Dan Shaughnessy – författare

Seeing baseball played at Fenway is an experience like no other for Red Sox fans and rivals alike because the park reminds us of what baseball used to be.  Fenway may not offer fans the best seats or even adequate parking, but when game-goers walk through the park''s gate, the smell of hotdogs and roasted peanuts, the sight of Fenway''s brilliant green grass and the roar of the Fenway faithful overwhelms the most jaded of baseball enthusiasts, even Yankee fans.At Fenway celebrates the rich history of Fenway Park home to the Boston Red Sox. Told through the wit and perceptions of Dan Shaughnessy, sports columnist for the Boston Globe and one of New England''s most admired sportswriters, At Fenway is the writer''s hometown tribute to the park how growing up with Fenway and the Red Sox affected his life and the lives of the many die-hard fans living in "Red Sox Nation."  Author of The Curse of the Bambino, Shaughnessy takes readers on a walking tour of the fabled park itself, exploring every nook and cranny that makes Fenway unique. He traces the early history of Fenway from the day owner John I. Taylor broke ground for its construction in 1911 to the building material that went into the making of Fenway''s "Green Monster" wall.  In addition, Shaughnessy introduces readers to some of the unrecognized figures who keep Fenway''s cherished traditions alive, including Helen Robinson, who has operated the park''s switchboard for more than half a century, and head groundskeeper Joe Mooney, who "protects and defends the green, green grass of Fenway Park."A book that uniquely captures the spirit of Fenway Park and what it means to be a Boston Red Sox fan, At Fenway also explores the "good, bad, and ugly" moments that have nurtured Fenway''s love-hate relationship with fans.  From the dark day of January 5, 1920, when Babe Ruth left the Red Sox to play for the Yankees, to the Red Sox''s 1967 Cinderella-story pennant victory; from Carlton Fisk''s 1975 World Series home run to the crowd-silencing homer Bucky Dent hit that clinched the Yankees'' 1978 playoff birth, At Fenway recalls the park''s greatest and worst moments and talks with the players who created them.Rumors that the Red Sox will close Fenway in a few years have already provoked outrage among the faithful.  Closing Fenway will mark the end of an era, and Dan Shaughnessy captures this era in all its tragic glory.  At Fenway will be read and cherished by Red Sox fans and all fans of baseball as it ought to be.From the Hardcover edition.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. “Eloquent and dazzling,” the story of the legendary baseball manager’s tenure with the Boston Red Sox (Philadelphia Daily News).When Terry Francona took over as manager of the Boston Red Sox in 2004, the storied franchise hadn’t won a World Series championship in eighty-six years. Led by Francona, the team won two over the course of four years. During the full eight years of Francona’s tenure, the Red Sox were transformed from “cursed” into one of the most successful and profitable teams in baseball history—only to fall back to last place as soon as Francona was gone.Francona: The Red SoxYears lets readers in on the inner workings of the Red Sox clubhouse like no book has ever done before. From the highs of the World Series to the lows of the final months of the 2011 season—the most epic collapse of a team in baseball history—this book features the never-before-told stories about Sox fans’ favorite players, moments, wins, and losses.“A scorched-earth memoir . . . [that] touches fleetingly on steroid use, sabermetrics, and Michael Jordan’s stint in the minor leagues . . . but saves its heaviest artillery for the owners . . . [and] Theo Epstein backs him up.” —The New York Times Book Review“It’s not often that baseball aficionados and gossip gluttons can plunk down on a shared portion of outfield grass with the same book for an afternoon of readerly delight, but Francona can bridge those kinds of differences.” —The Boston Globe

From award-winning Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, an “entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) and nostalgia-filled retelling of the 1980s Boston Celtics’ glory years, which featured the sublime play of NBA legend Larry Bird.Today the NBA is a vast global franchise—a billion-dollar industry seen by millions of fans in the United States and abroad. But it wasn’t always this successful. Before primetime ESPN coverage, lucrative branding deals like Air Jordans, and $40 million annual player salaries, there was the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s—when basketball was still an up-and-coming sport featuring old school beat reporters and players who wore Converse All-Stars. Enter Dan Shaughnessy, then the beat reporter for The Boston Globe who covered the Boston Celtics every day from 1982 to 1986. It was a time when reporters travelled with professional teams—flying the same commercial airlines, riding the same buses, and staying in the same hotels. Shaughnessy knew the athletes as real people, losing free throw bets to Larry Bird, being gifted cheap cigars by the iconic coach Red Auerbach, and having his one-year-old daughter Sarah passed from player to player on a flight from Logan to Detroit Metro. Drawing on unprecedented access and personal experiences that would not be possible for any reporter today, Shaughnessy takes us inside the legendary Larry Bird-led Celtics teams, capturing the camaraderie as they dominated the NBA. Fans can witness the cockiness of Larry Bird (who once walked into an All-Star Weekend locker room, announced that he was going to win the three-point contest, and did); the ageless athleticism of Robert Parish; the shooting skills of Kevin McHale; the fierce, self-sacrificing play of Bill Walton; and the playful humor of players like Danny Ainge, Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell, and M.L. Carr. For any fan who longs to return—for just a few hours—to those magical years when the Boston Garden rocked and the winner’s circle was mostly colored Boston Green, Wish It Lasted Forever is a masterful tribute to “the Celtics from 1982–1986 [that] is so good even fervent Celtics haters will have trouble putting it down” (New York Post).