Dan Shaughnessy Can Fuck Off (But He Does Kinda Know What's Up)

This man will rape your children

All bolded items are from Dan's column from SI.com today.  I would post the link to it but I don't want to direct people to more bad writing.  Just take a gander at some of the high-(low?)-lights below:

Is that it? Has the curtain officially been drawn on the golden era of New England sports?

Yes, Dan.  Yes it has.

I hear all of you cackling across the land. Boston teams were pretty darned great in that '00s. The Celtics returned to glory with their first World Championship in 22 years when they smoked the Lakers in 2008. The Red Sox broke an 86-year curse with the Greatest Baseball Story Ever Told (coming back from 3-0 against the Yankees) in 2004, then topped it off with another Fall Classic sweep in 2007. And the Patriots? They demolished the rest of the NFL and acquired enemies around the globe, winning three Super Bowls in four seasons, then steamrolling to an unprecedented 18-0 in 2007....

Ahh yes.  Nothing says "not used to success" like living balls deep in the past and re-hashing every title you won in the past decade like it just happened yesterday.  And what's all this "Greatest Baseball Story Ever Told" nonsense?  Why the capital letters?  Is that the title of your new book?  In case you don't remember, the greatest story ever told was that of the 1994 California Angels, who, behind the brilliant managing of George Knox and career resurrection of pitcher Mel Clark, rallied to win the AL pennant.  All the information on that magical season can be found here.

Truth be told, there's been a sense of arrogance and entitlement about Boston sports fans in recent times.

Agreed...

Success did not become us. We were lovable losers back in the day...

Losers, yes.  But lovable?  Outside of the greater Boston area, I can't imagine too many people would agree with you on that.  Your 86-year run of futility was more like baseball's running joke that everybody was in on.  Kind of like the crazy uncle that everybody smiles at and talks to when he visits on Christmas but all go into the kitchen to laugh at and make fun of later on.  But hey, tell yourself whatever you have to...

...but gracious winners in good times.

The scores of hastily-written books, tidal waves of off-colored, lame merchandise, scores of fair-weather fans popping up like dandelions after 2004, and the seemingly never-ending torrent of chest thumping and bragging by your drunken Mick fanbase would argue otherwise.

Ask fans in Baltimore, Oakland and Tampa how much they love having citizens of Red Sox Nation overrun their ballparks every summer.

Probably about as much as any fan likes having even one insufferable citizen of Fraud Sox Nation sitting anywhere in their section of one of their team's home games every summer.

The Red Sox won 95 games last year and have been in the playoffs in six of the last seven years. They have one of the top four payrolls in baseball and this winter added John Lackey to a stable of starters which includes Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Clay Buchholz and Tim Wakefield. They have depth in the bullpen and one of the best closers in baseball in Jonathan Papelbon.

Yeah, about that.  Lackey is overrated and has never gotten it done against good teams; Beckett might have already peaked; Dice-Gay just admitted he hid an injury to pitch in the meaningless World Baseball Classic last year, thus costing the rotation much-needed depth and the team the millions of dollars it paid him; Clay Buchholz is still the same scared little bitch he was the last 2 seasons and hasn't shown any signs of breaking out of that shell; Tim Wakefield is more washed up than Bret Hart looked on Raw last Monday night.  Oh yeah, and your closer is a 'me first' jackass who cares more about making money for him and all other closers than winning championships.

And there's something to be said for the "depth" in the Red Sox bullpen.  Call me crazy, but I'd take Mo, Joba (or Hughes), Robertson, Marte, and Aceves over Papelbon, Okajima, Bard, Delcarmen, and Saito any day of the fucking week.  Nobody of that last 3 in the Sox 'pen screams "gamer," and Bard and Papelbon didn't exactly light the world on fire in pressure situations at the end of last year.

But I'm saying the Sox will not hit enough to compete with the Yankees in 2010. The Sox were too often easily shut down by good pitching in 2009 and it showed when they were smothered by the Angels in the playoffs. Boston's top four hitters are terrific, but the lineup stalls after messrs Ellsbury, Pedroia, Martinez and Youkilis. David Ortiz struggled terribly last year. He wound up with decent numbers, but too much of his damage was done against the Triple-A Orioles. If Ortiz continues to slide, the Sox lineup will struggle. Since the season ended the Sox have added Mike Cameron in center, moving Ellsbury to left. Marco Scutero has been brought on board to plug the shortstop hole and Adrian Beltre signed for one year to take over at third. It's a big-time commitment to defense, but offense promises to be Boston's problem. They can be a playoff team, but they are falling further behind the Yankees. And that's not a prescription for a World Series championship.

Now you're talking, Danny Boy.  From your keyboard to God's ears.  Good call staying away from Cameron's, Scutaro's, and Beltre's borderline laughable offensive stats.  You may be a homer but at least you aren't delusional about your team's chances or the fact that the Yankees are still head and shoulders above your beloved Sox.

...the Red Sox may pick up Adrian Gonzalez next summer and there be could another Duck Boat parade in downtown Boston this year or next.

Just what they need; another corner infielder!!  That will put them over the top for sure and completely negate the Yankees' signings of Joe Mauer and Cliff Lee.

But this new decade is off to a bad start here in Boston. And the rest of the country must be loving it.

I won't be so bold as to speak for the entire country, but as far as Yankee fans and Red Sox haters go, yes, we are loving it to death.  The only thing that could make it better would be for Victor Martinez to blow his knee out in spring training so we can all enjoy bathing in your tears.

Jeter Not Letting Wedding Get In The Way Of Another World Series Title

After months of speculation that the Yankees' hunk and his sexy steady Minka Kelly are headed to the altar,... the super couple may have settled on a wedding date -- Nov. 5.

And while it may bring little solace to Jeter's legion of female admirers, fretful Yankees fans will be glad to note the date is at least two days after the World Series ends. (story courtesy of Page Six)



As if there needed to be any more proof that Derek Jeter is the man, here comes this story from the Post about how The Captain is putting off his wedding until after the latest possible date for a World Series game to be played. Genius, pure fucking genius.

This move shows that Jeter will continue to maintain his level of coolness and extreme pimpage even now that he's off the market in 2 ways. One, by setting the date for the wedding, Jeet is letting it be known right off the bat that he's going to be running the show. Seriously, what other guy could pick his wedding date for when he wanted it and have his wife-to-be sit back and accept it? Chicks LIVE for planning weddings; it's engrained into their DNA. And now Minka has to sit back and wait until the Yankees wrap up their 28th title until she can officially become Mrs. Jeter. She already knows where she stands in the pecking order; Yankees 1st, Minka 2nd, as it should be.

And therein lies the second, and far more important, factor for why this is such a gangsta move by Jeter. He's essentially telling his teammates and the rest of baseball, "Yeah, we're winning the World Series again this year. I'm so confident in this that I'm actually setting my date to marry my knockout of a girlfriend after the World Series is over." If that isn't confidence and great leadership then I don't know what is. At the very least, Jeter is saying the Yankees are going to be in the World Series next year, and that's a hell of a lot more than more than half of the other teams in baseball can say right now.

So all this worry about only replacing Damon and Matsui with C-Grand and Fat Nick can end because The Great and Powerful Jeter has spoken. The Yankees are going to steam through the season and win their 2nd consecutive World Series title, kicking off the new decade in style, and then they're going to cap off that celebration by attending Jeter's wedding and celebrating the retirement of one of the most productive cocksmen of our time.

Now if it were me, I'd be faking injuries left and right or jumping in front of double-decker tour buses in the city to give myself enough time off to marry this chick...

...but not Jeter. He's still got his eyes on the big prize and that big prize is another World Series title. I know we're still a good 3 months away, but start spreading the news...

OH THE HORROR!!!

Talk about a kick right in the fucking apple bag, huh? I give out 4 guaranteed winners for this weekend and all 4 of them go down in flames, 3 of them in spectacularly pathetic fashion. Thank Joe Pesci I didn't actually follow any of my own advice and bet any of the games I picked, otherwise I'd be calling out of work today to either hit the street corners and give HJs and BJs to pay off my debt or skip town completely. To anybody that was unfortunate enough to read and believe anything I said on Friday, I apologize. And remember to cup the balls.

To put it in baseball perspective, my Green Bay-Arizona pick was 'Tim McClelland missing 2 obvious calls in Game 4 of the ALCS'-bad; Close game, could have gone either way. If you subtract the first and last plays of the game, Green Bay probably goes on to win the game and cover, so it wasn't like my prediction was so far off that it made a difference.

Jets-Cincy was 'Mike Scioscia removing John Lackey in Game 5 of the ALCS'-bad. Just like Scioscia, I focused too much on past performance and didn't give enough credit to what had been happening recently. I had blind faith in the Bengals, my version of the Angels bullpen, and believed they would regroup and get it together. Once the game started, they shit the bed completely and the Jets were Mark Teixeira knocking the Bengals all over the place.

Dallas-Philly and Pats-Ravens were just awful calls on my part. We're talking 'Ron Gardenhire leaving Jose Mijares in to start the bottom of the 11th in Game 2 of the ALDS' or 'Charlie Manuel deciding to start Pedro in Game 6 of the World Series'-level bad calls here. Just absolutely indefensible decisions that were so bad, after they were made and the results played out you had to wonder if the managers (or in this weekend's case, me) were smoking asbestos and drinking embalming fluid when they made those calls.

Just like this past weekend saw the end of the undeniable end of the Patriots' dynasty and the possible end of Donovan McNabb's tenure in Flipadelphia, it also signaled the end to my status as a surefire football prognosticator. My 11-6 regular season record is completely nullified and now it's time to rebuild. But hey, there's always next week and that's why I'll be back on Friday to try to right the ship and get back to my winning ways.

(Just don't take anything I predict to heart or to your bookie)