Getting Right On The Story

Reader Walter R. sent me this early in the afternoon:

Should I be impressed/disappointed that it took our hero nearly 3 weeks after the fact for Dan to write the inevtiable Lonborg/Brady skiing story?

Get ready for a whole summer of 1967 references.

And sure enough:

Hey Tom Brady, skiing can be a slippery slope

He does have a firm grasp of the obvious!

By now every Patriots fan has seen Tom Brady’s verified Instagram video of a skier, perhaps Brady, crash landing while attempting a ski jump in Montana a couple of weeks ago. On Instagram, Brady got into a short exchange with David Beckham in which he told the soccer star, “Hahaha yeah all good just my left shoulder which isn’t very important to me anyway.’’

Swell. But spending any part of the offseason in a sling is no way for a Super Bowl MVP to enjoy down time. Here’s a little advice for Brady from Jim Lonborg, the former Red Sox Cy Young ace who blew out his knee on the slopes and was never the same pitcher after his breakthrough 22-win season in 1967:

“It’s OK to ski as long as you don’t get hurt.

You don't say?

Let's skip to the amusing / hypocritical part:

Far be it from me to tell Brady what to do in his free time...

So, he devotes a whole column to it! Think he's still pissed about the Patriots winning the Super Bowl? Don't take it from me - take it from the commenters:

linniel03/08/17 03:08 PM

Notice how he always has to get a dig in at a Patriots.."Brady's PAID Weei gig", was that really necessary!

buttfumble03/08/17 03:17 PM

Danny, do you get paid for your radio gig? Never mind, nobody cares. How's your Super Bowl headache? How bout a vacation in Atlanta to get over it?

MCH823195003/08/17 06:19 PM

Since Shank can trash Trump every day he goes after anything Brady or Pats. This is a real stretch Shamk,!but it keeps your Pats trashing streak alive

Jim Lonborg

There's a charity baseball game tomorrow night in Cambridge featuring former Red Sox pitching great Jim Lonborg, so Shank gets a column out of it.

Twenty-two-year-old Tim Kurkjian had a chance to bat against 61-year-old Bob Feller back in the summer of 1979. Kurkjian, now a popular baseball analyst with ESPN, was then a cub reporter covering the Alexandria Dukes for the Washington Star.

On that fateful night 36 years ago, media members were invited to hit against Feller, an aging Hall of Famer who was forever making a buck barnstroming across the USA.

“It was amazing,’’ recalls Kurkjian. “Bob Feller was my dad’s hero. He was one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived. And there I was, standing in the batter’s box, hitting against him in this pregame exhibition.

“He wasn’t throwing very hard. He was 61 years old! So I got a couple of hits.

“When it was over, they gave me a certificate with my name on it, which had some large print at the bottom. It said something like, ‘The aforementioned slugger acknowledges that if he had faced Bob Feller in his prime, the results might have been different.’ No kidding! I’m sure I would have lit him up when he was throwing 101 miles an hour in 1940!’’

All of which brings us to Jim Lonborg, a 73-year-old South Shore dentist who will be toeing the rubber for charity at St. Peter’s Field in Cambridge on Thursday at 7 p.m.