The Globe's Dan Shaughnessy Doesn't Try to Hide His Hatred of Patriots Fans
I’ve spent most of my adult life studying the Boston sports media like Jane Goodall studied great apes. From a distance, on the periphery, and living among them. I’ve spent time in their habitats. I’ve come to understand their social order. How they interact with outsiders. Their diet. In some cases, their mating habits. And like Goodall, I’ve even given them names and befriended some of them.
And if there is one trait that is most common among their species is their utter contempt for their target audience.
Most Boston sports media members hate the people they’re supposed to be talking to. The consumers who they owe their jobs to. I can’t stress enough that I’m not saying all of them. There are some who respect their audience, enjoy interacting with them and like their jobs. They know who they are. But if you got everyone who covers the New England teams for digital, print, radio or TV together in a big group, went on stage and screamed into the mic, “Who hates the sports fans of New England?!?” you’d get the same reaction as the frontman for the band at CountryFest yelling, “How much do you guys love America?!?”
And if please the court, I present People’s Exhibit 10,000: This Tweet from Baseball Hall of Famer/Hater of His Readers Emeritus Dan Shaughnessy. It’s a masterpiece of bitchy despitefulness. Pure disdain, boiled down to about 40 words. His whole career full of condescending, preachy, “I know better than you” columns squeezed into one Tweet.
There’s a lot to unpack here. But let’s start with the implication he’s making. Indirectly comparing Josh Gordon, who is accused of being a repeat cannabis user, to Tyreek Hill. The Tyreek Hill who was investigated over his 3 year old son’s broken arm and cleared due to insufficient evidence. Who was recorded telling the boy’s mother she should be afraid of him. Who was kicked off his Oklahoma State team for doing this to the same woman:
Stillwater police records indicate that on December 12, 2014, Hill was arrested on complaints of assault of his 20-year-old pregnant girlfriend, Crystal Espinal. The police report states that Espinal said the two got into an argument and he threw her around like a ragdoll, punched her in the face, sat on her and repeatedly punched her in the stomach, and choked her
So Shank set up a Straw Man argument to say that Pats fans who were outraged that Roger Goodell didn’t use his Article 66 superpower to punish Hill should be equally outraged Gordon got unsuspended for ripping a bong hit. Nice false equivalency, Dan.
Next, just consider the underlying assumption here. It’s that all Patriots fans are unreasonable morons, so blindly loyal to their team – the one that’s in an unthinkably successful and unprecendently long Dynasty that Shank has tried to take a dump on for 20 years and counting – that they’ll be happy “a repeat offender and drug addict” would be able to play ball again. Putting aside for a second the fact that Gordon has done nothing since he got to New England but play hard, be a good teammate and appreciate his opportunity, he had a relapse. One the Curly Haired Boyfriend seems to be offended by it and is offended if you are not equally offended.
The bottom line is that he – like most of his colleagues – hates you. He hates you almost as much as he hates the football team he barely bothers to cover. Notice how he hasn’t been seen in Foxboro since the grandstanding display he put on in Belichick’s first presser last year? The one where he demanded to get to the bottom of why Malcolm Butler was benched, on behalf of … the fans he’s so concerned about? The one where Belichick swatted him away like a Napoleon Dynamite-haired gnat? He hasn’t been back since. There were no tough line of questions from CHB, digging around to find the hard truth about what decisions went into holding the Rams to three points in Super Bowl LIII. He’s been nowhere to be seen.
On the rare occasions anyone brings up the subject of Shaughnessy any more since The Globe readership is rapidly dying of old age, I’ll talk to someone who’ll defend comments like this with “Trolling people is his job” or “He’s a good writer.” And I remind them that they can like him all they want. I’ve never known Shank to like them back. I’m sure this’ll get him a nice bonus from John Henry. But that doesn’t mean you have to take it.