’ statement by David Ortiz, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while watching the Little League World Series …

▪ After becoming the first MLB player elected to the Hall of Fame despite a positive steroid test — a test that baseball commissioner Rob Manfred suggested might have been a false positive — David Ortiz went on the offensive in the wake of Fernando Tatis Jr. testing positive for clostebol in mid-August.

“MLB needs to have some sort of regulations before they make public news like the one that happened to Tatis Jr.,” Ortiz told Dominican reporter Hector Gomez. “I think they haven’t handled this situation the right way. We can’t kill our product, we’re talking about an amazing player.”

It sounds like Ortiz is saying, “Sure, Tatis is using, but fans love him and he’s got great numbers, so let’s pretend nothing happened.”

I'm of the school of though that maybe Ortiz should just avoid giving opinions about this topic, in no small part because he gives folks like Shank free gas to pour on the fire. Then again, Shank would probably find a way to drag him for saying nothing.

A Small Case Of The Vapors

Shank doesn't appreciate part of David Ortiz's attire:

Mayor of Boston with David Ortiz wearing "Hoesmad" cap. https://t.co/HswyHSLUBr

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 27, 2022

Neither does his fellow Globe scold and über-feminist columnist:

David Ortiz gets away with a lot in this city. My column via @GlobeOpinion. https://t.co/Yaj1bSVEqH via @BostonGlobe

— Joan Vennochi (@Joan_Vennochi) July 28, 2022

Question for Joan - are all women 'hoes'? That's how I'm reading that little column blurb.

The Immortal David Ortiz

Alternate Friends title - The One Where Shank Pretends To Like David Ortiz:

David Ortiz already achieved baseball immortality in Boston, and now the Hall of Fame has made it official

COOPERSTOWN, N. Y. — David Ortiz, a man who forever changed the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox, is a Baseball Hall of Famer.

Already immortal in Boston sports lore, the beloved Big Papi was welcomed to the Hall Sunday, serving as the walkoff speaker on a sun-splashed afternoon after six other 2022 inductees were feted by the baseball world.

“I will always be Boston,” Ortiz said toward the end of a 19-minute speech during which he alternated between English and Spanish. “I will always be there for you, Boston. I love you, Boston.”

In front of an estimated crowd of 35,000 gathered on the lawn and hills in the cradle of baseball, the 46-year-old Ortiz was enshrined along with 83-year-old Jim Kaat, 84-year-old Tony Oliva, and four baseball legends who have already passed: Gil Hodges, Buck O’Neil, Minnie Miñoso, and Bud Fowler (who actually grew up in Cooperstown). Big Papi’s 21-year-old daughter, Alex Veda, performed the national anthem before the induction program.

Contrast Shank's current near reverence of Big Papi with his attitude towards the latter nine years ago:

In 2013, I came off the DL and started hot. My first 20 games I was hitting like .400. And the reporter with the red jheri curl from The Boston Globe comes into the locker room says, “You’re from the Dominican. You’re older. You fit the profile of a steroid user. Don’t you think you’re a prime suspect?”

He’s saying this with a straight face. I had taken like 70 at-bats. Anybody can get hot and hit .400 with 70 at-bats. I was stunned. I’m like, I’m Dominican? I fit the profile? Are you kidding me?

I wanted to kill this guy. But you can’t react. That’s what they want. They want you to get angry so they can bury you. So I just smiled at him and asked for his address.

“Why do you want my address?” he said.

“Because I just got tested two days ago.” I said. “I’ll mail you the f****ing results.”

This is a reporter from my own city coming to my locker and telling me I’m too good, that I must be on some shit. I’m sitting there thinking, Man, I get tested 10 times a year and I’ve helped win this town two World Series titles in 2004 and 2007 and this guy who has never played a game of professional baseball in his life is telling me I’m a suspect.

My test was clean just like the other 8 or 9 tests that season. My batting average settled down to .300, because of course it did. I hit like 30 home runs and we won the World Series. Was that acceptable for the reporter? Were my numbers too high for a player from the Dominican? Should I have taken another blood test before popping the damn champagne?

He never apologized.

Red jheri curl - does Shank have some awesome nicknames, or what?

To restate the 2013 brouhaha with Shank and Ortiz with a bit more pith, let's turn it over to former DSW blogger Dave M (some emphasis mine):

In case you have not been following, last week Dan Shaughnessy quickly ripped into Ortiz after Ortiz’s name was leaked to be on “the list” of steroid users. Shaughnessy declared “David Ortiz lied to you. It seems safe to say that his entire Red Sox career is a lie.” Never mind that Shaughnessy never talked to Ortiz. Never mind that Shaughnessy did not know what Ortiz tested positive for. Never mind that Shaughnessy did not know there was a question of the validity of the test. Never mind that Ortiz did not know he even tested positive for anything. These things did not matter because Shaughnessy was in such a rush to punch out a column. There was no time for fact checking; there was no time for corroboration; there was nothing anyone would expect of a professional journalist. No, this was yellow journalism at its finest This was Shaughnessy…. ever ready to bury a hatchet in someone, any proof be damned.

...

Shaughnessy may eventually prove to be right about Ortiz. But that doesn’t matter. At the time he accused Ortiz of being a liar, he did not have the information to make the accusation. He did not seek the full story because he is lazy. He was ready to prematurely attack because he is vindictive. If anyone lied to us, it was Shaughnessy. If anything is tainted, it is his ethics. He is the one who should be suspended for a year. And he is not the only one – Massarotti and Ryan and many others also piled on. It was disgraceful and shameful.

I'd go with 'bearing false witness' mysef, but these are somewhat equivalent terms, or sins in the biblical lexicon. In the sense that Shank's changing his tune nowadays without any mea culpa, he's still lying / covering his ass.

Bonus - a Larry Bird reference!

Yaz on Papi - Who Was The Better Hitter?

Now that David 'Big Papi' Ortiz is heading into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Shank asks Carl Yastrzemski a rather pointed question:

With David Ortiz headed into the Hall of Fame, we asked Yaz: Who was the better hitter?

In the 1990s, when Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio made rare public appearances together, DiMaggio would insist on being introduced as “the greatest living ballplayer.”

The gracious Teddy Ballgame never objected and Willie Mays was not asked for his opinion.

I thought of that this week when Carl Yastrzemski returned a call and agreed to spend a few moments talking about David Ortiz, who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday. Like Ted and Yaz, Big Papi was elected in his first year of eligibility.

So, Yaz, what is Ortiz’s place in Red Sox history?

“He was one hell of a hitter, you know?” says Yastrzemski, who turns 83 next month. “One of the best hitters the Red Sox ever had. Probably the only guy that was a better hitter was Ted.”

The David Ortiz Hall Of Fame Column

Or - The One Where Shank Belatedly Recasts His Doubts About Some Players In The Steroid Era:

David Ortiz’s election seems to be another sign of a shift in Hall of Fame voting philosophy

I'll spoil part of the fun - unlike previous years, Shank does not disclose his own 'voting philosophy' this time around. This helps to not explain his own potential 'shift' in voting philosophy.

History was made Tuesday night, as Barry Bonds — one of the top five sluggers who ever lived — and Roger Clemens — one of the top five pitchers who ever lived — were rejected by Baseball Hall of Fame voters for a 10th and final time and will be removed from the baseball writers’ ballot forever. Bonds and Clemens, neither of whom ever failed a drug test, presumably were bounced because both were suspected of PED use in the second half of their careers.

Meanwhile, David Ortiz, one of the great clutch hitters of all time and a certified Boston icon — and a player whose name was on a list of those who did test positive for PEDs (commissioner Rob Manfred later cast doubt about the test, which also fingered Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and Alex Rodriguez) — was elected in his first year of eligibility. Ortiz will be enshrined in Cooperstown, N.Y., July 24.

Welcome to the wild and wacky world of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Everybody loves Big Papi (except for the author of this column! - ed), including a commissioner desperately in need of the good publicity that certainly will accompany the induction of baseball’s Santa Claus. Ortiz is the only PED suspect who ever got a presidential pardon from the commissioner of baseball. But even hard-core Red Sox fans must see that Ortiz’s career curve is curious.

These are the facts: Ortiz’s name and age changed while he was in the minors. In 1996, when Ortiz was traded by the Mariners to the Twins, a Minnesota newspaper reported his weight as 190 pounds.

He was released by the Twins at the age of 27, then blossomed into an elite slugger in Boston in 2003, when the Sox listed him at 230 pounds. The 2003 season was also the year in which Ortiz tested positive for PEDs, according to the New York Times, along with Manny, Sosa, and A-Rod.

If you look at the picture in the Globe article (and others), you'd likely chalk up a lot of the weight gain to the area around his stomach.

Second - it's been pointed out many, many years ago by my co-bloggers Mike B. and David M. that most baseball writers (including Shank) looked the other way during the whole PED / steriod era, not to mention Shank's amply demonstrated hostility towards Ortiz, and it's my contention this retroactive denial of entry to all suspected PED users by these sportswriters is just ass covering. Let the worthy ones in and slap asterisks next to their names, if that's how we move on from this stuff.

DHL Dan CXXXIX - No Longer On The Ortiz Case

Shank updates us on the David ortiz case, which seems like it's going nowhere:

It turns out Ed Davis is no longer on the David Ortiz case, and other picked-up pieces from the sports world

Picked-up pieces while wondering whether Celtics players have chartered a jet so they can fly to Milwaukee to cheer for Kyrie in the next round …

▪ Boston super cop Ed Davis is no longer cracking the case on the two-year-old shooting of David Ortiz in the Dominican Republic. Ortiz hired Davis to get to the bottom of things, but the search proved futile, and according to Davis, the investigation is ongoing in the DR with more than a dozen suspects still in custody.

“I’m just a security guy here, so I don’t want to go off on a tangent,” Davis said Thursday. “The bottom line on it is this: This is a very complicated and still-dangerous situation that we’re looking at. We provided the government down there with important information and there’s still no resolution.

Here's something amusing - Danny Ainge lied to Shank last month:

▪ I had this exchange with Danny Ainge on May 14:

Me: Are you coming back?

Ainge: Of course.

Me: Is [Brad] Stevens coming back?

Ainge: Of course.

After resigning this past Wednesday, Ainge told the Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach that in late March he approached Celtics ownership and told them he did not think he had the energy to continue on the job.

So which is it? Did Ainge know he was leaving back in March, or was this a sudden departure after things fell apart in the first round of the playoffs?

I checked in with Ainge to ask about the timeline discrepancy.

Rest at the link.

DHL Dan CXXII - Next Year's News Today!

In the latest extravaganza of the Picked Up Pieces column, I wasn't quite sure what to expect based on this tweet:

Thanks, Chris https://t.co/Ju8XGZv0i7

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 29, 2021

A few things to point out. Gasper's correct in the sense that being someone's 'foil' can mean 'to prevent something undesireable from succeeding'. That's certainly the case with Schilling, who Shank wanted to put in jail for defaulting on a $75 million loan from the state of Rhode Island. I wouldn't want someone like that as part of the jury pool. Gasper then uses another interesting word to describe part of this column - hilarious'. Unless this is some old inside joke between Globies, does anyone think Shank is funny? Funny how, you may ask? Let's check out the column:

We’re a year away from the wildest Hall of Fame election ever, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while daydreaming about how — in a normal year — my JetBlue flight would be landing in Tampa for Super Bowl Week right about now …

Shank whining about not getting a paid vacation from the Globe to go to Florida for a week? That's not funny. Reading about Shank whining about not getting the free vacation? That's fucking hilarious!

▪ Look for David Ortiz to sail into Cooperstown when the Hall of Fame Class of 2022 is announced at this time next year. Big Papi comes on the ballot for the first time in December, and I believe he’ll easily vault over the 75 percent threshold.

It’s going to be the wildest Hall election ever, which is saying something given events of this past week. Ortiz and Álex Rodríguez are the top achievers among the new candidates in 2022, and they will be on the same ballot with Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Curt Schilling (sorry, Schill, you don’t get to withdraw your name), who’ll all be in their 10th and final year of consideration.

Shank thinks Ortiz is a lock (ditto) but Schilling is not:

▪ I’ve sent Schilling’s 1,200-word Tuesday night screed to multiple geniuses and soothsayers, and nobody seems to be able to decode the thing. Curt keeps telling us he’s not a Hall of Famer but anybody who didn’t vote for him is a coward (Schill should have blamed the BBWAA’s Dominion voting machines).

Schilling says he’ll gladly turn his candidacy over to the Veterans Committee, but a quarter of that committee will be media members, and there might also be a few Hall of Famers curious about Curt’s position papers on Black Lives Matter issues.

Let’s also remember that Schilling went out of his way to bury Clemens and Bonds, which never plays well with ex-players.

Nobody can figure out what Curt’s issue is with the Red Sox (”What Mr. Henry and Mr. Werner did to my family and I in my final year …”). In his final season (2008), the Red Sox paid Schilling $8 million for not throwing a single pitch. By this logic, Curt also must be angry at the taxpayers of Rhode Island for what they did to his family.

▪ Got an e-mail from a Hall of Famer who was not buying Schill’s response or his logic. The thrust of this missive was that Schilling is copping out, taking his ball and going home instead of letting voters who have ruled on the Hall since 1936 make a decision on his candidacy.

Schilling always wanted the ball in the big games, so where is that now? This e-mail from a Hall of Famer doesn’t bode well for Schill’s hope to gain points with the Veterans Committee.

Schilling’s request to be removed from the ballot presents as an attempt to avoid a 10th rejection. He doesn’t make the rules, and the Hall should reject his request.

So if anything was hilarious with this column, it's purely inadvertent. That said, this is a pretty good column.

'Hall' Guys

Today we turn to The CHB's favorite subject -- baseball -- and his favorite punching bags -- baseball players. 

Specifically, yet another Hall of Fame column column on the Hall of Fame. And, ad nauseam, a shot at David Ortiz for NOT being a talented ass like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and countless others who might well miss their opportunity at immortality.

"Big Papi has Hall of Fame numbers and is beloved by the baseball community, especially commissioner Rob Manfred. On the day Ortiz retired in 2016, Manfred flew to Boston and gave him what amounted to a presidential pardon, instructing Hall voters not to trust results of the 2003 baseball drug testing in which Ortiz came up positive."

Thankfully, this is just the lede of one of his lazy man "picked-up pieces" columns, so long-suffering readers need not suffer too long.

As we know, The CHB finds abhorrent any data more complicated than an RBI. So it's strange, but not out of form, that he takes yet another shot at the Red Sox, whose received low marks in a recent fan poll. 

Apparently, the Sox finished tied for last of the five major local pro sports teams (yes, the Revolution were included. Has soccer taken off yet?) for “most admired team for the way they run their organization.” But let's be real: Fans are fickle. The Red Sox had a shit year and people are down on the team. 

To further the point, when asked which team’s ownership has done the best job over the past year, the Celtics jumped 36 percentage points from a year ago, and the Pats fell 44 percentage points. 

These are constantly moving targets, like a Top 40 radio list. It's barely worth a mention, even in a Shaughnessy column.

This is the best part. In the same column where -- frontrunner that he is -- The CHB fetes Theo Epstein, calling him a future Hall of Famer, and credits him for the Sox World Series championship in 2018 (not a typo), he manages to excoriate him for being "a Moneyball, card-carrying member of Bill James Youth." 

So it's no surprise, a few grafs later, when he takes the the Red Sox to task for recruiting the wrong kind of staff: "... qualifications include 'advanced understanding of statistical methods or machine learning techniques, proficiency with modern database technologies including SQL, demonstrated experience with programming languages (e.g. R or Python).' So much for a veteran scout who can tell you when a young hitter has trouble with the curve."

Do you think he noticed that Theo's Bill James Youth methods led to (by Dan's count) three WS winners? 

How'd all those veteran scouts work out for the Red Sox between 1919 and 2003?

About as well as this column does.

DHL Dan XCVI - Curiouser And Curiouser

In today's installment of the Picked up Pieces column from Ft. Myers, Shank touches on a wide range of subjects, including the Summer Olympics, the Beanpot from a few weeks ago, and...

Ah - who am I kidding? Of course Shank keeps beating up on the Red Sox!

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Picked up pieces while wondering if the Red Sox are going to promote “Zakim” and “Tobin” nights at Fenway this summer in honor of their 2020 Bridge Year.

Now that the lame humor's out of the way...

■ Everybody loves Big Papi. He’s Boston Baseball’s Father Christmas. He was a clutch and dominant player, great to fans, and stood up for our city in 2013. All of Boston prayed for him when he was shot in the Dominican Republic in June. It’s great to see him looking healthy. But his first day back in Sox camp last week was not his finest hour.

Ortiz is part of Sox management now and Big Papi has become Big House Man. Now that Ortiz is taking the side of Sox ownership on every issue, are we supposed to forget how he groaned about his contract and disrespect from his bosses almost every year? Ortiz insists that the Mookie trade was a good trade. That the Sox had no choice. Got it.

But when a member of the Red Sox brass (Ortiz is identified as a “special assistant” to Fenway Sports Group in the club directory) calls Mike Fiers a “snitch” while the Boston Red Sox are the subject of an ongoing MLB investigation regarding cheating allegations, it borders on witness intimidation.

Would someone like to tell Shank this isn't a criminal proceeding here? Furthermore, MLB has completed their investigation into the matter, further proof that Shank has no editor between him and the Post / Submit button. Will he go for the triple play?

Truth has never been an enemy of baseball fans. We could have used a little more of it during the steroid era and Ortiz has considerable exposure in this area.

...and there it is. It happened for years right under your fucking nose, dickhead; you and every other Boston Globe baseball guy. Too bad Ortiz didn't kick your ass when he had the chance.

Other than that, it's a decent column!

UPDATE AT 4:50 PM - The Astros investigation has been completed; the one involving the Red Sox is ongoing. Shank's getting cute here by conflating the two (i.e., strongly implying Fiers, who was never a member of the Red Sox, is involved in the current investigation).

Shank Still Hates David Ortiz

...and the (other) organization owned by Shank's boss:

Big Papi now mouthpiece for Sox ownership. https://t.co/xvpV3F8thB

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 31, 2020

NOTE - Meant to post this a few days ago; apologies.

DHL Dan LXXXIV - The Nonbeliever

In his first Picked-Up Pieces column in over six weeks, Shank (and everyone else in the greater Boston area) isn't buying what the authorities in the Dominican Republic are selling:

Picked-up pieces while hearing the sounds of lie detectors exploding from Santo Domingo to Boston . . .

■ While we continue to wish David Ortiz the best as he recovers from being shot almost two weeks ago, the explanation we were given by authorities in the Dominican Republic Wednesday is simply not believable. Seriously.

Mistaken identity? Do the Dominican authorities think we are all stupid? Would Elvis Presley have been mistaken for anyone else if he sat at a cafe in Memphis in the 1960s? Tom Brady on Newbury Street in Boston in 2019?

Many had much to lose if uncomfortable truths were unearthed in this case. So 10 days after the crime, we got this whopper of whoppers. The authorities cracked the case. Wrong guy.

He goes on from there to bitch and moan about the Celtics, NESN, the Bruins and we hear about a few bands from the 1960's. In other words, it's your typical and predictable Shank column.

Oh - and there's this:

■ Wonder if I can be like Brady and patent “Curly-Haired Boyfriend” and “Shank” so that no one else gets it first.

You get right on it, Shank!

This Will Be Good For A Few Shank Columns

One of Shank's targets retired last year, and he'll soon get his own reality show:

If we learned anything about David Ortiz during his 20-year career in Major League Baseball, it was that he like cameras. Ortiz was a media favorite, a staple of local and national advertising, and the guy most likely to run onto the field during the Home Run Derby holding a Gatorade bottle. So it’s no surprise he plans to stay on camera in retirement, even beyond his gig as an analyst on Fox’s postseason baseball coverage.

The cable network Fusion announced Tuesday that it will partner will Ortiz on a new 10-part reality series called “Big Papi Needs a Job,” in which the former slugger tests out professions such as dog groomer, manicurist, and musician in search of a new career.

How about a Boston Globe sports columnist? It can't be any worse than what we have now...

DHL Dan - LVI

Let the second guessing commence!

Picked-up pieces while wondering if there’s anything else we can do to honor David Ortiz . . .

■ Could the Celtics have made potential “fireworks” any more boring? zzz. There HAS to be more. Sorry, I would have done a deal on draft night. I would have kept the No. 1 pick and overpaid the Knicks with all those overrated “assets.” I would have done handstands to bring Kristaps Porzingis to Boston. Or Jimmy Butler. The Celtics need adults, people who have proven they can play in the league. Best of luck to Jayson Tatum, but I’ve got no time for teen angels on training wheels on the parquet floor. The Timberwolves did what the Celtics should have done. They acquired Butler. They already have Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. Now Butler. Minnesota did not make the playoffs this past season, but I’d take the Timberwolves over the current Celtics roster in a seven-game series today.

Give me a team that didn't make the playoffs over the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference? I thought this guy knew basketball; at one time he did.

And in a 'not shocking in the least' manner, Shank's still mad at Big Papi:

■ Can we re-name Boston’s airport? Ortiz Airport sounds way better than Logan Airport.

■ No more Hatch Shell. Let’s make it the Ortiz Shell. And Storrow Drive should be Ortiz Drive.

DHL Dan LV / Let The Whining Commence

The Boston Globe ran a fair but unflattering column on Tom Brady's charity, Best Buddies, in late April of this year. Yesterday this charity held an event and kicked a Boston Globe photographer out of it. Personally speaking, I'd have kicked the son of a bitch down a set of stairs, but that's just me.

Naturally, Shank has a problem with this as he squeezes this latest New England Patriot atrocity into his most recent Picked Up Pieces column:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for the Cleveland Cavaliers to neutralize Kevin Durant and get themselves back into the Finals . . .

■ A thoroughly researched report on the relationship between a local star athlete and his favorite nonprofit charity does not constitute a “hit job.’’ Tom Brady is doing nothing illegal in his high-profile role for Best Buddies International. Brady’s considerable work for Best Buddies generates millions of dollars that the charity would not acquire if not for the currency of Tom’s fame. In exchange for his efforts, Brady — like many celebrities who work with charities — asks that a portion of the proceeds (in this case, $3 million since 2011) be paid toward Brady’s own charitable trust. Some folks are bothered by this. Most Brady fans are not. But let’s not shoot the messenger. It’s called disclosure. That’s what public charities are about. Folks who donate have a right to know where their money is going. Best Buddies does itself no favors by escorting a Globe photographer to his car when he shows up to cover Friday’s Brady Best Buddies event at Harvard Stadium. No credential? Please. A credential has never been requested because Best Buddies annually inundates every media outlet seeking for coverage of the event.

Go read the original Boston Globe column. That distinction I bolded above is not mentioned anywhere in Bob Hohler's article from seven weeks ago. This is why many people correctly perceive this article as a 'hit piece' now that another Boston Globe employee is attempting to blunt its impact by mentioning a very salient fact, and now they're trying to backpedal in a most passive - aggressive manner. I'd also like to point out that, in typical leftist Boston Globe fashion, Bob Hohler constantly mentions Tom Brady's personal wealth as well as citing others doing the same as a cudgel against him, the clear implication being 'why isn't he giving his money away?' I thought David Nyhan retired years ago?

Now for the massively hypocritical part:

There is no indication Brady was aware of this Nixonian maneuver. Nevertheless, it was hostile and petty and put a bad light on a good guy and a great charity.

Translation - Tom Brady very likely had nothing to do with it, but I'm going to devote part of my column to slam him and his charity anyway. Remember this the next time Shank professes not to hold grudges. It's human nature, but don't try to con the rest of us by saying it doesn't affect or influence your writing.

And we all remember another famous time a Boston Globe employee was not invited to an event - it shaded that employee's reporting / columns for over two decades:

What's interesting here is the italicized part above. When the New England Patriots played in their second Super Bowl in 1997, the Patriots threw a party and Shank was not invited. We believe this to be the point where Shank became a lifelong bête noire of the Patriots. If he disliked the Patriots at that point (or, more specifically, owner Robert Kraft), this snub was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Also, as a commenter pointed out a few weeks ago, David Ortiz came out with a book on his career as a member of the Boston Red Sox and said an unflattering thing or two about the CHB. This afternoon, Shank fires back:

■ Ego-maniacal David Ortiz makes himself the hero of all of his stories in his entertaining autobiography “Papi,” written with Michael Holley. He tells us that Grady Little told him that the Sox’ everyday lineup “comes from upstairs.’’ Though he made more than $159 million in salary during his baseball career, Ortiz remembers only the contract slights, calling Theo Epstein “a real [very bad word] when it came to negotiating my contracts,’’ adding . . . “Sometimes I just wanted to shout, ‘Yo! Wake the [expletive] up. I’m the best-paid weapon you have. And I should be’ . . . I was the most underpaid player the organization ever had.’’

Ortiz on the Boston media (read - his Assholiness, Dan Shaughnessy - ed.): “Not every player wants a [expletive] in his face every single day, asking why he’s struggling. I can put up with the pressure and the doubt because that’s been my whole life, but some players don’t want the hassle of Boston when the game itself is hard enough.’’

Papi has never forgiven Terry Francona for pinch hitting for him in Toronto in April 2010. He claims Tito made a last-second decision and disrespected him. Here’s what Francona said in his book (co-authored by yours truly): “Everybody on the bench knew what was going on. There wasn’t a lot of sympathy for David because he didn’t look. We had that policy the whole time I was there. If we’re going to pinch hit for somebody, we’d ask ’em to just give us a look before going up to hit . . . everybody saw us tell David that night in Toronto, and everybody knew Mikey [Lowell] was ready to hit.’’ I was honored to be mentioned on page 193 when Ortiz wrote, “Shaughnessy was crushing me and that [very bad word] still walks around like he owns the team.’’

It's really amusing to note Shank's jihad against the New England Patriots for two decades because of a perceived / actual slight, only to have Shank criticize Ortiz for the same thing and try to squelch his response because he made $159 million, as though that's supposed to be the price of silence on the recipient's part.

Also fun to note - Shank criticizing Ortiz for having Michael Holley help him write a book... so why didn't Terry Francona write his book by himself?

This website exists because of the Richter scale hypocrisy and world-class bullshit of people like Shank.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

If anyone doubts Shank's disdain / hatred for David Ortiz isn't real or doesn't exist, this ought to remove that doubt:

Listen for yourself. First fucking sentence from the racist Red Sox Globe "Hallof Famer." https://t.co/j4mi6LPb3C

— Patriots SB52 (@PatriotsSB49) May 16, 2017

Unfortunately, the audio is on iTunes, which I refuse to use now. It's already installed on my computer, yet every time I go to run one of these links, I'm prompted to re-install iTunes. I simply refuse to run any more crapware than I have to.

Back to our subject - you can tell this is 'irrational hatred', to borrow a phrase, for one reason - most rational people would give a non-native English speaker / writer a break in a matter like this one. Back in college I once had to do an oral exam in German on a subject of my choosing, no cheat sheets. Being the cocky little prick I was back in those days, I chose the subject of my final statistics project, the US dollar / German deutsche mark exchange rate. I wound up having to learn at least fifty new words for this exam, the overwhelming majority of them I know I screwed up. In any event, this lack of respect for the English skills from a non-native English speaker is reprehensible coming from a mamember of the media, who ought to know better.

Papi Don't Preach

Reader Melissa H. sends along a note about David Ortiz's recently released book:

Heh, see the snipe at CHB in the review of David Ortiz's new book? :)

Before we get to that, let's take a peek at the beginning of the column:

The first page of the introduction to “Papi’’ summarizes the significance of David Ortiz, according to David Ortiz. He says he would one day “accumulate more home runs, hits, runs scored, and runs batted in than any DH in history.” Beyond that, “I cursed terrorists and spoke up for freedom without fear.”

Thus runs Ortiz’s freewheeling, insider memoir, written with the help of longtime sports journalist and radio personality Michael Holley. Two warnings: Those who prefer their profanities out of earshot might consider covering their eyes through parts of this book and those looking for a salacious tell-all will be disappointed.

Now, then - what kind of a beta male pansy would get his knickers in a twist over a few F-bombs?

Bill Littlefield hosts NPR’s “Only A Game” on WBUR. His most recent book is “Take Me Out” from Zephyr Press.

Oh, an NPR / WBUR kind of pansy / snob!

Anyway, let's get back to some Shank bashing!

It’s no surprise that Ortiz resents the sportswriters who asked him about performance-enhancing drugs (which he vehemently denies ever using), particularly the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy, “that [expletive] still walks around like he owns the team.”

There may be more to Papi's criticism of Shank; since this clown Littlefield's writing for the Globe, that's all we'll get for now on any criticism of a Globe employee.

All Worn Out from PEDs

The CHB thinks it might be high time baseball Hall of Fame voters put the whole steroids issue to rest.

In the hands of a skilled journalist, it's a fair question. But Shank is no skilled journalist.

As such, he can't actually address the real question. Instead, he resorts to the usual trinity of whispers, innuendos and lies, such as Jeff Bagwell is suspect because he got bigger as he got older. (As if that never happened before. Ever seen Tony Gwynn?)

But at least the white guys get some benefit of the doubt. (Was there seriously any question about Rogers Clemens using? His best friend testified under oath that he shot him up.) He falls back on his cliched racial denigrations (Sammy Sosa "played the language-barrier card before Congress," as if being Dominican is the same as growing up in Groton).

But why the change of heart? I have to think it has something to do with this guy:

Curt Schilling has, in the minds of many Hall voters, gone a step too far when he retweeted a photo of a guy in a shirt that read "Rope. Tree. Journalist." Shank and his ilk were all over talk radio saying this was the last straw, and that Schilling was welcome to shit all over any politician he pleased as and waste millions of dollars of the public's money long as he didn't wish ill on the Fourth Estate.

To that end, Shank's take is that Schilling's latest volley pushes him out of Hall consideration because of the so-called "character clause." Here's what the Hall actually says about voting:

Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon, or even a sports journalist, to recognize that character stops when the player retires. There's nothing in the clause that indicates that an ex-player who, for instance, gets busted drunk driving, as Carlton Fisk did, should be kicked out. Heck, Tony LaRussa got busted several times and they still voted him in. Is retweeting a bad joke honestly worse than getting behind the wheel of a 2-ton vehicle after a night of scotch ("I love scotch. Scotchy scotch scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly")?

So what about Shank's character? What about a guy who called David Ortiz, perhaps the most important athlete in the history of Boston sports ever, a "sad sack of you know what?" What about years of racist spitting and sputtering against every black and Hispanic athlete to cross 128? That didn't seem to stop him from accepting the Spink (or should that be Pink?) Award for baseball writing.

Big Papi is ultimately why The CHB wrote this column. Because in five years, he will have to decide whether to vote in Big Papi. Shank thinks Papi is a fraud. But if anyone can spot a fraud, it's a fraud.

Oh and Shank, if voting for the Hall is truly the "most volatile and toxic thing we do all year," there's always a remedy: Quit.

The Obligatory Shit On The Sox Column

I'm willing to bet he was writing this column in the fourth inning.

The fall of the 2016 Red Sox is complete. The Sox were the feel-good story of our summer, but it seems that it all went away when they held their division-clinching toga party in the Bronx after an embarrassing 5-3 walkoff loss at Yankee Stadium Sept. 28.

Since this is Shank, someone needs to be blamed and run out of town. Any guesses?

The Red Sox rightfully won the American League East, sweeping through Baltimore and Tampa, winning 11 straight games during the most critical stretch of September. And then everything stopped. A day after clinching, manager John Farrell “rested” Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts and pulled David Ortiz after a couple of at-bats, triggering a losing pattern that carried straight through the playoffs. The Sox lost their way during an interminable series of heartfelt sendoffs for David Ortiz and had nothing left when the championship tournament started last week.
...
The ignominious sweep no doubt will crank up the “Fire Farrell” bandwagon that rolled across New England for much of the spring and summer.

A paragraph later, Shank has a moment of clarity:

It’s certainly not Farrell’s fault that Rick Porcello and David Price spit the bit in their starts in Cleveland. It’s not Farrell’s fault that the Sox — who led the majors with 878 runs — scored seven runs in three games and hit .214 in this series. A team that went 20-24 in one-run games during the regular season lost two more one-run games in the playoffs.

The Big Finish

Instead of shitting on the New England patriots for losing to the Buffalo Bills, Shank devotes his latest column to Big Papi, playing his last regular season game for the Red Sox.

It was not Teddy Ballgame hitting a home run in his final big league plate appearance.

It was not even Yaz popping up to the second baseman in his final at-bat after 23 seasons in 1983.

David Ortiz played his last regular-season game for the Red Sox Sunday. He went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts as the Red Sox lost to the Blue Jays, 2-1, and whizzed away home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs against Cleveland.

You'll see a lot of that 'get off my lawn' tone throughout the column, which makes it worth not reading.

Big Papi Farewell Tour - The Shank Podcast

Boston Globies Alex Speier and Shank do a podcast about David Ortiz, including some of Shank's 'controversial' questions and interviews. It clocks in at 20 minutes.