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WORST OF BOSTON Dan Shaughnessy (center) wants no part of black troublemaker Randy Moss (right) but embraced white troublemaker Roger Clemens (left). |
David Duke returns!
This is the third or fourth time I’ve seen this guy’s name attached to an arrest of a high-profile athlete, so I thought it warranted mention: Moscow, Idaho, assistant police chief David Duke busted a University of Idaho footballer last week, this time for selling cocaine. Authorities had no comment on why the hell the assistant police chief hasn’t changed his name, say to something like Ed or Wendell.
According to reports, sophomore defensive tackle Marvin Jones Jr. was busted for selling coke to undercover cops. A search of Jones’s apartment uncovered $1600 in cash, including money from the undercover buys.
Duke, who apparently is not related to that David Duke, was also responsible for the arrest of Tone Taupule, another Idaho football player who last year was busted for armed robbery when he broke into a man’s home and pistol-whipped him until he handed over a thousand bucks.
They have tough laws in Idaho; Jones faces life in prison for the coke-dealing charges. Check back to see how the case plays out.
Hair-brained writer
This is only tangentially related to sports crime, I know, but it has to be noted. The white-Boston-sportswriter contingent’s mass freak-out over the “bad character” drafts the New England Patriots acquired this past weekend was one of the lowest moments in recent Beantown sports-media history.
When the Patriots used their first pick in the NFL draft on Miami safety Brandon Meriweather — a much whispered-about player with scary-looking mini-dreads who was involved in a self-defense shooting last year — my first thought was: “That prick Dan Shaughnessy is going to do the ‘Where’s Myra?’ column.” As in Myra Kraft, wife of Pats owner Bob Kraft, who once famously convinced her husband to dump Pats pick Christian Peter because of his sex-harassment past. That was then, but what about now? As soon as the Meriweather pick hit the ESPN crawl, you knew Shaughnessy — better known to Red Sox fans as Curly-Haired Boyfriend or CHB, after the famously appropriate name given to him by dinosaur-lover Carl Everett — was going to bring it up. When the Pats traded for Randy Moss, another controversial black man with a past, the next day, CHB did not disappoint:
What happened to the sanctimonious standards they’ve set? For years they’ve been preaching team above self and telling us how proud they are of the fine young men who wear their uniform. And then in 24 hours they drafted a gun-toting cheap-shot artist last seen stomping on a prone opponent during a disgraceful brawl . . . only to drop the bombshell of the draft by trading for Randy “I play when I want to play” Moss.
The Herald’s Michael Felger and WEEI’s John Dennis also chimed in to denounce the move as morally indefensible. Of course, when the Red Sox were deciding this past year whether to bring back David Wells — a notorious clubhouse cancer and fat slob who not only was arrested for mouthing off to a cop, but admitted to being frequently drunk or hung-over on the mound, and wrote an autobiography bragging about his extensive bar-fight and titty-bar experience — Shaughnessy had this to say:
This cartel member votes to keep Wells on the island. He’s a lefthander who won 15 games last year and the Sox aren’t likely to get commensurate value given Wells’s rehabilitation status and his destination restrictions.
And in 1996, when the Red Sox were about to lose Roger Clemens — a player who wrote the book on “I play when I want to play,” particularly in his last (very fat) year in Boston — Shaughnessy insisted the team could not let him leave. “In the short term, the Sox would take another tremendous hit if they allow Clemens to walk,” CHB wrote. “Especially if he walks into Yankee Stadium.”
Clemens, remember, was also once arrested in a self-defense assault for defending his brother, Gary, against what Roger claimed was an assault by an off-duty policeman.
Yeah, we can’t let beery guys with names like Boomer and Roger leave. But when a Boston coach brings in a couple of similarly troubled guys with do-rags, suddenly it’s “What happened to our standards?” And we wonder why black athletes hate playing in this town.
I’m giving Shaughnessy 90 points for being a dick and, worse, for being a bore who can’t write. When is the Globe going to do us all a favor and put this clown out to pasture?
When he’s not googling “Grand Wizard of sports crime” and “Boston freak-out,” Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone. He can be reached atM_Taibbi@yahoo.com.
