DHL Dan CCIV - The Larry Lucchino Column

Former Red Sox general manager Larry Lucchino passed away earlier this week. Shank's here to deliver the eulogy:

Boston baseball was well served by Larry Lucchino, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while pondering the life and times of Larry Lucchino …

▪ He was the last of a kind — a personable, hard-charging baseball executive who demanded results, never suffered fools, and most of the time made things better for fans. He should be in Cooperstown simply for Camden Yards (which changed everything about the fan experience in every ballpark built after 1993), and he could have been commissioner of baseball, but Boston was best served because Lucchino ran the Red Sox from 2002-15.

The Sox haven’t been the same since he “retired,” and you can be sure Lucchino wouldn’t have tolerated the “let the fans eat cake” message ownership delivered in the recent non-full-throttle offseason.

Larry Lucchino. Think Harry Sinden with a law degree. Think Red Auerbach brawling with NBA owners at Board of Governors meetings. Think Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard in “The Fugitive.”

High praise indeed!

It's clear Shank 'sampled' many of his previous columns about Lucchino, and I'm still amused by his use of 'the Nixon White House' when the first thing Shank ever said to me was whether I was recording the phone call. I'll give him some credit for briefly mentioning the conflict / falling out he eventually had with Lucchino and didn't completely duck any of the bad stuff, unlike his shameless Bill Buckner eulogy.

The Larry Lucchino Column

Shank wraps up what he refers to as the three day ownership blitz with a column about longtime nemesis über-GM Larry Lucchino.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Red Sox ownership completed its three-day media blitz at JetBlue Park Friday with Larry Lucchino playing the role of closer.

Asked about his Yankee enemies, Larry said, “I can’t say I wish them well.’’ He also playfully suggested that 79-year-old Bud Selig is not really going to retire, admitted baseball needs to speed up its games, and expressed delight with Jon Lester’s willingness to take a hometown discount.

It was the complete opposite of Lucchino’s introductory press conference last year when Larry morphed into Jack Nicholson playing Colonel Nathan Jessup on the witness stand in “A Few Good Men.’’

No one could handle the truth.

Remember last year? On Valentine’s Day, 2013, Lucchino faced the firing squad that assembled in Fort Myers to demand an explanation for the Red Sox’ worst season in 47 years. That was the day Larry admitted that the Sox’ phony sellout streak would officially end early in the 2013 season. Never smiling, snapping off a couple of terse “no comments,” Lucchino said, “we sense the frustration fans feel . . . maybe to everybody we have something to prove . . . We’re just scrappy underdogs trying to win for our franchise and fans.’’

A firing squad that included Our Man Shank:

Lucchino claimed he has not read the new book by former Red Sox manager Terry Francona and Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy. "Francona, the Red Sox Years" has several unflattering references to Lucchino and his style of management.

"I haven't [read the book]. I know some people find that hard to believe. But it seems logical to me. I want to look forward, not back," he said. "I'm afraid if I do read it, I will find in it inaccuracies and things that will cause me to react to it in a way that would divert me and cause some kind of sideshow instead of dealing with the here and now. It seems perfectly logical to me not to read it. I don't feel any great compulsion to. I may get around to it sooner or later."

However Lucchino gave a terse "no comment" to two questions posed by Shaughnessy during his 31-minute press conference. He then answered the exact same questions posed by other reporters.

If Shank puckers his lips anymore, he's going to look like a blowfish.

Shank's Half-Assed Non-Apology

I'm not sure the word 'apology' is fitting here, but Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino flipped Shank off in yesterday's sitdown with reporters in Fort Myers (two posts down from this one). With many years, numerous negative columns and gallons of bad blood bewtween them, Shank's current column pretends to like Larry Luccino.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — How much do I love Larry Lucchino? Let me count the ways. I may not be able to come up with 100, but there’s a lot to love about the Red Sox CEO.

■ He played basketball at Princeton with Bill Bradley.

■ He built Camden Yards, the ballpark that changed everything about the way ballparks are built over the last two decades.

■ The late George Steinbrenner hated Lucchino.

■ It was Lucchino who oversaw the spectacular renovation of Fenway Park.

■ Lucchino dated Maria Shriver.

■ Larry changed the Culture Of No at Fenway Park. He came to Boston in 2001 and announced that the Red Sox were “in the Yes Business.’’

■ Larry was a star baseball player at Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh. It’s the same high school that produced Curtis Martin.

■ Lucchino is the only man on the planet with a Final Four ring, a Super Bowl ring, and a World Series ring.

The last point is where Shank gives the game away:

■ In Earl Weaver style, Lucchino loves a good argument, has thick skin, and doesn’t take things personally.

I think the logical conclusion here is this column is just Shank saying, 'Back at ya, Larry!'

The One Where Shank Pretends To Like Larry Lucchino

Shank follows up on yesterday's column sand says lots of nice things about Larry Lucchino.

First it was Tito, Theo, and the Trio. There was a lot of arguing and pushback in the Red Sox front office for eight years while the ball club averaged 93 wins per season, made the playoffs five times, and won two World Series.

Then it was just the Trio, and some company men. There was less dissent at the top. The Sox won another World Series but are headed toward their third last-place finish in four seasons.

Now it’ll just be John Henry and Tom Werner, running things their way, surrounded by loyal, hard-working subordinates eager to please the bosses.

Larry Lucchino was a boss. He had credentials, winning a World Series with the Orioles, taking the Padres to the World Series, and building a couple of spectacular ballparks. According to Henry, Lucchino was the man who “runs the Red Sox.’’ Most of the time, Lucchino ran it quite well, but he’s had less input in recent seasons and now the Sox will move forward without him at the top of the masthead. He will step down as club president and CEO at the end of this season. Werner told the Herald he’s hopeful Lucchino will “continue to be an integral part of upper management.’’

Bet Shank would like to have this one back!

Larry Lucchino, The Final Farewell

Shank covers the Jimmy Fund, where the team said it's last goodbyes to the former general manager:

John Henry and Red Sox offer a final — and well-deserved — salute to the late Larry Lucchino

Red Sox owner John Henry and the Boston ball club said their final goodbyes to former ownership partner and CEO Larry Lucchino at Fenway Park Tuesday.

On the first day of the 22nd WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, Lucchino — who died April 2 — was feted in Fenway Park’s function rooms by a procession of speakers including Henry (who also owns the Globe) and former US Senator and (2000) presidential candidate Bill Bradley, who was Lucchino’s star teammate when Princeton went to the Final Four in 1965.

The hard-charging Lucchino (think of him as Harry Sinden with a law degree), who ran the Orioles and Padres (and built Camden Yards and Petco Park) before coming to Boston, oversaw the refurbishment of Fenway Park after Henry’s group bought the club in 2002.

Dirty Laundry Redux

I was debating whether or not to do this, but since the column was being discussed in the comments of the last post anyway, I figured why not. Let's take another look at that column. I have nothing else to do right now. CHB appears to be on vacation and has not published any crap for awhile. It's probably going to be re-analyzed everywhere else anyway, now that we have new information. So, in honor of a frequent CHB technique...regurgitation, ladies and gentlemen!

The first few paragraphs consist of vague ballwasheries (look, a neologism!) and some fluff about the Bible that doesn't seem to make me recall any biblical stories I know, but perhaps I'm just forgetting one. Skip all that. It's not worth your time. Here's where the bullshit starts:

Larry taught Theo too well and now he is looking in the mirror as he tries to hammer out a deal with the GM he made in his own image. Both are merely doing what they are trained to do. In Theo's case, he's doing what Larry trained him to do.

"Made in his own image." I know where that is in the Bible. Genesis! Larry is God. Theo is Adam. Who is Eve in all this? Who caused Theo to sin and fall out of favor? I'll arbitrarily attach the label to, um....okay, never mind. This whole thing is bunk anyway. CHB is acting like Theo is some toddler who needs his personality formed by his parents, like both of them are the result of some Pavlovian conditioning experiment in which they're "trained to act" in a certain way. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

What is alarming -- for the future of the Sox franchise -- is Theo's sudden need to distance himself from those who helped him rise to his position of power. Lucchino and Dr. Charles Steinberg are a pair of Red Sox executives who ''discovered" Theo when he was a student at Yale. They picked him out of thousands of wannabe interns. They hired him in Baltimore and then took him to San Diego with them. They held his hand and drove him places during his Wonder Years. They urged him to get his law degree. And when they set up stakes at Fenway Park, they fought vigorously to bring him home. A year later, when Billy Beane got cold feet, Lucchino turned to 28-year-old Theo and made him the (then) youngest GM in the history of baseball.

This absolutely has Steinberg and Lucchino written all over it. It's so badly done that all you can do is laugh at how crude the parrot job is. I'm fairly sure that this is the first thing that set Theo off, the second thing coming shortly after. "Held his hand?" "Wonder Years?" Again, let's please not commit the logical fallacy of making him seem like a precocious toddler, Dan, because everybody and their brother absolutely knows that's not true. If you want to do a rip job, you have to at least make it seem believable.

And now Theo ''bristles at the notion of Steinberg and Lucchino taking credit for his success."

The problem with this is? Why do they get to take credit for it? If somebody took the credit for my success, I'd be pretty pissed off. It wasn't their success, it was his. Astonishing.

That was in March. And now we are in October. And a considerable amount of misinformation has been spilled.

"And I'm going to add to the cesspool."

Let's start with Theo being a ''baseball guy" while Larry is a lawyer with a lofty title (CEO). Granted, Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than Lucchino or anyone else in the Red Sox baseball operation. Theo is 31 years old and did not play baseball past high school. He spent four years at Yale and three years at law school. That hardly leaves time for much more than rotisserie league scouting.

Let's start with this being a pile of absolute horseshit. What is Lucchino's background in player evaluation? Oh, that's right, he doesn't have any. Yes, actually, Dan, Theo does know more about baseball than Lucchino. Maybe not the business side, but the playing side? Sure he does. Being born in 1973 does not logically lead to the conclusion that he doesn't know anything. You can know a lot at 31. Also, those 3 years in law school? Ran concurrently with a full-time BASEBALL OPERATIONS job with the Padres. You wrote that in your own goddamned book, you moron.

Lucchino was a good high school baseball player and made it to the NCAA Final Four with Princeton's basketball team. He came to baseball as an executive in 1979, when Theo was 5 years old. That doesn't make him George Digby or Ray Boone, but he's not Les Otten, either.

This makes absolutely no sense. He bashes Theo for not playing baseball past high school, and then he never mentions that Lucchino didn't, either! A "good high school baseball player." And then he played BASKETBALL in college. Which has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to baseball except that the words have some of the same letters. Good God. And there's the whole, "Larry is older than Theo" angle. So are you, Dan. It doesn't make you any less of a shit.

Lucchino-bashers, and they are legion, maintain that he repeatedly has undermined Theo and on occasion killed deals made by Epstein and the minions. There was one, for sure. When Theo's assistant Josh Byrnes (hired by Arizona as GM Friday) made a deal with Colorado, Epstein thought he had a better deal with another club and requested that Lucchino fall on the sword and invoke the ownership approval clause to kill the Rockies deal. Accustomed to people hating him, Lucchino took the fall, killing the deal and saving Epstein.

I would guess this is the paragraph that pushed Theo over the edge. There's only one place CHB could have gotten that info. And, FWIW, it's wrong. John Henry killed that deal. He wanted to send money instead of prospects and wasn't aware that Colorado had made a deal in anticipation of that one being rubber-stamped. Why he then let Josh Byrnes and Theo take the blame, I have no clue. But the above version is wrong And it probably came from Steinberg. And if CHB had stopped to think about it, he would realize that it makes no sense. Read the quotes after the trade, Dan. Lucchino didn't fall on his sword for anybody, and doing so would be completely out of character. Instead, he threw Josh Byrnes under the bus, forcing Theo to come out and accept blame for something he probably didn't have much to do with, given all the Manny shit at the time. Have we forgotten this? And if the Epstein-Lucchino relationship was in as bad shape as Mnookin claims it to be, it is absolutely unfathomable that Theo would ask Lucchino to do such a thing. That, and he's not a weasel.

It was charged last week that Sox management conducted a ''smear campaign" against Epstein. How? Where's the campaign?

Right here, retard.

DHL Dan CCXCVI - Eraser

Shank spots what seems to be a Trotsky-esque revision of the past by eliminating one of its participants:

Why does it seem like the Red Sox are trying to erase Larry Lucchino from franchise lore, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if 76er Paul George has met American sci-fi author John Ringo . . .

⋅ What’s up with Fenway Sports Group’s not-so-subtle campaign to erase Larry Lucchino?

Lucchino, who died in the spring of 2024, had enormous impact on FSG’s Red Sox success for 14 seasons but is hard to find in a new team statement and video celebrating “25 seasons of stewardship” since John Henry’s group purchased the ball club in 2002.

Those of us who were there from 2002-15 remember how the “new” owners presented themselves as a united trio: Henry, TV magnate Tom Werner, and Lucchino, a visionary ballpark builder who came into baseball with the Orioles under Edward Bennett Williams in 1979.

It was always “John, Tom, and Larry.” After Theo Epstein came on board as boy wonder general manager, they were “Theo and the trio.”

Four months after Lucchino died, Henry said, “The three of us had one of the greatest rides in sports history . . . He [Lucchino] was as much a part of Red Sox history as any part of the organization.”

And yet it’s hard to find his place in team history when one views FSG’s silver anniversary celebration.

Another Larry Lucchino Column?

Is it just me, or is Shank now lobbying to co-write the following book, 'Larry Lucchino, The Red Sox Years' with these consecutive columns?

NEW YORK — Yankees president Randy Levine says he’s going to miss his counterpart, Larry Lucchino.

“It’s going to be different without him, that’s for sure,’’ Levine said Wednesday from his office at Yankee Stadium. “He was a very formidable adversary. A great competitor. We went back and forth for many, many years. He never backed down. I never backed down.’’

Levine took over as president of the Yankees in 2000 and Lucchino assumed the same post with the Red Sox late in 2001. Their rivalry rhetoric was fun and lively.

DHL Dan - XLV

This isn't your normal amalgamation of half-useless thoughts and jumbled logic; Shank takes the Picked-Up Pieces column to a whole 'nother level of rambling and contradictory, disjointed thought.

Picked-up pieces while officially changing my Globe column logo to “The Shaughnessy Report In Context” . . .

■ The more I think about it, I’m predicting that the embarrassed and contrite NFL will rescind all Deflategate penalties and ultimately reward the Patriots with a $2 million apology bonus and a couple of additional draft picks because of . . . you know . . . everything that the league put the Patriots through.

This, after numerous columns, nay, a veritable crusade, taking massive dumps on the Patriots. Gotta love having it both ways!

Shank continues to lobby for the rights to co-write Larry Lucchino's book:

■ Pay attention to what the Red Sox do regarding the Larry Lucchino vacancy. If you are a Sox fan, it’s a bad sign if the front office chooses to operate without a baseball guy to fill Lucchino’s shoes. Lucchino has been responsible for keeping order on Yawkey Way over the last 13 years.

Also, take note that Ben Cherington now mentions “John, Tom, and Mike,’’ instead of “John, Tom, and Larry.’’ “Mike” is Mike Gordon, the second-largest investor in the Red Sox.

'Tomato cans' make their annual reappearance:

■ The tomato cans are lining up nicely in the AFC East. Every year we hear about how the Dolphins, Bills, and Jets are finally going to contend . . . and then the season starts. None of the Patriots’ division opponents has a good quarterback. The Jets are now down one bad QB with Geno Smith getting his jaw broken by a teammate. Very Jetlike.

And there's another Larry Bird sighting:

■ I love how Larry Bird never lets Beezer Carnes off the hook. Carnes was Bird’s Springs Valley High School teammate in French Lick, Ind., and legend holds that Beezer was too lazy to join teammates for early-morning free throw practice before school, then he missed a key foul shot in the state tournament.

Speaking to Dan Patrick a few weeks ago, Bird said, “The dream was to be good enough to play against the big schools. That’s what we tried to do. But unfortunately, I played with a kid who kept missing free throws at the end of the game and we didn’t get there.

“I was at a party about two years ago, and this lady in her 70s looked at my friend and said, ‘What are you doing here? After missing those free throws back in ’74, you shouldn’t even show your face.’ ’’

And the one where Shank tries to wash his hands of the negative shitshow of Boston media by half-clever misdirection (emphasis mine):

■ Stand proud, Boston sports social media tough guys. When David Price was still with the Tigers, the ace lefty said this to WEEI’s John Tomase: “The amount of hatred I get from this fan base blows every other fan base away.’’

See what he tried to do there?

Truly a classic Shank mail it in effort!

The One Where Shank Lectures Red Sox Fans

First, let's shit on the 2016 Red Sox some more:

The front-running Red Sox (last nine games: eight losses, one champagne bash, five Ortiz celebrations) have slinked home for the winter, telling you that the whole staff is coming back and everything is just swell with the Local Nine. The team that scored the most runs in baseball, consensus national media darlings, got broomed by a team that didn’t have two of its best pitchers or one of its best hitters, but never mind any of that. Masters of their own hype, the Red Sox no doubt will be preseason favorites to get to the 2017 World Series. They always are . . . even though they have failed to win a playoff game in seven of the last eight Octobers.

Now that the Red Sox are out of the playoffs, you, Red Sox fans, need to jump off the bandwagon like Shank and root, root, root for someone else, like the Chicago Cubs Why's that, you ask?

If you are a Red Sox fan, the Cubs are your team the rest of the way. They are sitting on a drought of 108 years since winning their last World Series. You know what 86 years feels like. Like the Sox, the Cubs have been masters of the near-miss. They had Steve Bartman the same year the Sox had Aaron Boone. They had Leon Durham before you had Bill Buckner. They have the Billy Goat where you had the Bambino. They had the black cat before you had Bucky Dent.

They have Theo Epstein, the Brookline-born architect of the 2004 Red Sox. Theo has wingmen Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod, the same guys who helped build the Red Sox when they were kids. The Cubs have grandpa catcher David Ross, who was one of the spiritual leaders of the 2013 Red Sox. They have John Lackey, who hated Boston, but pitched his butt off and won the final game of the 2013 World Series.

You guys remember Theo Epstein, right? The guy Shank tried running out of town one year after winning that World Series at the behest of Larry Lucchino?

Let's start with Theo being a ''baseball guy" while Larry is a lawyer with a lofty title (CEO). Granted, Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than Lucchino or anyone else in the Red Sox baseball operation. Theo is 31 years old and did not play baseball past high school. He spent four years at Yale and three years at law school. That hardly leaves time for much more than rotisserie league scouting. He can read the data and has a horde of trusty, like-minded minions, but we're not talking about a lifetime of beating the bushes and scouting prospects. Lucchino was a good high school baseball player and made it to the NCAA Final Four with Princeton's basketball team. He came to baseball as an executive in 1979, when Theo was 5 years old. That doesn't make him George Digby or Ray Boone, but he's not Les Otten, either.

Lucchino-bashers, and they are legion, maintain that he repeatedly has undermined Theo and on occasion killed deals made by Epstein and the minions. There was one, for sure. When Theo's assistant Josh Byrnes (hired by Arizona as GM Friday) made a deal with Colorado, Epstein thought he had a better deal with another club and requested that Lucchino fall on the sword and invoke the ownership approval clause to kill the Rockies deal. Accustomed to people hating him, Lucchino took the fall, killing the deal and saving Epstein.

It was charged last week that Sox management conducted a ''smear campaign" against Epstein. How? Where's the campaign? It was correctly reported that Theo turned down a three-year deal at $1.2 million per year. That's a smear campaign? There have been no quotes from Sox management on the negotiations. Lucchino and Epstein called me together at home Friday night but said they could say nothing about Theo's contract talks because they had not spoken with other outlets. So much for the Globe's ''home-court advantage" (the Globe's parent company, The New York Times Company, owns 17 percent of the Red Sox). So much for the cartel. In fact, Epstein's minions probably have done more talking about Theo's situation than anyone in Sox management. When postseason baseball visited Chicago, at least one nationally known Lucchino-hating Epstein source was trashing the Sox CEO to anyone who'd listen.

Question for Shank - is it still a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than Lucchino or anyone else in the Red Sox baseball operation?

Dan Being Dan

From this morning's appearance on the Dennis and Callahan show on WEEI (850 AM).


John Dennis: Was there a purpose to feeding the salary info to Edes and Snow?

CHB: I think the guys on our paper did their work and reported what they knew. It’s insulting to say it was spoonfed to them.

...

JD: So you don’t think the column should have pissed off Theo?

CHB: He’s 31. ... Nothing was leaked. I did my work. Most of that stuff in the column was stuff that was out ... in my book.

Gerry Callahan: The only thing that changed after the deal was almost done was your column. They agreed not to talk ... Someone violated that trust.

CHB: If that’s true, they have to work them out themselves. It’s not my job ... we’re not in the business of filtering out that stuff. All I did was write what I believe. The facts are facts. ... A lot of it’s opinion.

JD: When you have a longstanding mole, does it change the veracity [the need to always challenge that source]?
CHB: I suppose that’s true, but you have to guard against that. If you’re talking about the Colorado trade situation, I had more than one source.

...

JD: Did it occur to you as you wrote that piece that it would get the attention of and piss off Theo?

CHB: That was one of things in the column. Too much was out there. Maybe I knew too much. They would have to answer that. ... I know both of these guys pretty well ... and Larry’s side wasn’t getting out there.

...

JD: You might not regret it, and I know it's not your job, but do you think the sides involved regret it?

CHB: I write for the readers. I thought there had been too much, complete negligence, Larry was being portrayed as a bean counter, not a baseball guy, and in my opinion that’s not true.

...

JD: ... Do you use [take advantage of] your sources?

CHB: I don’t know. That’s a little scary. I can’t quite make that connection. Everybody uses their sources.

JD: Do they use you?

CHB: You try not to be used.

...


CHB: Most of this has been written before. It’s old stuff.

JD: What about the Colorado thing? That was new to me.

CHB: That was new. ... And I know it was absolutely true.

Caller: What possible motive could you have had, even if you had written them before? Sometimes when you are arguing with your wife, it’s best not to bring up things that happened in the past.

CHB: My job is to tell the readers what’s going on, about the relationship between these two guys. ... I can’t believe it’s that shallow, that kneejerk.

GC: You’ve said that Larry’s not your source. Or that you had other sources. That your source wasn't Larry.

CHB: I don’t remember if I said that.

JD: Do you think that Larry knew of, or approved of, what your source was doing?

CHB: No.

...

JD: One last time, Larry Luchino was not the source of your Sunday column, and Larry approved of, or knew of, Sunday's actions?

CHB: To the best of my knowledge, that's correct.



Note the revisionist history. In The Column, Dan says too much about the individuals and the contract talks has already been said. In trying to defend himself, he says "Larry’s side wasn’t getting out there." Which is it?

Obviously Dan the Samaritan felt sorry for poor Larry Lucchino, whose high school baseball prowess wasn't getting its due. So he writes a piece glorifying the baseball genius that is Lucchino. Left unasked: Must it be a zero-sum game? Couldn't he have penned a piece that lauded Larry without trashing Theo in the process?

Answer: Of course not; it was just Dan being Dan.

This Bud's For You, Boston

At first, I thought Shank was just being his occasionally parochial self when he writes somewhat convincingly about Bud Selig doing the Red Sox fans a huge favor:

If you are a Red Sox fan, Bud Selig was your friend.

The predictable howling started across baseball America when Selig was elected to the Hall of Fame Sunday, but Sox fans should be sending him thank you notes for a lot of the good things that have happened to the Boston franchise in this century.

Maligning Selig is a popular parlor game on sports talk radio and across the ever-expanding band of social media. Bud gets blamed for steroids, the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, the All-Star tie in Milwaukee, late-night World Series games, four-hour games, ticket costs, and David Price’s inability to win a playoff start. Swell.

Shank spends a little time on sports talk radio from time to time, and nearly all of that time is spent bashing an athlete, some sports team or some combination of the two. I wonder what Selig bashing might be in those archives?

But the totality of his 23 years as commissioner amounts to far more positive than negative, and here in Boston, Selig gets an assist for the championships won in 2004, 2007, and 2013.

It’s simple, really. When the Red Sox were for sale in 2001, it was Selig who assembled John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino and maneuvered the sale in the direction of the Henry group.

“I had nothing to do with any of that,’’ Bud once told me, before adding, “But someday you’ll thank me for it.’’

Selig had a lot to do with it. It was Selig who connected Lucchino with Henry when Henry was dealing with ballpark and ownership issues with the Florida Marlins. Henry was working on selling the Marlins and buying the Angels in 2001. Lucchino, who knew Werner from San Diego, put Henry together with Werner, who was then trying to buy the Red Sox with underfinanced partner Les Otten.

At the urging of Selig, Yawkey Trust boss John Harrington agreed to accept the bid of the Henry group. When MLB owners voted to the approve the sale, Bud Selig made sure the vote was unanimous. Henry, Werner, and Lucchino were Bud’s guys.

That makes complete sense. I was checking on one of the bidders for the Red sox that year to look up Frank McCourt, who I knew Shank has slammed good in hard in the past. There were also two other bidders:

Folks in Boston knew McCourt would be a disaster for Major League Baseball. He was a smooth-talking, nicely-dressed, well-mannered guy with parking lots and delusions of grandeur. He fancied himself as a serious bidder for the Red Sox in 2001 when the Yawkey Trust put the team up for sale, but nobody in Boston took McCourt seriously because he didn't have enough of his own money.

The "sale" of the Red Sox turned out to be a bag-job of the highest order. Cable czar Charles Dolan submitted the highest bid, while Boston businessman Joe O'Donnell was viewed as the local favorite to get the team.

Tire-kicker McCourt was never in the running. In December 2001, Selig announced that John Henry's bid was the winner. Selig was beholden to Henry (former owner of the Marlins) and put him together with Tom Werner (former owner of the Padres) and Larry Lucchino (former Orioles and Padres boss).

Bag job, indeed! No reason it can't be both a bag job (the bidding process) and a rousing success. I was also wondering about how adequate Joe O'Donnell's bid was. A few people bring up that point in the comments, so I went to research it. Boy, did Shank really, REALLY HATE this deal when it went down!

The Red Sox are a public trust. They are the heart and soul of New England. They are as important as any local institution. And last night they changed hands for the first time in 68 years.

Michigan-born, Yale grad Tom Yawkey rescued the franchise in 1933, and now we have unknown men named Henry and Werner taking charge of this most-cherished local team.

I wish I felt good about this and I hope I’m wrong. I wish I could get on the bandwagon and believe good things will come of this. Maybe John Henry and Tom Werner will be the best Boston sports owners since Walter Brown. Maybe they will build a new jewel of a ballpark in South Boston and reward us with a string of championship teams in the next decade.

But forgive me if I don’t trust these guys. Any of them ever been to Durgin Park? Any of ‘em know that the L Street Brownies swim in the ocean on New Year’s Day? Any of them know the meaning of Curt Gowdy and “Hi, neighbor, have a ‘Gansett?” Any of them know who hit Tony Conigliaro with that spitball in 1967? And that the pitch was thrown Aug. 18, a Friday night?

Shame on John Harrington. The cowardly little accountant had a chance to do something great and important here. This is the man who befriended Mrs. Yawkey all those years ago and - on that relationship alone - became CEO of the Red Sox and a Big Player in Major League Baseball. The record will show that when it came time to step up, Harrington caved to commissioner Bud Selig and the Lords of the Sport. He chose to serve the Boys in the Club rather than loyal, long-suffering, top-dollar-paying citizens of Red Sox Nation.
...
So now we have this band of carpetbaggers, taking charge of our most cherished institution.
...
This was a bag job from start to finish. Bud got his man. The Trust got its money. John Harrington secured his fraudulent place in the Men’s Club of Major League Baseball. And the Red Sox were turned over to people who don’t know Fenway Park from Jellystone Park.

Looks like we have our answer on the 'maligning Selig' parlor game question!

So, has Shank mellowed with age, or is this another convenient lapse of memory? You make the call!

UPDATE AT 8:36 PM - Added the 'carpetbaggers' and 'Jellystone Park' bits from the last link. Reading all the way through that old column was priceless for tidbits like that...

Bostoned Out - II

Today's column features two former Red Sox players, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, traded to the L.A. Dodgers last year. Fitting that a column that looks to the past contains a Beatles refernce, isn't it?

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Thousands of miles to the west, in the middle of the desert, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez still haunt the Red Sox.

Crawford and A-Gon are still crying about the blue meanies of Boston. Who knew that Josh Beckett would be the stand-up guy who takes his lumps and keeps quiet?

First we heard from Crawford in Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times. He described the Boston baseball environment as “toxic.’’

“I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me,’’ cried Crawford. “It puts you in a kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out.’’

Naturally, things are better now that he’s with the Dodgers.

A day later, Gonzalez brought out the big lumber in USA Today.

“Chemistry is something you need among the ballplayers, but also with the owners, the coaches, and the front office,’’ said Gonzalez. “In Boston, we had great chemistry among the players — we were together — but that was only among the players. It wasn’t there with the rest. That’s why the team didn’t win. It needs to be an organization-wide thing.’’

“It’s hard to me to interpret what he was saying,’’ said Sox CEO Larry Lucchino. “It sounded pretty general. He could have been referring to managers, coaches, front office people. I’m not going to comment on the possibilities. I really don’t know. I have fond feelings for him and I wish him good luck where he is, so I don’t see it as an overall accusation against the franchise.’’

Right. As dumb and dysfunctional as the Sox were last year, Gonzo is a fraud. And Crawford sounds like a wimp. Please. These guys were paid tens of millions of dollars and managed only to fail. They were part of the worst September collapse in baseball history. Then they were part of the trainwreck of 2012.

What's interesting about this column is what Shank chose not to write. Shank just helped Terry Francona write a book about his tenure as manager of the Red Sox, where there was a certain level of criticism directed at Larry Lucchino, the man in charge of the management structure / the front office and, presumably, criticism of other parts of the organization to one extent or another. The tension between players and certain members of the management structure (Bobby Valentine in particular) was front page news last year. It is safe to say that Adrian Gonzalez's main point in the above paragraphs largely supports one of the themes of the Francona book, namely organizational dysfunction, which Shank not only co-wrote but had a certain level of influence on. Is there anyone out there who thinks Shank would not use this to his advantage and keep bashing Red Sox management & ownership?

So why did Shank respond to Crawford & Gonzalez like he did? Did he just reflexively trash former Boston athletes as the 'frauds' and 'wimps' they are, failing to live up to the hype and their multi-million dollar contracts, or

...did he not want to use the opportunity to trumpet Gonzalez's statement about organizational dysfunction and keep taking shots at management (read - Lucchino) because someone told him / he decided that he needs to be nice to Lucchino for a while and let things cool down, lest Lucchino hire some black hats and has Shank taken out Bulgarian style? I can't bring myself to give Shank credit for being clever enough to come up with this latter option, but it's perfect cover if you buy the former option. My head is spinning on this one...

The One Where The CHB Tries to Keep Pushing the Idea that Larry Lucchino is Being Pushed Out

The CHB is like a dog with a bone now that Larry Lucchino is no longer his best bud/tipster. For the umpteenth time, he pushes the notion that Lucchino has been unseated by Red Sox co-owner Mike Gordon in the pecking order.

That issue, if it even is one, has been repeatedly dispelled by chairman John Henry, not that The CHB is buying it. But keep in mind Shank always thinks management is lying, which is why he looks so foolish now that Ballgate has turned up exactly nothing untoward by the Patriots (not that it stops Shank from beating that dead horse here, too).

Speaking of dead horses, The CHB then tries to tie the Sox with the Yankees via -- who else? -- Lucchino's long-ago spoken words that the former would never try to be like the latter. But he does so off a complete fallacy of an argument, which is that because Boston has spent a lot on free agents, it makes them similar to the Yankees. Hey, here's a thought: How about actually looking at the players signed? Boston is investing its millions in youth, not aged superstars with known drug problems (A-Rod) at easily replaceable positions (Mark Teixiera) who are primed to break down (C.C. Sabathia).

And who blew hardest just a couple dozen months ago when the Sox went cheap on player investments? Oh yeah....

One other thing: Have you noticed how the Red Sox management appears to be denying The CHB any one-on-one time? All these conversations are taken from full media sessions.

Shank Talk on Orsillo Exit Just a Lot of Hot Air

Looking for threads, The CHB continues to yank John Henry's. But his goal, if he has one (doubtful), remains vague.

In typical hyperbolic fashion, The CHB claims the "firings" of Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, GM Ben Cherington and announcer Don Orsillo were "classless."

But were they? Let's take them one at a time, shall we?

1. Lucchino: The CHB has repeatedly argued that the Red Sox has underachieved. So, if that's the case -- and three World Series titles in 10 years would bring out the ecstasy of every MLB team, Yankees included -- shouldn't the architect been canned? After all, it was more than a year ago that Shank called him an "absentee owner." Going back to 2013, The CHB said Lucchino deserved blame for the 2011 collapse and 2012 wipeout. And even before that The CHB was claiming Lucchino was on his way out because he didn't have a contract.

Then last month The CHB asserts Larry is bailing because he "just got tired of being there."

Make up your mind, Danny Boy. Was it Lucchino's choice or not? And was it time for him to leave or not?

 2. Cherington: See above. If the team is as bad as The CHB claims it is, why shouldn't the general manager be shown the door? Back in early 2013, The CHB was mocking Cherington was being -- can we say it? -- dumb: "Some of us (me) think Cherington is a little slow-moving for the combustible Lucchino." We can read between those lines. After all, the point of the piece was that Cherington wasn't getting blamed for the Red Sox' 2012 performance, but that he should have been.

3. Orsillo: His contract was also up. And yes, it's a huge shame he is getting the boot. It happens. Before he became the drunken face of the Cubs (something The CHB probably can relate to) Harry Caray was dumped by the Cardinals. His son, Skip, was relegated to Peachtree TV after 20-plus years calling Atlanta Braves games on TBS. The handling of this was inelegant, to say the least, but it happens, even to Hall of Fame announcers.

My take: The CHB has been frozen out of the loop on what remains the region's biggest beat -- the Red Sox -- and he's seething over it. As is his passive-aggressive style, this is his response.

Swing And A Miss

I missed this column from Monday, and it's a gem. We're a Springsteen quote, a 'Sons of Tito' mention and a cheap shot at Bill Belichick away from this being the ultimate signature Shaughnessy column.

Sarcasm? Check:

The Redemption Tour comes home Monday afternoon and the “Please Don’t Hate Us” Red Sox are in sole possession of first place for the first time since Sept. 1, 2011.

Pretend that you weren't licking the previous manager's balls? Check:

It’s a good day to feel good about the Sox again. They have delivered on their promises to play hard and be more likable. They’ve vetted clubhouse poisons and assembled a unit of worthy veterans and wide-eyed kids. They are managed by a true professional, and ownership hasn’t insulted the fan base in several months. They have new-millennium gold dust twins Jose Iglesias (.529 average) and Jackie Bradley Jr., and sophomore Will Middlebrooks, who hit three home runs in Sunday’s 13-0 rout of the division-favorite Blue Jays.

Dump on Red Sox management? Check:

“Make no mistake,’’ Sox CEO Larry Lucchino wrote to fans in a spring training welcome letter (Lucchino specializes in letters to fans), “with a 69-win season in our rearview mirror, the challenge to beat back the skeptics and re-assert ourselves is an invigorating one for all of us.’’

Gratuitous acknowledgement of the team's performance so far this year? Check:

The 2013 Sox have blasted from the starter’s gate with four wins in six games in New York and Toronto. They hit a whopping six homers in the Rogers Centre Sunday and at 2:05 p.m. Monday play the Baltimore Orioles in the 113th franchise home opener.

Whine about a mild New England winter, having spent about a month of it in Florida? Check:

It doesn’t take much to rekindle the passion of New England baseball fans. Red Sox Nation wants players who hustle and appear hungry; players who pull for one another and don’t complain about travel, snitches, or scoring decisions. After all the snow and cold of the wicked winter of 2012-13, most New England baseball fans are thrilled just to think about being warm outside again.

Continue to run players out of town months after you've finished the job? Check:

The Sox haven’t been home since Bobby Valentine’s 2012 wretches slinked out of town under the cover of darkness late last September (that was the night Bobby V said, “I think I would have kept the beer in the clubhouse. I could have used it after a few of these games”). Bobby’s trainwreck Townies staggered to the worst Boston baseball season in 47 years (69-93, 26 games out of first place), which triggered the overdue overhaul.

Take a dump on ownership and piss on general manager Larry Lucchino again for the old 1 - 2 combo? Check:

Positioning themselves as “scrappy underdogs” (another Lucchino beauty), the $154 million payroll Red Sox launched their 2013 campaign with an 8-2 victory in Yankee Stadium one week ago. After starts of 0-6 (2011) and 1-5 (2012), the Sox come home with a 4-2 record, winning their first two series for the first time since 2006 — when everybody loved the Red Sox and the “new” owners.

The local landscape is very different now.

Presumably because of all the snow melting from the brutal New England winter...

Hype the new manager so Shank can help write his memoirs once he gets shitcanned? Big freakin' check!

Mindful of an angry fan base, the Sox spent the winter/spring apologizing to fans and asking forgiveness in the form of two-for-one hot dogs and reduced beer prices in April. They issued offseason slogans of “What’s Broken Can Be Fixed’’ and “162 Chances to Restore The Faith.’’ New manager John (Wayne) Farrell was summoned to clean up the Valentine mess and told fans, “It’s a whole new ballgame,’’ in a NESN spot that paints the 2013 team as “workmanlike” and “professional.’’

The last words go to The Duke:

“We had a tremendous spring training,’’ Farrell said after Sunday’s rout. “To go through New York and Toronto is a good start. We’re going to give effort and energy every time we walk on the field. We’re going to play with an intensity that should work in our favor. We’re looking forward to going home and getting before our home crowd. Hopefully, these six games will energize the fans even more than they normally would be.’’

Saddle up!

Recycling The Absentee Complaint - II

For the second time in a week, Shank bitches about Red Sox ownership in absentia, so he'll have to settle for Larry Lucchino.

Ownership has been hard to find while the Red Sox dropped out of contention in the summer of 2014. John Henry and Tom Werner haven’t had much to say about their tied-for-last-place team.

With the Sox heading out of town until after the All-Star break, I figured it would be a good time to hear from Larry Lucchino. According to Henry, Larry runs the Red Sox.

Forget baseball; second guessing is Shank's favorite pastime.

Revisionist History

Now that the 2016 Boston Red Sox are kicking ass, Shank decides to rub former Sox GM Theo Epstein's balls:

It’s not Dave Dombrowski. It’s not Ben Cherington, either. It’s not Mike Hazen. It’s not ownership. It’s certainly not Bill James.

None of the above.

No. This Red Sox team you have come to love early in the 2016 Boston baseball season — this team that looks like it might be a worst-to-first facsimile of the 2013 bearded wonders — was largely built by Theo Epstein.

He was the Camelot Kid from Brookline when he became general manager of the Red Sox at the age of 28 in November of 2002. He took charge of a roster assembled by Dan Duquette, made big bold deals, and got all the credit when the Sox won their first World Series in the biblical October of 2004.

Naturally, Shank was singing a different tune a few years ago:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The blame pie is big and heavy.

There’s a giant slice for Bobby Valentine. We all know Bobby’s the reason everything went wrong with the 2012 Red Sox. Ownership gets three hefty slices. John, Tom, and Larry lost their way in the name of sellouts, bricks, and NESN ratings. Theo Epstein is a handy dartboard ornament. He gets a solid slice of blame pie.

Last but certainly not least, who can forget the infamous Dirty Laundry column?

Let's start with Theo being a ''baseball guy" while Larry is a lawyer with a lofty title (CEO). Granted, Epstein is a student of the game, but it's a mistake to say he knows more about baseball than Lucchino or anyone else in the Red Sox baseball operation. Theo is 31 years old and did not play baseball past high school. He spent four years at Yale and three years at law school. That hardly leaves time for much more than rotisserie league scouting. He can read the data and has a horde of trusty, like-minded minions, but we're not talking about a lifetime of beating the bushes and scouting prospects. Lucchino was a good high school baseball player and made it to the NCAA Final Four with Princeton's basketball team. He came to baseball as an executive in 1979, when Theo was 5 years old. That doesn't make him George Digby or Ray Boone, but he's not Les Otten, either.

Lucchino-bashers, and they are legion, maintain that he repeatedly has undermined Theo and on occasion killed deals made by Epstein and the minions. There was one, for sure. When Theo's assistant Josh Byrnes (hired by Arizona as GM Friday) made a deal with Colorado, Epstein thought he had a better deal with another club and requested that Lucchino fall on the sword and invoke the ownership approval clause to kill the Rockies deal. Accustomed to people hating him, Lucchino took the fall, killing the deal and saving Epstein.
....
Publicly, Theo always has talked about ''mutual respect" regarding his relationship with dad Larry. They know that their silence produced considerable speculation and acrimony. Fans and media members have taken shots and taken sides. The Sox tomorrow will present a united front. It still can work. The only unfortunate aspect is that the embers will smolder for years to come. We know too much now.

Dan Shaughnessy - the ultimate weathervane.

Pink Champagne Iced And Uncorked - II

To no one's surprise, Shank wraps up the Red Sox win in today's column. To my surprise he did not go with lame lyrics written by guys who are now collecting Social Security checks.

The column itself is quality, but there's a few nits to be picked:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For six months the Red Sox have been under the radar, working their magic at Fenway Park in relative obscurity. While the Bruins skated into the Stanley Cup Final and Doc Rivers and Wes Welker walked away from Boston, the Sox grew beards, bonded in fraternity style, and ran away with the American League East.

Now the Redemption Tour goes national. John Henry and Larry Lucchino’s “scrappy underdogs” Wednesday morning finished off the Tampa Bay Rays, 3-1, at the Cirque-du-Trop. Winning the ALDS, three games to one, the Sox advanced to the American League Championship Series (opening Saturday at Fenway against the A’s or the Tigers) for the fifth time in 11 years.

I'm not inclined to keep referring to this Red Sox team as the 'Redemption Tour'; I think they've already redeemed themselves by the time they won the A.L. East title.

During spring training, Shank mocked the notion of team chemistry as a contributing factor in a team's success; now it's a selling point:

Get ready, America. Prepare for a bombardment of Boston baseball discovery. The Red Sox are back. They look like the old House of David barnstormers. They genuinely love one another and they have rewritten their sad story line from 2011-12.

I believe it's a little too late to be sucking up to certain management figures in the Red Sox organization, but he gives it the old college try:

Yale has been very good to the Red Sox through the years. Yale gave the Red Sox Thomas Yawkey, Theo Epstein, and Larry Lucchino (Yale law). Now a Yalie gets the win in the ALDS clincher.

Remember when Shank used to love ripping Jacoby Ellsbury? Not anymore!

Bogaerts moved to third on a two-out single by Jacoby Ellsbury (nine hits in the series).

Other than that, it was a good column...

Stuck in Park

Remember a few months ago when an announcement by the Red Sox to move the rest of its televised games – which it owns, by the way – to NESN threw The CHB into conniptions? He called the move “elitist, classist, and probably greedy, too. The Sox are putting all their games on NESN because it means more money for the organization." (He then never raised the subject again, of course, adding fuel to the belief that he didn’t really care about the fans so much as he wanted to stir things up.)

That’s instructive, because today he says Fenway has never looked better.

That may be so. But Shaughnessy downplays the biggest issue for fans – the expense of attending games. He tries to write that off, arguing that “the Sox have more demand than supply and they're trying to compete with a team that doesn't blush at a $200 million player payroll.”

Let’s get this straight: The team drains money into an ancient, uncomfortable venue and Dan finds the results “spectacular.” The Sox decide to use an outlet they own in order to raise revenues and they are “greedy.”

Oh, yeah. Near the end – the third to last paragraph to be exact – he lays out the park’s warts: obstructed views, narrow seats, seats that face the wrong way, lack of parking, and yes, the cost. (Given how he minimizes that latter element, he might as well have left it out altogether.)

All of which misses the point. Fenway Park has been selling out for years, even before all the modifications. All the while, it's the fan experience that continues to be compromised. On the issue of cost, I don’t personally hold the owners accountable so much as I do the scalpers (and the city, which looks the other way). But that fact remains that in some towns – Baltimore, for one – scalping laws are enforced to the hilt – and face value means face value. To enter Fenway even for the least desirable games of the season means ponying up five or more times the face value of the ticket – none of which goes to the team. That's the situation that deserves a column. Heck, it deserves a series.

Dan has proclaimed the beauty of the new parks in San Francisco, Baltimore, San Diego, demonstrating that even the black hole that makes up the space between his ears can spit out the notion that starting over is often better than a new tube of lipstick. He even spends a good chunk of today's column lauding the work of the Larry Lucchino-led team that has had such an impact on the face of baseball around the country (he calls architect Janet Marie Smith "the godmother of modern baseball stadiums"). Yet he continues to wax nostalgic about a place that has truly outlived its usefulness. Why? Because he doesn’t feel the effects. Even as he cracks wise about blowing up the press box, he ignores the uncomfortable hypocrisy: those seats are 1) better than almost any other within the not-so-Friendly Confines and 2) free.

Boston needs a new park. If not now, when? If anything, "greedy" defines owners who refuse to build an appropriate venue without it being underwritten by the tax base.

Theo watch: “Larry Lucchino, a pinata for nitwit nation, isn't likely to get many bouquets from Sox fans who still blame him for the weird (and temporary) departure of general manager Theo Epstein ….” No Dan, we blame you.

About that $200 million payroll ...: The past five World Series winners, in reverse chronological order: White Sox, Red Sox, Marlins, Angels, Diamondbacks. Is it possible that maybe all the obsessing over the Yankees' payroll is just a bit overblown?