The One Where Shank Pretends To Like Bill Belichick

I can just imagine the following scene at the Boston Globe:

(John Henry) - Dan? it's John. Can you come into my office for a minute?

(Shank) - Sure thing, boss...

(John Henry) - Dan, I know you're a miserable, negative bastard, writing the nastiest columns about the Patriots, Deflategate and MY FUCKING RED SOX TEAM! Would it kill you to write one god damn positive column a month, even though next to no one will believe it's sincere for even a second?

(Shank) - Sure thing, boss.

(John Henry) - Outstanding. Now get the fuck outta here!

Today, we get one of those columns.

Maybe the rest of the country doesn’t see it this way. We don’t care.

What do you mean we, kemosabe?

At the age of 63, after 40 years in the NFL, Bill Belichick is at the absolute top of his game. Defiant, unapologetic, protective of his guys, and master of the pro football universe, Belichick in the last week has been on a roll like Larry Bird in 1986, like Bobby Orr in 1970.

This latest surge of appreciation and awe of the Hoodie started last Wednesday with the release of “Do Your Job,’’ an NFL Films propaganda documentary taking us behind the scenes at Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz.

Or maybe they were just doing a documentary on the most successful pro football coach in the modern era, or perhaps all time?

No matter - even when he tries to write a positive column, his cynicism simply cannot be contained.

Let's review a few other positive Shaughnessy columns about Bill Belichick, shall we? We all remember last year's Kansas City Massacre, right?

By the end of the night, the darts and arrows were coming from every direction. Bill Belichick was grilled about his musical-chair offensive line and the notion of starting two rookies in front of Brady in a loud enemy theater. The coach was asked if he might have to “evaluate” his quarterback position; the question from CSNNE’s Mike Giardi elicited a smirk with no comment.

There were hysterical calls for out-of-work Charlie Weis to replace Josh McDaniels as offensive coordinator. Darrelle Revis was compared to Carl Crawford (OK, that one was me). It was noted that no Belichick defense had ever surrendered 300 yards in a first half. There was a television graphic explaining that the Patriots offense ranks last in the NFL, averaging 4.6 yards per play. We were told that Brady has missed his target more than 25 percent of the time.

“I’ve never seen a team so unprepared,’’ former Patriot Rodney Harrison said on WEEI.

And who can forget the infamous '4th and 2' column?

This was as bad as anything the Red Sox ever did. Had it been a playoff game, it would be right up there with Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Aaron Boone, and History Derailed in Glendale, Ariz.

And Bill Belichick played the part of Grady Little.
...
Even the legions of zombies who say “In Bill We Trust’’ and the formidable pay-for-play Patriot media machine will have a hard time defending the brilliant coach on this one.

As we noted at the time, this is the column Shank has been waiting nearly a decade to write. He hates the Patriots (and Bill Belichick) so much, he wrote another column about that loss the next day.

The Patriots spin machine was in overdrive yesterday (speaking of spin, nice try by the Red Sox - raising ticket prices on the day after Belichick channeled Grady Little).

There are New England football fans who’d support Belichick if he pledged to eradicate indoor plumbing. And the Kraft family’s media partners do a nifty job spreading the gospel of Bob, Bill, and Tom. But the blind loyalty was put to the test on the day after the disaster at Lucas Oil Can Boyd Stadium.

And now Shank is singing Belichick's praises, probably from the wrong end of a gun. Who's buying this? We sure as hell aren't, and this insincerity will be amply demonstrated if the Patriots lose big this season.

Doubling Down

Get used to it, folks; when Shank latches onto something, he is relentless:

On @ZoandBertrand today from 11-1. They agree with me that whole AFC is shelf of tomato cans.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 15, 2015

Shank Revives The 'Tomato Cans' Meme

Knock us over with a feather - sure didn't see this one coming!

The AFC East is a beast. Every team in the division is undefeated after the first week of play. This hasn’t happened in the AFC East since division realignment in 2002.

Buffalo is a bully. The Dolphins have their 1972 forefathers worried that this might be another undefeated season in Miami. The back page of Monday’s New York Post screamed, “BRAND NEW JETS,’’ in the wake of Sunday’s 31-10 demolition of the mighty Cleveland Browns.

Finally, some competition for the Patriots.

We were warned about this all summer while mired in Deflategate. Rex Ryan, a man who knows how to beat the Patriots, was bringing swagger and good players to Orchard Park, N.Y. The Dolphins went out and bought Ndamukong Suh, the baddest man in the whole damn town (still dating yourself, Shank! - ed). The Jets took Darrelle Revis away from the Patriots, then put a Harvard man at quarterback.

Now they are all unbeaten. There’ll be no cakewalk for the Patriots this year.

Sorry, people. I’m not buying any of it.

Of course he's not buying it - he's not about to abandon his long standing tradition of setting up the Patriots for the highest of expectations just like he did last year so he can take a world class shit on them just like he did last year if / when they lose a game, all the better (and a more venomous column) if they lose big.

You'd think Shank could update his pop culture references - you'd be wrong!

The AFC East is still Gladys Knight and the Pips, and the Patriots are Gladys Knight.
...
It speaks to the greatness of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, but it also speaks to the “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right” competition from Buffalo, Miami, and New York.

Remember Shank's pledge 'never to rip Sandoval for being out of shape or going on the disabled list.'? Jokes don't technically count, right?

Belichick devours untested quarterbacks like Pablo Sandoval at the postgame spread.

Last but not least, the phrase that's been on the shelf for the last six months, polished up for heavy use in another NFL season:

The AFC East still has more tomato cans than Stop & Shop.

...aaand scene!

Shank's Second Attempt At Humor In A Week

Shank just loves working all sides of an issue in order to piss off his readers. A week ago here he is, dead serious:

I think they were doing it. We know all the flaws of the Wells Report and the unfairness and bias the NFL brought to process, but I find it impossible to explain the texts, the noncompliance, lawyering-up, destruction of evidence, suspension of two team employees, Robert Kraft’s acceptance of the whopping punishments, and the Patriots’ history of rule-bending, without concluding that the Patriots were up to something. They had a system. Brady wasn’t necessarily ordering the Code Reds, but the balls were deflated and he was generally aware. That’s my takeaway.

You don't like his opinions? That's okay - he has others! In today's installment of As The Deflated Ball Turns, half-cleverly disguised as humor:

It did not start with Bill Belichick and the 2001 Patriots. No doubt you already knew that. This goes way back. And it’s time we made amends.

Let’s start with some of the most memorable moments.

John Havlicek stealing the ball to clinch the 1965 NBA Eastern Conference finals for the Celtics? Sorry to burst your bubble. Havlicek stealing the ball was not on the level.

Johnny Most knew the dirty deal, but he took the secret to his grave. The Celtics had their backs to the wall on that April Friday night. They were engaged in a vigorous seven-game series with the hated Philadelphia 76ers and it looked like Wilt Chamberlain was finally going to get the better of Bill Russell.

Trailing by a point with five seconds left in Game 7, the 76ers were set to inbound the ball under their own basket after an awful turnover by Russell. Fortunately, Boston had karma and cleverness on its side in the person of Ernie Adams, a young Celtic ball boy from Brookline. During the timeout, after Russell’s turnover, young Adams snuck into the 76ers’ huddle and offered towels and water cups to Chamberlain and guard Hal Greer. Adams saw 76ers coach Dolph Schayes drawing up a play that had Greer inbounding the ball out deep to Chet Walker from underneath the basket. Adams went back to the Celtics’ huddle and relayed the news to Havlicek. Then Havlicek Stole The Ball. The rest is radio history, NBA history.

Points are awarded for creativity, but points are deducted for his mention of the most recent 'controversy, dubbed 'Communicategate', in which the NFL exonerated the Patriots of wrongdoing.

Unfunny Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

From yesterday's Patriots / Steelers game, Dickhead Dan still thinks this is funny stuff:

The Coin Toss in Context: Pats win toss. Defer. Game over. Again.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 11, 2015

Give it a rest, moron...

Shank is 'Steel' Up for Hating the Pats

Around 11:30 p.m. last night the Patriots sealed the win in the opening game to the NFL's 2015-16 season, rising above all the sound and fury from last season's Deflategate debacle with a convincing win over the Steelers.

It took just a few more hours for The CHB to dive back into the mire.

"[G]et ready for another round of accusations from the haters," writes The CHB, following the Patriots' victory.

But who, exactly, are the haters?

Following the game, the Steelers complained about the headsets occasionally not working or getting crossed with other broadcasts. Well, the Patriots acknowledged the headsets weren't working. That's hating?

No, what feels more like hating is when The CHB writes:

"No fan base is more angry or defensive than the proud Patriot Legion ... "

or

"[W]inning is never enough for the Patriots and their fans. They need to grind their enemies into dust."

or

"Nothing has changed for many of us ... the Patriots quarterback was not 'exonerated.' "

or

"Why so many 'experts' (including ESPN) saying the weather could have deflated balls when ESPN says all 12 colt footballs tested ok? 

Who's the real hater?

We Can Hazard A Guess

So, Shank goes on ESPN, presumably to talk about the Patriots:

Going on outside the lines on espn2 at 530est

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 10, 2015

Were the Shank comments positive or negative? Do I even have to ask?

If anyone saw it, please leave your impression in the comments. Thanks!

More Dumb Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Presumably after reading this interestingly timed Outside The Lines ESPN column, Shank comes out with an original idea:

Maybe Pats best option is just to secede from the NFL and start their own league.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) September 8, 2015

We can call it... the USFL!

Shank's Annual Golf Column

...is about as underwhelming as you'd imagine. There's proforma praise for winner Rickie Fowler, a cheap shot at runner-up Henrik Stenson, and Shank's lifelong man crush on Tiger Woods hasn't abated.

A Tiger-starved golf world needs more Rickie, and less Henrik.

Sorry. But you know it’s true. With Tiger Woods’s world ranking down to 266, golf needs a double shot of what the late George Frazier called duende.

What A Difference Two Days Makes

Shank, on Thursday:

"Tom Brady wins. Roger Goodell loses. So when does Bob Kraft reverse himself once more and go after the NFL to reclaim the $1 million fine and loss of two draft picks?"
...
There is great glee in Foxborough. It’s another championship day for Brady, Bill Belichick, Bob and Jon Kraft, and The Wells Report In Context. Judge Berman has validated and vindicated Brady, while thoroughly spanking Goodell and the NFL’s punishing process.

Shank, about an hour and a half ago:

Berman (has he been fitted for a Patriots onesie?) only verified what we already knew: Brady was overpunished for his alleged awareness of the alleged scheme. But contrary to instant local mythology, the Patriots quarterback was not “exonerated.’’
...
Mercifully, it feels like it’s over now. Kraft is unlikely to go back on his word and seek to reverse the team punishments, and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit won’t be heard from for a year or two. So let’s all get on with our lives.

Shank = Not Exactly Alan Dershowitz

As my co-blogger notes below, it's always amusing to see Shank do a 180 degree turn on a subject. A mere five weeks ago, Tom Brady was a cheater. With today's column, you do not see the faintest hint of the notion that Tom Brady's a cheater, do you?

"Hey, Tom, sorry about calling you a cheater a while ago. Glad that's all cleared up now. We're good, right?"

Sadder still is Shank's lack of due diligence with respect to the following sentence:

"Tom Brady wins. Roger Goodell loses. So when does Bob Kraft reverse himself once more and go after the NFL to reclaim the $1 million fine and loss of two draft picks?"

It's sad, but not surprising, that Shank has had seven months to examine this situation and still have little to no idea about contract law, legal precedents with respect to the NFL or collective bargaining agreements, all stemming from his laziness or lack of curiosity. I was able to blow through the Berman decision in the better part of an hour and conclude that Berman's decision (last part of p. 18 to about page 39) was based on numerous violations / misapplications of NFL precedence and due process procedures by commissioner Goodell with respect to the existing collective bargaining agreement during the arbitration hearing, which makes Shank's contention about half right. Further of Brady's contentions (the rest of the Scribd link above) were dismissed by Judge Berman.

If he had bothered to read Berman's report, he would realize that Berman did not rule against anything in the Wells Report itself, never opining on the underlying allegations against Brady and thus not providing Kraft any basis for an appeal of the team fine and loss of draft picks. This is just a further demonstration of Shank's laziness.

Intercepted

So back on Jan. 22, when The CHB tweeted this:

do you think it ever crossed his mind that he would someday (as in today) write this:

"Tom Brady wins. Roger Goodell loses. So when does Bob Kraft reverse himself once more and go after the NFL to reclaim the $1 million fine and loss of two draft picks?"

Of course not. Which is why most of us learn by the time we reach grade school not to speak out of turn or lob grenades without knowing what the consequences of doing so might be.

But not The CHB! Reversing himself is what he does best.* Now it's the "blundering NFL" and the "stubborn" NFL commissioner Roger Goodell who are in the wrong.

Perhaps changing your mind is "just part of the editorial process."


*The bartenders at The Four's might disagree.

Shank And The Globe's Editorial Process

Having read Mike's recent post about Shank and the deleted Don Orsillo sign removal sentence, a Globe hack responds thusly:

That led David Skok, the Globe’s managing editor for digital and general manager of BostonGlobe.com, to respond: “Story was published early, sourcing was weak so the line was removed. Our coverage on this speaks for itself.”

It speaks, all right, and just furthers this blogger's contention that Shank does not have an editor, or doesn't until something blows up in Shank's face.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a cursory review of this site's posts since inception for the search word 'editor' shows 24 results. Out of the first twelve, I rediscovered five clear indicators of this lack of editorial oversight:

* Dec. 30, 2007 - three spelling mistakes, never corrected.

* Dec. 7, 2008 - Semi-confusing (and definitely annoying) references to the (Sea)Hawks and potentially the Atlanta Hawks.

* Jan. 26, 2010 - same as above.

* Nov. 23, 2014 - misstatement of fact; a Google search of two minutes could have prevented this one.

* July 9, 2015 - misstatement of fact / complete lack of research. Again, a two minute Google search was all that would have been required to get this story straight.

Oh - and my all-time favorite is right here:

Skaters know there’s a purity about the outdoor game. No Zamboni fumes.

A quick Google search turns out the following:

Drive Train:
Four-wheel drive. Rugged Spicer axles have high capacities. Full floating rear axle. General Electric 17.5 HP electric motor provides superior on-ice power even at low speeds.

By the way, Zamboni machines have had electric drive trains for over fifty years.

The only time a Globe editor is mentioned in the same sentence as Shank's is in this case or when Shank's wife donates $250 to Nikki Tsongas' congressional campaign from a joint checking account and a Globe editor has to pull Shank's ass out of the fire, piously declaring nothing to see here, move along.

If any of you want to continue to buy into the notion of Shank having constant editorial oversight, these examples out ought to persuade you otherwise. It is clear to me that the offending sentence in Shank's latest column was removed after someone, presumably at NESN and / or the Red Sox organization, spotted it and 'requested' that it be removed.

Hacktastic!

UPDATE at 5:28 PM - Commenter Anonymous points out this egregious example, to wit: Dodgers StadiumThe Coliseum opened was the Dodgers baseball field in 1958, and Shank's article as linked to above has Humphrey Bogart attending at least one game at that stadium. All well & fine, were it not for the fact that Bogart died in January 1957, one year before the stadium opened.

Like I noted before, this is not an exhaustive list of evidence that Shank has no immediate editorial oversight; any additional examples would simply be shoveling more dirt on this notion.

UPDATE at 7:11 PM - Typo has been corrected as noted above, which makes this site more accountable than Shank's columns on this sort of thing...

UPDATE, 9/2/2015 at 12:58 AM - Change of Los Angeles baseball venue as noted above, thanks to commenter Anonymous.

New suggested DSW masthead - 'At least we acknowledge and correct our mistakes!'

The CHB's Belichickian Response

As Anonymous was so good to note in the Comments to the post below, The CHB's piece today on Don Orsillo's pending departure had the following line deleted: "Two Sox employees told the Globe that workers at Fenway turnstiles were ordered to confiscate any signs supporting Orsillo as fans entered Fenway."

Media watcher Dan Kennedy, who has the story over at Media Nation, asked The CHB about the
edit." The CHB, naturally, is less than forthcoming in his response, claiming the deletion is "just part of the editorial process" and not commenting further.

But Deadspin is on the attack, asserting that Shank's sourcing is either weak or outright wrong.

Only Flounder from Animal House can do this justice:

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.

DHL Dan - XLVI

Buried in the Globe's sports section is Shank's Picked up Pieces column from Saturday, where he 'discusses' many topics, from Tom Werner and Don Orsillo to DeflateGate and Darryl Dawkins.

Classy, Professional Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

If you're dusting off the cheap shots at the Krafts, it must be football season:

Kraft booster seats made the trip to Carolina

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) August 29, 2015

Don Orsillo Gets Axed

Shank finally gets around to the firing of Red Sox TV announcer Don Orsillo.

This Tuesday, while the Sox were in Chicago, WEEI reported that Orsillo would be done with NESN at the end of this season. Sox owners and NESN officials (the team owns 80 percent of NESN) did not respond to reporters’ inquiries after word leaked, and Orsillo issued a polite “no comment” from Chicago.

At 7:50 p.m. Tuesday, shortly before the Sox played the White Sox, NESN issued a statement on its website confirming Dave O’Brien would replace Orsillo for the 2016 Sox season.

Ratings are down, the Sox are in last place for the third time in four years, and they can’t simply fire another pitching coach.

And so Don Orsillo is gone. Without any explanation from ownership or Orsillo’s bosses at NESN. And he’s apparently expected to finish out the season as if none of this is happening. Awkward.

If anyone runs into the suit responsible for this (Joseph Maar), kick him in the nuts for me, ok?

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.

CHB Column Latest Underperformer

Six days after The CHB was laid to waste, scooped on the Dave Dombrowski hiring by the likes of Heidi Watney (!) and David Wade (!!), he picks up the pieces long enough to claim the renewed energy at Fenway owes itself to players worried about losing their jobs.

Who, exactly, is worried remains to be seen.

Pablo Sandoval has a huge contract, and the Red Sox don't have a viable replacement at third base. He ain't worried. Hanley Ramirez has an even huger contract, and while they have lots of outfielders, none of them is making $22 million a year. He ain't worried either.

Dustin Pedroia is injured but the heart and soul of the team and has a contract that runs through 2021. The only guy in the system who might be able to fill his spot today is the current starting centerfielder, Mookie Betts. He ain't worried.

And on it goes. The other underperformers have already been traded (Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino) or released (Justin Masterson), or are on the DL and unlikely to be booted without a long look next spring.

The other myth The CHB tries to push is that the Red Sox are suddenly going to return to the Stone Ages of baseball; that is, when the league RBI leader was the default MVP. Ha! Wonder if Shank knows the difference between the Red Sox and, say the Cardinals and Giants is not their scouts but rather their so-called baseball people NOT taking the stats guys' advice. Keep in mind, it was the stats guys who said don't sign Sandoval. The CHB, on the other hand, made it the platform of his off-season campaign. Who's the smart guy now?

Scooped!

Dave Dombrowski was named head of the Boston Red Sox's baseball operations last night, and Ben Cherington, the GM since 2011, has resigned.

It's the biggest story, hands down, of the Red Sox season in 2015, and The CHB is nowhere to be found.

Scoooooopppppeeeedddd!!!

Jealous Shank

Zo's ring. So jealous pic.twitter.com/S3IZmdNFq3

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) August 18, 2015

That's okay, Shank - you can just show everyone your Pulitzer Prize...

Deflated Column

As we wait for the Federal court proceedings to work itself out, Shank may have finally come down with Deflategate Fatigue Syndrome.

The symptoms are obvious.

You are tired, edgy, and have bags under your eyes. You scan your monthly National Grid bill looking for language about ideal gas laws. After you have blood drawn for your annual physical, you call the doctor’s office to ask about your PSI levels. You know way too much about the vacation schedules of Gerry Callahan and Michael Felger. You get angry every time Chris Mortensen comes on ESPN. You sleep in a Free Brady T-shirt.

But you don’t sleep much.

You have Deflategate Fatigue Syndrome, a.k.a. DFS.

One of his better efforts recently.

A Cancer in the Clubhouse

All of The CHB's hyperventilating and bloviating over the Red Sox goes for naught now that manager John Farrell has been diagnosed with lymphoma.

But never let Shank miss a golden opportunity to revise history. As Roger linked to below, in today's (last night's) piece The CHB surmises, "[E]ven in bad times Farrell has commanded respect and dodged the slings and arrows that traditionally puncture the man in the corner office on Yawkey Way."

Indeed. Just a couple weeks ago, The CHB was referring to Farrell (among others) as one of the "company men ... headed to their third-last place finish in four seasons" and a "subordinate eager to please the bosses".

Slings and arrows 1, respect 0

And The CHB questioned in late June why Farrell still had a job, asking LArry Lucchino, "Why does he have that support? Again, it looks like he’s a company man, who won’t push back and therefore stays on the job."

Slings and arrows 2, respect 0

Oh yes: There's also all the usual background info on Farrell, a CHB staple, as if no one has heard of Wikipedia (which is probably where he gets it all).

The Boston Red Sox have a cancer in their midst all right, but it writes for the Globe.

John Farrell

Red Sox manager John Farrell announced his diagnosis of lymphoma a few hours ago. Shank does the write-up.

Get well soon, John.

Speaking Of Alcohol

Guess whose son has a Twitter account?

I suppose that's better than trying to beat the shit out of a couple of cops...

One Hit Wonders

Shank writes a decent column reflecting on one-time memorable performances of professional athletes.

I’M NOT SURE MALCOLM BUTLER OR DAVE ROBERTS DRINK BEER, but I am sure of this one thing . . . 

They’ll never have to buy another beer in this town.

It’s what we always say. A guy makes a great catch, hits a big homer, or steals a series-saving base, and we say the same thing.

He’ll never have to buy a beer in this town again.

Bernie Carbo stopped drinking alcoholic beverages back in the 1990s, but he’s never going to have to a buy a beer in Boston because he hit one of the biggest homers in Red Sox history when, while pinch-hitting with two outs in the eighth, he drove a Rawley Eastwick cut fastball into the center-field bleachers to tie the sixth game of the epic 1975 World Series. Carbo’s blast set up the Carlton Fisk foul-pole shot — the Good Will Hunting moment that guaranteed that Pudge also would never again have to buy another beer in this town.

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!

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.

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!

Missing the Point (Man)

Larry Lucchino is stepping down as CEO of the Boston Red Sox. How many times has The CHB tried to suggest prematurely this was happening?

Let's see....

Feb. 15, 2015: The CHB claims Mike Gordon has usurped Lucchino in the Boston Red Sox pecking order.
July 8, 2014: Says Lucchino is an "absentee owner."
2012/13: Lucchino does not have a contract with Red Sox.

What's classic is that not only did The CHB get the timing wrong -- and by years -- he also got the replacement wrong. It's Sam Kennedy.

Tom Caron

Shank takes a break from shitting on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to devote a column about Tom Caron of NESN.

The WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon starts Aug. 18 and Tom Caron will be anchoring much of the event from NESN’s perch under the center-field bleachers at Fenway Park. Caron has been part of this magnificent event since its inception in 2002, and he’s interviewed dozens of Dana-Farber patients and their families in the course of raising millions of dollars for the fight against cancer.

This year will be different for Tom Caron. This year he will better understand the plight of cancer victims and the language they speak.

Caron had a mass removed from his chest in late March and learned that it tested positive for lymphoma just before starting work at the NESN studios on Friday, April 10 — which turned out to be the night the Red Sox and Yankees engaged in a six-hour-49-minute, 19-inning marathon in the Bronx. Caron planned on telling his wife the bad news after he got home that night, but as the game lurched toward midnight, the delay became intolerable. He called home in the middle of the 12th inning.

“Literally, the longest night of my life,’’ says the 20-year veteran of the New England Sports Network. “Those were long moments. You want to think the best, but you just don’t know.’’

Here's wishing Tom a full recovery.

It's On

In a Federal court filing a few hours ago, Tom Brady and the NFLPA sued the NFL, mentioning numerous items conveniently ignored by the 'ace' Boston Globe columnist:

Thumbing its nose at the Peterson order, Commissioner Goodell’s Award upholds Brady’s four-game suspension in its entirety despite the undisputed arbitration record of several egregious notice defects: Brady had no notice of the disciplinary standards that would be applied to him; no notice of the disciplinary policies that would be applied; and no notice of the potential penalties. In fact, the NFL collectively bargained over the punishments (fines, not suspensions) for alleged equipment tampering by players-including those designed to gain a competitive advantage-and was not free to disregard that CBA bargain and subject Brady to other standards, policies, and penalties without any notice at all.

Read the whole thing, and compare & contrast it to the completely one-sided bullshit posted by Shank in his most recent column and in previous Deflategate columns. It would leave no doubt whatsoever that Shank's been grinding an axe on this issue the entire time.

UPDATE, AT 10:50 pm - Is it even worse for the NFL?

Page 5

“10. On May 6, many months and many millions of dollars in legal fees later, Paul, Weiss and the NFL issued the ‘Wells Report’ summarizing the findings from their investigation. The purportedly independent Wells Report was edited by Pash, the NFL’s General Counsel, before its public release “

If I may be granted a moment to second guess (and why the hell not?), a word or two of advice to the 'ace' Boston Globe columnist. While this DSW blogger may not have done a ton of research into this matter, it's bloody obvious that neither did you, Shank. You might have tried considering the merits of both parties involved before running your mouth once again, producing another anti-Patriots screed in order to perhaps avenge that disinvitation to the 1995 Super Bowl party, this research being something someone of your 'stature' in the local journalism community is expected to do and not further contribute to the decline in quality in your sports section and your newspaper in general.

Shank's Second Victory Lap

Tom Brady's four game suspension for his 'involvement' with DeflateGate was upheld by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Shank couldn't be happier about it.

In a 20-page decision that was released at 2:32 p.m. Tuesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension. In the day’s most shocking revelation, the commissioner revealed that Brady ordered his assistant to destroy his cellphone on the same day (March 6) Brady was interviewed by NFL investigator Ted Wells. Brady did not disclose this development for several months and it was not confirmed until the day of his suspension appeal hearing, June 23.

What do you say now, Patriot fans? Still think the NFL is out to get the Patriots? Still think Tom Brady is clean? Still think this is a witch hunt?

Of course you do. And that is why at a time when you should be embarrassed, you are probably emboldened.

Please. Give up. It’s time for local loyalists to parachute down from Planet Patriot and get in touch with reality. Stop twisting yourselves into knots to justify the petty crimes and coverups of the Patriots and their quarterback.

Shank's Victory Lap

After Boston mayor Marty Walsh nuked the 2024 Boston Summer Olympics, Shank does his end-zone dance, and rightly so.

Mercifully, our short regional nightmare is over.

Kaput. Done. Ov-ah.

The ridiculous notion that we might play host to the 2024 Olympics officially died Monday afternoon when the United States Olympic Committee and Boston 2024 announced they’d mutually agreed to withdraw the Boston bid. Thank goodness. Free at last. This was one of the worst ideas since Bob Kraft told us he was moving the Patriots to Hartford. It was obvious from Day One that Boston 2024 was doomed.

Better sooner than later. Mayor of Boston Marty Walsh cut his losses early Monday when he informed the world that our city was not willing to give the USOC the financial guarantees it would need to present Boston as a bid city for 2024. A few hours later, the death of Boston’s bid was official.

In a rare departure from our masthead, go forth and read this entire column, for a rare moment or two of insight and eloquence from Shank is revealed:

We don’t need this. We never needed this. The Olympics have become the province of autocratic societies. That is not us. We are a free people.
...
The death of Boston 2024 is a victory for the Hub of the Universe. It’s a triumph for rational thought. It’s a statement that we are not stupid.

Faster, Higher, Stronger. That’s the Olympic motto.

Smarter. That’s the Boston motto. Good luck to the host city of the 2024 Games. It’s not our problem anymore.

Sadly, from here he will digress from this statesmanship into petty hatred of the New England Patriots once a) the NFL decision on Tom Brady is handed down and / or b) training camp opens up.

It was nice while it lasted...

What A Difference Three Hours Makes

Shank's tweet on Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, discussing opposition to the Boston bid for the 2024 Olympic Games:

Boston Herald's headline, three hours later:

Boston Bid for Olympics is over after Walsh Speech

I can't wait to hear why Walsh had an apparent and sudden change of heart. Until then, RIP, Boston 2024!

Hall of Shame

The CHB's column on Pedro Martinez's induction today to the Baseball Hall of Fame is sterile in its mindless recitation of Pedro's stats and moronic for calling him, yet again, a diva. Classy.

If there were a Boston Racist Hall of Fame, The CHB would get my vote.

No To Boston 2024

Shank watched last night's debate between the big guns of the pro and con Boston 2024 camps and devotes his latest column to it.

This blog agrees with the No to Boston 2024 side, and Shank continues to take this same stance. Hell has just opened a new gate!

Memorable debates.

There was Lincoln-Douglas. Kennedy-Nixon. Will Ferrell’s “Frank the Tank” vs. James Carville in “Old School.”

And now Steve Pagliuca and Daniel Doctoroff vs. Chris Dempsey and Andrew Zimbalist in the Boston 2024 Olympic debate, which aired Thursday night on Fox 25.

We tuned in hoping for one of those famous debate moments — something like Gerald Ford claiming there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, or Ronald Reagan stating, “I am paying for this microphone.’’ We would have even settled for Pags spanking Dempsey with, “I knew Red Auerbach. Red Auerbach was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Red Auerbach.’’

The best we got was Zimbalist saying, “Most of the numbers I look at reflect drunken optimism.’’

Ouch. That one hurt

Good column by Shank... look - another gate just opened!

The Concept Is Called 'Negotiation'

Not knowing the details of a particular matter has never prevented Shank from throwing out a half-assed opinion about it:

You Mad, Bro?

Shank continues to leverage Twitter as a prime trolling application:

Read today that Red Sox have best farm system in baseball. Again. This is part of their problem. They buy the hype and finish last. Again

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 23, 2015

Satire is Reflexive

Satire is reflexive.

As we have routinely called attention to The CHB's flip-flopping and used quotes from his own columns to mock him when events turned out differently than he predicted -- which is almost always -- The CHB is now borrowing from our technique to take aim at Red Sox management.

Unfortunately, just as John Henry and Co. believe(d) mightily in the team -- and at least said so, and to be honest, what else are they supposed to do? -- so too did The CHB.

• “This isn’t quite Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, but I’m applauding this. [T]hey’re putting money back into the payroll. I applaud that. Some of these contracts may not look so good four, five years from now when you see what these guys look like, but I won’t care.”
• It’s OK now to applaud the Sox for spending money and trying to make their team better and more interesting in 2015. What we’ve seen this week is more like the Red Sox of the old days — a team that would spend buckets of cash to take other teams’ best players; the Red Sox who were more like the Yankees than they ever wanted to admit. ... [L]et’s welcome the Red Sox back to relevancy."

• "Pablo Sandoval ... is a 28-year-old switch-hitter who can rake. He can turn on the high fastball, something nobody does anymore. ... He can hit when it matters most. He’s also a cat-like defender."

So there's that.

What's weird is how he continually refers to the 2013 World Series championship as a "fluke." So if winning 95 games plus three playoff series is a fluke, then what were the crash of 2012, the World Series losses in 1967, 1975 and 1986, etc. -- anomalies?

Advice: Don't bother reading the column. Shank jumps back and forth so much among topics, you'll be convinced he didn't take his dementia meds before writing it.

Afterthought: What the hell is with Nick Cafardo? He writes for the umpteenth time that the Red Sox have to start their youth movement, then in the same column says none of the AAA players the Sox have are major league caliber. Note to Nick: Stop sharing a row with The CHB. It's rubbing off.

Another Dumb Red Sox Tweet, By Dan Shaughnessy

Yeah, I'm just as shocked as the rest of you:

It's been EIGHT days since Red Sox scored a run. I am guessing this is a major league record for in-season drought other than 9/11.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 20, 2015

Eight days that included the All-Star break (four days) and Sunday's rainout at Anaheim, and throw in the fact that the Sox did score runs on July 12th and July 20th (he tweeted out this beauty before the Sox took the field for their Monday doubleheader), which then can be better described as 'no runs scored in the two games the Red Sox played since July 12.'

Other than that, his tweet was accurate...

Another Slow News Week - DHL Dan XLIV

We should rejoice, as at least he won't be commenting on the Tour de France!

We are 'treated' to an official Picked Up Pieces column, where the usual targets are aimed at - Red Sox, Patriots, David Ortiz, useless trivia, assorted miscellaneous musings, and a new one - Shank's no longer entertained by this year's installment of the Summer of Gronk.

One big problem with this column - I'm aware of cooked numbers when I see them:

If you take away the blessed outlier season of 2013, the Sox are 66 games under .500 since September 2011. Wonder what Bill James and the analytics folks are telling their boss about the hideous pitching staff and failed projections for the 2015 Red Sox? The Sox have to realize that last place has become the norm, not the exception.

Shank keeps feeling the need to bring up this completely misleading 'games under .500' statistic by removing a) the stretch between April 2011 and August 2011 and the entire 2013 season for one reason - to make this team look as bad as he possibly can. With the two links above, we can add the records from April to August 2011 (83 - 52, +31) and the 2013 season (97 - 65, +32) to get to a whopping three fucking games under .500 since the beginning of the 2011 season.

What other important fact is missing from Shank's column? Boston Red Sox - 2013 World Series Champions! That's not worth mentioning when your busy trashing the Old Towne Team.

As always, read this occasionally deceptive columnist with a huge grain of salt.

Possible new subhed for the site - Dan Shaughnessy Watch: It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it!

Slow News Week - DHL Dan XLIII

When we're in the middle of summer and it's baseball's All-Star week, and Shank doesn't feel like writing about that particular game, he'll mail something in instead.

Used a Rolodex lately?

Didn’t think so. For the benefit of young folks, a Rolodex is a plastic wheel loaded with alphabetized cards that store phone numbers of people you may need to contact. Watch “Mad Men.’’ Don Draper’s secretary always flips through her Rolodex after Don asks her to reach a client.

I’m not a Rolodex guy, but I still travel with a black leather “At-A-Glance” address and telephone book that I pull out of my work bag every time I need to call Curt Schilling or Jonathan Kraft. It is at this moment that some wiseguy usually asks me if I’m about to dial Austin Powers or Marty McFly. We know that everybody now stores contact information in their phones. Almost everybody, that is.

I was clutching my beloved address book while sitting in the palatial offices of the Globe sports department recently when one of my bosses trumped me in a big way.

“Wait until you get a load of this,’’ he said, as he pivoted in his chair, reached to a shelf behind where he was sitting, and hoisted a metal cabinet drawer that was stocked with about 500 weathered index cards. “This is the old Globe sports directory,’’ he said. “One of the secretaries gave it to me when she retired and I’ve never been able to throw it away.’’

Trolling 101

This is the level of discourse you can expect from Shank after the American League wins the All-Star game and, as a result, won the home-field advantage in the 2015 World Series.

Naturally, he gets something wrong (4 should be 5):

Wonder which Sox player loses track of how many outs there are today?

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 4, 2015

Catching Up

I haven't been able to get to any of Shank's 'work' until now, but then again, you didn't miss much. Shank's as predictable as ever.

On Friday, the Red Sox lost to the Yankees. The next day, Shank buries the Sox:

The Red Sox are Fool’s Gold. The sooner we accept this fact, the easier it will be to tolerate another lost summer.

Friday night was not a good night for the Local Nine.

Fans arrived at Fenway full of hope and vigor. The season was saved; downright revitalized. The “surging” Red Sox were back in the pennant race in the American League East and there was legitimate belief the locals were on the cusp of making a serious midseason run toward respectability and possible contention.

And then it unraveled. In depressing and predictable fashion. Despicable-Him, A-Rod, hit a solo homer in the first and the Sox played ugly defense, Clay Buchholz got hurt (on schedule), and the first-place Yankees beat the Red Sox, 5-1, to keep the Red Sox in the cellar and push the Bostons 6½ games out of first place.

On Saturday, the Sox beat the Yankees, so Shank writes a trivial column instead of his general standard of mail-it-in uselessness, the picked-up pieces column:

Tuesday is the big night and we are breathless with anticipation. It’s the night we learn the identity of every big league baseball team’s “Franchise Four.” The nation is agog.

I love these contrived events and polls. It’s like the Mount Rushmore game. In Boston sports we have settled on Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Tom Brady, and Bobby Orr. And we believe no city can match our guys.

But who would you choose for the Red Sox? Who will it be when the Franchise Four of the 115-year-old Boston Red Sox is unveiled on Fox?

On Sunday, the Sox lost to the Yankees, so Shank rewrites Saturday's column:

The popular narrative holds that after 3½ months and 89 games we still don’t have a handle on these 2015 Red Sox.

Buyers or sellers? Contenders or pretenders? In or out? Up or down? Cardiac Kids or Annoying Millionaires Who Raise Your Blood Pressure?

Stop. I think we know now.

The Sox were spanked by the Yankees again Sunday. David Ortiz was sent home with a respiratory condition, Alex Rodriguez (.333, three homers, 10 RBIs vs. Sox this year) continued his Wrecking Ball Tour de Fenway, and the first-place Bronx Bombers sent the Sox into the All-Star break with an 8-6 loss.

Negative, trivial and repetitive - that's Shank in a nutshell.

Dumb Red Sox Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Carter Capps in MLB since '12. Now that he's pitched vs. Red Sox, we must have investigation on his delivery. Clearly illegal. #weknowbetter

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 9, 2015

If Carter's been doing this hop-step pitching all year, he would have faced a potential total of 84 different umpires, any of whom could have cited this delivery as illegal. A preliminary search does not indicate that any MLB umpire has raised an issue with his delivery, and this column states that MLB has weighed in on the matter and determined that it 'it's legal, more or less'.

If only Shank had done a basic Google search before running his mouth, or had a freaking editor, he wouldn't have had to embarrass himself yet again.

UPDATE AT 4:48 PM - From the second link, the relevant rule on an illegal pitch states, in part - "An illegal pitch when runners are on base is a balk." From the first link, Capps has no balks called against him in 2015. That's just further evidence of Shank's complete lack of research & due diligence with that stupid tweet.

Clutter

A rational person would see this as an opportunity to make some money or donate it to a library (and get a charitable donation deduction in the process). Then there's this guy:

I am overwhelmed by stuff. I’ve been a sports fan for more than a half-century, and a professional sportswriter for 40 years. I look around my home office and see book posters, press passes, boxes of old newspapers, and stacks of media guides from, BC, BU, Harvard, and Holy Cross. I am drowning in a sea of C’s, B’s, Sox, and Pats publications. I am the Hub Hardball History’s episode of “Hoarders.’’

It’s difficult to throw stuff away.

But I’m trying.

The New York Times last week stated that household decluttering has become a national obsession. A book entitled “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’’ has lived on the bestseller list, so I spent a couple of vacation days trying to comply. My neighborhood’s trash/recycling day is Thursday, and I’ve pledged to place overfilled bins and barrels on the curb. This is not easy when you’ve spent more than 40 years covering sports for newspapers.

How to best proceed with this triage of trivia, trinkets, and tradition?

How about the shit I just mentioned, ya freakin' moron?

Independently Insufferable

Last year's stupid and annoying verbal tic from Shank - dozens of tweets and mentions of the Patriots winning the opening coin toss. This year's version of same:

Wonder which Sox player loses track of how many outs there are today?

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) July 4, 2015

Familiar With The Concept

Joy-sucking is the reading of Shank's columns...

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

No criticism too small for Our Man Shank:

Um, rookie outfielder?

Positive Red Sox Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

You know you hate the Red Sox (or you're just a miserable douchebag) when you feel the need to point out...

Flipping for the Sox

The CHB yet once again reminds us that the Red Sox are playing poorly and have no chance this year and is furious that the management won't admit as much.

One would think someone who has written on this topic for as many years as Shank would know by now that 9 games out in June is not a death sentence. Remember '78? That was a 14 game comeback that began in July.

And what's remarkable is that he kind of does(!), as a few grafs down he writes about the Sox going 40-15 following a "particularly animated discussion" between Sox president Larry Lucchino and then manager Terry Francona in the World Series championship year of 2004. So we have a situation where the Sox -- per Shank -- can't win, even though history shows they have.

Here's where Shank really gets stupid: "Some of us are comparing the Hanley-Pablo signings to the Gonzalez-Crawford acquisitions before 2011. You got away from that philosophy, now it feels like you’ve flipped back."

Well, lo and behold, it was none other than The CHB who just last October insisted the "Red Sox can't sign Sandoval fast enough," and was still singing his praises in February called him a player who can "hit when it matters most." Who's the flip-flopper now?

Most absurdly of all, he asks whether the World Series win in 2013 somehow negatively affected the franchise. Are you kidding? Has the bar been set so high that three World Series wins in 10 seasons is now no longer good enough?

And once again The CHB is complaining about the stats guys, never stopping to realize that every team in the major leagues employs an army of statisticians, including favorite sons Giants, who don't make a move without getting the OK from Yesh Goldfarb (seriously, that's his name).

The CHB: Looking more anachronistic by the day.

Stakes Are High, And So Am I

Well, someone had to work in the Ted Nugent reference!

On the scene from New York City, Shank has been writing this here column for some time now.

NEW YORK — In 1987, former US Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan was tried on charges of fraud and grand larceny. When the former Reagan cabinet member was acquitted by a Bronx County jury after an eight-month trial, Donovan famously asked, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?’’

On Tuesday at 9:09 a.m., Tom Brady went to a basement conference room at the NFL’s offices at 345 Park Avenue and testified under oath . . . in an attempt to get his reputation back.

It might take days, weeks, months, or even years for Brady to remove the tarnish from his golden résumé. Or he might never return to the lofty perch. He might instead be remembered as a champion . . . and a cheater.

It’s still hard to believe we are here.

No it's not, you disingenuous bastard - you've been doing everything you can to insure this story remains in the news. Why travel to New York City to cover this hearing if that's not your goal here?

In years to come, there will be considerable debate regarding strategic blunders, arrogance, coverups, lawyering up, and defiance on the part of the New England Patriots. What is in dispute in New York this week are Brady’s reputation and his legacy.

Funny - it looks like there's been plenty of 'considerable debate' already, and it looks like the actual dispute will be centered around the Wells Report, which determined Brady was 'generally aware' of the deflated footballs. The AEI report casts significant doubt about the Wells Report's determination that the balls were underinflated. So, if you go from 'generally aware' to 'not aware' and / or you go from 'underinflated' to 'not (intentionally) deflated', that would present grounds for nullifying the suspension.

I doubt there was much talk about the “science” once the parties got into the basement conference room. PSI and AEI are not the issue now.

Speculation - overruled!

...
The presence of Wells at Tuesday’s session was interesting. Wells has been taking a beating since his 243-page report was released, and the veteran lawyer no doubt was eager to get into a room with Brady and hear some new information. (Prepare for some leaks. According to ESPN, there were 40 people in the room, and that means lots of loose lips.)

So, if Wells has been 'taking a beating, it stands to reason that his report will be subject to further beatings, right? This is what lawyers do, Shank - create and / or establish reasonable doubt (at a reasonable price!).

They Said Galileo Was Wrong, Too

Eminent physicist Albert Einstein Dan Shaughnessy on reports ripping the Wells Report apart:

Burn the heretic!

Tom Brady Watch

The Globe duo of Shank & Ben Volin are covering today's showdown between Roger Goodell and Tom Brady, liveblogging it.

DHL Dan - XLII

If it's the Monday before Tom Brady's showdown with Roger Goodell, it's the perfect time for another installment of Shank's random musings.

The only thing worth noting with this column - his two largest paragraphs are devoted to yet more criticism of the Red Sox and the Patriots, not including certain other paragraphs. Shocking, I know...

Yaz

Former Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski makes one of his rare trips to Fenway Park, so we get a civil column from Shank.

Folks in the Fenway Park tour group had no way of knowing that there was greatness behind the wheel of the Ford Expedition in the dark underbelly of the ancient ballpark.

How could they possibly have known? They were an assortment of tourists from New Hampshire, Virginia, Texas — even a few from France. They wore Red Sox jerseys, had cameras in their hands, and seemed to be enjoying their discovery walk under the stands behind home plate.

Suddenly, a couple of Fenway security people asked the folks to step aside and make some room in the cramped space. A silver SUV was wedged between a couple of the load-bearing beams in the dark concourse and the vehicle was attempting to back up, pivot, and exit from the bowels of Fenway.

And so the tourists made room and the SUV maneuvered its way out of Fenway Park with precision and ease.

“Pretty good, huh?’’ said the smiling driver, Carl Yastrzemski, as he turned onto Yawkey Way. “I still got it.’’

Sarcasm Noted

The Red Sox win a game, which motivates Shank to write an insincere column of praise for the team.

You don’t see a lot of 4:05 p.m. starting times on weekdays during the school year at major league ballparks.

We had one at Fenway on Tuesday, and it was a day of little miracles.

Start with the final score. The sorry Red Sox beat the Atlanta Braves, 9-4.

That’s right, boys and girls . . . the last-place Red Sox won a baseball game. It was the Sox’ first victory since June 7, snapping a string of seven consecutive painful losses.

Nothing better than a Globe columnist and his condescending, patronizing attitude!

And what's a Red Sox column without a mention of Patriots coach Bill Belichick?

The afternoon started strangely when, while the Sox were arriving at the ballpark, word leaked that the vaunted St. Louis Cardinals are in a heap of trouble with the FBI and MLB because they allegedly hacked the Houston Astros’ database. Inevitable comparisons with the Patriots and Deflategate surfaced immediately, and Twitter trolls had a field day when a photo surfaced of Bill Belichick wearing a Cardinals jersey.

It is well known that Belichick is friendly with former Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and it was impossible to avoid the irony and the oddity of the respective scandals. Clearly one is nothing like the other and it’s totally unfair to infer any linkage, but it was amusing nonetheless.

One column, shots taken at the Red Sox & the Patriots - it's a twofer!

The Bash Brother

The only thing Shank likes doing more than shitting on the New England Patriots is shitting on the Boston Red Sox, complete with a childish Dustin Pedroia insult.

Fenway Park was the place to be Monday afternoon. The moribund Red Sox held yet another team meeting (what’s next? exorcism? human sacrifice?), Dustin Pedroia came out with tiny elbows flying, and manager John Farrell faced a firing squad that was downright Pitinoesque.

After staggering through one of the worst weekends in the long history of the franchise — getting swept by the Blue Jays in spectacular fashion and stretching their losing streak to six games — the last-place Sox arrived at the ballpark in mid-afternoon and immediately held the latest in a string of team meetings. These guys have more meetings than the UN Security Council.

The carnivorous Boston media surrounded Pedroia’s locker when he emerged from the meeting just after 4 p.m., and the de facto captain of the SS John Henry indicated that the fellows had identified their problem and agreed on a solution to make things better.

Certain paragraphs tend to jumpout at the reader:

Pretty true. The great Leigh Montville said it to me in 1982, and I’ve been saying it ever since: When good things happen, we write good things. When bad things happen, we write bad things.

Who's he kidding with that nonsense?

Feel The Excitement!

Looks like they couldn't find anybody else to be the fifth wheel...

UPDATE, at 3:20 PM - Judging from that picture, it looks like Shank's turning into the Gray Jheri Curl...

Another Recycled Column

Shank takes a look at his 'favorite' Red Sox player, David Ortiz, and notices his low levels of production in 2015.

BALTIMORE — It’s almost always like this at the end. Not many baseball players retire at the top of their game. Sandy Koufax walked away at the age of 30 after winning 27 games in 1966, but he’s in a small club. More typically, there’s a gradual diminishment of skills, some reduction of regular appearances, and finally a moment when a guy gets politely nudged into retirement or released.

And so again we wonder if we are seeing the final days of David Ortiz.

Ortiz turns 40 in November. He is hitting .219 with 6 homers and 21 RBIs on June 9. He is batting .114 against lefthanders and has gone 17 games (66 at-bats) without hitting a home run, hitting .169 over those 17 games.

Shank's been writing the 'is it over for Big Papi?' column for at least three years now; eventually he'll be right.

Polar Opposites

Leave it to Shank to watch Eduardo Rodriguez pitch a gem, then have the Red Sox lose the game 1 - 0, write a positive column about Rodriguez, then write a negative tweet about the 1 - 0 result:

A Brief Michael Felger Rant

I was checking out this post at fellow site Boston Media Sports Watch and, on a whim, decided to respond to this snippet with a mini-rant in their comments section. I know this goes against the grain of being a site devoted to the Red Jheri Curl, but it's like this - Shaughnessy, Felger, Borges & Massarotti are the Mount Rushmore of Boston Sports Media Assholes, so I'm using a mulligan here.

I generally like Michael Felger - he's entertaining, funny, very knowledgeable and, yes, a Grade A Asshole (and psychopath, from what I heard secondhand from one of his old neighbors in Framingham). This past Monday afternoon, however, marked a turning point for me where I just had to turn off his show as it grated on me so god damned bad. I'm not sure I view / listen to Felger & Mazz the same way anymore because of it. Boston radio in general has been a real shitshow the past five years, for me because of the losses of WBCN and WFNX and the quality of other radio stations is simply not there, in my opinion. I don't know if this Felger thing below is just another example of that continuing decline in quality, but I suspect it is. I suppose that remains to be seen / heard.

And no, I wasn't boozin' when I wrote this rant. That's the surprising part!

Now, onto the rant!

Michael Felger hates the NBA so much, he can simultaneously trash the Warriors, Steph Curry and LeBron James all at the same time. THAT’s talent.

I've had the displeasure of reading that f*n prick Shaughnessy from Day 1 in 1981. I stopped buying the Boston Globe in 1995 solely because of that f*n prick Shaughnessy, and the taking over primary blogging duties at DSW in September of 2009, so I thought all these years of exposure to unrelenting negativity and hostility would have left me prepared / inoculated for that full solar flare blast from Felger & Massarotti when I tuned in on Monday to get their take on that Game 2 of the NBA finals.

Nope - not even close! I might as well have been a test dummy on one of those islands in the Pacific when they tested the first hydrogen bomb - I was instantly vaporized by Felger's blast of unrelenting negativity and hostility, and Mazz chiming in was just getting thrown by the blast's shock wave. I turned it off in about four or five minutes.

I have managed to recover from that beating, and since I'm on the road at the time they kick off in about twelve hours from now, I'll see if my brain can withstand another dose of Michael Felger Grade A radiation. Should be fun!

Just had to get that off my chest - I picked the wrong week to give up booze...

(crossposted on Boston Sports Media Watch)

They Owed Us One

Shank sure has an irritating way of starting one of his once-in-a-blue-moon positive columns about a Red Sox player.

BALTIMORE — Anybody remember the Jeff Bagwell deal?

They have one like that here in Baltimore now. Eduardo Rodriguez has a chance to become Dan Duquette’s Jeff Bagwell.

Red Sox fans over the age of 35 know what we are talking about. In 1990, lovable Lou Gorman swapped Sox infield prospect Jeff Bagwell for a journeyman pitcher named Larry Andersen. Andersen was a funny dude who used to attach sunflower seeds to his face. He pitched 22 innings of pretty good relief for the 1990 Sox and the Sox won the AL East by two games. Then they were swept by Oakland in the ALCS.

Bagwell went on to hit 449 home runs with a .297 lifetime batting average. He won a Gold Glove. He was National League MVP in 1994. In 2002, fans responding to an ESPN poll voted the Bagwell-Andersen deal as the second worst in baseball history, trailing only Babe Ruth-to-the-Yankees-for-cash.

Just have to rub our noses in it, doesn't he?

Well, now the shoe may be on the other foot:

The Orioles last summer gave the Red Sox Rodriguez in exchange for Andrew Miller at the trading deadline. Miller pitched very well for Baltimore the rest of the way. The Orioles won the American League East by 12 games but were taken out of the playoffs by the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS. Like Andersen, Miller immediately signed with another team.

Eduardo Rodriguez threw six shutout innings, adding to what has been a brilliant introduction to the majors.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox have a guy who looks like one of the best young pitchers in baseball. The 22-year-old Rodriguez was positively dazzling in his first two big league starts, going 2-0, allowing only one run in 14⅔ innings. He walked four and struck out 14. He worked quickly. He immediately made himself the darling of the fandom.

Does anyone else think John Henry pulled Shank into his office and said "Humor me - try writing one damn positive column about the Red Sox!", or is this just a coincidence?

Exit question - isn't the aforementioned Jeff Bagwell one of the players not on Shank's 2013 Hall of Fame ballot because he 'suspects' him of using PED's back in the day? (Answer - why, yes he is!)

Swich Hitting

What's this - a halfway positive Red Sox story from Shank?

It was the best inning of the season. It was the best game of the season. It was a seven-run, eight-hit frame, starting with “Sweet Caroline,’’ and ending after the Red Sox greeted Oakland’s fifth pitcher of the inning with “Everything Is Awesome.’’

Stop the presses, people. Trailing, 4-0, in the eighth, the beleaguered, much-buffeted Red Sox scored seven times in the home half of the inning and beat the Triple A’s, 7-4, Sunday at sunny Fenway Park.

It was a breakthrough day in every way. The Sox had been 1-26 in games in which they trailed after seven innings. They had not won three straight since April 9-11. The victory gave the Sons of John Farrell a three-game winning streak and kept them out of the cellar of the American League East by a few percentage points.

...

Upstairs in the press box, the sad stories and obits were being prepared.

So, Shank had his negative column mostly written, then had to throw it away to write this one? Couldn't happen to a nicer guy...

Shank On Boston 2024, Part IV

Shank's been having quite a blast these past few weeks, from DeflateGate to the epic suck that so far has been the 2015 Boston Red Sox season. He now half rewrites the same No To Boston 2024 column for the third, or fourth, or even fifth time. In all this excitement, I can barely keep count myself!

We need a volcano.

The 1908 Summer Olympic Games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome. The Rome 1908 committee (I believe it was fronted by Stephano Pagliuca and Giovanni Fish) secured the bid for the IV Olympiad and everything was all set until Mount Vesuvius erupted on April 7, 1906, burying Rome and Pompeii in volcanic ash. The IOC relocated the Olympic Games to London.

At this hour, Boston needs some molten lava to stop the madness around the 2024 Olympic bid.

In six short months, Boston 2024 has become a punchline. Someday folks will look back at this misguided effort and compare it to “Gigli,” the PT Cruiser, and Google Glass . . . one more bad idea from the early part of the 21st century. Boston 2024 needs to be put out of its misery. The sooner the better.

Here's an interesting tidbit:

Still, the folks running Boston 2024 don’t seem to like us. Last Monday they bailed on meeting with the Globe’s editorial board because they did not want news people attending the meeting (on an off-the-record-basis), which had been planned for two weeks.

That tells you one or two things - the Boston 2024 organizers don't want you to know certain things, and from that, you shouldn't trust them as far as you can throw them.

As a reminder, this is one issue where DSW agrees with Shank. Read the rest of the column for other interesting nuggets.

Shank Unloads

Shank finally gets around to penning his magnum opus on the 2015 Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox are a myth, and the sooner folks understand this, the sooner ownership will be forced to address the hard truth.

The myth of the Sox is that they are some kind of perennial playoff contender. You know . . . three championships in 10 years.

Well, they are tied with the San Francisco Giants with three World Series championships during that stretch. Using that same compelling 'logic', are the Giants a myth of a perennial playoff contender? No matter - it counts for squat in Shank's book.

Swell. But despite the hype, the highest prices in baseball, and the $200 million payroll (not exactly! -ed), the Sox are no longer legitimate contenders. They are not a good team and they have not been a good team for quite some time.
...
Wake up, people. Your baseball team is not smarter than all the other teams. Your farm system is not the best in the majors.
...
Your Red Sox are an aggregate 31 games under .500 (267-298) since Sept. 1, 2011.

Why does Shank continue to use this misleading starting point, ignoring their 83-52 record from Opening Day 2011 to Sept. 1, 2011? Because he's a relentlessly negative asshole, that's why.

You knew this rant of his was coming; we just had to wait for Shank's Deflategate erection to subside.

Ok, that's another visual y'all could do without. Sorry!

Tweets Lacking In Self-Awareness, By Dan Shaughnessy

Ever stop to ask 'why', Shank?

Maybe You Should Move There

Here's Shank writing about the NBA Finals, jumping on the Cleveland bandwagon:

Go Cleveland. Go Cavaliers. Go LeBron.

It’s the only way to go.

The NBA Finals start Thursday, and unless you are a fan of the Golden State Warriors, or perhaps a fan of Steph Curry’s adorable 2-year-old daughter, you simply must root for the Cavs.

Sorry, I know many of you will find it hard to cheer for LeBron James. He’s a little full of himself, he has been a Celtics rival for many years, and he inspires a lot of irrational hatred for a guy who never really has done anything offensive other than stage an ill-conceived media event with Jim Gray.

'Ill-conceived' is Shank speak for 'convenient memory lapse':

“Despicable Me.’’

Starring LeBron James, ESPN, Jim Gray, and the Miami Heat.

All despicable.

It’s been more than 36 hours since “The Decision’’ and I’m still nauseous.

Truly, has there ever been a more hideous sports-related hour than what we saw Thursday night?

It’s hard to know where to start. We had MeBron speaking of himself in the third person and saying, “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.’’ We had ESPN lying to us about at what point MeBron would announce his move, then morphing into game-show mode. We had Gray forever forfeiting all semblance of integrity, taunting America (particularly Clevelanders) by intentionally delaying the only question we wanted him to ask. And now we have the Miami Heat — a veritable team of A-Rods, the team we will root against in every game as long as LeBron, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh are together.

Despicable. All of them.

This column's his makeup call for trolling Cleveland a few months ago, nothing more.