Dan Shaughnessy: Taking a dump in your mouth one column at a time

cornwalls@6

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Who's left besides Sale? Bogaerts, Arroyo and Plawecki all have gotten the shot since last season, and JD is vaccinated despite his comments against the mandate.
There's still some question about Houck. He declined to say whether he had it or not yesterday. Beyond him, not sure who's left. As of late last season, they had failed to hit the 85% organizational threshold as well. Sale deserves every ounce of scorn that can be heaped upon him, though. I simply can't fathom a supposedly elite, world class competitive athlete willfully making themselves ineligible to play in games against a key division rival because of this.
 

BaseballJones

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There's still some question about Houck. He declined to say whether he had it or not yesterday. Beyond him, not sure who's left. As of late last season, they had failed to hit the 85% organizational threshold as well. Sale deserves every ounce of scorn that can be heaped upon him, though. I simply can't fathom a supposedly elite, world class competitive athlete willfully making themselves ineligible to play in games against a key division rival because of this.
Agreed BUT... how many road games do they play against Toronto? 9? And as a starting pitcher that’s at most 3 games, maybe 2, and maybe even zero. I know that every game matters (look at how close last season’s playoff race was), but we aren’t talking about many games at all. Maybe he has a really principled view here (for reasons known only to him) and figures that maybe missing a couple of games is worth taking his stand.

I don’t know. I mean, I’ve gotten three shots and can’t get why people don’t get them period but each has his or her own take on this, obviously. Can’t make his teammates happy though. Certainly doesn’t make SOSH happy.
 

cornwalls@6

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Agreed BUT... how many road games do they play against Toronto? 9? And as a starting pitcher that’s at most 3 games, maybe 2, and maybe even zero. I know that every game matters (look at how close last season’s playoff race was), but we aren’t talking about many games at all. Maybe he has a really principled view here (for reasons known only to him) and figures that maybe missing a couple of games is worth taking his stand.

I don’t know. I mean, I’ve gotten three shots and can’t get why people don’t get them period but each has his or her own take on this, obviously. Can’t make his teammates happy though. Certainly doesn’t make SOSH happy.
There really is no principled view, other than a legitimate (and extremely rare) health reason for not getting it. Which, as far as we know, is not the case. He’s going with “vitamins”, or some such drivel. And the number of games he might miss really isn’t the point. If he’s otherwise healthy, and purposely making himself ineligible to compete, he’s a horrible teammate, and a fraud when it comes to his always accountable, fierce competitor persona.
 

BornToRun

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There really is no principled view, other than a legitimate (and extremely rare) health reason for not getting it. Which, as far as we know, is not the case. He’s going with “vitamins”, or some such drivel. And the number of games he might miss really isn’t the point. If he’s otherwise healthy, and purposely making himself ineligible to compete, he’s a horrible teammate, and a fraud when it comes to his always accountable, fierce competitor persona.
If we finish behind Toronto by 1-2 games and he doesn’t pitch on the road against them, I’m blaming him.
 

Granite Sox

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Josh Taylor was the other RP that was unvaccinated last season… has his status been cleared up? Would signings of Strahm and Diekman be a signal to Taylor to shape up or pack your bags?
 

joe dokes

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Today's Glob. Top of sports section:

"Are you outraged about the red Sox (this far) still-life approach to player acquisition in the post lockout spring of 2022?
Do you care?"

The only still life in this picture is the writer who only writes about 7 columns 175 times a year.
 

RG33

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I’ve noted my long-running feud with Shank about Ortiz in here before, I sent him a note about Hohler’s article about the Ed Davis report and all of the details (including that US Intelligence felt Ortiz’s life was still potentially in danger) and asked him if he was going to publish anything about how wrong he was that it was a “sham” report, mocking it for months and saying it was never going to happen etc.

His response was:

“Are you a grown-up?
Did you read the story?
Do you think your hero is clean?”

He is such a hack. I love hating him.
 

joe dokes

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I’ve noted my long-running feud with Shank about Ortiz in here before, I sent him a note about Hohler’s article about the Ed Davis report and all of the details (including that US Intelligence felt Ortiz’s life was still potentially in danger) and asked him if he was going to publish anything about how wrong he was that it was a “sham” report, mocking it for months and saying it was never going to happen etc.

His response was:

“Are you a grown-up?
Did you read the story?
Do you think your hero is clean?”

He is such a hack. I love hating him.
"I think every one of his home runs was steroid-aided. What does that have to do with this"?

(I don't, just in case anyone was wondering).
 

cornwalls@6

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I’ve noted my long-running feud with Shank about Ortiz in here before, I sent him a note about Hohler’s article about the Ed Davis report and all of the details (including that US Intelligence felt Ortiz’s life was still potentially in danger) and asked him if he was going to publish anything about how wrong he was that it was a “sham” report, mocking it for months and saying it was never going to happen etc.

His response was:

“Are you a grown-up?
Did you read the story?
Do you think your hero is clean?”

He is such a hack. I love hating him.
Hit him back with his consistent contempt and venom for latino players. He’s an angry, rapidly becoming irrelevant old white guy, who probably fancies himself color-blind, but who sure seems be bothered by “those people “.
 

RG33

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Hit him back with his consistent contempt and venom for latino players. He’s an angry, rapidly becoming irrelevant old white guy, who probably fancies himself color-blind, but who sure seems be bothered by “those people “.
I did mention “I understand why you have a vendetta — he has called you a racist and an ahole, so it makes sense.” Etc.

I will give him credit — he just emailed back (4th back and forth) and said “If you want to send me your number, I’m happy to discuss this further with you. No more emailing, we both have work to do.”
 

Van Everyman

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You should take him up on that, @RG33. I suspect he gets your point and doesn’t want to let it be in print. But I think it’s actually a good thing he’s not being dismissive here and it’s good you’re pressing this.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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If you talk to him make sure you have the points you want to make. Others have talked to him before and he comes hard, so don’t stutter and know what you’re talking about.
 

RG33

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If you talk to him make sure you have the points you want to make. Others have talked to him before and he comes hard, so don’t stutter and know what you’re talking about.
I’m a professional talker. I would be fully armed.

I have no desire though. I’m not changing his mind, I’m content pointing out his hypocrisy, biases, and his allergies to facts.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I’m a professional talker. I would be fully armed.

I have no desire though. I’m not changing his mind, I’m content pointing out his hypocrisy, biases, and his allergies to facts.
I'd end up forgetting half of the things that I'd want to tell him and wind up spending the next week kicking myself.

Honestly, I can't tell if what he's doing is cool or shitty. On one hand it's nice that he's taking time out to talk to a subscriber and try to understand where he/she is coming from; especially if he wants to have an honest back-and-forth. But if he's just calling up to bully, bury and shut you up, then, obviously that would suck. I've never been on the phone with him, so I'm not sure what track he'd take.
 

RG33

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I'd end up forgetting half of the things that I'd want to tell him and wind up spending the next week kicking myself.

Honestly, I can't tell if what he's doing is cool or shitty. On one hand it's nice that he's taking time out to talk to a subscriber and try to understand where he/she is coming from; especially if he wants to have an honest back-and-forth. But if he's just calling up to bully, bury and shut you up, then, obviously that would suck. I've never been on the phone with him, so I'm not sure what track he'd take.
Yeah, he has been willing to engage via email -- all be it, pretty immaturely at times, so I give him some credit there. I am definitely leery of his motives of asking for my phone # -- doesn't want it in print? Just trying to bulldoze me away? Wants to smack me on the phone thinking I'm going to be intimidated by his "celebrity"? Or, perhaps, he is actually just willing to engage with his readers. . . . . but, either way, I just don't think it is worth the time knowing what I know about him (says a guy with 4 posts about it in a Media thread on the internet).
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I agree. At the end of the day, what's in it for you? You make a new friend? Probably not. It's like they used to say about the forward pass, "three things can happen and two of them ain't good."
 

joe dokes

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Yeah, he has been willing to engage via email -- all be it, pretty immaturely at times, so I give him some credit there. I am definitely leery of his motives of asking for my phone # -- doesn't want it in print? Just trying to bulldoze me away? Wants to smack me on the phone thinking I'm going to be intimidated by his "celebrity"? Or, perhaps, he is actually just willing to engage with his readers. . . . . but, either way, I just don't think it is worth the time knowing what I know about him (says a guy with 4 posts about it in a Media thread on the internet).
I've been there. (Letters to the Editor about 10 years apart in the 90s and 2000s prompted phone calls.) It's pointless. He'll have an answer for everything. He does his shit in writing in public. He should answer for it in writing in public.
FWIW--Repeatedly mocking an investigation by the former BPD commissioner as a "sham" is a different level of shit-tossing than his usual sports-figure targets. I am curious to see what his next column -- as opposed to his response to an email -- goes on the topic.
 

Van Everyman

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Shank’s Friday roundup is kind of interesting. He absolutely roasts Brady for pushing out Arians (which is fair) and says it’s getting hard to root for him. I actually think it’s a fair take and pretty balanced all in all.

He also takes a moment to talk about how the Sox never miss an attempt to honor Papi – citing how badly the team played in the 2016 stretch run while he was getting daily honors (tho he’s wrong that it got Farrell fired – JF lasted another season). I’m beginning to wonder if there is an old school “Let me tell you what David is really like” perspective behind his consistent hostility toward Ortiz. Because otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.
 

Bunt4aTriple

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His ultimate goal is to make rooting for a sports team less fun. He's the columnist equivalent of, "Well, actually, you might find that video of a dog eating peanut butter cute, but it's really abuse."
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Shaughnessy has a major vendetta against Ortiz since the day he signed with the Sox, he called him a "sack of you know what" (his words) in the Globe. I have no idea what his deal is with him or why he's the Col Egan to Ortiz' Ted Williams, but Shank is going to pound this horse every day until one of them dies.

It barely registers with me anymore.
 

Humphrey

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Now, he almost literally copied his last column, but added the Story signing and changed the rest to the past tense.
It's steaming garbage even for him.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/20/sports/red-sox-reportedly-signing-trevor-story-make-first-big-move-free-agency/
I'll never forget his quick rewrite of a column right after the Pats won SB 36. Pretty clear that he wrote it before the game and banked on the Pats losing. Numerous mentions of past Pats and Boston sports teams in general failures.
 

Humphrey

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Shank’s Friday roundup is kind of interesting. He absolutely roasts Brady for pushing out Arians (which is fair) and says it’s getting hard to root for him. I actually think it’s a fair take and pretty balanced all in all.

He also takes a moment to talk about how the Sox never miss an attempt to honor Papi – citing how badly the team played in the 2016 stretch run while he was getting daily honors (tho he’s wrong that it got Farrell fired – JF lasted another season). I’m beginning to wonder if there is an old school “Let me tell you what David is really like” perspective behind his consistent hostility toward Ortiz. Because otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.
I re-read the article and Shank deleted the part about Farrell getting canned (I'm 100% sure it was there originally, good catch). Of course, the unexplained vitriol towards Ortiz remains.
 

Van Everyman

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I noticed that as well. I actually tweeted a reply that he was wrong about Farrell. He didn't respond, even tho it was respectful. But I do think he might've seen it.
 
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GB5

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Shank is old school Boston media, which seems to include his views on things which are often attributed to the older generation of Boston..i,e, he takes many personal shots at Papi and Pedro, and spares nobody when it comes to criticizing the new generation of NBA star, but goes to bed every night with a poster of Larry Bird and the 86 Celtics above his bed.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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His column today was really bad. His obsession with PEDs and Ortiz is bordering insane now. I don’t think k he understands that it’s not 2007 any more and people really don’t give a shit. At all.

I’m not sure who pissed in his Cheetos but this wasn’t one of Dandy Dan’s best efforts.
 

Van Everyman

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Is this the one from a few days ago? I agree it was petty. Dan lives in Newton and I see him around from time to time. At some point, I should just go up and ask him what the background on his dislike of Ortiz is and see if he offers any nuggets.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Is this the one from a few days ago? I agree it was petty. Dan lives in Newton and I see him around from time to time. At some point, I should just go up and ask him what the background on his dislike of Ortiz is and see if he offers any nuggets.
It was in today’s paper but it may have been uploaded a few days ago.

He’s had a hair across his ass since 2003 about Ortiz since the Sox signed him and he called him a “giant sack of you know what” in print.

I think he’s pissed that Ortiz ended his Curse of the Bambino gravy train.
 

nattysez

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He’s not wrong.
He's not wrong, but this has been happening across a lot of different networks for years. That he's only noticing it now speaks to how much baseball he's watched on TV in the recent past. I'm sure he'd say he hadn't noticed this because he usually attends games in person, but I'm suspicious.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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He's not wrong, but this has been happening across a lot of different networks for years. That he's only noticing it now speaks to how much baseball he's watched on TV in the recent past. I'm sure he'd say he hadn't noticed this because he usually attends games in person, but I'm suspicious.
I'm pretty sure that he's said/written this before.

And like Moondog said, he's not wrong. It's annoying as hell.
 

lexrageorge

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Yeah, missing an actual live pitch just to squeeze in a commercial is totally pathetic on the part of NESN, and no issue at all with Shaughnessy jumping on them for it.
 

jtn46

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I'm sure they aren't intentionally missing pitches, when I worked baseball broadcasts I had pretty explicit instruction to never, ever miss a pitch and to cut out of a spot if I had to (Mercedes doesn't want to see tweets that their ad resulted in a missed pitch so there's not much to gain from jamming in extra spots). I wouldn't assume it's greed, either, formats for baseball are really very standard. I had to punch out probably a dozen times in the 3 years I worked baseball with very standard formats but sometimes it gets tight, the analyst tells a long story and the PBP guy is too polite to interrupt, they invite a person ill with cancer to the booth and they're pouring their hearts out in a 4 pitch inning, the truck tries to jam in a replay, there's confusion about a call and the truck thinks it may be reviewed but the umps have actually started the break timer. I probably had to 10 times a week or so to be ready to punch out because it was tight.

Also RSN's still do have local break windows so even if they do come back in time it's up to the head ends that handle local breaks to cut out and that is going to hardly ever happen, folks at head ends are working dozens of stations at the same time.
 

jose melendez

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You know, I'm not sure CHB bringing out noted homophobe Margaret Court to dump on Serena for having no class was a great look.

I guess you could argue that Court is the only person in women's tennis even in Serena's league so shes' entitled to comment but man, it felt like a poor choice.
 

MuzzyField

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You know, I'm not sure CHB bringing out noted homophobe Margaret Court to dump on Serena for having no class was a great look.

I guess you could argue that Court is the only person in women's tennis even in Serena's league so shes' entitled to comment but man, it felt like a poor choice.
Not even an original dump for CHB. Court took the same dump last week on ESPN.com

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/34527959/margaret-court-defends-tennis-record-wake-serena-williams-farewell-says-admiration-not-reciprocated
 

jezza1918

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Not a surprise or first time he’s used someone else to go after Serena. I’ll try to dig it up on a computer later but 3 or 4 years ago he basically used his niece (who played a bit on wta tour) to criticize SW

edit: found a link http://bos.gl/zfBxDkt
 
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Van Everyman

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I almost didn’t read this column because of the headline but in fairness to CHB, it wasn’t bad. Also I LOL’d at this one:

It was quite the week for New England’s second-year, post-Brady quarterback. Jones had an underwhelming season opener at Miami, managing to put only one touchdown on the board in a 20-7 loss. His back was injured on a high-low hit late in the game, and he went to the X-ray room instead of the interview room when it was over.

Uncertainty was compounded four days later when Jones could not practice because of an unspecified illness. This led to wild speculation covering everything from COVID protocol to an unsubstantiated rumor that Gisele didn’t want Mac to play football anymore.
 

Granite Sox

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A few years ago, when Reggie Jackson visited Minute Maid Park while he was still working for the Yankees, ballpark security stopped him because he had no credential around his neck. When the man asked for Jackson’s last name, he replied, “October.” The dutiful official looked at his clipboard, and failing to find any Yankees listed under “O,” he asked for Jackson’s first name. “Mister,” replied Reggie.
I hadn’t heard this story before; if true*, it’s fantastic.

*this sounds like the kind of story Shank would make up.
 

Hank Scorpio

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Reading the last page or so on this thread (going back to March) has reminded me of a kind of odd story going back about 20 years.

I was roughly college age, and took umbrage with one of Dan Shaughnessy’s articles. I wrote some sort of scathing response to it it, essentially calling him a hack and also went in hard on some personal attacks. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I recall the words sad, stumpy, goofy, chinless, and curly-haired troll.

A short while later, I received an AOL Instant Message from someone claiming to be Dan Shaughnessy’s college aged daughter (!!), saying it was really mean for me to say things about her father like that, and how he’s a really nice guy who could help me get a good job in journalism, and how I look like I’m actually a really nice, sweet guy (I must have had a link or photo in my AIM profile or something).

At the time I believed it was legit, and didn’t really back down or engage much. I responded with something like “well, nice to meet you… you seem nice enough, but you father is still a piece of shit”.

But now? I’m thinking it was Shaughnessy himself, hoping he’d get me to start groveling at this hypothetical college aged woman that says I look like a “sweet guy”. I do believe him to be that petty.

I don’t recall how this person would have gotten my AOL screen name. Maybe my comment was made using my email address.

Also, a couple of years ago, I was driving in Newton. I saw Dan Shaughnessy cross a crosswalk right in front of my vehicle. He just kind of darted out from in front of a delivery truck, without any warning. Dude was wearing shorts that were way too short, and a t-shirt that was way too long. It was a weekday morning. He was carrying some sort of alcohol. My head canon is that he immediately opened that bottle when he got home, and started on his latest column.
 

joe dokes

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Reading the last page or so on this thread (going back to March) has reminded me of a kind of odd story going back about 20 years.

I was roughly college age, and took umbrage with one of Dan Shaughnessy’s articles. I wrote some sort of scathing response to it it, essentially calling him a hack and also went in hard on some personal attacks. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I recall the words sad, stumpy, goofy, chinless, and curly-haired troll.

A short while later, I received an AOL Instant Message from someone claiming to be Dan Shaughnessy’s college aged daughter (!!), saying it was really mean for me to say things about her father like that, and how he’s a really nice guy who could help me get a good job in journalism, and how I look like I’m actually a really nice, sweet guy (I must have had a link or photo in my AIM profile or something).

At the time I believed it was legit, and didn’t really back down or engage much. I responded with something like “well, nice to meet you… you seem nice enough, but you father is still a piece of shit”.

But now? I’m thinking it was Shaughnessy himself, hoping he’d get me to start groveling at this hypothetical college aged woman that says I look like a “sweet guy”. I do believe him to be that petty.

I don’t recall how this person would have gotten my AOL screen name. Maybe my comment was made using my email address.

Also, a couple of years ago, I was driving in Newton. I saw Dan Shaughnessy cross a crosswalk right in front of my vehicle. He just kind of darted out from in front of a delivery truck, without any warning. Dude was wearing shorts that were way too short, and a t-shirt that was way too long. It was a weekday morning. He was carrying some sort of alcohol. My head canon is that he immediately opened that bottle when he got home, and started on his latest column.
When I returned from my honeymoon in 1994, there was a message on my answering machine from Shaughnessy taking umbrage at a letter to the editor I'd sent in 3 weeks earlier. That was the first of 3 times he called me at home to take issue with a LtE.