…The more they stay the same.

Especially in the Boston sports media.

After years of trashing “Pedro the punk,” Manny Ramirez’s lack of hustle, David Ortiz’s annual requests for a new contact, the sports radio airwaves have a new Dominican target: Hanley Ramirez, who has been a steady topic on the WEEI mid-day show. For some reason, the affable, goofy Christian Fauria, really hates Hanley.

It couldn’t be an act, could it?

Dan Shaughnessy rips the Patriots. Rinse. Repeat.

Dan Shaughnessy shows he is clueless (or more likely willfully obtuse and ignorant) about Deflategate. Let’s break down his most idiotic statement from yesterday and put it on blast:

3. Love the high-powered legal frauds who had no issue with other Goodell punishments, then expressed outrage in amicus briefs (solicited by the Patriots) in the name of justice and labor fairness . . . all because it was Tom Brady.

This is awesomely stupid. The best known arbitrator in the country, Kenneth Feinberg is a “high-powered legal fraud?” So the former Solicitor General of the United States, Ted Olsen is a “high-powered legal fraud” as well because he recently joined Brady’s fight?

Even if the Patriots did solicit the amicus briefs, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, the parties who submitted them could’ve refused, but chose to do so.

They had no issue with other Goodell punishments because the NFL lost those cases and Goodell got smacked around by Judges, who made specific reference to his dishonesty.

And sure, what Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson did and their punishments are exactly like what Tom Brady is accused of doing. If Shaughnessy can’t see the difference, he’s…well, we know what he is.

Also:

Bill Simmons is wildly rich and famous. So why does he have to keep playing the diva and crying about past slights?

This from the guy who got snubbed at a breakfast 20 years ago and has used every opportunity since that day to take it out on the Krafts.

Why am I talking about Shaughnessy? He’s irrelevant, right?

Things just never change around here.

A few things to check out:

Latest retelling of O.J. saga is ESPN at its very best – Chad Finn with a look at the latest 30 for 30.

Bill Simmons doesn’t hold a grudge. No, really. – Finn also has a piece in the Globe Sunday Magazine about the abovementioned Simmons.

Sports Illustrated debuted their “Tech & Media” vertical, which looks like it will immediately become one of the best destinations for sports media.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

13 thoughts on “The More Things Change…”

  1. Right, because Clay Buchholz, Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, JD Drew, John Lackey, Keith Foulke, etc. were never criticized by sports radio hosts, media, or callers. What color and race are those guys? What a careless and slanderous accusation to throw out there indicating that the only reason they are criticized is because they are Dominican. So in your world, it is ok to criticize Josh Beckett because he bitches about only having 19 days off, but not ok to criticize Ortiz when he pipes off about his contract half-cocked mid-season because Beckett is white and Ortiz is not? Give me a break. And to tie Fauria’s comments, who has been at WEEI for what, two years, to comments at the station 10+ years ago is “lazy critiquing.”

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    1. I get what your saying but I think the difference between those guys you listed and Pedro, Ortiz, Ramirez X 2, etc, is that the Foulke’s, Beckett’s, etc is they were intermittently criticized or in some cases the criticism began after years into their time in Boston. Where Pedro, Ortiz, Ramirez X 2, etc have been criticized from the moment they first landed at Logan Airport.

      Ortiz was proclaimed was “a giant sack of you-know-what” by the CHB on the radio on Jan 4th, 2003 and he hasn’t stopped hammering Ortiz since. Another example is the folks on the morning show at EEI have for years been hammering Ortiz and insinuating he is juicing. I don’t listen to Felger and You’re Right Mike but I have heard they have done the same.

      It has been non stop criticism for years for Oritz. It was like that for Pedro, Manny, etc.

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      1. I do not agree. Those guys were criticized after they consistently acted like petulant children which all three of them did on multiple occasions. If they behaved like professionals like, say Aruban Xander Boegarts, no one who give a shit of their nationality. Allen just gets a pants tent over ripping WEEI,or anyone else that he feels the need to interject misinformation to sharpen his misguided point.

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      2. I do not agree. Those guys were criticized after they consistently acted like petulant children which all three of them did on multiple occasions. If they behaved like professionals like, say Aruban Xander Boegarts, no one who give a shit of their nationality. Allen just gets a pants tent over ripping WEEI,or anyone else that he feels the need to interject misinformation to sharpen his misguided point.

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      3. Yes, Foulke was revered when he led the Sox to the WS title, then booed when he was terrible and surly about basically everything (i never agreed with booing him: he earned a lifetime free pass and was clearly not the same due to his heavy workload the year before). Manny and Pedro were savaged for petty crap by too many in media (Shank, D&C) and some fans during a period when they were some of the top performers in all of baseball. Beckett’s poor pitching was the main reason for the criticism he got. Basically everyone he listed faced the heat due to poor performance, except for Schilling, who is a special case. He’s just a dick.

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      4. I do not agree. Those guys were criticized after they consistently acted like petulant children which all three of them did on multiple occasions. If they behaved like professionals like, say Aruban Xander Bogaerts, no one who give a shit of their nationality. Allen just gets a pants tent over ripping WEEI,or anyone else that he feels the need to interject misinformation to sharpen his misguided point.

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  2. As I’ve said before, ad nauseum I guess, the best reporting about the Deflategate issue is not here in the Boston area. Most of the media outlets seem dug in and determined to stick to the party line that this is all somehow “bad” or “cheating.’ No amount of proof to the contrary seems to shake them. What fascinated me was the notion that at least one scientist posited that since the league started, at least 61 percent of NFL footballs have been underinflated. I never heard anything about that in Boston, but from the Washington Post and the Huffington Post. (Admittedly, I no longer read any Boston media outlet consistantly do I’m happy to be contradicted.)

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  3. high-powered legal frauds… fan-boy Berman…

    For God’s sake, Shaughnessy. These lawyers, judges and (discredited by Shank) scientists who have come down against the NFL put their professional reputations on the line every time they write something, whether it’s an amicus brief or a debunking of Wells Report science. So for Shaughnessy to imply that every one of these guys is willing to commit career suicide by lying for that dreamy Tom Brady is simply asinine.

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    1. My favorite Shank-ism during this Deflategate saga is: “The Ideal Gas Law People.” He said it like it was some kind of ancient tribe that believed in voodoo and human sacrifice or something. Never mind that dozens of reputable scientists have cited IGL in numerous, quite cogent articles defending the Patriots and suggesting that nature, and nature alone, accounted for the footballs being below 12.5 PSI.

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      1. Right – I think he went so far as to call them ‘kooks’. Right up there with any given tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy buff or alien abductee. Those poor, brain-addled, Ideal Gas Law kooks. Sigh. 🙂

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    2. In addition to science, Shank also fails to understand statistics or he wouldn’t say that Adrian Gonzales is “still raking.” AGon’s OPS is .729, 18th in the league among regular 1st baseman. He has 0.4 WAR, which ranks him 22nd. (interestingly, one ranking behind Hanley in both categories).

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  4. If anyone saw CHB on the 86 Celtics documentary, you saw what a fraud he is. All he did was gush over how dominating that team was and how they rolled everyone in the east. They had an admittedly easier finals than expected with the Rockets beating the Lakers. I believe he used words such as “fun” and “incredible” to describe the team.

    Compare that to how he treats the Patriots. Tomato cans, teams rolling over, cheating, etc. I won’t even mention the contradictions when compared to his treatment of the UConn women’s basketball team.

    Can’t have it both ways Danny boy.

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  5. I readily admit I am not an NBA fan. The game has gotten basically unwatchable in the last 20 years. Last night’s final illustrated several of the things that make it impossible to watch. The traveling on every penetration, the lack of offensive fouls, the favoritism given stars and worst of all the bombs away from three point land with 20 seconds left of the shot clock…all these things kill me.

    I am not a particularly big fan of Lebron James. I won’t say he is worse than other ego maniacal superstars…but his me first act annoys me. Having said that… he is one heck of a player. I was not at all watching his offense. Instead I was watching the soft handed way he played defense. It was reminiscent of Bill Russell. He did not swat the ball into the crowd…instead he controlled it and made great outlet passes. He came out of no where to block shots. Fundamentally he was as sound defensively as a forward…at least in that game…as I have seen since who knows when.

    Cleveland won the game out right…on the Warriors home floor as the Warriors choked. It was epic. I admit I switched over to Silicone Valley as soon as the game ended because I was over my hoops quotient for the year…but I will say…congrats to the NBA for putting one one game this year that kept my interest till the end.

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