Dan Shaughnessy: Taking a dump in your mouth one column at a time
- Thread starter weeba
- Start date
The Red Sox are the hottest team in baseball, but they still should be sellers at the deadline - The Boston Globe
The only "building for the future" going on here is that the Laziest Man in Show Business is setting up his next column, in which he can criticize "fanboys" for getting pissed if the Sox follow his lead. (He'd probably even shit on the Sox if they traded those players).
LAST YEAR
APRIL
That's like reading a Shaughnessy column from 1993 and saying the Globe has the best writers around in 2023.
This could be one of the rare times that "doing nothing" is something other than "staying the course."
The only "building for the future" going on here is that the Laziest Man in Show Business is setting up his next column, in which he can criticize "fanboys" for getting pissed if the Sox follow his lead. (He'd probably even shit on the Sox if they traded those players).
HAD
LAST YEAR
APRIL
That's like reading a Shaughnessy column from 1993 and saying the Globe has the best writers around in 2023.
Let's be honest. He's not the only one who thinks that. There are plenty of curmudgeons who are convinced that current management will blow it somehow. Danny boy makes his money appealing to them. Why should he change now?I wonder if Dan realizes he is the only person on earth who thinks they should be sellers....
I don't know if if this is his real opinion or not because he shifted to professional wrestling mode a long time ago, so who actually knows? But whoever does hold this view needs more dimmer switches and fewer on/offs in their life.
There are people who post heavily on SOSH that believe the Sox stink today and tomorrow , Bloom is incompetent, Cora is a terrible manager and JWH should sell the team.
Maybe he's right (I don't think he is, but I'll play along), and the sox DID "give up on this team before Opening Day." So what?
I think Dan should stick to his new specialty: interviewing people older than him. The oldest living Red Sox, "Sunday" Charlie Maxwell, turned 96 in April. Go, Dan. Go.
I wonder if Dan realizes he is the only person on earth who thinks they should be sellers....
I actually don't hate this piece. I mean, I don't want to unload these guys and want to see them keep winning. But I also agree with Shaughnessy (takes shower) that the odds of them making a run to the ALCS a la 2021 is unlikely -- and of course, that team may have fallen off in the second half but was in first place for a lot of that season. That gave you a lot of reason to believe they should consider adding at the deadline. Even if I kind of understand where he's coming from, he just always finds a way to make everything he says sound dour -- talking about how one game being a lucky win is an example of why their level of play is unsustainable is the height of trolling.
BTW, what does Shaughnessy have against Tom Caron? He constantly is sarcastically retweeting him and needling him as some propagandist shill -- and he's doing it again here ("I write this not to enrage Tom Caron"). Isn't Caron (a lung cancer survivor) one of the good guys?
He considers Tom Caron the house organ of the Sox.
And considering that there were reports that the Sox FO didn't know exactly where this team stood entering last weekend, his idea is not an insane idea. Nor is it something that only curmudgeons think.
But he doesn't say it's unlikely. He just says "They're not good enough." He just monkey/keyboards a whole litany of reasons why this team isn't 20 games over .500.
Three of them don't exist any more.
In September of 2021, he wrote:
And today:
He used to wait a little longer than 2 years before recycling his own feces.
Choosing whether to label the team as "Sellers" or "Buyers" is an oversimplistic dichotomy whose main purpose is to allow hack sportswriters to fill column space by bloviating about whether the team deserves a thumbs up or a thumbs down for the season so far. The more useful way to look at the trade deadline for the Red Sox and most other teams is as an opportunity for roster redesign to shore up weaknesses, perhaps by giving up assets in areas of strength. The Red Sox shouldn't trade Duvall, Turner, Paxton etc. unless the return significantly improves the team, whether in the short or long term. Similarly, they shouldn't buy just to fill short-term holes unless the cost is low enough to make the marginal improvement worth it. That's being opportunistic, not Sellers or Buyers.
No, he def. does. And he almost literally is -- he hosts the studio show for the team's TV production. I'm just wondering why he is going so hard after Caron. My gut on his Ortiz criticism over the years is that Shaughnessy thinks he's a phony in some way -- and not the affable good guy he's portrayed as in the media. But Tom Caron? The little guy who staved off a terrible bout of lung cancer so he could keep singing the praises of the Old Towne Team? I don't get it.
In Shaughnessy's defense (ugh), the Sox have frequently been brain dead on defense during Cora's second tenure here -- which is odd given that Cora himself was, IIRC, a pretty good defender and a details guy.
Sure, but this is where Shaughnessy cynically dumbs himself down to be the "voice of the people" who want a simple binary choice. Bloom is almost certainly going to approach the deadline precisely the way you say.
The idea of selling is defensible. A good bit less so than it was two weeks ago perhaps, but it's still kind of like 4th and 12 at the 41 -- no obvious option. 34% shot at the playoffs is a very real shot, but it still means they are nearly twice as likely to not make it. I don't think they should do it, but it's not insane. However, I saw the headline and immediately suspected it was just Shank working his gimmick, and it was confirmed by the "gave up on this team before opening day" nonsense.
I don't know why he does that either. I think that's really shitty TBH because like you said Tom Caron seems like a really nice guy who has worked at NESN for years. I mean even if Caron hated everything that Sox ownership is doing, what's he supposed to do bitch about it on the air? That's not his job, at all.
Shaugnessy likes to be a prick.
Not only is it defensible, one could argue that they could get better value since they don't HAVE TO sell these players.
Not that I'd sell, as my glasses are always Rose colored
Shaughnessy has been one of the leading critics of the team for pursuing "value" over "winning."
Has he done a mea culpa yet on his early season claim that Yoshida is "soft"? Just kidding.
I don't care that Dan Shaughnessy thinks the Sox should be sellers, because Dan Shaughnessy knows nothing about baseball. I do find it amusing that the guy who primarily writes for the portion of the fanbase that thinks ownership is cheap and doesn't care about winning and that the front office is inept is opining that a team on the uptrend behind a few emerging young players (along with the 'soft' free-agent) 8 games over .500 and 1.5 games out of a playoff slot should punt on trying to make the post-season.
Sorry for the run-on sentence. I'm not a 'great' writer like Dan Shaughnessy.
I don't care that Dan Shaughnessy thinks the Sox should be sellers, because Dan Shaughnessy knows nothing about baseball. I do find it amusing that the guy who primarily writes for the portion of the fanbase that thinks ownership is cheap and doesn't care about winning and that the front office is inept is opining that a team on the uptrend behind a few emerging young players (along with the 'soft' free-agent) 8 games over .500 and 1.5 games out of a playoff slot should punt on trying to make the post-season.
Sorry for the run-on sentence. I'm not a 'great' writer like Dan Shaughnessy.
The worst part (as it reflects on him, anyway) is that there's a not-insignificant chance that he doesn't actually believe what he wrote; that he just wrote it to piss off Fartface from Billechester, because that's what generates "engagements." That's about 10 billion times worse than being an idiot. There have been assholes forever in media. But the likes of Dick Young and Clif Keane (and, for a long time and still once in a great while, Dan Shaughnessy) were what they wrote. Now, you never know.
Don’t forget “needy” Bob Kraft, owner of 6 Super Bowl rings. His bitterness is deep.
He's just a troll. Kraft had a rough year or two when he was first owner and then he figured it out and has been really good since then. Like you said, under his ownership they have six rings. What more do you want? And Belichick is a lot like Auerbach in a lot of ways and Shaughnessy hates him too.
Don't even get me started on why he hates Ortiz so much.
He's just a weird, sad guy who really, really, really wishes it was 1961 again.
Love the comments. To summarize: "No, he's not!"
View: https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1704152861054050662
View: https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1704152861054050662
The man has waited all season for this tweet View: https://twitter.com/Dan_Shaughnessy/status/1707205169555898673
I'm no fan of Shag --- but he was correct all along.
About Bloom and this '23 campaign for the Boston Red Sox as well.
When he's been negative about the Red Sox for almost half a century why does he deserve any credit? Red Sox could win every world series and he'd still pull out the same junk every year. Worst thing that ever happened to Shank was the Red Sox actually winning the world series.
You know he's going to come out with a 'Return of the Curse' book soon - the fact that the most recent championship occurred in a '18 year followed by a franchise icon being traded for money reasons has to be irresistible to him.
Admittedly, it's not a terrible theme for a book, although I'd rather read an Alex Speier account of what's happened to this team the past few seasons.
Admittedly, it's not a terrible theme for a book, although I'd rather read an Alex Speier account of what's happened to this team the past few seasons.
Hey - I'm not one to embrace / defend the CHB; but I "did" listen to the Starkville POD where Dan offered his thoughts on Bloom's departure.
I'll be honest, they seemed fair, measured, and on-point.
And that's coming from an individual that hasn't read a single column of his in years.
I get the Sunday Globe and read his column and I have to say he's been pretty fair. He doesn't completely blame Bloom but focuses most of his ire on the Sox owners, which I think, is an opinion that a lot of this board shares.
The Stark podcast wasn't too bad, but Dan did basically admit that he pays little if any attention to prospects, which seems defiantly obtuse for a guy who shares a workplace with Alex Speier.
CHB poking fun at Breslow’s (admittedly exacting) speaking style by comparing his press conference remarks to GMs of Boston Past.
Some of it feels like Shank playing for cheap laughs but there are a couple of pretty good ones as well.
Some of it feels like Shank playing for cheap laughs but there are a couple of pretty good ones as well.
Clicking this thread and looking at the top of this page... yes, the Red Sox should have sold off.
Dan recovering from heart surgery. Get well, Dan.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/18/sports/globe-columnist-dan-shaughnessy-resting-home-after-heart-surgery/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/18/sports/globe-columnist-dan-shaughnessy-resting-home-after-heart-surgery/
not a fan of his writing, hope he gets better. he was right on this oneI wonder if Dan realizes he is the only person on earth who thinks they should be sellers....
Best of luck with your recovery Dan. In my mind's eye I picture him balancing his checkbook while in the hospital. 
Great column by Brian McGrory in today’s Globe about Dan’s recent bypass and his work ethic (writing his most recent column from the hospital). Includes a funny bit on his running routine and this chestnut many of us can probably relate to:
This is the column if you don't have a subscription.
"
To see Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy on his morning “jog” through Newton is to know why he writes about sports rather than plays them. Slow is not exactly the word. Parents pushing triplets in strollers, a guy walking an elderly St. Bernard with orthopedic issues, they breeze by him like the winter wind.
It was during these jogs when Shaughnessy started feeling numbness in his elbows and pain in his chest. He called his doctor, who ordered tests, which led to something called an angiogram at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. When the cardiologist saw the results, he scheduled an emergency quadruple bypass surgery for the next morning and forbade Dan from leaving the hospital that night.
Spoiler alert: Dan, as many people have undoubtedly read, is recovering at home and slowly regaining his strength. That’s not what this is about.
What this is about is the 16 or so hours between when he was told he needed heart surgery and when he was wheeled into the OR. It was Tuesday, Feb. 6, and that stretch of time pretty much captures Dan to perfection, journalists in general, and the Globe more specifically. There’s nothing normal about it.
Keep in mind, Dan Shaughnessy has been covering sports for the Globe for more than 50 years. He wrote about the Red Sox when Carl Yastrzemski was playing left field. He was the Celtics beat reporter when Larry Bird was in his prime. Bobby Orr, Steve Grogan, Bill Buckner, Roger Clemens, he was there for them all. Ted Williams, when he was still with us, returned his calls, and Bob Cousy still does.
There’s an excellent argument to make that Shaughnessy is the closest thing to a household name as any columnist in the business, a status he’s achieved by combining his encyclopedic knowledge of Boston sports with a fearless need to speak for a truly rabid base of unusually knowledgeable fans. He is the most consistently read columnist at the Globe, often by people who have never agreed with a word he’s written. Full disclosure: As much as I like the guy, there have been more than a couple of times when I’ve dreamt in technicolor about my hands wrapped around his neck — but that’s an issue for another day, or never a day.
So someone might be forgiven for thinking that a 70-year-old columnist with 50 years behind him, a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, who is indisputably the most read person in the city, might feel secure enough to take the afternoon off when he’s been told his heart is basically functioning with the efficiency of the Red Line and he’s about to go into a multi-hour surgery that will determine the course and length of the rest of his life.
Think again. Dan hadn’t finished his “picked-up pieces” column for the coming weekend. He had it half-written, which almost made it worse, because no writer, especially no columnist, ever wants to have their words go unread. Plus, he hates missing a column — any column, for any reason.
So he reached out to his son with a pair of requests. Would he please bring his old man a meatball sub, and while he’s at it, bring his laptop from home as well.
The column was to begin with Theo Epstein’s recently announced return to the Red Sox organization as a minority owner of Fenway Sports Group and a senior adviser. Dan’s plan was to unravel Epstein’s goals and assess whether they met the vast expectations of so many Red Sox fans.
From his hospital bed, Dan texted Epstein to see if he would engage. Epstein responded to the effect of, maybe later, off the record.
Dan then gave him an excuse for the ages. He’d be undergoing quadruple bypass surgery in the morning, he wrote, and he didn’t know when he’d be able to talk.
That got Epstein’s attention. There was then a conversation between the patient and minority owner. There were email follow-ups into the night as Epstein sent some clarifying points.
“Dan,” Epstein began one email, “Let’s hope this isn’t the last thing you ever read. (If someone at the Globe is reading this email after Dan’s unfortunate demise, delete it.)”
Shaughnessy filed the column at 9:37 p.m. that night with a simple note attached: “Medical stuff the next few days so I am leaving this behind.”
The response from a sports editor at 9:04 the following morning, while Dan was in the throes of surgery, was as exquisitely brief: “In. Thanks, Dan.”
The column was published two days later, on Friday morning, under the headline, “Theo Epstein has been away a while but he knows how the Red Sox work, and other thoughts.” Dan was still in the intensive care unit of the hospital, barely conscious. No reader had any idea, even as the column was one of the most-read pieces on the site for days.
Welcome to our world. Welcome to our lives. The business model for journalism is in shambles, even as the Globe proves the exception to so much that has gone wrong. A former president and so many of his acolytes try mightily and constantly to undermine our work. And yet there’s a newsroom filled with committed writers and editors and so many others who see their work more as a mission than a job. Again, admittedly, it’s not all that normal, but it is typical.
There’s a phrase we have in this business that says you’re only as good as your last story. And Dan Shaughnessy, week after week, takes that to a bit of an extreme. "
"
To see Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy on his morning “jog” through Newton is to know why he writes about sports rather than plays them. Slow is not exactly the word. Parents pushing triplets in strollers, a guy walking an elderly St. Bernard with orthopedic issues, they breeze by him like the winter wind.
It was during these jogs when Shaughnessy started feeling numbness in his elbows and pain in his chest. He called his doctor, who ordered tests, which led to something called an angiogram at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. When the cardiologist saw the results, he scheduled an emergency quadruple bypass surgery for the next morning and forbade Dan from leaving the hospital that night.
Spoiler alert: Dan, as many people have undoubtedly read, is recovering at home and slowly regaining his strength. That’s not what this is about.
What this is about is the 16 or so hours between when he was told he needed heart surgery and when he was wheeled into the OR. It was Tuesday, Feb. 6, and that stretch of time pretty much captures Dan to perfection, journalists in general, and the Globe more specifically. There’s nothing normal about it.
Keep in mind, Dan Shaughnessy has been covering sports for the Globe for more than 50 years. He wrote about the Red Sox when Carl Yastrzemski was playing left field. He was the Celtics beat reporter when Larry Bird was in his prime. Bobby Orr, Steve Grogan, Bill Buckner, Roger Clemens, he was there for them all. Ted Williams, when he was still with us, returned his calls, and Bob Cousy still does.
There’s an excellent argument to make that Shaughnessy is the closest thing to a household name as any columnist in the business, a status he’s achieved by combining his encyclopedic knowledge of Boston sports with a fearless need to speak for a truly rabid base of unusually knowledgeable fans. He is the most consistently read columnist at the Globe, often by people who have never agreed with a word he’s written. Full disclosure: As much as I like the guy, there have been more than a couple of times when I’ve dreamt in technicolor about my hands wrapped around his neck — but that’s an issue for another day, or never a day.
So someone might be forgiven for thinking that a 70-year-old columnist with 50 years behind him, a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, who is indisputably the most read person in the city, might feel secure enough to take the afternoon off when he’s been told his heart is basically functioning with the efficiency of the Red Line and he’s about to go into a multi-hour surgery that will determine the course and length of the rest of his life.
Think again. Dan hadn’t finished his “picked-up pieces” column for the coming weekend. He had it half-written, which almost made it worse, because no writer, especially no columnist, ever wants to have their words go unread. Plus, he hates missing a column — any column, for any reason.
So he reached out to his son with a pair of requests. Would he please bring his old man a meatball sub, and while he’s at it, bring his laptop from home as well.
The column was to begin with Theo Epstein’s recently announced return to the Red Sox organization as a minority owner of Fenway Sports Group and a senior adviser. Dan’s plan was to unravel Epstein’s goals and assess whether they met the vast expectations of so many Red Sox fans.
From his hospital bed, Dan texted Epstein to see if he would engage. Epstein responded to the effect of, maybe later, off the record.
Dan then gave him an excuse for the ages. He’d be undergoing quadruple bypass surgery in the morning, he wrote, and he didn’t know when he’d be able to talk.
That got Epstein’s attention. There was then a conversation between the patient and minority owner. There were email follow-ups into the night as Epstein sent some clarifying points.
“Dan,” Epstein began one email, “Let’s hope this isn’t the last thing you ever read. (If someone at the Globe is reading this email after Dan’s unfortunate demise, delete it.)”
Shaughnessy filed the column at 9:37 p.m. that night with a simple note attached: “Medical stuff the next few days so I am leaving this behind.”
The response from a sports editor at 9:04 the following morning, while Dan was in the throes of surgery, was as exquisitely brief: “In. Thanks, Dan.”
The column was published two days later, on Friday morning, under the headline, “Theo Epstein has been away a while but he knows how the Red Sox work, and other thoughts.” Dan was still in the intensive care unit of the hospital, barely conscious. No reader had any idea, even as the column was one of the most-read pieces on the site for days.
Welcome to our world. Welcome to our lives. The business model for journalism is in shambles, even as the Globe proves the exception to so much that has gone wrong. A former president and so many of his acolytes try mightily and constantly to undermine our work. And yet there’s a newsroom filled with committed writers and editors and so many others who see their work more as a mission than a job. Again, admittedly, it’s not all that normal, but it is typical.
There’s a phrase we have in this business that says you’re only as good as your last story. And Dan Shaughnessy, week after week, takes that to a bit of an extreme. "
I respect it, even if I don't respect him. Doing something small every day is really fucking hard.
It’s really annoying when Danno writes a hatchet job on the Sox and Pats ownership and I agree with nearly every word.
Nice piece on Dan’s coverage of Boston’s youth basketball program fifty years ago as busing got going:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/09/sports/boston-neighborhood-basketball-league-busing-dan-shaughnessy/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/09/sports/boston-neighborhood-basketball-league-busing-dan-shaughnessy/
So this is funny/embarrassingI wonder if Dan realizes he is the only person on earth who thinks they should be sellers....
Just happened to pop into this thread for the first time in a while and was dropped into @soxhop411 's post above -- Shaughnessy, with his doom-shaded glasses, believes the red hot Red Sox should be sellers, not buyers. I rolled my eyes and read the next several comments from SoSH posters (some of whom begrudgingly agreed with him). And then there were more and more comments and it dawned on me that the July date on the Shaughnessy piece was July 2023, not this year. [And yeah, it's not the 27th yet either, but that's a level of detail I'll forgive myself for missing.]
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Even when they don't.
I don't expect to find an especially receptive audience here, but I do wonder if anybody shares my opinion: over the last 20 years, I have gone from really disliking Shaughnessy's writing to becoming a big fan of his. I don't think it's anything about him that's changed (though, 20 years is a long time) or myself (ditto), but rather the landscape of media.
Back then, I thought he was too negative and not analytical enough -- a problem that plagued so much of sports media. These days, fandom is very well represented in media, as are number crunchers. The Shaughnessies of the world seem fewer and further between, and I appreciate that it's still out there. I can't tell if it's an appreciation out of it being a novelty or a throwback or what, but it has been an interesting thing to experience within myself.
(All of this to say nothing of the fact that I find him to be a fun writer to read -- but that's independent of the content considerations above.)
Back then, I thought he was too negative and not analytical enough -- a problem that plagued so much of sports media. These days, fandom is very well represented in media, as are number crunchers. The Shaughnessies of the world seem fewer and further between, and I appreciate that it's still out there. I can't tell if it's an appreciation out of it being a novelty or a throwback or what, but it has been an interesting thing to experience within myself.
(All of this to say nothing of the fact that I find him to be a fun writer to read -- but that's independent of the content considerations above.)
I actually like him too*. I get the Globe delivered on Sundays and he's usually the first thing that I read.
But unlike you, the reason why I like him is because I've changed. After the Sox won in 04, I found that I really don't give a shit about what writers say any more. Sometimes I do, I suppose, but I don't let it take away from my enjoyment. After by November 2004, Shank was still slamming his keyboard about what the team has done wrong in the afterglow of a World Series Championship and it was then that I realized that either this is all schtick or he's just so miserable that he can't turn off the misery spigot any more. Either way, that's not my problem, that's his.
And BTW, I think that it's probably a bit of both. But whatever, he has to live with himself and his opinions. I don't.
So most of the time I read his stuff (I think that he's a pretty decent writer who has a lot of great connections that he gets to talk to him) and if it's something I don't agree with, I roll my eyes and move on with my life. He's not as obsequious as he used to be either, which is another nice thing. In the 90s and early 00s anytime you turned on the radio, the TV, ESPN or read the paper or a magazine, he was there saying the same bullshit over and over and over again. If you liked sports and wanted to hear/see sports, his face was in front of your face 24/7; which woof.
* I will say that the two things that still bothers me most about is how he punches down a lot and his ire is usually turned to minorities. I don't think that he's a bigot, but this past fall/winter he was going hard after Jaylen Brown for some reason. I have no reason why he keeps calling Bob Cousy for his impressions on the modern game, it's weird. And he always has a shitty thing to say about David Ortiz. Always. I don't know whether he's doubling down (times infinity) on his initial reaction to the Sox signing him in January 2003 "He's a giant sack of you-know-what" (which was such a fucking dumb turn of phrase for a professional writer to write) or whether Ortiz shoved him into a trash can, face first. But his contempt for Ortiz is bordering on psychotic. Whatever. Nothing he writes about Ortiz would change my mind about Papi.
A couple of weeks ago he wrote some nice things about Manny, which is the Shank way, BTW. Carve them up when they're in town, lament when they're gone and bathe in the river of nostalgia 20 years later over the same guy.
I'm much more inclined to consider his point of view, certain agendas (like Papi) excluded; even agree sometimes; when he writes about baseball or basketball- he was a beat writer for both sports, and is knowledgeable.
Football and hockey, no thank you.
Football and hockey, no thank you.
Shank is a good writer, knows his shit and the business end of "journalism" and that hot takes gets looks and a paycheck in a more challenging world for scribes. He's also senior enough, rich enough, and carries enough weight to not give a shit about what some of his readers think.
I generally found him more reasonable when he presented his views when he gigged with Beetle & Zo, then when he slashed someone in one of his columns.
I generally found him more reasonable when he presented his views when he gigged with Beetle & Zo, then when he slashed someone in one of his columns.