Monday, June 2, 2008

No! Readers! Come Back!

It's true, the Google Analytics don't lie. They're leaving this blog faster than Jerramy Stevens from a court-mandated AA meeting. Not too soon! Anyways, will they come back and start reading again if I do several Bill Simmons posts in a row? My guess is that they will, if only to let me know that I'm just a jealous hater and, come on, Simmons really isn't that bad. Sure, he used to be better, but I like his "every fan" perspective! Etc., etc. Yup. I can see it already. Eight comments, five of which are from anonymous/Anonymous and sound just like that.

Today he was lazy and did a chat, so I will in turn be lazy and pick on a handful of the most embarrassing questions he chose to print along with some criticisms of his own handiwork. As a change of pace I will not be complaining about the subject matter covered. Hey, his Celtics limped through the oh-so-powerful Eastern Conference and into the finals. He's earned the right to talk exclusively about them. As a non-change of pace, however, I will be pointing out a basic fact that Bill for whatever reason has so much difficulty grasping- Boston sports fans are no different than passionate fans from anywhere else. His inability to understand this might be the saddest thing about the guy.

Shane, Seoul Korea: Why is it that everyone....well at least most analysts on ESPN so convinced that the Lakers will roll over the Celtics. Considering most of them picked Detroit to win in 6 whats with the lack of respect?

To Simmons' credit, he answered that he didn't think a lack of respect had anything to do with it and it's just the fact that Kobe is playing so well that pushes analysts towards LA. I still felt like this was worth printing. A Celtics fan... is complaining... about a perceived lack of respect for his team... by ESPfuckingN, of all media outlets. It's a crazy world out there, I guess. If you look long enough, you can find people that are stupid enough to hold almost any opinion.

The irony here being that this is coming from a guy who doesn't feel like John Elway gets enough respect as one of the all time greats. Put him with Montana's supporting cast and he'd have six rings. Hey, I'm just saying is all. But Shane from Seoul is definitely stupider than me by several degrees of magnitude. Yes, Shane. ESPN totally hates the Celtics. You've got it figured out. When the playoffs started, their executives were praying for a Utah/Orlando finals so they could finally start covering teams that really draw in the viewers.

Rich (Bayonne, NJ): I hear you Bill, I am surrounded by Laker fans in NJ at both of my jobs! Laker fans are like Kobe, the biggest front runners in the league!!! Hey since you live in LA, do Laker fans arrive only 30 minutes after tip off instead of 45 minutes since it's the Finals!!!

I know he's just a reader and not a professional journalist, but hey Rich! Don't you know anything about punctuation! Like have you heard that if you ask a question you shouldn't end it with an exclamation mark! The real issue here, though, is the hilarious accusation of front runnerism from (presumably) a Celtic fan being leveled at Laker fans. Really? The Lakers? You know, one of the league's three most popular teams for the past several decades? I mean, if longtime Red Sox fans wanted to accuse Rockies fans of being front runners (or at least very fairweather) before last fall's World Series, they could definitely make a case. This, on the other hand, is butt-ass preposterous. They're the most popular franchise in the country's second largest city and have worldwide brand recognition. They're an extremely difficult ticket to grab on most nights and have been, again, for decades. Your team, on the other hand, couldn't even dream of selling out its own arena 14 months ago. You have a national fan base, and plenty of passionate lifelongers, but to point a finger at Laker fans... wow.

Bill Simmons: The Laker fans with good seats arrive in the second quarter or late in the first quarter. It's just a fact. They get a bad rap for their cheering during the game - they do know when to cheer and how to affect a game - but the tardiness is unacceptable.

Fair.

it's also worth mentioning that they booed their hero Kobe on Opening Night. Would the Boston fans have ever booed Bird in a million years?????????

Not fair. Because Bird was white.

Rick (LA): Don't forget all these "true" Boston fans chanted MVP for Kobe in the Garden last year...Boston fans the best in the world!

Bill Simmons: That story is NOT true. half the crowd for that game were Laker fans, those were the ones chanting. They were able to get tickets because the Celts were something like 12-40 at the time.

Nothing front-runnerish about that. And how many times has Bill's dad, the foremost authority on anything and everything related to the Celtics, complained about how hard it was to get rid of unwanted tickets last season? But that's not because Boston fans are to some degree front runnerish. It's because... wait for Bill's reasoning.

Chet (MA): and celtics fans aren't front runners? just look at the attendance last year compared to this year and it'll tell you all you need to know about celtics fans. you know what? you could say the same about all the boston teams if you look at the attendance before parcells for the patriots and the attendance before 1998 for the red sox.

Bill Simmons: Ridiculous. The Celtics fans were always there - it's just that it's freaking expensive to go to an NBA game, it's tough to shell out 75 bucks for a ticket to go watch Sebastian Telfair play point guard. The fans never left.

Oh. Really? Did they not? Also, notice that he didn't have a response to the Patriots and Red Sox accusations, the former of which is most definitely true.

Pat (Boston): Welcome to the spin/full denial zone. Someone presents you with facts about attendence and you just dismiss it with: "The fans never left" with a weak excuse that people cant afford $75 dollars? Gimme a break, I live in Beacon Hill and frequent "the Harp" and "the fours". Not only was there no one in the stadium, there was no one in the sports bars. Lemme guess, people just can't afford $3 dollar beers anymore?

Bill Simmons: In defense of the Celtics fans, the team was openly trying to lose games last year for Oden or Durant. Why would anyone go pay to see that?

Bill Simmons is taking crazy pills and delusional pills. There's nothing more that can be said about the situation. Look, no team is going to pack the house every night all season every season. No team is insulated from the effect its record has on attendance. But his continual insistence that Boston fans are somehow different and special can only be attributed to some kind of drug regimen at this point. (I liked his last chat session from about a month ago, when he assumed that Boston invented the "M-V-P! M-V-P!" chant. He was immediately rebuffed, but you could tell that until that happened, he legitimately just assumed it had originated there. I mean... why would it not? It's Boston, for fahk's sake.)

The numbers are right in front of you, douche. I don't care how fucking bad they were. The 2006-2007 Celtics finished 20th in the league in home attendance, 23rd in percentage of seats sold, 15th in road attendance and 20th in road percentage of seats sold. The 2007-2008 Celtics, on the other hand, were 12th in attendance (limited by the size of their arena), sold 100% of their seats, 1st in road attendance, and 1st in road percentage of seats sold. It's pretty crystal clear. That's a sign of a fan base that doesn't like to show up when their team isn't winning. Not that that's anything to be ashamed of! It's normal. Yankee Stadium isn't always packed to the gills. There are nights when you can get a seat to a Montreal Canadiens game pretty easily. Just don't go thinking your teams are any different. Unless they're a popular NFL team, they're always going to struggle to pull in capacity crowds when the team stinks.

Kyle (NC): You say Kobe's a jerkto his teammates...Didn't Bird call his teammates little girls after they lost a Finals game? All the things you're saying about Kobe, they used to say about MJ...A lot of the greats were sometimes jerks to their teammates.

Bill Simmons: True. And the next game, McHale put Rambis on his ass and we went on to win the series. Bird did it for motivation, Kobe did it because he's socially inept.

Bill Simmons, sports psychologist, is able to easily discern the subtle nuances that separate these two situations without even talking to either player.

Jake (DC): You can't win. You should have known this after however many years of marriage. Also, should/does the commissioner have any say in trades which are clearly made to help out old friends? I mean, doesn't that upset the competitive balance of the game while at the same rip the fans off? Something should be done about this...

Bill Simmons: The thing is, in both cases (KG trade and Gasol trade), it clearly helped the league as a whole. So nobody said anything. The interesting move would have been if the Spurs or Suns filed a lawsuit or tried to get an injunction on the basis that the Gasol trade was not fair and that other teams weren't given a chance to properly bid for him. Would have LOVED to have seen how that played out.

Dear Christ, I hope he's serious in thinking that that could actually happen. A whole new angle on the tininess of Bill's brain- honest belief that sports teams in this day and age would consider trying to go to court against other teams because of allegedly unfair trades. Fantastic. I really think the Bucs, Cowboys, Packers, and Patriots should file suit against the Chargers for not shopping Eli Manning's draft rights appropriately back in 2004.

Let's take a little look at a bit of homerism.

First this-

chapin (Boston, ma): Bill can you set the odds for PerkIsABeast.com's servers crashing after The Beast puts up 20 and 20 in game one? How do you think he will fair throughout this series?

Bill Simmons: Forgot to mention Perk as an enormous X-factor for this series. He was legitimately eye-opening in the Detroit series - nearly averaged a double-double and made some monster defensive plays. He's becoming the player we always wanted him to be.

Which is fine to say, until you respond to the exact same kind of sentiment from a Lakers fan about one of their players like this-

Renaldo (Los Angeles, CA): When are you going to admit you were wrong about Lamar Odom. The guy hit two game tying shots in game 4 of the Utah series, he hit all the clutch free throws in Game 4 of the Spurs series. The guy has been coming through

Bill Simmons: You're right, Lamar has proven himself - every question has been answered. The guy is an absolute sure thing in the Finals.

Like I said in my intro, nothing wrong with Bill being a homer in this context. It's just funny to notice.

Matt Walsh, From under some rock: Ok what if I said that I have a tape of the entire Patriots team clubbing baby seals. Would that keep me in the limelight for another week?

Bill Simmons: You're leading TMQ this week!

Easterbrook isn't due to write another column until August, but we can only hope he manages to squeeze in a little something extra in response to this.

Noam (NY, NY): Can we get a promise that after your inevitable finals and post-finals columns, we get a 2 week moratorium on columns that are about Boston sports teams (including veiled Boston team columns)? Maybe a column about having kids making somebody revert to writing only about their favorite teams?

Bill Simmons: I am doing my best not to over-Boston it... but come on, the Pats were the most written about team of this decade, the Sox won the World Series and the Celts just made the Finals. What do you wanyt from me?

We want you to write about other stuff more often. It's pretty simple. You don't have to ignore Boston. You just have to talk about them less, and other teams more. I promise the stories are out there. Really, they are.

I didn't write ONE Celtics column during the regular season... sure, it was because I didn't want to jinx them, but still.

1. That's incorrect.

2. Sure, there was only one true all-Celtics column, and it came pretty near the end of the regular season. But 80% of every mailbag and 60% of every "general NBA" column was devoted to the Celtics. Just saying.

Let's wrap it up.

Ben(New Jersey): Sports Guy! I've been a fan for years but I've never written in before. I'm a senior in high school and my friends and I love to play a game called KG that. It's when you take something ordinary and go crazy over it. For example, we went out for Chinese last Friday and after one of my friends ordered his beef and broccoli i told him he should KG it when it comes. When the waiter brought out his beef, he got up on his chair and started pounding his chest screaming "THATS HOW YOU ORDER CHINESE" he then ran around high fiving random people while pounding his chest and screaming. We ended up getting kicked out, but I'd say it was worth it. Whats the funniest situation you could see where you could KG something?

You are a zero. You're a disaster. You don't deserve to have access to a computer, let alone the internet. You don't deserve to reproduce. You and your unfunny friends should be immediately deported to the least exciting town in Mongolia. You stink.

Bill Simmons: Love it!

Of course you do.

31 comments:

Jeff said...

C'mon Larry. He's just giving a voice to the everyfan. I know he used to be better, or it was at least more fitting because he was called the BostonSportsGuy, but still. You're just a jealous hater because you want to be him but you aren't as successfull - all bloggers are just wannabe journalists and blah blah blah just kidding.

Bengoodfella said...

I don't believe Google Analytics when it says readership has dropped. I think it has an East Coast bias and does not give enough of a voice to your West Coast readers.

I am glad someone finally called Simmons out on the home attendance thing for the past couple years of Celtic games. I have looked for the numbers and could never find them. It's all been done concerning my point of view talking about Simmons. I think I have talked all I think out by now.

Except I still have a little energy on the idea Boston fans are so much more passionate than other fans. It is easy to be passionate when your team is winning and you can be annoying and get in everyone's face about it. It's easy not to go games when your team is losing and if you don't go when they lose but go when they win, that is being fair weather. It pisses me off when I sat in the crowd for two games of 200 people in attendance when my favorite pro football team decided to lose 15 straight games, and then went to a playoff game two years later and had to sit in the upper deck because all the fair weather fans wanted to see a winner again. Those people can go to Hell for all I care. Bill may not be a fair weather fan but he has to acknowledge there are plenty of those in the New England area, which he does not, he makes excuses for them.

How about Big Papi going down? Finally the Red Sox run of good luck concerning major injuries has run out. Of course it led SportsCenter last night, which considering a hockey game went in three OT's is bullshit.

Unknown said...

The chat he did where he made up the questions was better then this. He was in full obnoxious mode for this chat. His smarmy arrogance is shoving whatever little thought and objectivity he had out of his brain.

How difficult would it have been for him to say "Lamar has been better then expected so far, let's hope there isn't a game where he has to carry the team though."

The last thing...what was the purpose of even having this chat, since he didn't want to answer any real question so that people would read his preview column, which I'm sure will be released any minute now.

CitizenX said...

No joke, I visited both the FJMs in fervrent hopes that one of you would cover this travesty. Allow me to hilariously distill Bill's arguments, via Socratic dialogue.


Bill: Boston fans are better than other fans. Other fans leave when the team is bad.

Socrates: Would you not contend that Boston fans left when the team was performing poorly?

Bill: No, they've always been there.

Socrates: What was the nature of their attendance?

Bill: That's because the team is bad. Who wants to pay for a bad team?

Socrates: So what, then, is the fundamental difference?

Bill: It's like Tyree from the Real World. You can't judge them by the same standard. At a certain point they've entered the Fan Pantheon, and unless they're a rumbling of at least 5.7 on the Levels of Despair Scale, nothing can unseat them.

Socrates: You are a fucktard. I hope you get sodomized, in the bad way.



That wasn't nearly as worth it as I thought. I'm surprised that you didn't even touch the fact that adults legitimately believe that Bill Simmons controls the Celtic's playoff destiny.

larry b said...

X- It was definitely worth it. Although I have no idea why you would go to the other FJM hoping for Simmons coverage. Those guys almost definitely grew up idolizing the guy. He's pretty much off limits to them. Besides, they have a long backlog of articles to cover by some no name from the East Bumblefuck Post-Journal claiming that A-Rod is shitty and Juan Pierre is awesome.

Anonymous said...

At least he progressed to actually taking questions that differ with his opinion. Granted, he didn't admit he was wrong even when proven he was wrong, but in previous chats he wouldn't dare even try and tackle it. Was that his Keith Hernandez moment?

Unknown said...

He's truly embarrasing himself on a national stage. He's like a kid, writing all these articles. No one knows which are serious and which are his stupid little games.

First he writes a pro-Lakers column which sounded legit to me (the lakers are the better and more consistent team), but then admitted later it was a jinx attempt.

Then his latest ESPN mag piece openly says the Lakers suck and writes about how much better the 60's and 80's Celtics were than the Lakers. I can't even tell if he's serious.

At the end of the day, he just gets too emotional about Boston and either ESPN needs to get more cities represented in their national articles, or have a separate BostonSportsGuy section which is different from his regular stuff.

Jeff said...

Larry - trying to start an FJM war. I like it.

Citizen X - That was pretty good - I bet Simmons would have opted for "Fantheon" though - followed by a 2,000 word definition that he and Hench came up with while his wife was reading US weekly and the two kids were crying because only crazy people have TWO kids!

larry b said...

Jeff- Clearly the other FJM is too scared of us to respond. In fact, if they don't make a post specifically eviscerating us by 3 PM Eastern today, I'll take it as an admission that they consider us to be cooler and funnier than they are.

Miserable Bastard said...

Larry - re: Simmons and FJM -

"Just wanted to add that we all understand that hey, Bill Simmons isn't really even a sports analyst, per se. It's almost gotten to the point where criticizing him for his sports-related opinions is like criticizing Andy Rooney's political stances. It's beside the point. He's going for "light," "fun," "entertaining," "pop-culture-y," "fizzy" -- understood. That's why we don't write about him that much."

Anyway, I think I put in 450 questions yesterday, and strangely enough, none of them got through. Simmons hates me :(

Bengoodfella said...

I like Larry taking a shot at the other FJM. I would agree with him also. As fans of the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics, I am pretty sure they know Simmons or have at least followed him for a while now.

I also 1000% agree with Josh, that he is like a child. He writes articles for a national web site that are supposed to be "reverse jinxes" then he writes little fan boy articles about the Celtics and you are never really sure when he is serious. I think it is funny because he has positioned himself as the voice of the Boston fan and he is diluting his own columns with these superstitious columns that won't jinx his favorite teams. He has pretty much made himself a joke by being such a homer.

I really like Simmons stuff when he is not being an unbearable prick and acting as if Boston fans are the greatest in the world. I don't think ESPN needs more cities represented, they just don't need to allow columnists to continuously write about the same thing time after time.

Bengoodfella said...

I wish I was as creative as CitizenX. He always writes stuff that I look back and wish I had thought of initially.

I would like to add though, that even though Simmons is Andy Rooney-ish in the lightness of his columns, at least 60 Minutes features Rooney at the end of every episode. They pay sort of attention to the fact no one should take him seriously all the time, it is just an end cap to a serious news show. ESPN on the other hand continues to let Simmons be the flagship of Page 2, which makes us take him more seriously, which causes his columns to piss us off greatly by the columns not being serious. They even put him on E-60 as the lighthearted person in their segments, but continuously do not market him as the same light reading on the web site. They put him front page where "news" should be and I think that is what is wrong for Simmons.

If he was not front page, no one would take him seriously, but when his columns are posted where important athletic events and news goes, we are going to take him more seriously than we should.

larry b said...

For what it's worth, the other FJM covers plenty of other journalists who are just as cartoonish/"fun"/"fizzy." I'm fairly certain Simmons gets the kid gloves treatment from them because of their Boston fandom.

As always, I'm just saying.

Bengoodfella said...

I'm with you Larry. I am starting to think the real reason they started the FJM blog was because the Reds beat the Red Sox in the World Series 30 years ago and they are still pissed.

Especially when they accuse HatGuy of being a homer and only writing about the Yankees. Simmons does the same thing and they do not touch him at all.

Anonymous said...

The guys at Fire Joe Morgan aren't Simmons fanboys, I don't think. They're just from New England and like Boston's sports teams.

I believe they exhibit the proper response to Simmons, actually, which is to pretend the mess in front of you isn't happening. The only proper response from Boston fans is to ignore Simmons. I guess. I wouldn't actually know, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on this one thing.

Anyway, I'm still not sure why the Worldwide Leader feels it appropriate to pay good money to someone whose only current talent is pissing off most of the WWL's readers.

larry b said...

Ben- HatGuy being just one of many examples of a very "fizzy" columnist they hold no qualms about going after. And as I'm sure you know, none other than Joesph Fitzgerald Morgan had the series winning hit in the top of the 9th of game 7 for Cincinatti. That could be fuel for that the conspiratorial fire.

larry b said...

I hear you, Jones- I don't think they're Simmons superfans either. But they definitely don't go after him when they easily could. I understand your point about ignoring the mess, but even as a Colorado/Denver fan I'm OK with picking on Woody Paige. I guess Simmons is a lot more visible though. And Paige isn't nearly as much of a homer, he's just someone whose mother drank a lot during pregnancy.

CitizenX said...

Well, I suppose it's for the traffic, which drives their ad revenue.

However, my good friends and goodfellas, I have a solution that allows us to continue bitching about BS without contributing to the problem.

Whenever ESPN advertises a product, I make a mental note to purchase a competitor. Sometimes that means buying far inferior products, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. RC Cola and Chocolate Flavored Sandwich Creme Cookies (If You Enjoy Oreos, You're Shit Out Of Luck, Poorski!) taste downright delicious with the knowledge I might be taking money out of Simmons' pocket.

CitizenX said...

And to be fair, LarryB, his mother bore him* during the wild, hedonistic Baroque period. Conclusive studies about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome would be centuries down the road.



*And he, in turn, bores us!

HIII-YOOOO.

I'm going to be fired soon, I think.

Unknown said...

Bravo X! You made me laugh three more times then Simmons' two columns the last two days.

The one from the Mag...it must be a joke to try and piss off Laker fans, because nothing else makes sense. However, it fails to entertain anybody who isn't a Celtic fan, or keep the attention of folks who aren't Laker fans. Someone who would just buy the Mag would look at it and go "What the hell is this crap?" and pass right over it a third of teh way through.

How far has Bill gone over the edge? Well, the man says that the Lakers and Celtics have no rivalry, since the Celtics won the first 8 championships for which they competed. He has long talked about the great Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, which I believe the Yankees dominated from 1920-2003. Seriously, I think the man is on dope.

Bengoodfella said...

Martin, I made the exact same point earlier today about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry and the Yankees dominance.

I would actually argue people like Paige and Mariotti are anti-homers in that they seem to always cheer against the home teams or bring out the flaws in said home teams. I think ignoring the Simmons problem is just contributing to the problem. I think if you are going to dedicate yourself to finding bad journalism then you have to pay a little attention to his columns.

Anonymous said...

FJM is almost exclusively baseball, and Simmons writes about that fairly infrequently. Given that they're TV writers, its also possible that they know Simmons and are more likely to take it easy on him.

larry b said...

Good point by anonymous regarding possible interaction between the parties.

X- You know what I love? The Safeway brand "Duplex" cookies. Mmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmmm. I think I'll also have to specifically avoid GM next time I'm in the market for a car.

Jeff said...

The FJM guys have had a Simmons post or two over the years - I remember Junior calling him out on some inconsistencies when he (Simmons) was talking about baseball and football (the sports, generally).

Citizen X - Since I see all car brands advertised on ESPN, I've taken to driving an '86 Yugo to work. Not on the weekends though - that's for the Delorean. I'm not paying for Gregg Easterbrook's next Hybrid or Steve Phillips' next hour of tanning or Stu Scott's next horrendous pair of glasses.

True story - watching the NBA playoffs last week my wife caught a look at Stu and said "that guy must be really talented to be on TV looking like that."

Bengoodfella said...

Anonymous, I thought about the fact they probably know Simmons because they are both television writers. I just thought that the FJM guys being GOOD television writers and Simmons being a SHITTY television they would never interact with each other. I could be wrong.

You should read Simmons more often though, he talks about baseball/the Red Sox as much as he talks about any other sport. He did write an entire book based on the Red Sox. It just so happens the Celtics are playing later in the year this year. Since Simmons talks baseball a decent amount, I would assume an article would catch their attention.

Bengoodfella said...

I already purposely avoid Coors Light and any OnStar product, I just have to wean myself off the other products.

Stuart Scott's glasses are ALWAYS raised higher on one side than the other. I just attribute that to him going to UNC and being a die hard Tar Heels fan.

"My glasses are stupid too small for my face and make me look like Max Headroom."

larry b said...

Thank you, Jeff, for pointing out Steve Phillips' obviously unhealthy tanning routine. The guy is really glowing these days.

Chris W said...

on an unrelated, FJM had a post on Chuck Klosterman that sort of served the sole purpose to show that Junior (or whoever) knew about a bunch of indie rock bands.

And it was actually hilariously apt. Well done, Junior, or whoever

Chris W said...

nb: it was murbles

Anonymous said...

The comment in the chat about the Patriots bandwagon... Bill Simmons simply states that people never left the Bandwagon after 1996 because he was talking about getting Carroll fired on his blog and so were his readers from 1997-2001.

So, because 3000 Bostonians frequented his website and wrote emails in and stuff, that means millions and millions of fans kept with the team? Right.

The Boston bandwagon is even unapologeticabout its own nature. I live in DC and just had a guy from the State Department come to my apartment to interview me for a neighbor's security clearance, and after awhile he tells me he's a Red Sox fan. And I say "Oh, so you grew up in Boston?" And he says, "No, I was an Orioles fan, but back in 2004 when all that happened, you know the comeback and all, I just got caught up in it and started becoming a Red Sox fan."

Right. Exactly. You are an asshole. At least he admits it though. I give him credit for that.

Anonymous said...

thank you thank you thank you for this website. Simmons is absolutely intolerable (as are my friend's from Boston when they start talking sports)