Dan Shaughnessy Should Probably Stop Talking

 At AB4AR, the "... Should Probably Stop Talking" series is usually reserved for the two silly gentlemen who man the ESPNNY Yankee blog.  But the door is always open to other sports writers willing to join the club and get FJ'd right in their Ms, so who better to welcome to the SPST fraternity than Dan Shaughnessy, noted Fraud Sawx rumor monger and unabashed Boston sports homer.  Shaughnessy is the classic example of a lazy sportswriter who uses generalities and over-dramatized opinions based on nothing to create false controversy amongst the population of the idiotic and ignorant sports fan, and this latest attempt to drag something important out of a meaningless Yanks-Sawx ST game is nothing short of brilliant in its inanity.  Without further ado, I give you, Dan Shaughnessy.

"It felt like Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Except for the fact that there were only 7,859 fans and the starting pitchers were Alfredo Aceves and 20-year-old Manny Banuelos."

So in reality, it felt nothing like Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.  Unless you're an idiot who thinks Spring Training games, even Yanks-Sawx ones, actually matter.

"But this was not your typical spring training game. It was Red Sox-Yankees, the mastodons of the majors, duking it out for Grapefruit League supremacy last night."

"Mastodons of the majors," "duking it out," "supremacy."  I can feel my heartbeat starting to race just reading that graphic battle imagery!  Oh no, wait.  I can't.  Because there were no mastodons, and nobody was duking it out for anything.  The Yankees only had 3 regulars in the lineup.  And nobody gives a crap about Grapefruit League supremacy.

And seriously, "mastodons of the majors"?  At what point does comparing baseball players to extinct prehistoric elephants seem like a good idea for a sports column?

"In the spirit of this hakuna matata spring of 2011, the Sox prevailed, 2-1.  Naturally."

Yes, of course.   Using the life lessons handed down by these two animated Disney characters, the Red Sox managed to squeak out a one-run Spring Training win against a team comprised of roughly 20% of players who will actually be on the Yankees' Opening Day roster, thus setting the tone for what will surely be a 160-2 season for Boston.  What isn't natural about that?

"During batting practice, the field was littered with assorted sponsors, frauds, and celebrities. A guy who hates Republicans (Keith Olbermann) stood alongside a guy who hates the Patriots (Bill Polian)."

I would hardly call Keith Olbermann and Bill Polian celebrities.  And even if I did, the fact that they were the highest-level celebs that you could mention at a New York-Boston game speaks to just how meaningless the game was.  I wouldn't give a shit if Bill Polian was present at the Super Bowl.  If the Colts were in it.

And as far as the "frauds" line goes, we get it.  The Red Sox were playing.  Understood.

"We didn’t see Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez... "

Because they weren't there.  Because the game didn't mean anything. 

"... But... manager Joe Girardi brought three starters: Brett Gardner, Curtis Granderson, and Nick Swisher."

Because the game didn't mean anything.

"Meanwhile, Francona went with 8/9ths of his everyday lineup."

Because he's an idiot.

"Mike Cameron started in place of J.D. Drew... "

... who will be out of the lineup for the next 4-6 weeks with a vicious combination of a yeast infection, a hangnail on the ring finger of his right hand, and some mild seasonal allergies.

"It marked the first time Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez ever appeared on the same lineup card."

Crawford AAAAAAAND Gonzalez???  In the same lineup?!?!  TOGETHER?!?!?!?!  Mark down the date, ladies and gentlemen.  The day that they almighty Crawford-Gonzalez duo finally played in the same game and began their journey to rewrite the baseball record books and make Gehrig and Ruth look like a couple of beer league softball bench warmers.  Truly this game will go down in the annals of time as one of the greatest ever played for this reason alone! 

"It always comes down to pitching and at this juncture, the Sox have more."

I'm not even going to get into the fact that Boston has just as many questions and issues with their rotation as the Yankees do here.  There's 162 more games for that.  I'll just let Dan have his fun using the 5th-grade "quantity over quality" logic.

"Mariano Rivera is still the best closer around, but Boston loves its trio of Jonathan Papelbon, Daniel Bard, and Bobby Jenks."

That's right.  They love Pap and Bard so much that they brought in a guy worse than them to take some of their innings.  They're just OOZING confidence!

"Papelbon came in for the fifth, to the tune of 'I’m Shipping Up to Boston.'"

The "Star Spangled Banner" to Massholes.

"That fahhckin' sawng is so much bettah than gawddamn 'Entah Sandman' that it is nawt even fahhny!  Metallica is a bunch of fahhckin' pussy sellouts and Rivera is a queeah for cahhming out to that sawng!  Drawpkick stay true to they-ah Bahhston roots.  They ahh the voice of ow-ah Red Sawx Nation!!"

"The Big Galoot got the side in order. Sitting in the Sox dugout, Olbermann seemed pleased with the Big Galoot."

As if that should matter to anybody even remotely interested in the Red Sox.  And why the hell would you let Keith Olbermann sit in your dugout?

"The audacity with which the clubhouse attendant, one known for committing such atrocities in the past, would toss the bags of sunflower seeds into the dugout bins will not go unnoticed by this reporter.  You, sir, have not only damaged the structural integrity of these seeds, but the very fabric of America with your right-wing, dictatorial actions.  Tommy Flanagan, you are today's worst person... IN THE WOOOOOORRRRRRRLD!"

"The Sox finished the spring 2-0 against the Bronx Bombers."

Which means EVERYTHING to them.  They are now in the right frame of mind to dominate the American League after winning a ST game against Romulo Sanchez and Luis Ayala.

"They’ll play 18 times this season, starting three weeks from Friday in the 100th Fenway home opener. Then comes the ALCS. We expect it to go the full seven games. Just like in 2003 and 2004."

Ugh.  Just ugh!  That right there epitomizes how awful Dan Shaughnessy is.  It's not that he actually believes the Sawx and Yankees are predestined to meet in the playoffs this year, it's that he knows so many other fans out there do, and he writes that sentence to cater to their ignorance and simple mindedness.  There is no "we" in that statement.  Any baseball fan with half a sense of how the game works knows that there are a million things that could happen over the course of the next 6 months that could help or hurt each team's chances of making the playoffs.  And even then, there's no guarantee that they will face each other.

Just shut up, Dan Shaughnessy.  Shut your mouth, know your role, and for the love of God, stop writing.

If you think Dan Shaughnessy is a good sports writer, you suck.