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DAN SHAUGHNESSY

How much of the Brady-Garoppolo soap opera is real?

Does Tom Brady want a 4-0 start by Jimmy Garoppolo (rear), or does TB12 want to enter in Week 5 and save the season?John Tlumacki/Globe staff/Globe Staff

Picked-up pieces while getting fired up for the 15th annual WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio Telethon, which unfolds Monday and Tuesday.

■  Remember how much we all liked Colin Kaepernick before Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans?

■  This Brady-Garoppolo soap opera is really interesting. How much of it is a media creation? How much is real? We’re working on a mystery without any clues. It’s armchair psychology on armchair quarterbacking. Does Tom want Jimmy G to go 4-0 and put up great numbers? Or does Tom want to be the hero, saving the struggling Patriots from a false start? Tom knows how he got the job back in 2001. He knows Bill Belichick will not be sentimental when the inevitable end nears. This whole saga is simply fascinating.

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■  USA Today ranked the University of Massachusetts Minutemen dead last in a preseason projection of 128 FBS teams last week.

■  According to The Wall Street Journal, Jose Canseco “has now developed a [Twitter] cult following after some of his contrarian predictions about financial markets came true.’’

■  Ryan Lochte hijacked the Summer Olympics, disgraced himself, and gave weight to Ugly Americanism. He made fools of NBC and folks who continue to defend him by reminding us that there really is a crime problem in Brazil. Lochte’s embarrassing stunt (love how a 32-year-old man cites “immaturity” as an excuse) and Brazil’s police/crime problems have no connection. Yet, for some reason, USA Today went to the mat in an effort to justify the horrible behavior of Lochte. Headlines from the newspaper: “In Rio, police’s priorities out of whack,’’ then “Police focus on saving face, not safe city.’’ While launching into a column on Brazil’s police and crime, USA Today’s Nancy Armour wrote this about Lochte’s fabricated tale: “It is irrelevant whether it’s true.”

■  Check out Boston Magazine’s David Ortiz issue (interviews by Tony Massarotti) if you can. The revisionist history on who gets credit for bringing Big Papi to Boston is worth the price of the mag. Theo Epstein says, “I liked his bat from my time with San Diego . . . Bill James and the numbers guys liked him . . . Pedro Martinez liked his personality and character.’’ Sox chairman Tom Werner counters that with, “We called Theo, whose initial response was unenthusiastic. But we trusted Pedro’s judgment.” More from the Chairman on Ortiz’s failed drug test from 2003: “I have always believed that David never bought or used steroids, and he has vigorously denied doing so whenever asked.’’ OK, then.

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■  Robert De Niro loves boxing. He gained 60 pounds to play an aging Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.’’ He went back into the ring to fight an aging Sylvester Stallone in “Grudge Match.” Now he’s in “Hands of Stone,’’ the Roberto Duran story.

■  Call me old school, but I find it weird that Foxwoods can tout itself at “The Official Resort Casino of the Boston Red Sox.’’ Isn’t MLB supposed to be opposed to gambling? Sox president Sam Kennedy acknowledges, “We have officially sold them the Official Resort Casino designation.’’ Yeesh. If I’m Pete Rose, I’m bringing this to my next reinstatement petition hearing.

■  Since we can’t get enough of Vin Scully, let me remind you that he worked the final Boston Braves game at Braves Field, against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952. The Dodgers beat the Braves, 8-2, in front of 8,822 at what would become BU’s Nickerson Field. A week later, Scully worked the Boston Braves’ final game, a 5-5 tie in Brooklyn.

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■  Quiz: Ken Griffey Jr. was 1 for 15 with six strikeouts lifetime against Pedro Martinez. Cal Ripken Jr. was 4 for 37 with 11 strikeouts against Dennis Eckersley. Name the Hall of Famer who faced Rich Gossage nine times and had nine strikeouts, four of them game-ending.

■  Curt Schilling says he may run for president in four or eight years. This one just has too many punch lines. Like Tim Thomas, Schill delivered a championship to Boston, then orchestrated his own public meltdown, complete with the tinfoil hat and conspiracy theories. At least Thomas knew enough to stay off the airwaves. Schill . . . just . . . can . . . not . . . stop. In a recent podcast with his WEEI friends, Schill said the Red Sox owners are “despicable people.’’ Those must be the same people who paid him $8 million to not throw a single pitch in 2008. “Despicable” better describes the jock-sniffing Rhode Island pols who decided to help Schill’s fantasy game company with $75 million in state monies. Most bankrupt bosses would be thrilled that no one went to jail over the deal. Schill, instead, lashed out on social media about the “witch hunt.’’ A loud opponent of big government until he needs help from big government, Schill fleeced both the Sox and Rhode Island, yet he continues to blast both. Perfect candidate for public office.

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■   This from Sports Illustrated’s Tim Rohan on Roger Goodell’s infamous discipline hearings: “. . . the commissioner always takes into account precedent, a player’s past record and whether he cooperates.” Here’s SI on former Patriot wideout Donté Stallworth, who was suspended for a year after a DUI episode in which a pedestrian was killed by Stallworth’s vehicle: “Goodell asked Stallworth what he would do if he were sitting in the commissioner’s chair. He told Goodell then that he would suspend himself ‘at least a year.’ As Stallworth left the room, this time Goodell went in for a hug.’’ Stallworth told SI that Goodell told him, “We’re not tied to the legal system.’’

■  It’s almost impossible to be consistent with Baseball Hall of Fame voting, but one philosophy that strikes me as curious is “This guy was a Hall of Famer before he started cheating.’’ Swell. But it’s the cheating that’s supposed to disqualify a player. If a golfer wins the Masters by 10 shots, and is found to be cheating only on one hole, would he still win the Masters because, you know, he would have won without taking a 5 when he should have scored a 6 on the 16th hole on Sunday?

■  According to data assembled by The Wall Street Journal, Ichiro Suzuki is the 3,000-hit club member with the highest percentage (81.5) of hits as singles. Eddie Collins, Rod Carew, and Tony Gwynn are next. Wade Boggs ranks eighth with 74.9 percent.

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■  Brady’s brother-in-law, a.k.a. Kevin Youkilis, is working online to get his degree from the University of Cincinnati. That’ll help the Bearcats’ historically sorry graduation rate for student-athletes.

■  If you purchase “Aversive Interpersonal Behaviors,’’ published in 1997, you can find a chapter entitled “Blowhards, Snobs and Narcissists: Interpersonal Reactions to Excessive Egotism,” which is authored in part by former Wake Forest student Timothy Duncan. Social psychologist Mark Leary recruited Duncan and two other students as research assistants 20 years ago. Author Duncan went on to become one of the top 20 players in NBA history.

■  More than 30 years after performing Tommy John surgery on Roger Clemens, Dr. James Andrews will perform the same procedure on the Rocket’s youngest son, Kody, who is a sophomore infielder at the University of Texas.

■  Speaking of sons of famous Boston athletes, USA Today reports that John Bledsoe, son of Drew, is a top high school quarterback at Summit in Bend, Ore. He has committed to Northern Arizona.

■  The San Francisco Giants unveiled a statue of renowned spitballer/Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry this month. Folks who attended the ceremony found tiny packets of Vaseline under their seats. Guess saliva and lube don’t count as performance-enhancers.

■  Jerry Barca’s tome, “Big Blue Wrecking Crew,” reports that Super Bowl-winning Giants coach Bill Parcells registered as an outpatient at an addiction treatment center so that he could better understand temptations his players faced.

■  What is the latest with James McNally and John Jastremski? Hope their silence and loyalty are being rewarded by the Foxboro folks who produced The Wells Report In Context.

■  Only four players currently on the New York Giants were also active for the team in Super Bowl XLVI against the Patriots in Indianapolis: Eli Manning, Victor Cruz, Jason Pierre-Paul, and Zak DeOssie.

■  Fun fact: Dustin Johnson, who will be in Norton with the other PGA greats this weekend, went to Coastal Carolina, the school that won the 2016 NCAA Division 1 baseball championship at Omaha.

■  David Ortiz will first appear on the Hall of Fame ballot in December 2021.

■  Looking for beach reading for these final weeks of summer? Check out “The Baseball Whisperer,’’ Michael Tackett’s crackerjack account of the late Merl Eberly, the man behind an Iowa summer league team that sent Ozzie Smith, Bud Black, and Von Hayes to the majors.

■  Celtics coach Brad Stevens will be the keynote speaker at “Coaches for Cancer,” the Tipoff Madness fund-raiser to benefit the American Cancer Society on Sept. 20 at 60 State Street. For ticket info, click here or call

■  Quiz answer: Rickey Henderson.


Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy.