Good Lord I feel bad for Bill Simmons. After reading this "We wish we were Jay Marriotti" entry from Kissing Suzy Kolber we really feel for the guy. He's getting blasted just because he was born in New England. All the guy did was grow up in Boston/New England, root for those Boston teams, cheer for them, give his heart and soul for those teams. Now, everyone wants to rip him because he's a Boston fan.
Since he's a pretty good writer, Simmons got a break and then got lucky when ESPN.com picked him up.
Six years after ESPN picks him up, three Boston teams are really, really good. And this pisses everyone off, and everyone takes it out on him because he roots for those teams. Either we have completely forgotten what the point of the Sports Guy was, to write from the prespective of a fan, or we're just really jealous (and petty) that we aren't from Boston right now.
Is it Bill's fault that the entire Red Sox Nation bullshit thing is out of control? Is it his fault that millions of rich white kids who grew up in subdivisions and never went to baseball games thus never having a team became Red Sox fans in college because it was 'cool' - just like doing E and Eminem once was? Is it Simmons' fault that Tom Brady and probably that entire line backing corps probably injects HGH and that the Pats head coach may be the most unlikable American that doesn't live on Mass Ave in Northwest DC? Is it Bill's fault that the Celtics got KG because the Bulls were to fucking scared too trade away Gordon AND Deng?
Was Simmons' column today outrageous? Yes. But he’s a Boston fan, he’s suppose to feel that way. He is suppose to feel that the refs are screwing over his team. As fans, we all feel this way. Just like I thought the Bears were getting hosed by the refs in the Eagles game and the fact that it came down to a 97 yard drive was and still is ridiculous in my mind (The Bears should have won by 17 points if the refs were even half way decent in that game). And how Josh Paul did drop that third strike in Game 2 of the 2005 ALCS. This may be viewed as an outrageous claim. I am fully aware of that - but I still think the Bears got screwed and that AJ was totally doing the right thing.
But let’s not forget, if you watched the Pats/Colts game the refs were brutal. Those two pass interference calls on the Pats early in the game were totally made up. And that Faulk play was a mugging. Does that make up for the 2002 Super Bowl when the refs let the Pats get away with mugging the Rams? No. But it was a poorly refereed game.
If it was John Clayton or Gary Smith or Sal Paolantonio writing what Simmons’ wrote then I’d have a problem. But he’s just a Boston fan. And if he was from Chicago, I'd enjoy the guy even more than I do now (assuming that he wasn't a Cubs fan).
And if he was from Philly they'd love him… wait forget that, they’d boo the shit out of him and then cry about how they should have the best sport writers* of all time but bad luck took him away.
And remember, it's a free Internets column. Not reading it is always an option. I stopped reading it half way though.
* not sportswriter/jorunalist
43 comments:
Cool, a different point of view. Good read.
Good points. The people who go out of their way to constantly rip Simmons are more obnoxious than Simmons himself. (And that's saying a lot).
Well done. I've been reading the guy since he was on digital city 7 years ago - he is a little more over the top now in his homerism than he used to be, but the last point you made is the best. It's a free internet column and when people stop reading, ESPN won't renew him. Simple as that.
The White House is on Pennsylvania Avenue, not Mass.
At least it took a solid decade for Simmons to reach the insufferable point, Deadspin and KSK did it in less than two years.
It is supposed to be from the fan's point of view. So why can't other fans (i.e., US) write comments on his columns to discuss? Isn't arguing things like this what fans do?
I'm sorry. I'm not buying. The problem isn't that he's a Boston homer. That's a given and that's okay. But he's not writing on a Boston website. He's writing for ESPN and while his point of view can be that of a Boston fan, his subjects should be a little more diverse. I used to be a huge fan and now I can't even stomach a paragraph.
@Dave: I think he might be talking about Cheney. The VP residence is right off of Massachusetts Ave.
Hey, I live on Mass Ave!
"Is it Bill's fault that the entire Red Sox Nation bullshit thing is out of control?"
Well, kind of. As the most viewed writer for the most viewed sports website for a number of years, I bet a lot of the bullshit fans came about just from reading him. He might be responsible, but he's not to blame. He was just doing his job.
"Not reading it is always an option."
Truer words were never written. Great post.
"All the guy did was grow up in Boston/New England, root for those Boston teams, cheer for them, give his heart and soul for those teams."
This isn't quite right. If you read him a lot, you will discover that he used to be a big Bruins fan. But they are so bad, and he has created some absurd justification for not rooting for them. For that reason, I assume he's just a fair weather fan. If he was a Bengals fan, or an [AZ] Cardinals fan, or probably even a Phillies fan, he would have dropped that team by now. All his teams - the Celts, Pats and Sox - have basically been pretty good since he was born.
Of course I should add, I find him intolerable now, but I used to read him every week, so I don't really begrudge him his success.
When he started, he was a very unique voice. Now, there are 10 blogs that do what he did a lot better, but they all sort of owe an intellectual debt to him.
What bothered people most is if they thought about it, Simmons was right.
He was right? Bullshit! Oh my god, a few bad call went against a team in a football game, stop the fucking presses! They still won, its over, so don't spend your entire next column a week later bitching about it and moaning about some non-existent conspiracy to rob the mighy Pats of their perfect destiny. All this whining hardly suprises me though, given the number of idiots who think the moon landing and 9/11 were all secret government plots.
all the boston teams have been good since he was born??? really... lets see until 04 the red sox were a laughing stock cursed franchise that couldn't beat anyone when it counted, the celtics were lucky to make one playoff run in the pitiful eastern conference since bird retired, the patriots were a joke in the NFL till parcells came, but still were overwhelmingly average until the last few years. The guy has shown love for the celtics as they descended to one of the worst handful of teams in basketball the last few years. He is most definitely a rampant homer, but you can't call him a fairweather fan
Bill Simmons is a fan of Boston teams... except when the Clippers make the playoffs and the Celtics are terrible. Then, he is a Clippers fan.
He is "supposed" to feel that way, twit. Learn to write.
"until 04 the red sox were a laughing stock cursed franchise that couldn't beat anyone when it counted"
The Red Sox have had seven losing seasons total since Simmons was born in 1969.
To draw a comparison, the Phillies have had two separate streaks of six and seven losing seasons since I was born in 1985.
Yeah, sounds like Simmons is a really tortured fan.
He never wrote about the Patriots before they were good. He'll still write about the Celtics when they're bad, but I guess it's easy to adopt a favorite team when you watch them dominate a conference for an entire decade.
Simmons is a terrible sports fan, and the fact that he has a highly visible column for the Worldwide Leader just makes him that much harder to stomach.
If he were a creative writer, it'd be one thing, but he's been relying on the same shtick since he was a college sports columnist. He is intolerable at this point.
Simmons's homerism is occasionally tolerable. For example, even as an Indians fan, I liked his post-World Series column. But to use an entire column, not just the first couple paragraphs - the entire column - to whine about the refs in a game his team won? Guh. tWWL should replace Simmons's picture with a crying baby just for that column, it'd be a better fit.
I'm not a Boston fan but I can appreciate Simmons' passion for his teams just the same. And his writing is terrific and incorporates enough pop references to be funny and relevant.
Simmons is set.
I love you people. Its the same ol' story of anyone that is successful in this country, people have to find a way to knock them down. Why can't people admire successful people and try to emulate them rather than be jealous. It happens all the time and in every facet of America. Sports in particular. The Pats were the darlings of the NFL, now they are evil. Simmons was a great original creative sportswriter now he is intolerable. Pick your darling team/writer/singer/actor/politician now and in five years you all be sick from hearing about them and hate them. Unfortunately it is the American way to condemn the successful. I hate democrats...
-Millertime Go Pats!Sox!C's!Bruins! Revs! BC!
Fuck you, shit for brains! We don't hate him for his success, we hate that he wasted an entire column on a bullshit bitch and moan session about a few questionable calls in a game his team won. Refs make mistakes, in every sport at every level, this is not a new thing. If the NFL was really trying to screw the Pats they would have done it, and they would have likely been much more discreet about it.
Regarding tearing the successful down, I didn't hear a whole lot of Boston fans "admiring" the Yankees during their years of dominance. And what the fuck do Democrats have to do with this? Last time I checked Mass was the biggest Democratic stronghold outside of San Fransico.
Hahaha....thanks for your response. Democrats always try to bring the successful republicans down. Thats what I meant by that, genius. Funny how you mention "admiring" the Yankees, seems to me the recent Sox success seems eerily similar to that of the Yankees. I did admire the Yankees wanted everything they had. Looks like the Sox emulated them as i suggested and look were it got them 2 WS and maybe more to come. Maybe the rest of you fags should do the same and try to copy whatever the good ol Commonwealth is doing, then maybe you wouldnt sound like such a bunch of depressed fools.
-MillerTime Go Boston!!!!
I like Simmons, like his stuff, envy his teams' success of late. But there's no denying the fact that this column is pure douchebaggery. The coach of his football team is a cheat and an wholly unacceptable human being. The Red Sox are the Yankees doppleganger, a mirror image of evil. And yet he still has the temerity to bitch and moan about the calls in a game his team won. I point a finger and say, "Douchebag!"
Maybe the Patriots go 19-0 and win the Super Bowl. Maybe they win three or four more Super Bowls in a row. Maybe they lose in the first round of the playoffs this year. Thing is, at some time in the future Boston sports are gonna sink back into mediocrity. I will take great pleasure in knowing that Bill Simmons is walking the dog around his neighborhood in his Wes Welker jersey, thinking about the good old days, and dealing with the fact that at a time when his teams were on top of the sports world, his reaction was to act like a total douchebag.
You "suggested" that the Red Sox emulate the Yankees? What are you, Theo Epstein's cabana boy? And if the way that Red Sox fans hated the Yankees is what you call admiration, then consider Boston well admired by the rest of the sports world. Take it as a compliment. And do the world a favor: don't vote.
In fact I did suggest the Sox do things as the Yankees did. Thank you for finally giving me the credit I was due. It is a good point by you, we in Boston will take it as a compliment. As a matter of fact we do because it is clear the world is jealous. I tell my family/friends everday to enjoy this because one day it wont be as fun as it is right now. Oh and i will vote thanks for the advice though. Typical democrat, doesnt wasnt me to vote to create competition, instead wants me and others to stay away from the booths so his(probably her) party wins by forfeit. Typical.....Thank you, I'll be here all week.
-Millertime HAHAHA Boston Rules Suckas!!!!!!!
Simmons jumped the shark when he wouldnt comment after last years super bowl until a week later, then just used his column to write that "call me when you have 3 rings" bullshit. if you are writing a column as a fan, then man up as a fan when you team loses, or when your most hated opponent (Peyton) finally gets over the hump. That sequence was all cowardice. And the fact that you cant comment on his articles is ridiculous.
Yeah, but fuck him.
2 asinine comments (from anon of course).
>anon 10:11 PM: We don't hate him for his success, we hate that he wasted an entire column on a bullshit bitch and moan session about a few questionable calls in a game his team won. Refs make mistakes, in every sport at every level, this is not a new thing. If the NFL was really trying to screw the Pats they would have done it, and they would have likely been much more discreet about it.
intl: you are probably one of the guys who b!tched about Cuban's referee complaints....turns out he was right. I'm not saying it necessarily WAS fixed...but the question should be asked.
I've been watching the NFL for 30+ years and this was one of the most one sided games I can remember (top 20). for a game of this magnitude, that is unacceptable.
>anon 9:22 PM: He never wrote about the Patriots before they were good. He'll still write about the Celtics when they're bad, but I guess it's easy to adopt a favorite team when you watch them dominate a conference for an entire decade.
He's been writing publicly (popularly) for what 7 years? Far as I know, the Pats have been good since then and before. Some down years, but overall very very good. Since 2000 they are 75-37, with 3 superbowls, and only missed the playoffs twice. Since 1996 they are 107-69.
The Simmons column was bad. It could have been written by any high school newspaper columnist. Using all that space to bitch about refs' calls? That's very parochial, unoriginal and beneath someone who is supposed to be good enough to write for espn.com.
I kind of liked Simmons for a short period about two years ago. But since then I've found his stuff to be repetitive, self-indulgent and obnoxious. And have you seen his crap of E:60? Yuck!
Typical democrat, doesnt wasnt me to vote to create competition, instead wants me and others to stay away from the booths so his(probably her) party wins by forfeit.
I must have forgot it was Dems advising minority voters that, due to 'overcrowding at the polls,' voting would take place on Wednesday. You do realize that a political movement espousing policy beneficial to a vanishingly small percentile of voters is more likely to shy away from competition, right? Still confused?
I agree with your sentiments. And really, if anyone has the misfortune to read Peter King, Mike Greenberg's blog, Curly Haired Boy, or any of the other ten thousand examples of consistently crappy general sports commentary that is out there in the MSM ... Simmons is the least of one's worries.
Thank you.
Great post. I like Simmons, but like you I stopped reading once I got the gist of the article. But, I did fire off a comment, because the man has a blind spot about the Colts.
He does write from a view point of a fan, but I don't want to read the viewpoint of a fan that is drifting toward the DeNiro character in the movie The Fan. And when it comes to the Colts the man is irrational. I still remember his Colts column after they beat his Patriots the first time. He had to apologize after and decided he wanted to take that position to be different.
Bottom line the man is getting close to sounding like a Philly fan and that will be sad.
Fuck Simmons, he's a cocky twit, no talent hack writer using way too much pop culture no one gives a shit about. PS: fuck Boston.
I wish I had stopped reading this halfway through
I agree that Simmons jumped the shark after the Colts won the Super Bowl. We always have to wade through an ocean of his New England-themed crap to finally get his perspective on the rest of the world of sports. I was curious about his thoughts about Manning finally winning the big game and getting the monkey off his back. Instead, he showed that he is just a petty, bitchy little man. I have been losing interest in his columns ever since. When he started with the TWWL, he was the underdog. He was rooting for doomed franchises. He was funny, self depricating and brought a new perspective to sports writing. That shine has worn off over the years and now we are reading, in essence, a column written by a Yankees fan, trying to get us empathize with him, even though his teams win championships every year. I understand that isnt his fault,(wouldnt you be delighted if your sports city enjoyed the success Boston has had the past 6 years?), but it changes the perspective. All roads in his columns lead through him or Boston, and trust me, there isn't much left to write about there. Everything that begins has to end. I am no longer reading his stuff. I agree that you cant bitch about a free column, because in his case, you are now getting what you pay for. -Van Hammersley
I'm going to throw out a kind of CRAZY concept to you people. I hope your head doesn't explode.
Bill Simmons is a sports writer. Above a sports writer, is what we call an "editor". This editor screens every single article written, and has to give permission on what to write. If you have a problem with what Simmons is writing, you should be complaining about his editor, not him. He's just doing what he's told, and writing what they want him to write about.
He writes for the biggest name in sports media, and is from the second or third largest sports market in the country. Do you really think ESPN wants him to write articles about the Royals and Atlanta Hawks?
I have been reading Simmons since the 2001 Super Bowl run. I stumbled across him as a high schooler and have read everything he has written. Does some of his stuff get old? Sure. The ref column he wrote wasnt so much bitching about the refs, but more worrying about if this was going to be a trend. The people who stopped reading after one paragraph didnt get that point, and then they decide to start bitching about the entire column? That is lazy. Take 5 more minutes (reading may be more laborious for some of you) and finsh the column before whining. Simmons was hired for his perspective, he was hired because of what he had written. Why should he move from that? If you want a decenting view on Boston or a view from somewhere else, then go somewhere else. Read that idiot Easterbrook, he hates Belichick and the Pats as much as anyone right now.
Calling Simmons a fair weather fan is just idiotic. The guy grew up in Boston. Just because his rise coincided with the success of his teams shouldnt take away the fact that he stuck by them when he was younger. Young kids are the ones who jump from team to team, he didnt. He stuck by the Pats when they sucked for the first 30 years of his life, he watched the Celtics stink for the past 15 years. And he suffered, more than some and less than others, through all the Red Sox bullshit until 2004.
"Calling Simmons a fair weather fan is just idiotic. The guy grew up in Boston. Just because his rise coincided with the success of his teams shouldnt take away the fact that he stuck by them when he was younger."
Again, only one of the teams he grew up rooting for has been consistently bad (and by bad, I mean, not usually in contention to make the playoffs). That's the Bruins. And that's the one team he randomly stopped rooting for during the 90s. So, IMO, he is a fair weather fan.
"He stuck by the Pats when they sucked for the first 30 years of his life..."
See, this is my point. From 1980 until 2001, the Patriots made the playoffs 7 times and played in 2 Super Bowls. That's not great, but it's not terrible.
Put simply, Simmons can write, but sometimes chooses not to. This last column was about the weakest thing he's put together in years, BUT he did have to spend the week with his wife giving birth, a new child, and any and all circumstancces that go with those things.
Sometimes I cut him no slack for a bad column, and sometimes he knocks it out of the park. This week he blew it, but I'll forgive under the circumstances.
Bill Simmons should never give up on Boston sports, because that's what true fans do.
Decent huamn beings do not slander the Colts the way he did in that last article. If he keeps going downhill from here, he might be as bad as Chicago sports fans.
I agree with Bill Lumbergh because it sounds like he is using a fake name.
The Bruins are a joke of a franchise who decided to turn their back on their fans before any of their fans could quit on them. They over charge and put a terrible team on the ice. The Bruins and Celtics were both very good when Simmons was young, they both won and contended. The C's and Bruins both sucked during the same period. Simmons stuck with the C's because he could see they cared, the Bruins really don't care about their fans, but care more about making money on concessions and tickets. Jeremy Jacobs is an ass...
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