FanHouse DanShaughnessy

I don't know if you know this or not, but since he's commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig seems to think this gives him special privileges that nobody else in America is entitled to. Why, as commissioner of baseball he's not bound by the ex post facto laws of our society, which means he's allowed to suspend Alex Rodriguez for breaking rules that weren't yet in place.

For the last few years, the Boston Red Sox have been able to brush off Manny Ramirez's antics as just another case of Manny being Manny, but it looks like things are starting to change in Beantown. After Manny pulled himself out of the lineup before last night's game with a knee injury, a lot of talk around the team was centered on the fact that Manny was faking his injury (Dan Shaughnessy is certain of it, so certain in fact his new book called The Curse of Manny Ramirez: Why The Red Sox Keep Winning is set to hit bookshelves next week). I tend to agree that Manny was likely faking it, but we shouldn't ignore the fact he pulled himself out of a game against the Mariners earlier this week due to the same thing.

They say he pulled the stunt in one of the Red Sox' most important games of this season as some kind of protest about his contract since he'd like to know where he'll be playing next season. The way the Red Sox seem to be taking this latest incident, calling his bluff and having MRI's done on both knees (which came back clean), I'm willing to guess that wherever Manny plays next season, that it won't be Boston.

So what do the Red Sox do? Some folks in Boston want him traded, but that doesn't make much sense to me. I don't care how idiotic the guy acts occasionally, he's still one of the greatest hitters I've ever seen, and trading him does not in any way help the Red Sox win their third title in five years.

If I'm the Red Sox, I just ride it out for the last few months of the season, win another World Series, and then part ways with Manny afterwards. Let Manny go be Manny somewhere else.

Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, please share with us why you think the Celtics won the championship.

"Kobe Bryant scored 22 for the losers, but ultimately LA just had too many Europeans."

Calling a team soft is one thing. Asserting certain players aren't big or tough enough to bang with heavyweights, that's a common practice and perfect sensible as a critique if the facts back it up. Indicting the ethnic lineage of a group of players in generalist sense? That's racial profiling, buddy.

Pau Gasol might be an example of one of these "soft" players; it's easy to see Kevin Garnett dominated Pau physically repeatedly, including in a few memorable possessions in Game 6. If we're talking about Pau and Pau only, I'll buy it: Pau's lack of ability to adapt to a physical matchup hurt the Lakers. And hey, include Vladimir Radmanovic all you want. Dude's built like a Bourne villain and averaged 3 rebounds this season. (You'll get no agreement here that Sasha Vujacic and Ronny Turiaf are softer than the average NBA player. Turiaf watched his chest get split open three years ago, for corn's sake.)

Does the so-called soft nature of Pau or Vlad have an iota to do with their ancestry? Of course not. Pau's skinny for the center spot, and has always had the skills suited to a finesse offensive game. Same with Vlad. Same with Peja. All Serbs and Spaniards are not the same, just as all Southies and gremlins are not the same. You'd think we'd get past stereotypes lazy and offensive at some point this eon.

And I mean, seriously Shaughnessy: the San Antonio Spurs have won three titles this decade featuring a roster full of Euro-born (Tony Parker, Rasho Nesterovic) and Euro-bred athletes (Manu Ginobili, Fabricio Oberto). The argument that the Lakers lost because the racial makeup of their roster isn't just stupidly offensive; it's offensively stupid. (Of course, this is expected with this particular writer.)

It's not like I'm complaining ... I love it when grown men spat like teenage girls penning a Burn Book about each other. It's fun for everyone! Still, the latest catty salvo fired by Curt Schilling at Dan Shaughnessy yesterday is about as sophisticated as calling someone a fugly skank.

After a thoughtful discussion of how Red Sox fans should be pleased about the youth movement in this year's team, Schilling expounds:

Oh and we are trying to keep tabs on how many times our folicly challenged friend CHB uses the word "Blowhard" in reference to me. The over under on the season is 100 and I think she's bypassed that already.

Not only did Curt work in a dig at Shaughnessy's infamous locks, but he even got a quick "she" at the end there. Real mature, Curt. Not that I'm defending CHB, after all: he's a tool, too. But Schilling is not nearly as cool as he thinks he is, and this rivalry is quickly becoming the wooden spoon match of popularity contests. But at least I'm not as big a jerk as he is! See! Right guys? Right?

HT: Red Sox Monster

For as long as I can remember, Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy has been persona non grata throughout the city, viewed with the sort of contempt usually reserved for pederasts, drug smugglers and members of the band "Foreigner."

Not that the guy hasn't given us plenty of reasons to hate him. He's long embodied the "sports journalist as scorned nerd" stereotype, taking venomous swipes at the likes of Roger Clemens, Jose Offerman (whom Shaughnessy once referred to as "a piece of garbage") and Manny Ramirez. He also seems to represent everything that's bad about old school media, most famously illustrated in a column last March in which The Shaughn offered up a fictional correspondance between Curt Schilling and a pack of sycophantic, "basement dwelling" bloggers.

An excellent article in this week's Boston Phoenix examines the phenomenon that is Shaughnessy-hating, interviewing local bloggers, media types and sports fans to identify what it is, exactly, about Shaughnessy that makes otherwise law-abiding citizens want to throttle him with their bare hands. Needless to day, his detractors have no shortage of reasons, stooping even to that time-honored classic, "he's funny looking."

Consider this tale from "Cheryl" - a Rhode Island woman who regularly stays in a hotel near Shaughnessy's during spring training, and asked that her last name not be used. "Every year, I see CHB jogging," Cheryl wrote in an e-mail. "In 2006, I'm coming off a 6- or 7-mile fitness walk, and here comes CHB jogging toward me. He had just come out of his hotel and he was so bright red and sweating so profusely that I thought, 'Oh, God, if he needs CPR I'm not sure I'd offer. . . . . He's got that red curly hair and that white splotchy skin and he's all gangly.' "

Ponder this for a moment: a trained CPR practitioner thinks she might actually let Shaughnessy die if he dropped to the pavement in front of her. That's as bad as it gets.

Hey, say what you will about Shaughnessy; not unlike The Iron Sheik handing out copies of The Communist Manifesto, the guy has always known how to push our buttons. And sell newspapers.

It's been some time since we've checked in with Boston Globe scribe Dan Shaughnessy -- perhaps because he's gotten over his confusing hatred for Curt Schilling's blog.

In any event, if you are no fan of DS, then the above game is just for you. Just put your cursor over the guy's foot, pull back and swing through to give Dan a swift kick in the butt. On my first attempt, I launched him 5,399 feet.

I expect the Jay Mariotti version of this game to be out by early next week. Actually, why wait? You can make it right here, right now.

HT: Barstool Sports via Red Sox Monster.

Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy's tiff with Curt Schilling is well-documented, which made his flight to Kansas City all the more awkward when he was seated directly across the aisle from Schilling's wife Shonda. From the Boston Herald's Inside Track:

Anyway, according to our spies, there were no words exchanged between the frequent flyers. In fact, they went out of their way to ignore each other. Shonda was chatting up a person on her other side whilst Dan quickly put on a headset.

"I respect her privacy and am not sure she recognized me," Shaughnessy told the Track, (who believe that Shonda knew exactly who she was staring at across the aisle.)

"Still," he said, "an incredible coincidence - or a gate agent with a strange sense of humor."

Out here in the land of bloggers, news that Curt Schilling was planning to take on a blog - and seems relatively informed about the process in general - was encouraging. More information the better, I say, and if players are providing that information, that just makes the entire process more egalitarian. Sure beats learning everything through a tight-lipped PR person, right?

Not for Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy. He would prefer access be tightened, it seems:

Getting a little tired and bored here in the final week of the Grapefruit League circuit so I thought I'd take the day off and let Curt Schilling do the work. Schill started writing his own blog a few weeks ago, so today he fills the space with his latest Q & A session with fellow bloggers.

(Note: This is an abridged text. Because of space limitations, we are unable to reprint the entire posting, which was approximately the same length as Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals.")