Dan Shaughnessy Shows Us How to Win a Non-Argument

Why am I bothering to spend time writing a whole post about a Dan Shaughnessy column? Fuck if I know. I'd rather give Simmons attention than him. But this is pretty wretched. I'm not going to link to it; the whole don't-give-traffic-to-useless-dipshits thing. Here we go.

Welcome to my town, Boston, Massachusetts.

We're not there. We're reading this drivel on the internet, which can be accessed from almost anywhere in the modernized world.

It's quite simply the best sports city in the United States of America.

Ah, a classic non-argument. Can't be debated objectively in any way; can't be settled, ever; appeals to the lowest common denominator ("FACKIN' BEANTOWN IS THE FACKIN' BEST AND IF YOU DON'T THINK SO I'LL KICK YOU IN THE CUNT!"); and most importantly: irrelevant. There is little point in having this argument in a bar with your friends. There is less than no point in writing about it for a major sports website. Thanks, Dan. I'm sure this is only the 50th stupidest thing you've written so far this year though.

Especially this week.

This article is a little old- he means last week.

Care to argue?

Absolutely not.

Bring it on.

OK!

Monday is Patriots' Day in Greater Boston. Oddly enough, the New England Patriots will be the only only Hub team that's out of season.

This is great. I love it. Every single day, sports journalists/talking heads/blithering idiots misidentify irony more times than any of us could begin to count. It's ironic that Albert Pujols struck out, because he's a good hitter. It's ironic that the Saints won the Super Bowl just a few years after hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Etc., etc., etc. So here's a great example of something that's actually ironic- but Dan fails to identify it as such. Awesome.

Patriots' Day commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord and the first shot fired in the Revolutionary War. Patriots' Day is a legal holiday in Maine and Massachusetts, falling annually on the third Monday in April.

Obviously copied and pasted from Wikipedia.

It's one of the great days of every spring in Boston, particularly when the Bruins and Celtics are playoff worthy.

Any day is a great spring day in any city when its NBA and NHL teams are in the playoffs.

Since 1897, Patriots' Day has been celebrated with the running of the Boston Marathon. The Red Sox have been playing on Marathon Monday since 1902 when 35-year-old Cy Young hurled the Sox to a 7-6 victory at the old Huntington Avenue Grounds. Since 1968, the Sox have served baseball breakfast at Fenway on Marathon Monday with games starting at 11:05 a.m. It is the only regularly-scheduled morning start on the big league calendar.

Don't care. You have a baseball game on a Monday in April? Congratulations. You have a marathon? Congratulations. Here's your gold star- try to contain your erection.

At 10 a.m. Monday, the first of approximately 300,000 runners (counting the unofficial entries) left Hopkinton bound for the Back Bay of Boston where they hoped to cross the finish line on Boyleston Street. The 114th running of the Boston Marathon featured almost 10,000 international entrants from more than 70 countries.

Obviously copied and pasted from Wikipedia.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the 26.2-mile course. The runners heard cheers from the co-eds at Wellseley College and ran up Heartbreak Hill after the 90 degree right turn at the fire station in Newton.

Landmarks? On a marathon course? Be still my beating heart.

While the thin people ran toward downtown Boston, more than 37,000 filled Fenway Park for the 557th consecutive time. All the runners were still on the course when John Lackey threw the first pitch long before noon. Citizens of Red Sox Nation

That term alone is enough to disqualify Boston from consideration as best sports city in America, if we were ever to seriously consider that argument. Which we won't. Because it's a non-argument.

were wondering if the staggering Sox (4-9, 1-6 at Fenway) might be hungover from the three-game beatdown sustained over the weekend at the hands of the rabble-rousing Tampa Rays.

AND ALL THEIR BLACK PLAYAHS WHO SUCK AND WOULD NEVER BE WORTHY OF PLAYING IN FRONT OF RED SAWX NATION!

The Sox and Rays were still on the Fenway lawn when the marathon leaders passed through Kenmore Square. Fans sitting atop the Green Monster could turn their heads to see if there were any Americans near the front of the pack. Kenyans and Ethiopians have dominated the Boston course in recent years. The Rays led, 6-0 in the bottom of the third when Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot crossed the finish line in a Boston record time of 2:05:50. Some of the erstwhile Fenway Faithful could be seen running out of Fenway, joining the marathoners to escape the carnage at the ballpark, as the Sox suffered through a 8-2 loss.

This is turning into a middle school book report on what Dan saw/heard happened on Patriots' Day. Still nothing about why Boston is a great (or the greatest) sports city.

Monday night on Causeway Street the Bruins got ready to play the Buffalo Sabres in Game 3 of their first-round NHL playoff series. The goal-challenged B's erupted for five scores in a series-squaring, 5-3 win at Buffalo Saturday afternoon. The Bruins haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1972, back in the days when the Sox were plagued by the Curse of the Bambino and Americans still won the Marathon.

GOOD, HONEST, WHITE-SKINNED AMAHHHHRICANS.

The team that's brought the most glory to Boston, the Celtics, did not play Monday, but the Green Team practiced at their Waltham health club in preparation for Tuesday night's Game 2 at the Garden against the Miami Heat.

Irrelevant. Again, part of a book report. Again, no mention of why Boston is teh bestest.

The Celtics beat the Heat in Game 1 Saturday night, but have been scorned for much of this year because of their chronic underachievement. Two years removed from their 17th World Championship, the Celtics look like they're bound for a second-round showdown with the Cleveland Cavaliers, aka the best team in basketball. The Celtic-Heat series took on some additional juice when it was announced that Kevin Garnett would be suspended for Game 2 as punishment for tossing an elbow in a fracas at the end of Game 1.

Don't care. More book report stuff.

After the Celtics play Tuesday, the famed Boston Garden bull gang will convert the arena from parquet to ice to get ready for the Bruins and Sabres in Game 4 Wednesday night.

An arena used for more than one sport? A basketball floor on top of a hockey rink? Preposterous!

Thursday, the Garden will be dark as the B's and C's hit the road, but New Englanders will turn their eyes toward Foxborough where Bill Belichick will attempt to bolster his roster with the 22nd pick in the NFL draft. Meanwhile, the sagging Sox will attempt to get back on track against the Texas Rangers, then the Baltimore Orioles. No matter how bad the weather gets, Fenway will be filled every night.

Probably the only quasi-point in the whole article that goes to the idea that Boston is a great sports city- the Red Sox always sell out. Of course, so do lots of other teams from a variety of sports in other cities. So...

Truly, sports fans are blessed here in the Hub of the Universe.

Wow, yeah. They have a basketball team in the playoffs, a hockey team in the playoffs, a baseball team that plays during April, and a football team which made picks during the 2010 NFL draft. And a marathon. Truly the "Hub" of the sports universe. Unless you also also count Chicago, Denver, or Phoenix. Not to mention the nine other cities that have teams in all four major sports and a marathon (but didn't have both their NBA and NHL team in the playoffs this year- New York, the Bay Area, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Philadelphia, Detroit, and DC). This article has truly made its point.

We've got shots heard round the world, every day.

That's his closing sentence- anyone have any idea what in the fuck he's talking about? In conclusion, Dan Shaughnessy is the worst sportswriter in America. And I think I've proven that throughout the course of this post.