The Priesthood

Here's an interesting column by Shank:

The Celtics draft pick who chose the priesthood over the NBA

WORCESTER — Earle Markey was Holy Cross’s basketball captain after Bob Cousy, before Tommy Heinsohn. He was a 1,000-point-scoring guard and an honorable mention Associated Press All-American. In his final game with the Crusaders, he battled future NBA legend Bob Pettit, scoring 16 points in an 81-73 Elite Eight loss in the NCAA Tournament.

A few weeks after that game, Markey was selected by Celtics general manager/coach Red Auerbach in the fourth round of the 1953 NBA draft.

But he never gave pro ball a shot.

Instead, Markey became a Jesuit priest.

“I didn’t have knowledge of whether Earle wanted to just save the team or save the world,” Cousy said this week from his Worcester home. “But he was clearly impacted by the Jesuit experience at Holy Cross.”

In The Air Tonight

Shank gets the warm & fuzzies for a renewed college football 'rivlary':

Nostalgia will be in the air as Holy Cross takes on Boston College in football again

Nobody loves tradition and nostalgia more than yours truly.

I have scrapbooks with every story from when I covered the BNBL for the Globe in the 1970s. I see photos of myself from the ‘90s and realize those old shirts are still in my closet. I long for “The Ed Sullivan Show” Sunday nights on CBS at 8 p.m.

Trust me when I tell you that I know and love the old Boston College-Holy Cross football rivalry.

My dad went to BC with Tip O’Neill, Class of ‘36. When I applied to Holy Cross in 1970, the application asked, “How did you first hear of Holy Cross?” The answer was, “As the son of a BC grad, I have been aware of Holy Cross since my earliest days.”

But it may be time to pray for My Old School. The Crusaders, national contenders in the Football Championship Subdivision, are playing at BC Saturday and there’s concern that it won’t be competitive. The former rivals — who have taken separate paths athletically — have played only once since 1986, and that was a 62-14 BC rout five years ago.

I'm not able to get a point spread from the normal betting sites as of this writing but I'm sure it'll be something in the range of four touchdowns, maybe more. It stands to reason this series was stopped because of the lopsided nature of the last bunch of the games, and a 62-14 loss more than qualifies.

Getting His (Jack The) Shot Off

Now that the unpleasant visual's out of the way, Shank tells a nice story about a Holy Cross / Boston Celtics basketball player who wasn't long for the latter:

Holy Cross legend Jack ‘The Shot’ Foley was aptly nicknamed

Jack “The Shot” Foley was a legend much longer than he was a basketball player.

Jack The Shot died of Parkinson’s disease Sunday in Barre at the age of 81.

Foley was raised in Worcester and set scoring records at Assumption Prep and Holy Cross. A skinny 6-foot-3-inch leaper, Jack The Shot was so good that Red Auerbach picked him in the second round of the 1962 NBA Draft, one round after selecting a kid from Ohio State named John Havlicek.

Bob Cousy, another Holy Cross man, was in the final year of his Hall of Fame career when Jack The Shot reported for duty with the world champion Celtics in December of 1962 (fulfillment of a Coast Guard obligation delayed Foley’s arrival in Boston). Cooz and fellow Crusader Tommy Heinsohn were happy to have another Cross man in the fold, but it was clear that Jack The Shot’s single skill would not be enough in the NBA.

Holy Shit

Looks like the lefties and so-called social justice warriors continue their attempts to rewrite history.

The issue is this: In the eyes of some, the Crusader nickname is offensive to non-Christians. Some folks see it as a symbol of slaughters during the 11th century Holy Wars between the Christians and Muslims. Others would argue that a Crusader is simply someone who is fighting for a cause. Webster’s dictionary uses both definitions.

First - so what if a mere name is 'offensive' to someone else? Has a crime been committed, like shouting 'Fire!' in a theatre? In this country we have a First Amendment which implies a right to offend, as Frank Zappa used to note with a label on some of his album covers. The first time I encountered this notion of 'being offended' was in 1993, working a temp. job for Massport. Something happened (I can't remember the contents of the conversation), and one of the weenies I was working with said 'I find that offensive'. I shot him a 'are you serious?' look and walked away, never thinking that this notion would be used in the ensuing decades to effectively curtail speech. In fact, I will amplify my own speech if it offends someone or some people I don't like just to spite them, much like I have been doing with this blog for eight years now with respect to Dan Shaughnessy.

Second, anyone bothering to research the issue for more than five minutes would realize the Crusades began "in response to centuries of Muslim wars of expansion. Their objectives were to check the spread of Islam, to retake control of the Holy Land in the eastern Mediterranean, to conquer pagan areas, and to recapture formerly Christian territories; they were seen by many of their participants as a means of redemption and expiation for sins". I say this as an avowed atheist, who shouldn't give two flying fucks about two groups who go to war with each other over whose book is holier than the other's book. My primary objection is to rewriting and ignoring history by the unwashed hordes of rock dumb Americans who grew up reading Chomsky and Zinn thinking this country is irredeemably racist, sexist, homophobic and bigoted, filled with descendants of slaveholders, Southern rednecks who love NASCAR and pig roasts, and 'climate change' deniers. They can all go jump into Boston Harbor, preferably in a few more weeks during a 'Noreaster.

Third, my high school, Manchester Memorial High School, is nicknamed - you guessed it! - The Crusaders. At least they haven't folded, yet.

This is a tricky issue in this day and age. I live in a town famous for having elementary school kids engage in a recess “tug-of-peace” because “tug-of-war” is too aggressive.

Students writing for the Holy Cross newspaper recently stated, “Why would we not consider changing something that takes away from the experience of our community, even if it is just a single person who takes issue?’’

Many institutions have gone down this path in the last 40 years. The Dartmouth Indians became the Big Green. The St. John’s Redmen became the Red Storm. The UMass Redmen became the Minutemen. The Washington Bullets became the Wizards. The Washington Redskins argument is never going away, and we can all pretty much agree that the Cleveland Indians’ hideous Chief Wahoo is racist — even though everybody in Cleveland seems to love the goofy little guy.

I am not in agreement with the notion that “if one person is offended, we should change things.’’ That’s a black hole from which we can never be rescued. But there’s certainly validity in the opinion that “Crusader” is offensive to some.
...
I know where most of my friends and Holy Cross classmates stand on this. They don’t want to change. And when I ran into Tommy Heinsohn at the Garden last weekend, it was no surprise to hear Tommy’s outrage about the suggestion.

“It’s nonsense,’’ said the Celtics legend (Holy Cross, 1956). “Political correctness. Gimme a break.

So you have two choices - bend over for a bunch of whining, poorly read leftist zombies every time the pacifier falls from their mouth, or tell them in no uncertain terms to go fuck themselves, for the reasons noted above.

Holy Cross - Fin

Holy Cross played their real NCAA tournament game early Friday evening against #1 seed Oregon. By real, I mean this - the 68 to 64 games played before Thursday's and tonight's meaningful games can be successfully argued as bullshit games, given their recent contrivance designed to get a few extra games on the tele and increase those all important revenue numbers that the Boston Globe wishes it had. And yes, they got smoked, badly. Point spreads between #1 and #16 seeds are usually in the 30 point range and they couldn't even cover that. Shank, as of this writing, didn't even bother to tweet anything like 'good going, HC' even if it wouldn't have been entirely convincing.

Hope Shank's keeping up on current events, because we are!

Holy Cross - II

The NCAA men's basketball tournament started this week. Since 2011, there have been 68 teams invited to the tournament. The bottom eight teams played on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Shank's alma mater was one of the winners:

We are Holy Cross yahoos. We are Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Ronnie Perry, Clarence Thomas, Ted Wells, John Morris, Eddie Jenkins, Gordie Lockbaum, Dick Berardino, Chris Matthews, John Provost, Mark Shriver, Clark Booth, Bill Simmons, and Nick Lovullo.

Me, too.

We are proud progeny of the oldest Jesuit school in New England (1843) and there was a time when we were a national NCAA sports power. That day has passed. So it is a big deal when a Holy Cross team makes a mark on the national sports landscape.

Holy Cross will now get slaughtered by play #1 seed Oregon on Friday night. Expect another column extolling the virtues of an old Jesuit school, or something.

UPDATE AT 1:45 PM - Isn't it interesting that Shank's been deriding Boston sports fans for years for being 'yahoos', but now it's okay as long as you're on the Holy Cross bandwagon? Thanks for the ammo, Shank!

Holy Cross

Since Shank's alma mater is in the NCAA basketball tournament, we are spared the pain of a picked up pieces column and get a halfway decent and completely predictable column instead.

If you remember the golden days of Holy Cross sports, you also remember the Korean War, iceboxes, the Army-McCarthy hearings, and the Boston Braves. You have qualified for Medicare and you can withdraw from your 401K without penalty.

I'm sure my grandfather does...

DHL Dan - XXIX

Yes, that number does seem pretty low, doesn't it?

In any event, I started wondering if Shank and the Patriots being off this week was a coincidence. How did I misjudge Shank's dedication to his craft?

Picked-up pieces while wondering whether this is the year Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis (0-6) finally wins a playoff game.

That would be no...

■ Lots of boo-hoo “why did they pick on Tom Brady and let Peyton Manning off the hook?” programming on the numerous 24-7 Patriot propaganda radio shows this week.

When a reporter (among many others) shows one standard for a quarterback accused of deflating footballs (hang 'em high!) and then readily admits bias in dismissing the more serious charges of HGH use by another quarterback, it's not 'boo-hooing'. It's calling into question a serious charge of media bias, a concept Shank should be quite familiar with.

■ I’m taking the Bengals, Chiefs, Seahawks, and Packers this weekend. But I’m the same guy who thought the Patriots would actually try, and therefore demolish, the Dolphins last weekend.

So take the Steelers, Texans, Vikings and the Redskins, everybody!

Larry Bird sighting? You betcha!

■ LeBron James just turned 31 (Dec. 30, same birthday as Sandy Koufax and Tiger Woods) and has already played more career minutes than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

■ Nomar Garciaparra got eight Hall of Fame votes out of 440. He’s officially off the ballot. Think of what could have been. This man hit .372 and .357 as a righthanded batter in the American League. One year, he knocked in 98 runs batting leadoff. He was on his way to Cooperstown.

"Hey, Nomar - remember when we were best buddies? Good times, man!

■ When Kevin Garnett came through town with the T-Wolves last month, there was a lot of buzz about KG getting his Celtics number (5) retired. Danny Ainge is among those who thinks this is a good idea.

We all know Garnett is the one who changed everything in 2007-08 when the Celtics won their 17th championship. Still, I’m a tad reluctant on this one. Garnett played only six seasons here.

The best case for KG is Dennis Johnson, who played only seven seasons in Boston but got his number retired with no debate. DJ won two championships with the Green but certainly never had the impact Garnett did.

KG was instrumental in the Celtics winning that championship - retire his number.

This blogger is with Shank on this one - shitting on Rick Pitino!

■ Ranting about coverage of sex parties at his basketball players’ dormitory, Louisville coach Rick Pitino acknowledged, “Did one person do some scurrilous things? I believe so . . . For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. He knew better and was taught better by his parents and me.’’ Pitino is on slippery ground on this one. He’s the same guy who admitted to police that he had sex with a woman (who later tried to extort him) in a Louisville restaurant in 2003.

In case you were wondering, Shank still hates numbers:

■ Just when you think the Cleveland Browns can’t be any dumber, they hire a baseball analytics guy to rescue the franchise. Paul DePodesta is the Harvard guy portrayed by Jonah Hill in “Moneyball.’’ Clevelanders are hoping his skill set translates to football. What are the football equivalents of WAR, OPS, UZR, and high-leverage innings?

One of the few times Shank gets to hype his alma mater:

■ Former Holy Cross basketball star Bob Kissane, who played in Europe many years ago, suggests the NBA consider a rule that would allow the fouled team to take the ball and restart the shot clock instead of automatically going to the free throw line.

Lame bands from fifty years ago? We got you covered!

■ Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Brian Wilson (his cousin Mike Love is Kevin Love’s uncle) had his own version of Alex Guerrero back in the day. The fellow’s name was Dr. Gene Landy. Look him up sometime.

And what column is truly complete without a little more Boston Globe bashing?

■ The one and only good thing to come out of the Globe’s home-delivery nightmare is the reinforcement that a lot of you folks still care about your printed hometown newspaper and still consider it part of your daily routine. Thank you. We will do better.

Dwindling circulation numbers and ad revenue coupled with increased prices and reduced content - it's a bargain!

Tommy Points

Shank has a very good column on longtime Boston Celtic Tommy Heinsohn.

You know him as the color man on Celtics television broadcasts. You know him as Fred Flintstone barking about referees. You know him as a booming, opinionated guy who loves the Celtics and has no use for the lugs running up and down the floor in visitors uniforms.

He is Tommy Heinsohn, Mr. Celtics, an institution on Causeway Street.

What too many of you don’t know is that Heinsohn was one of the greatest Celtics of all time, and that he coached more Celtic seasons than any man other than Red Auerbach. In one way or another, Heinsohn has been part of the Celtics for 57 years.

He played when Johnny Most honked for the Celtics. And now he has become a hulking, ex-jock version of Most. Heinsohn is the ultimate homer and we love him for it. But there is so much more about him that you need to know.

Holy Crap

What a sad state of affairs it is when the former president of Holy Cross dies and one of the alumni interviewed to eulogize him is Dan Shaughnessy.

What a sadder state it is when Shaughnessy touts his "smart, dignified, Christian presence.” This, remember, is the same guy who called David Ortiz a "sad sack of you-know-what" for no apparent reason other than he had signed as a free agent with the Red Sox.

Maybe The CHB had a premonition that Ortiz would someday lead the Red Sox to the Promised Land, thus destroying the "Curse of the Babe" cottage industry Shank had spent (wasted?) his career building up.

What? No Blue Christmas?

Not content to write yet another meandering picked up pieces column, he even manages to choose weak Christmas music:

Picked up pieces while listening to Mitch Miller Christmas carols . . .

How can you not pick The King?

What follows from the dreadful opening sentence is the fruitcake of sports opinion columns. Feel free to regift this one!

Who Cares About College Football?

According to Shank, it's not us. Although college football was "practically invented in the northeast", Shank assures us that we are a professional sports town. It's not the first time Shank has expressed such an opinion (I'm unable to locate previous articles stating this sentiment with respect to college football), and Shank also throws in the seeming disinterest in local college basketball and hockey to bolster this argument.

While it may be difficult to actually gauge or quantify levels of interest between college and pro sports in this neck of the woods, Shank provides many examples of the past popularity of college football (roughly dating from 1920 to the Flutie-era BC Eagle football teams) and the more recent dearth of college sports coverage in print and radio. It's likely that shift is attributable in part or in whole to the likes of Yaz, Orr, Bird & Brady. I don't agree with him on the John Calipari era UMass teams, probably because this is where I started following college basketball. While I follow college and pro sports (currently half-watching the Navy - Maryland football game), I think there are more occasions where the pro games (of all types) seem to be bigger events, and perhaps more numerous, than their college counterparts. For example, (end of September - early October) even with the Red Sox out of playoff contention, the Red Sox - Yankees series will always draw like a magnet, or the Patriots playing a division rival. To quote Shank,

That's just the way it goes. We are a professional sports town.

A reasonable statement; I'm just not entirely convinced.

Pick Up The Pieces

Maybe the recent string of 90+ degree days in the Boston area has something to do with it, but Shank trots out another edition of the Picked Up Pieces column, normally a disjointed pile of rambling twaddle with a few interesting nuggets thrown in so as to prevent us from shaking our heads throughout the entire column. This month's edition is no different, and, practically in midseason form, starts off with Take A Dump On Bob Kraft Day:

The once-great Channel 4 has officially sold its news soul to the New England Patriots. “All Access’’ is one thing, and here on Morrissey Boulevard we are compromised because of the awkward New York Times 17 percent stake in the Red Sox (hence, our court-mandated NESN appearances). But WBZ-TV has officially morphed into a 24/7 Patriot infomercial for Bob Kraft enterprises. These preseason home broadcasts have become outright ridiculous. Channel 4 feeds us nonstop promotions on the owner, Patriot Place, and the CBS Scene.

For the Rams game, Kraft insisted that the “talent’’ wear red shirts with Patriot logos. This was done in the interest of promoting the Patriot “brand.’’ Affable Steve Burton plays along, calling the diminutive Kraft “Mr. Big.’’ What’s next for Burton and Dan Roche — propeller beanies with Flying Elvises and Pat Patriots? Pom-poms, megaphones, and Patriot letter sweaters?

It’s one thing to insist that broadcasters spread the gospel of the team, but when you make them wear team garb, you’re telling the world that the station is in the bag. “All Access’’ becomes All Suck-Up. The station can’t be trusted to report anything real or remotely negative about the team. Channel 4 is deeper in the tank with the Patriots than WEEI is — no small achievement.

I wonder what's worse - a TV station that has a pro-Patriots reporting slant, or a Globe sports columnist who criticizes a Red Sox player by stating

"Ellsbury has played only nine games all season and is clearly at odds with the Sox management, medical staff and teammates. And he's getting carved up on Boston's sports talk programs."

...who fails to disclose the fact that he's one of the carvees? You make the call!

P.S. Hey, Danny Boy, you gonna watch Tiger Woods take a leak this weekend?

Overlooked No Longer

In today's column Shank profiles Dominic Randolph, a Division 1-AA senior quarterback with hopes of being drafted by the NFL. Since Dominic plays at Shank's alma mater (Holy Cross), we get a pretty good column out of it.

Almost without exception, any Shank column that is not about professional sports or athletes is far better than, for example, this one, or this one. Has Shank found his niche?

Shank Logic: New England Only Extends to Rt. 128

Dan's in Minneapolis ostensibly to cover the Boston College Eagles' post-season efforts in the NCAA tournament (one-and-out, as it turns out).

Since his March 20th piece wasn't time stamped, there's no telling when Dan filed his column, but it wasn't posted to Boston.com Friday morning ... or maybe the Globe techies collectively lurking in their mothers' basements figured out a way to prevent me from accessing it in a timely manner here in Atlanta.

Be that as it may, Dan returns to his hackneyed ways with a trip down memory lane, invoking a variety of cultural icons and limiting the boundaries of New England to the 128 beltway. Then, in inimitable Shank fashion, he contradicts the basic premise of his story and proceeds to briefly outline the March Madness experiences of other men's hoop programs that -- technically, I guess -- exist in other parts of New England.

He begins, "Without the Eagles, New England would not be involved in an annual nationwide sports festival that has grown to monstrous proportions."

Huh?

After invoking the names of Forrest Gump and his sidekick, Bubba, he then morphs into extolling the tourney's popularity by trotting out "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars," mentions the president (of the U.S., not of BC), and lamented the fact that "nobody noticed" BC's No. 2 ranking in college football in 2007, because we all were hung over from the Red Sox World Series victory and caught up in the Patriots' march to 18-0.

Writes Dan, "New England's history in the NCAA basketball tourney is ancient and rare." Uh, last time I checked, Connecticut is actually considered a New England state ... and I seem to recall a couple of latter day NCAA championships trolled in by the UConn men from Storrs.

Combine that minor fact with this next Dannism, "This is BC's 10th NCAA Tournament appearance since 1994." Hardly ancient history, Danny Boy.

The Shankster also delivers this gem, "As every Worcester schoolchild knows, Holy Cross won the thing back in the day when Bob Cousy was a freshman on Mount St. James (1947)." Dan, perhaps you spent four years at Holy Cross, but you obviously never ventured off campus. Having spent the bulk of the Eighties living and working in Worcester, I know that 99 percent of the schoolchildren in that city only know that the Holy Cross campus is just on the other side of I-290. Trust me, the Crusaders' foray into the stratospheric regions of the NCAA tournament in the late 1940s isn't a staple of the Worcester school system.

So, what are we left with? Just another meandering column that Dan slapped together without doing any footwork. In other words, back to one of the trickster's basic templates. And they pay him to do this. Shame, shame.