Quiz Time!

The Red Sox have lost three in a row, with the last one a 15 - 7 thrashing that reminds me of one of the funniest lines from South Park - "I haven't seen a beating like that since Rodney King!"

It's probably written already, but I think Shank's revving up to take the weekly laxative-fueled dump on the Sox. What do you think?

* Yes;
* No;
* Stop writing about my son!

The One Where The CHB Uses a Well-Worn Cliche

"Cody Ross has a flair for the dramatic ...." -- The CHB, Boston Globe, June 20, 2012

"Ross, who has consistently displayed a flair for the dramatic ..."-- Steve Peterson, Bosox Injection, June 20, 2012

"Kevin Youkilis was a fan favorite among the Fenway Faithful, punctuated by his hard play, flair for the dramatic ... " -- Stephen Hewitt, WEEI blog network, June 16, 2012

"... the Red Sox this season ... have had a flair for the dramatic. " -- The Bleacher Report, June 16, 2012

"The Red Sox always show a flair for the dramatic. " -- The Bleacher Report, June 13, 2012

And that's just in one week.

Ugh.

We're Good

Shank stands in the back of the room once again and tells us that the relationship between Dustin Pedroia and Bobby Valentine is hunky dory.

Dustin Pedroia wants you to know that he does not hate Bobby Valentine.

There’s no Bobby V doll in Pedroia’s locker with pins sticking out of it. There’s no Manny Ramirez-Joe Kerrigan thing going on in the Red Sox clubhouse.

“I like Bobby,’’ Pedroia said, a couple of hours before he returned from the disabled list, batting third against the White Sox Thursday night. “I had a relationship with Tito [Terry Francona] over time, but me and Bobby get along great . . . Do I need to wear a [expletive] bike outfit to the field to show I get along with Bobby [Valentine rides his bike everywhere, home and away]? That way, everybody will think we love each other?’’

It is clear throughout the article that Shank isn't buying the story:

What about that game at Wrigley Field when Pedroia stayed at his position when Valentine came out to the mound to talk to a Sox pitcher? It looked like a big diss by the little second baseman.

“I swallowed my dip, man,’’ said Pedroia, sounding very convincing.

If Shank had balls, you'd think he'd just call Pedroia a liar and save us some time; must be a writer's thing.

A gaffe is the inadvertent telling of the truth, right?

What would make him think that anyone thinks the Sox are unhappy?

“I just get that impression,’’ said Pedroia.

Must be the media’s fault. Time to get out the bike shorts.

More often than you think, mate...

No Excuses

When things are going bad for the Red Sox, Shank is at his best.

What’s up with smilin’ Jon Lester?

Other than another curious and abysmal performance by the Red Sox lefthander, Tuesday was a relatively quiet night at Fenway. Nobody went on the disabled list. Nobody said the clubhouse was “toxic,” nor was there any talk about a “disconnect” between Bobby Valentine and his warriors. Bill James was safely locked away in a Kansas basement with no telephone privileges, and no letters were released to Sox season ticket-holders.

But our one takeaway from the Red Sox’ 7-5 loss to the White Sox is that Lester still stinks and nobody knows why.

Can't be anything connected to the incessant, unrelenting negative coverage of the Red Sox this season, right?

Hey, Bruce - when will the Globe drop the paywall?

Follow Dan Shaughnessy On Twitter!

Better yet, don't - it sucks like a shop vac.

Just another example of Shank flipping you the bird.

Close Minded

The CHB thinks Penn State should shut down its football program because a former assistant coach (no longer tied to the program) committed certain atrocities and said atrocities were covered up by the head football coach, the athletic director, a vice president and the president.

But what that good Christian man Shaughnessy doesn't get, of course, is that the coverup is NOT a football problem, or an athletics problem: If a Penn State janitor had been guilty of the same crimes and the administration had covered it up, the school would be in exactly the same position it is now.

No, this is a Penn State University problem, and shutting programs down won't solve anything. Should the Red Sox disband because their former clubhouse manager molested kids for years? Of course not.

Makes me wonder what dirty little secret The CHB is hiding?

Out of It

The Red Sox, who as of this writing are 2.5 games out of the playoffs with 76 games remaining, are a trainwreck, says The CHB.

Hmmm ... how many games did the Rays and Cardinals make up in the last 31 games of the 2011 season, Mr. Short-Term Memory Guy?*

Irony then follows. The CHB says the team is "a parody of itself" and ownership has "lost all sense of accountability." Actually, this reads like he's talking about himself.

*Answer: 9 and 10.5 games, respectively. 

No Son Shine

I suppose it's a bit unfair to note the arrest of The CHB's son on drunk and disorderly charges, except there is some humor in the incident.

To wit: (Son of CHB) Sam Shaughnessy was, among other things, busted for assaulting an officer. Likewise, his father has for decades been an assault on good taste, common sense and humanity.

The rotten apple doesn't fall far from the (brain) dead tree, it seems.

Stuck in His Crawford

In the wake of yesterday's unpleasantries directed at the rehabbing Carl Crawford by some Manchester rube, we sit and wait for The CHB to weigh in on how such behavior shouldn't be tolerated. After all, this is the same scribe who apparently holds those with a "smart, dignified, Christian presence” in high regard. Surely, then, this good Christian man must detest such reprehensible behavior?

Except, of course, he doesn't! As the Globe's Assistant Managing Racist Editor has demonstrated in spades, sensitivity, humility and acceptance are not words taught in any class he took at Holy Cross. Or ever.

P.S. Anyone know if Shank happened to be in the vicinity of Manchvegas last night? Just wondering...

Holy Crap

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

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

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

Head of Clay

The CHB yesterday on Clay Buchholz's appearance at a charity event at Foxwoods despite medical and team clearance: "No matter how harmless it is ... it looks like a lapse in judgment."

Well, if it weren't for the media like The CHB, no one would even know about it. Certainly no one cares.

Remember Nomar? The CHB Doesn't

The CHB hates the Youkilis deal, saying he would have kept him in Boston no matter his attitude: "They got a bag of balls [for him]."

How things have changed. Was it really eight years ago where under almost identical circumstances he was insisting the Red Sox trade Nomar Garciaparra "(one of the best and most popular players in the history of the Red Sox franchise") because of  injuries and poor play? "Everybody's favorite Red Sox appears to have become a wildly unhappy ballplayer, struggling to return from an injury, resentful of the front office, and determined to walk at the end of the season."

The echoes are resounding. Heck, both players were even traded to the same city. You'd think someone who trades so much on history would, you know, remember some of it.

(At least this time, The CHB didn't falsely announce Youkilis had been traded to the Twins.)

Rehashing in the Ivy

June 17.

Wrigley Field.

Red Sox-Cubs.

"What a Field Day for the Hate," says The CHB, who knows a little something about hating and being hated.

After rehashing, for the umpteenth time, the bad blood between Dale Sveum and the Red Sox owners (really, a misstatement -- there's no reason to think the Red Sox owners don't like Sveum. After all, they employed him for two years and then interviewed him for the manager's job. It is, however, easy to see why Sveum, manager of the worst team in baseball, might be a tad peeved that he had to settle for the Cubs job.); Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein (never heard that one before); Terry Francona and the Red Sox owners (nor that one); and Starlin Castro and Bobby Valentine (you really think Bobby V cares what a middle infielder on a last place team in the other league thinks of him?).
 
Oh, the humanity.
 Not done, The CHB turns his sights on Josh Beckett, who "simply loves playing the bad guy." Projection alert!

Can't believe he left out Larry Bird and Dr. J. Missed opportunity there.

Swooning for Sveum

Why does The CHB care so much for Dale Sveum?

It can't be because he's been a successful major league manager.

What pictures does Sveum have of The CHB with those farm animals outside of Milwaukee, anyway?

A Novel Approach for the Ape

The CHB interviews Theo Epstein and there's no mention of the gorilla suit. A first!

Cellar Dweller

Shank would like to remind his readers one more time that the Boston Red Sox are last in the American League East.

PHILADELPHIA — They are the last-place Boston Red Sox.

It has become part of their name. They are no longer just the Red Sox. Just as the Wallendas are the Flying Wallendas, and the Bosstones are the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Sox are the last-place Red Sox.

Cellar dwellers. Basement boys. Bringing up the rear.

When I was a kid, we had a dumb joke about the Washington Senators. Washington was first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.

And now the Red Sox are the bottom-feeders of the AL East. Sorry, but it’s hard to get my head around that one.

We are not talking about a tiny sample. After Sunday’s game, the Sox will have played more than one-quarter of their season. And they have been in last place every day of the season. It’s simply hard to believe.

A year ago, they were touted as a 100-win team. “Best Team Ever’’ was the infamous Herald headline. They stumbled out of the gate, then lived up to the billing, playing 40 games over .500 for four months.

I can't get my head around it, but damn, do I like writing about it! Also, remember that Shank was one of the touters.

The rest of the column wallows in its last placedness, and a few quotes from Bobby Valentine & Dustin Pedroia.

The Weathervane

Shank tends to get caught up in the moment. Two days ago he all but said the Celtics will waltz into the next round; now, he's not so sure. You'd think a columnist who's been around as long as Shank would have a more tempered reaction after winning Game 3. Not anymore...

PHILADELPHIA - The tomato cans were falling down in front of the Celtics.

No Bulls. The Heat on the brink of self-immolation. The Celtics had a 2-1 series lead over the Sixers and an 18-point lead in the third quarter of Game 4. They were toying with the young bucks from Philly.

And they let it get away. They blew a golden opportunity to get an almost-free pass into the conference finals. They were beaten Friday night, 92-83.

Now the series is 2-2 and they are going to have to come back here. They might have to play seven. They might even (gulp) lose to these guys.

It's a standard Shank-style recap from that point out.

DHL Dan - XIV

Shank writes his first picked-up pieces column in seven weeks; would you care to guess what the first subject is?

Shame on Curt Schilling

Picked-up pieces while wondering who’ll be next to be “sacked’’ by John Henry and Tom Werner . . .

■ There are parts of Rhode Island where failing to make good on million-dollar loan payments gets you more than a bloody sock. Red Sox adviser Jeremy Kapstein was out front on the 38 Studios loan scam two years ago when he ran for Rhode Island Lieutenant Governor and told WPRO-AM, “I have serious questions about the viability of that kind of offer to a company that is full of questions.’’

Kapstein was not alone. Massachusetts officials scoffed at the notion of loaning Curt Schilling’s company $75 million. The following appeared in this space in July 2010: “Hats off to the ship of fools known as the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. The RIEDC yesterday pledged a $75 million loan guarantee to lure Curt Schilling’s game company (the one with no games) to the Ocean State. It’s the best demonstration of sports sycophants gone wild with public money since the yahoos in Connecticut promised to give Bob Kraft the world to move his team to Yo Adriaen’s Landing in Hartford.’’

RIEDC director Keith Stokes resigned yesterday.

No thinking person wants to see a company fail (unless it's the NYT - ed.). There are hundreds of jobs at stake. But it’s hard to believe that Schilling, who earned $114 million during his baseball career, can’t make a $1.1 million loan payment.

Schilling is the man who railed about government spending, then had his hand out for corporate welfare, and now asks for more help from the confederacy of dunces in Rhode Island. This is not the Rhode Island Enron, and Schill is not Jeffrey Skilling, but it is bad, and it was avoidable if not for public officials losing all common sense in the aura of a baseball player who delivered on a promise to bring us a championship.

Takin' Care Of Business

Shank states the self-evident in today's column.

PHILADELPHIA - At halftime of Game 2 at TD Garden Monday night, Charles Barkley said on TNT, “It’s 100 percent clear to me that the Celtics have zero respect for the 76ers.’’
I’ll second that.
Everybody knows the Celtics are better than the Sixers. And that includes the Celtics. It’s easy to see why the Celtics might be taking their opponents lightly.
The Celtics throttled the Sixers, 107-91, at the Wells Fargo Center Wednesday night to take a 2-1 series lead in this Eastern Conference semifinal.
Philadelphia coach Doug Collins acknowledged that the Celtics are already looking ahead to the next round.
“I think they are looking at that other series [Miami-Indiana] a little bit,’’ said Collins. “I think they see Chris Bosh being out. They see a tremendous opportunity for themselves.’’
A series can’t be any closer than 2-1 after three games, but I am inclined to agree with Sir Charles and Collins. The Celtics are toying with the Sixers. It got them in trouble in Game 2 in Boston and it can get them in trouble again. But not Wednesday night.
The Sixers are younger and more athletic than the Celtics, but they are also a No. 8 seed. They staggered at the end of the regular season and barely made the playoffs. By the admission of Collins, they lose just about every close game.

Swing And A Miss

I missed a blue moon event on Sunday - the rare second Shank column in the same day.

The Celtics are everybody’s favorite team in Boston in the spring of 2012, and they won another pulsating playoff game Saturday night, beating the Philadelphia 76ers, 92-91, in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series. But it’s hard to get too excited about a series against these Sixers, who are just so young and . . . anonymous. Really. How much energy can you manufacture for this round? Seen anybody wearing a “Iguodala Sucks’’ T-shirt lately?

Now that the Celtics lost Game 2, I guess now is a good a time as any to get excited.

By the way, when does Shank write his next Curt Schilling column? If you're Shank, you generally need someone else to take the first shot at Schilling, then Shank is usually third man in to try to finish him off. Or is this article enough cover fire for Shank to go after Curt's flank?