A Good Piece

Dan has something special before Thanksgiving.

Recap Correct!

Dan has Matt Cassel becoming something else for the Patriots' offense. A solid look at his second great game in a row.

Unfortunately, it is littered with phrases that reveal Dan just trying too hard. There is a use of "the immortal" tag ("the immortal Billy Volek") that Dan has beaten to death. Dated song references ("The Patriots have been on a "Stayin' Alive Tour"; "Certainly the blossoming of Cassel is another brick in the wall of genius"). And just plain odd phrasing ("We're still seeing a lot of D and D"; "Early in the season, Cassel was unable to tap into the Moss Vault").

KISS, Dan. KISS.

Dan's Mea Culpa

With Dustin Pedroia winning the AL MVP yesterday, Dan uses his space to eat some crow. Dan has to admit that he missed it, dismissing Pedroia before giving him much of a chance. But the second baseman has proven most everybody wrong (not me or, more importantly, Theo Epstein and Jason McLeod).

"Dustin Pedroia, MVP.

Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it? It's sort of like the first time you heard "Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger" or "Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei.""

Or the first time I read "Dan Shaughnessy, award winning sports columnist."

Holy Cross, Batman

Dan takes a look at the legacy of sports programs at his alma mater, Holy Cross. This is prompted by today's ceremony in which HC finally raises the numbers of its 1950s star players to the rafters. He takes a look at some of these players like Cousy, Heinsohn, and Togo Palazzi. He also examines the tension at HC between the focus on academics and the focus on sports. Academics is king but there have been recent movements (such as today's ceremony) to at least recognize the rich legacy of the sports teams. It is a good read.

And Don't Forget to Tip Your Waiters

Dan is bringing the funny in a column about something not happening.

I know nothing about economics. I wouldn't know a hedge fund from a hedgehog. Until last week I thought venture capital was the name of the band that recorded the theme from "Hawaii Five-O".

He certainly proved the point by once again bringing up the misleading fact that Fenway Park has the highest ticket prices to imply that Red Sox fans are being unusually soaked by ownership. Fenway Park has the highest ticket prices because it is the smallest stadium in baseball. There are not thousands of $10 nosebleed seats like in Camden Yards or Cellular One to drive down demand and the average ticket price. If you compared Yankee Stadium to Fenway on a seat by seat basis, Yankee Stadium would be more expensive. Second level seats behind homeplate in the new Yankee Stadium are much more expensive than the top seat at Fenway.

Doing What Dan Does

Dan takes a look at one of the stars of yesterday's gameBenJarvus Green-Ellis. A nice flip through Green-Ellis's media guide page with touches of extra color.

Everybody's Favorite

Today Dan has an edition of every hack columnist's fallback, the picked up pieces column.

For what it is, it is a pretty decent effort. Not many dated or obvious statements. I don't see what point there is in knowing who Larry Bird was rooting for six months ago, except for Dan to remind us that he knows Larry. And he ends it with a shot at soccer.

Chicken **** Out of Chicken Salad

Dan manages to take a pretty good game and turn it into a snoozer of a column.

Dan starts off questioning some of the decisions of Belichick in last nights game. Legitimate questions, too. I was impressed, hoping Dan would delve into them and discuss the game.

Well, in this instance, hope is just some word politicians throw around. Dan asks the questions, but does not bother providing any context or explanation.

Instead, we are presented with passages like this one:

It was the Patriots' first game in the Colts' new building, which will be the home of the 2012 Super Bowl. Named after Forrest Lucas, a truck-driving man who founded one of the country's largest producers of automotive lubricants, Lucas Oil is well known on the NASCAR circuit. Stadium officials opened the retractable roof more than two hours before kickoff.

There were only seven offensive possessions in the first half, which ended with the Colts leading, 7-6.

I can see why Dan didn't want to leave that first paragraph on his MS Word clipboard.

The Thrill is Gone

Shaughnessy previews the Patriots-Colts match up for tonight and says the game lacks the thrill/ anticipation/build-up of previous match-ups between the teams. It is a fair enough article although Shaughnessy can't seem to let go some of his banal conventions.

Today we have: "Tonight we have the Bradyless Patriots against the sub.-500 Colts in Lucas Oil (Can Boyd) Stadium." This follows recent columns in which he has said things like, "He cried me a Doc Rivers." or how about, "Little doubt they'd be better off if they were sittin' by the dock of Tampa Bay."? Or this one, "Fenway, Big A, Jamaica Way, Blue Jay Way, Sittin'-on-the-dock-of-the-bay Way. " Or how about, "He was caught playing a little too deep (by the dock of the Bay)" All gems from the last month.

Dan, this is not funny! Stop it now! You are not Chris Berman! (And let's all be thankful the Patriots are not playing the Bucaneers this weekend.)

Pierce's Place

Dan discusses Paul Pierce's place in Celtics history now that Pierce has won an NBA championship with the team. A fair article all things considered (outside of the Cry me a Doc Rivers line) although it meanders a bit.

This must be reflective week for Dan as he steps back and ponders the legacies of folks like Pierce and Belichick. It makes one wonder though if this will be a long winter--there is really no one in the Boston sports landscape for him to take easy shots at now. We can only hope that Schilling decides to re-sign.

Dan Parachutes In

So, after nine months of passive-aggressive shots at Bill Belichick, Dan goes back to Foxboro for a press conference and to tell us how great Belichick is.

It's a bunch of quotations interspersed with Dan's comments about how Belichick isn't telling us what he is really thinking. Of course, none of these quotations have anything to do with the play on the field, just the general tripe that lazy sportswriters love to dwell on when they don't know what they are talking about.

And Dan sure proves that last point by dwelling on the height of the Patriots' defensive backfield. Note to Dan: Most every DB in the NFL, especially CB's, are short.

Be Happy Game 7 Didn't Go Long

I missed this piece earlier in the week because Dan was able to crank out a game piece in time to make the online Globe edition.

It starts:

I was reading Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables" when I had an urge for a 7UP. So I went to 7-Eleven and bought seven cans. It was 7 p.m.

No need to read any further.

Thanks to Barstool Sports for noticing this.

Diving Into Football

After the Red Sox playoff run, Dan's focus shifts to football and last night's Patriots-Broncos match.

Not too good. Dan must not have been paying attention to the football with all that writing he had to do for the Red Sox. Take this question:

"It made you wonder . . . how could the Broncos be 4-2?"

The answer is some bad wins and a gift from the refs against San Diego. He also somehow manages to shoehorn a Red Sox mention and Barack Obama's acceptance speech. Dan really had nothing to say, ultimately resorting to tired trivia about the Patriots and Monday Night Football.

Nose to the Grindstone

People have accused Dan of "mailing it in" on occasion. Last year, he previewed the World Series by stating that nobody knew who the Rockies were and Dan couldn't really be bothered to tell us. But this postseason there was no hint of such laziness. And his "the immortal player Dan was too lazy to know about" shtick wasn't prominent. (At least as I can tell. I hardly read his columns any more.)

Today's piece was pretty good. It was a good recap of the game with a little bit of perspective.

There is one hyperbole alert:

"The Rays never played .500 ball before this year, but in October of '08 they are every bit as talented as any Yankees team the Sox battled in the last decade."

That is a slight overstatement.

Our Roller Coaster Ride is Almost Complete

Dan offers up the game recap and for the most part, he plays it straight. But then he gets into his asinine "Let's call this series over " schtick. If he were an ER doctor, you would probably hear him say, "The Rays, Time of Death, 12:16" But then you would hear the other docs yelling at him "But the patient hasn't died yet, you idiot." And Shaughnessy would respond, "Well, I just felt the need to say something."

Today he does this by concluding with, "And the Red Sox are planning on starting the World Series Wednesday night at Fenway against the Philadelphia Phillies." I, for one, don't believe in curses or jinxes and I would never claim that Shaughnessy has just jinxed the Red Sox because that would amount to conceding that Shaughnessy has power he clearly does not. I just find it incredibly annoying...but then again, we are talking Shaughnessy.

Choker Rays?

Dan examines how the Rays might react to the colossal lost on Thursday night and compares them to the Angels of the past couple of decades--the 1986 Angels who could not recover after a similar Game 5 loss and the Angels of more recent vintage who Shaughnessy claims have little Red Sox dancing in their heads.

Dr Dan loves to explore the psych side of winning and losing and so this was a natural column for him - a lot of rehash of years gone by coupled with superficial speculation and analysis and you have a Shaughnessy column.

Wow!

What a game! If you watch the video of Shaughnessy that accompanies his game story, it is actually pretty neat...you see a boyish excitement reveal itself and in a rare instance, I actually feel like giving the guy a high five and saying "Yes, the Sox did it!"

This is an exciting morning...I shouldargue that Shaughnessy did not need to add the gratuitious shot at Schilling. Plus we have the tired time stamp (12:16) technique. And I could also point out DBVader's prescience in yesterday's piece when he wrote

But this small sample size problem is just an example of the basic flaw in Dan's thesis. Dan claims that this team, down 3-1, is somehow different than all the other teams that have come back from the same deficit because this one looks
bad. But all those teams looked bad, that's why they were down 3-1. After seeing
the Red Sox get blown out in Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, nobody thought they looked
good, poised to roar back. But they did because they began to play better, much
better. You cannot predict, just hope that it happens.

But I will show some restraint. It's a good day. Shank's story is actually good given that he had to rewrite everything minutes before deadline. If you see Shaughnessy today, give him a high five. The Sox did good. And he did okay too.

If Dan Can Do It . . . .

If one were to read today's Shank column (or the one he wrote a year ago when the Red Sox were down 3-1 to the Indians) and conclude based on it that he sucked as a writer, you would be committing a mistake in logic. One column is not enough to show that a columnist is good or bad. To truly determine that Shank sucked, you would need to look at his whole body of work.

Dan makes such a mistake in today's column, blaming players for poor hitting over a four-game period. (My favorite is "Organization poster boy Dustin Pedroia is hitting .172 against the Tribe", implying that there is something wrong about an organization with a 2b hitting .380/.440.) Let's ignore what happened over six months for what happened over the last week. This is the same type of irrational, panicked thinking that CHB would slam fans for engaging in.

But this small sample size problem is just an example of the basic flaw in Dan's thesis. Dan claims that this team, down 3-1, is somehow different than all the other teams that have come back from the same deficit because this one looks bad. But all those teams looked bad, that's why they were down 3-1. After seeing the Red Sox get blown out in Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, nobody thought they looked good, poised to roar back. But they did because they began to play better, much better. You cannot predict, just hope that it happens.


Factual Error
Manny Delcarmen is not one of Theo's guys. He was drafted in 2000.

A Lot Can Change

Dan's look at last night's game mixes in some reflections on the state of the Patriots, comparing the big comedowns of both teams. I think it captures the situation well.

Does Dan read the messageboard over at Boston Sports Media Watch?

Jason Varitek looks as though he might calcify in mid-swing.

I know that members like to call Varitek "The Calcifying Captain."

Give It to Dan

I don't much care for Dan's "Picked Up Pieces" columns. Usually, the pieces are creations of laziness, obvious and/or dated observations and lame jokes.

Today's piece is an exception. With the playoffs, Dan has a chance for some timely and interesting observations. The piece however did not get off to a good start. The first paragraph was a Warren Zevon reference. (Dan, Peter Gammons owns the exclusive rights to Warren Zevon references.) The second paragraph was a reference to how late games end. SHUT UP!!!! SHUT UP!!!!

What really caught my attention was the following paragraph, which I had to read twice:

Do not underestimate the residue of hard feelings in the wake of Francona hitting for Jason Varitek a second time in these playoffs. Tito lifted Varitek for J.D. Drew against Dan Wheeler in the ninth inning of Game 2. It's refreshingly bold given Tito's reputation at a "player's manager" and it makes good sense, but be assured the captain sees this as an act of abject betrayal.