WORCESTER—Today’s sports pages, be they paper or electronic, are full of quotes but devoid of candor.
That is where columnists like Dan Shaugnessy come in. The Boston Globe’s most beloved and reviled sportswriter — take your pick, depending upon the day of the week — visited here last weekend as part of the annual Great Polar Park Writers Series.
You want candor?
Shaughnessy graduated from Holy Cross, arriving there from Groton.
“We only had 4,000 people in Groton,” he said, “and we never came to Worcester. It was like coming to Paris for us.”
That is understandable. One city has the Eiffel Tower. The other has the Bancroft Tower.
Shaughnessy’s first job covering baseball was in Baltimore, so his connections to the WooSox go back decades. He knew both Dr. Charles Steinberg and Larry Lucchino as early as the late 1970s. Steinberg shared the stage with Shaughnessy Saturday. He was writing about the Red Sox when Lucchino, John Henry and Tom Werner bought the franchise before the 2002 season.
Shaughnessy and Lucchino had a contentious relationship in Boston, something that is hardly surprising given their personalties. This not to say didn’t like each other. They just often had opposing viewpoints.
“You folks are so blessed that he came into Worcester here,” Shaughnessy said of Lucchino. “It’s such a great thing that you’ve got going. And take a look at the Red Sox and what’s happened to them since they pushed Larry out.
“Look at all the great things people keep saying, ‘Oh, they won four championships.’ Well, that was when Larry was there. The bridge is when, after they dumped Larry and they win one more, but it’s still his team, basically, and then the big pivot. The priorities have somewhat changed, we believe, and Larry wouldn’t stand for what we’re seeing now.”
Henry has become reclusive over time. Shaughnessy knew him in his early Red Sox days as did Steinberg, who has a couple of insights into the Sox’ owner’s understated personality.
“John Henry used to tell me how sensitive his ears were,” Steinberg said, “and at Fenway he would say ‘the music’s too loud’ and it became an ongoing thing.”
Steinberg later went to work for the Dodgers. They played the Red Sox in a pre-season game in 2008 in front of 115,300 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
“John Henry comes over and says “nice to see you; the music’s still too loud,” Steinberg recalled.
Being a Holy Cross product, Shaughnessy has always admired Bob Cousy, and is thrilled to have gotten to know him.
“That was one of the great allures of going to Holy Cross. This is the place where Bob Cousy went,” Shaughnessy said. “I’ve always worn Number 14 because of Bob Cousy. If you go to the bank you can steal all my passcodes because they’re all 14….it’s my number because of Cooz.”
“I just worshiped him.”
Shaughnessy met Cousy in college. He went to Salisbury Street to interview Cousy at his home and has maintained a cordial relationship through the years. A while back, Shaughnessy had a medical issue and was on a hiatus from writing.
Cousy called Shaughnessy at home and asked, “Daniel, why am I not seeing your name in the paper? And I was thinking, ‘I just got a wellness check from a 97-year old guy. That’s pretty good.”
Shaughnessy is old-school reporting. If he criticized someone — one time he wrote that Red Sox reliever Steve Crawford was as useless as a sack of old doorknobs — he was on the scene the next day to accept any and all feedback.
That is one reason he disdains talk radio.
“It’s one of the things I don’t like about talk radio,” Shaughnessy said. “There’s not as much accountability. They’re just killing everybody on the radio and they’re never in the clubhouse. They’re never accountable to that, and the people, their victims — what have you — never have any recourse to yell back at ‘em.
“I think they should at least get that courtesy.”
He also disdains today’s Red Sox ownership, citing their decision to not pay Mookie Betts enough to keep him in Boston.
“They traded him to get ahead of it because they didn’t want to play with the big boys in that category,” Shaughnessy said. “I’m sorry. The prices they charge you (fans), they need to keep their talent and reward you when they strike gold with a guy like that….you deserve better.”
WooSox fans were at Polar Park for a rare baseball double play, at least days. Shaughnessy gave them both quotes and candor.
