The Globe's message board's are tearing into the mop-haired columnist everyone loves to read as much as they love to hate. Smarmy at times, over-confident always, Shaughnessy's columns have the seasoned tone of someone who has spent years following what goes on within Fenway Park. He knows how things are going down and why - and he, in turn, brings that knowledge to his columns.
On Sunday, he wrote about the power struggle between Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein. He wrote that Epstein's contract was taken care of, would be announced Monday, but that the negotiation process went too long and revealed too much about personnel dynamics.
Publicly, Theo always has talked about "mutual respect" regarding his relationship with dad Larry. They know that their silence produced considerable speculation and acrimony. Fans and media members have taken shots and taken sides. The Sox tomorrow will present a united front. It can still work. The only unfortunate aspect is that the embers will smolder for years to come. We know too much now.
Story runs Sunday. On Monday, Epstein announces that he's rejected the three-year, $4.5 million offer and will leave the Red Sox organization.
So now, as an acquaintance put it today, we're "totally fucked." Epstein's gone. Epstein's assistant is already in Arizona. Manny's begging to be traded (and, frankly, we're going to need to get rid of him and find some way to benefit in the deal) and things don't look so good with Damon's negotiations. Other names are marked with question marks. Mueller? Millar? Miller? We need to address significant concerns with the Sox bullpen, the defensive corners, at least two-thirds of the outfield and the fact that the team's median age, while traditionally on the high side anyway, is creeping up there and starting to show.
As the same acquaintance put it, "we're back in the Dark Ages. Worst timing you could possibly imagine."
Everything hits fans at once and they turn on Lucchino, who hasn't been the most popular guy anyway. And, just as quickly, they turn on Shaughnessy. The Boston Herald comments on the (always suspect, in my mind) relationship between the Globe and the Red Sox organizaiton (corporate ownership really bothers me sometimes), and suggests that Epstein decided to turn away from the deal because he was wrankled by Shaughnessy's column.
A key factor that ultimately soured Epstein on the job, according to sources close to the situation, was a column in Sunday’s Boston Globe which revealed too much inside information about the relationship between Epstein and his mentor, Larry Lucchino, and slanted the coverage in the team president’s favor. Epstein, according to these sources, had several reasons to believe Lucchino was a primary source behind the column and came to the realization that if this information was leaked hours before he was going to agree to a long-term deal, excessive bad faith existed between the two.
It's bad. I wouldn't have blamed Dan for working from home yesterday. And today.
Message boards are going nuts over this. Lucchino and Shaughnessy have been linked together by Sox fans' pure hatred, and they've been banished to hell numerous times. The Globe's "Official Theo Leaves Sox Thread" now features 103 pages of rants. Boycotts of the Globe, emails sent to Shaughnessy...
And let's face it, everyone had to expect this. Shaughnessy knows he writes for one of, and I think the, most rabid baseball fan bases in the world. When Epstein's resignation was announced, I knew everyone would look for blame. And I knew, having read Shaughnessy's column, that that would be brought up.
But even I was surprised by how vicious this is getting. And, it appears, Shaughnessy was as well. He wrote today about the Epstein news, the Herald articles and the ranting:
Blame me if it makes you feel any better, though it seems pretty ridiculous that Theo would break away from a man he worked with for 14 years because of a few lines he read in a column in the Sunday Globe ... It's certainly possible that Theo saw that version in the Sunday Globe and had second thoughts about a future of working with Lucchino. This was the popular version put forth last night on WEEI and in a Herald blog. Again, I choose to believe that Epstein is smarter and more mature than that. Much smarter. And much more mature.
It's a testament to how tied to the Red Sox Shaughnessy's writing has become, the fact that people are blaming him for the disintegration of the GM deal. And it's well-established that with backlash to something someone writes comes a little bit of backhanded pride - if someone's flipping out on you for something that you wrote and they can't point to something being factually incorrect, it means your writing is affecting people. Which can be a good thing.
But let's face it. Whether the column did affect things or not, Shaughnessy's going to have a tough time going out to dinner in Boston between now and at least the start of Spring Training.
And much as I would love to be able to make a living writing about what goes on around Yawkey Way, much as I appreciate what it takes to write about it and write it well?
I wouldn't want to be in his shoes today. Not even if you paid me with a championship ring.
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