The 1980s Celtics called him 'Shank.' Former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz called him something worse. And in 2007, The Boston Phoenix crowned him "The Most Hated Man in Boston."
Now, Dan Shaughnessy has a new title: Hall of Famer.
Shaughnessy, a 45-year veteran of the Boston Globe sports page, is one of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame's newest members. He was inducted in June along with top NBC sportscaster Mike Tirico.
Shaughnessy is as polarizing as he is acclaimed. He's known as a cold-blooded analyst who doesn't care if the local team wins or loses -- so long as it's a great story. Over the years, his caustic columns have alienated some Boston sports fans and athletes.
He once compared a 1990s Red Sox team to Stonehenge: "They are old, they don't move, and no one is certain why they are positioned the way they are."
"Well, they were immobile," Shaughnessy told WBUR, mostly unrepentant decades later. "They were sedentary. But yeah, sometimes we get too personal."
A visit to Shaughnessy's home office reveals a gentler side of the sportswriter. Dozens of faded photographs, held together by tape, sprawl across two of the room's walls. A generation of bygone athletes -- Bill Russell, Tony Conigliaro, Frank Robinson -- sprint and leap across yellowed newsprint.
"When I was in middle school in Groton, Massachusetts -- very small town, very lonely -- I had a lot of time by myself," Shaughnessy said. "So I just decided to wallpaper in my bedroom."
He tore pages from Sports Illustrated and Sport Magazine. When his mother sold his childhood home in the 1980s, Shaughnessy salvaged what he could.
"Scotch tape holds up well for 60 years," he said.
On a third wall, a dozen crisp Boston Globe covers hang in matching frames. The headlines are exuberant. "WIN FOR THE AGES." "THE BEST." "YES!!!"
"The twelve championships of this century," Shaughnessy said. "I was privileged to be able to write the Globe front page story for all those."
For each win, Shaughnessy's oft-pugnacious pen instead spun poetry. In 2004, when the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years, he wrote that "church bells rang in small New England towns" to celebrate the victory. And when the Patriots stormed back from a 25-point deficit to win the Super Bowl in 2017, he marveled at "layers of drama, emotion, and improbability."
But Shaughnessy looks back on the great losses with as much affection as the great wins. Take the Super Bowl in 2008, when the undefeated Patriots took on the underdog New York Giants. " The Patriots are 18-0, they're going to win, they're going to go 19-0," he recalled.
Then, late in the fourth quarter, Giants receiver David Tyree pinned an Eli Manning pass against his helmet for a miraculous catch. It turned the tide of the game. The Giants stunned the Patriots, beating them 17-14.
"It's a great catch, it's a great moment, so I celebrate that," Shaughnessy said. "Too bad if people are crying in their beer about it. It was fantastic."
Shaughnessy is fond of saying that he roots only for himself - that is, he roots for the best possible column.
"I can't be vested the way fans are. I have to be able to just flip the switch and write," he said. "To me, that's the job."
Dan Shaughnessy said his greatest moment of sports joy came in 1986. He'd just signed a deal to write a book about the Red Sox.
"There was a clause for, if they made it to the World Series, the advance would be $5,000 more than it was going to be," Shaughnessy said.
The Sox made it to the American League Championship Series that year, but quickly fell behind in the series to the then-California Angels. Then, the Sox rattled off a few surprise wins, forcing a Game 7 at Fenway Park. The winner would go to the World Series; the loser would go home.
For Shaughnessy, who famously eschews sports betting, it was the closest he'd get to placing a big wager on baseball.
"Go Red Sox!" he recalled thinking as he headed to Fenway for the game.
That night, Jim Rice smacked a three-run home run, and the Sox trounced the Angels. After the final out, players leapt into one another's arms on the field. The multitudes packed into Fenway roared their approval.
"In that moment, I really cared," Shaughnessy said. "I was really happy about that, because it was $5,000 for me."