It Would Seem As Though Dan Shaughnessy Is Not A Fan Of My Work
Hey Dan, if you knock on the devil’s door long enough, sooner or later, somebody’s gonna answer.
I let the column slide. Because, for the most part, I agree with you. I am a fan. I’m also a writer, but I don’t hide the fact that I am a Red Sox fan. I cover the team from a Red Sox fan’s perspective, and not in a style that would lead readers to believe that I’m up in the press box, because I’m not. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Sure, my Twitter is littered with hyperbole, sarcasm, and over the top Red Sox reactions, but I’d argue that what I do in my actual writing here on Barstool is far from what you described me as in your column, and that was a “fanboy”.
I’m guessing that this all started with my take on Comcast SportsNet, claiming that David Ortiz — not Ted Williams — is the most important player in Red Sox history. Not the best player. The most important.
A few days later, you wrote a column about this exact same subject, and that’s where the “fanboy” comment came from.
I spoke to Carl Yastrzemski about it Tuesday.
Yaz, as ever, was succinct. And correct.
“It’s got to be Ted,’’ said Yaz. “I mean, he was the greatest hitter who ever lived. And he missed all those years serving his country in two wars.’’
Right. But this is the age of “hot takes” and short/no memories. It’s an age of fanboy baseball experts who’ve never left the house. Factor that in with the amazing (truly unbelievable) late-life surge of Ortiz, and you arrive at our preposterous poll question. In fact, I was actually asked this question on a television sports debate show last week.
So, as you heard in the audio above from today’s Zolak and Bertrand show on 98.5 The Sports Hub, I met Dan for the first time the other night at Comcast, and I’ll say here what I said to him that night. I’ve got no problem with him saying I’m a fan. That’s not an insult to me; it’s the truth. It’s also the most obvious observation ever. What I do have a problem with, though, is the term “fanboy”, because it has a negative connotation that infers that the person doesn’t really know what they’re talking about. It’s a jab, basically. You can be a fan of the team that you cover, and still provide valuable analysis. If anything, it helps. When you’re feeling the same emotions as the fans who are reading your work, that only provides an extra element to your writing. It seems to be working for me, but hey.
And I’m glad that Dan pulled back the curtain as to why some of the press box frequenters don’t take kindly to folks with my writing style. For one, they’re going to pull the “you’re not in the clubhouse” card. I know everybody loves to hate him, but Michael Felger is never in any locker rooms or clubhouses, and he’s the most influential media member in this market next to Dave Portnoy, who also is never around any teams, unless he’s celebrating Super Bowl championships with them at 5 o’clock in the morning. And if I want to know what’s going on in the Red Sox clubhouse, I can text somebody who’s in the Red Sox clubhouse. It’s 2016. Bloggers can do stuff like that now.
The other point about having never played the game, that’s actually all I did up until I was about 21. I wasn’t that great, but I played Little League, Jimmy Fund League, AAU, Babe Ruth, American Legion, four years of high school baseball and two years in the New England Baseball League during college. Again, I wasn’t that good, but we can throw the “he never played the game” reason out the window, too. The other thing that I think media guys like Shaughnessy don’t understand is that I didn’t just pop up out of nowhere with Barstool two years ago. This is my tenth year, and eleventh season, covering the Red Sox in one form or another. And yeah, I’ve written for newspapers and magazines like you guys, too. I just recognized that they were dying and went to a stronger platform.
But, to his credit, Shaughnessy kind of backed down from his stance, somewhat, towards the end, once Zolak and Bertrand filled him in a little bit. And he did say that he would come on my podcast, so I guess we’ll have to continue this conversation face-to-face. To be continued.