More of the same? Why not

[Note added after writing all of this: I'm sure one or two of you out there in internetland are good, non-bandwagon Heat fans.  I tried to add modifiers like "many" every time that I took cheap shots at Heat fans, so as to not throw out the good apples with the bad, but I may have missed a few spots.  As PFTCommenter would say, no offense.  I'm sorry the bandwagon shitheads make you actual fans look bad, and I hope you keep reading.]

So I guess we're not quite done discussing this whole frontrunning Heat fans thing, given the volume of comments on that last post.  That has to be a record number for this blog as far as the last year or so goes.  Sure, most of the comments in there were made by the same anonymous bozo, but it's still nice to see some participation.  And while I hesitate to give that bozo the attention he wants and doesn't deserve by addressing some of his claims in a separate post, right now it seems like the thing to do.  So let's dance.

1) Anonymous bozo, while I admire your perseverance, just understand that you will never be the most obnoxious and worthless anonymous bozo in FireJay history.  That title will always be held by the guy in the comments to this post.  Looking back, hey, how about that: in 2008, I successfully predicted that Vince Young would be out of the NFL by 2013.  That took about as much skill as predicting that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow, but still.  Feels good to be validated.

2) Re: the Boston fans and their behavior in game 7 against the Leafs and game 6 against the Blackhawks (side note: the fact that I'm defending Boston fans to continue this argument is nauseating).  You say that the Bruins had a 0.5% chance of winning the Leafs game when they were down 4-1.  I don't know where you got that, I looked around for some NHL win expectancy charts and couldn't find any, so I will accept that number as correct although I suspect it's a little high.  Whatever.  It's cute that you think you turned my own schtick on me by noting that HA HA THIS ARTICLE OVER HERE SAYS THERE WERE EMPTY SEATS MIDWAY THROUGH THE THIRD PERIOD, THAT'S SOMETHING YOU WOULD MAKE FUN OF YOURSELF FOR DOING IF YOU READ THAT YOU WROTE THAT AND DIDN'T KNOW YOU WROTE IT NYUCK NYUCK NYUCK.  But I have a few points to make.

First of all, it's pretty dumb to say the Bruins chance at coming back was A SINGLE PERCENTAGE POINT away from being the same odds the Heat faced near the end of game 6.  It is a true statement, but a much better way to put that same piece of information, given that both numbers are small, is to say that the Heat were three times more likely to come back than the Bruins were.  That's more intellectually honest, don't you think?  What if the Heat had a 1.1% chance and the Bruins had a 0.1% chance?  Would you still try to hammer home the percentage point difference rather than the percentage difference?  I hope not.  I don't think anyone should leave when it's a game 7, but still, it was more rational from a mathematical perspective for those Bruins fans to leave.  Three times more rational, perhaps.  That's pretty significant.

Second of all, while Bruins-Leafs was a potentially season-ending game for those fans, I still say it's much worse to walk out in the championship round before the game ends than to walk out in the first round of the playoffs.  And hell, check out the highlights--I'm sure the arena wasn't 100% full when they won in overtime, but it looks pretty full and sounds pretty full to me.  (To be fair to the Heat fans, they didn't exactly empty their arena during game 6 either, although I'm willing to bet a lot of the people who were there for OT had left their seats, gone to the concourse and then returned when they heard all the noise during the comeback.)

Third of all, and most importantly, the scoring effects are much different in hockey than they are in basketball.  In basketball, pretty much every team is going to score between 80 and 110 points in pretty much every game.  More to the point, a 5 point deficit with 30 seconds left pretty much always means the exact same thing in the minds of players.  We need a couple threes, need them to miss some free throws, whatever.  In hockey, especially in a playoff series when a team is facing the same opposing goalie game after game after game, a three goal deficit could mean many different things.  If it's the best offense in the league against a bad goalie, three goals might not be much to worry about.  If it's a defensively oriented team that is used to winning low scoring games, or if the other team's goalie is hot, a three goal deficit could feel like a ten goal deficit.  In that series against the Leafs, the Bruins had no trouble scoring in games one through four.  But they lost games five and six by a 2-1 score.  So at the time the Leafs went up 4-1 with 14 minutes left in game seven, the Bruins 1) had lost two in a row, always a bad thing in a seven game series, and more importantly 2) had scored three goals in the previous 8+ periods (and Toronto's James Reimer was no slouch, 8th in the league in save percentage during the regular season).  They would then need three goals in the last 14 minutes of that period to force overtime.  I think you can excuse the people who left much more easily than you can excuse the Heat fans who left game 6.  Much, much more easily.

And of course, as commenter tony harding pointed out in the comments to the last point, the cherry on top is how many Heat "fans" tried to get back into the building after they found out the game wasn't actually over.  We don't know if any Bruins fans tried that during the Leafs game, because there weren't as many cameras around since it was only the first round of the playoffs, but I'd be surprised if the scene was anything like the one that developed in Miami during game 6.

3) Your attempt to turn whether Miami is actually a superficial place into an argument is so ridiculous that I'm not going to entertain it.  But I will entertain you on the debate as to whether Miami generally has good sports fans or not.  You seem to think you've made a great point by noting Miami's attendance and local TV ratings are great during the LeBron era.  (You cite LeBron era TV ratings, but none from any other point in time; if you know of a place to get them, I'd love to see them, but for now that doesn't establish jack fucking shit, as I will discuss below.)  You also say things like

If current Heat TV ratings were bad, then that'd be taken evidence that Miami has no real fans. But the ratings are good, so it "means" that those fans are bandwagon frontrunners. Either way, the fanbase can't win, off the court at least. Nobody will ever say, "Boy those fans are really supportive," even if that's the case.

and

Well, if the attendance and ratings were relatively weak in this improved 2013 situation, then people would probably cite that as bad fandom. That's generally how a negative confirmation bias works. Damning evidence is meaningful, positive evidence is dismissed.

No, dummy.  I don't know if you're intentionally or unintentionally kicking the shit out of that straw man, but please stop.  No one is dismissing the great attendance and TV ratings the Heat currently enjoy.  It's reflective of a lot of support for the team.  It's just that the support is bandwagon support.  Let me slow this down and connect all the dots for you: this evidence is not being ignored to confirm a negative bias, because the negative bias is not "Miamians do not support the Heat in 2013."  Everyone agrees Miamians support the Heat right now.  They just don't think many of those fans always have liked the Heat or always will like them, no matter who's on the team and how long it's been since the last deep playoff run. 

Since you seem to want to ignore this point, given that I've made it four or five times now, I might as well add in no uncertain terms that bandwagon support is much better than no support at all.  Plenty of pro sports teams enjoy great support when they win and crappy support when they lose.  On again off again fans of those teams do not deserve to be mocked... unless they do things like leave game 6 of the finals when their team is down five with 28 seconds to play.  

Anyways, for reasons unknown, assuming you are being honest about not being a Miami fan, you seem to want to believe that because Miamians are supporting the Heat now, they're great fans at all times.  While I maintain that attendance figures are often misleading, we don't have comprehensive TV data, and you want to use attendance figures, so let's use them.  They definitely don't make the point you want them to make.  

The Heat have been a very successful franchise, as long as the metric for success is "going to the playoffs," which for a lot of fans it is.  Even though the NBA lets in more than 50% of its teams, it's still impressive that they have existed for 25 seasons and made the playoffs 17 times.  So there haven't been many lean years for them.  But let's take a look at couple important recent stretches.  They made the playoffs every year from 1996 through 2001.  Then:
2000-2001: 50 wins, first round playoff loss, 15th in attendance
2001-2002: 36 wins, missed playoffs, 19th in attendance
2002-2003: 25 wins, missed playoffs, 22nd in attendance
2003-2004: 42 wins, second round playoff loss, 24th in attendance

First of all, winning 50 games and finishing 15th in attendance is kind of crappy.  But the more important data point here is the 2003-2004 season.  The two year playoff drought that preceded it was only the second in franchise history.  Now, that'll hurt attendance.  But 2003-2004 was Dwyane Wade's rookie year, and a 42 win playoff season.  And attendance decreased relative to the previous season?  That's the sign of a fanbase that doesn't give a shit.  In contrast, the Cavaliers, Nuggets and Raptors also had exciting rookies trying to lead them back to relevance that year.  The Nuggets went from 25th in attendance in 2002-2003 to 12th in 2003-2004.  The Cavaliers went from 29th to 9th.  The Raptors went from 10th to 8th.  You have any wiseass explanations for that?  Were James, Anthony and Bosh just that much more exciting than Wade?  Maybe LeBron was, but those other two?

The Cavs and Raptors didn't even make the playoffs like the Heat and Nuggets did that year.  Why were the other three teams all in the top 12 in attendance, including two non-playoff teams, but the Heat were in 24th?  Could it be that Miami fans are a bunch of stupid fucking frontrunners who have a one season lag time between the team getting good and them deciding to pay attention to it?  Sure, the fact that the Heat surged to 4th in attendance in 2004-2005 kind of supports that idea, as does the next thing I'm about to talk about, but you're the snarky genius here.  I'm sure you have some kind of explanation.

Since Wade joined the team, the only time they've missed the playoffs was in 2007-2008, when they won just 15 games and somehow managed to find significant minutes for Chris Quinn and Earl Barron.  Let's look at that season and the two that bracketed it.

2006-2007: 44 wins, first round playoff loss, 4th in attendance
2007-2008: 15 wins, worst season in franchise history, 8th in attendance
2008-2009: 43 wins, first round playoff loss, 15th in attendance

And here we see the same effect we saw above.  The team has a bad year, attendance goes down.  That happens.  But the following year, the team is good again and... attendance declines again.  Hmmm.  How about some more parallel comparisons, like I gave above?  Here's a list of all of the "missed playoff sandwiches" (playoff year, non-playoff year, playoff year) that have happened in the NBA going back to 2001, with the team, years in question, and the attendance rankings in those three years.

Bulls, 2007-2008-2009, 1st, 2nd, 2nd
Jazz, 2010-2011-2011, 6th, 7th, 6th
Lakers, 2004-2005-2006, 7th, 7th, 7th
Suns (double decker sandwich, on/off/on/off/on), 2001-2002-2003-2004-2005, 9th, 17th, 16th, 17th, 10th
Rockets, 2005-2006-2007, 23rd, 28th, 21st
76ers, 2009-2010-2011, 23rd, 26th, 25th
Hornets, 2009-2010-2011, 19th, 23rd, 26th
Suns, 2008-2009-2010, 13th, 14th, 16th.

So let me parse that for you.  Eight instances (really nine if you count the 2001-2005 Suns twice).  In six (or seven) the team's attendance rebounded when the team's performance did.  In the two where attendance failed to rebound during the second playoff year, the dropoff was not as precipitous as the 2009 Heat's was.  I'm not trying to write a thesis here so I won't take much time to explore all the ins and outs and possible reasons for these trends.  I will just theorize that bandwagon frontrunner fans (like those in Miami) take longer to warm up to the idea that the hometown team is good, because they don't actually give a shit about the team and only hear they're doing well when "buzz" has been building around town for some time.  Heat fans in 2002-2003: "They suck."  In 2003-2004: "I hear they drafted some guy but I remember them sucking last year, I'm not going."  In 2004-2005: "Wait they made the playoffs last year?  OMG D WADE IS THE BEST I LOVE THIS TEAM!!!!!"  Fans that aren't shithead frontrunner bandwagoners tend to follow their teams closely, and either will not be deterred from going to games even if there's a lean year, or if they are deterred, will return quickly once the team is good again.  I think this is the Occam's Razor explanation, although if you have a better one, I'd love to hear it.

Hey, maybe Miami fans support their other teams more fervently!  The Marlins won a World Series in 2003.  Let's take a look at how their numbers have stacked up since then.

2003: 91 wins, 28th in attendance
2004: 83 wins, 26th in attendance
2005: 83 wins, 28th in attendance
2006: 78 wins, 30th in attendance
2007: 71 wins, 30th in attendance
2008: 84 wins, 30th in attendance
2009: 87 wins, 29th in attendance
2010: 80 wins, 28th in attendance
2011: 72 wins, 28th in attendance
2012 (new stadium!): 69 wins, 18th in attendance
2013: currently 30th in wins, 30th in attendance

I'll do the math for you: during the nine seasons from 2003-2011, they were exactly a .500 team.  They never finished out of the bottom five in attendance.  Sure, bad ballpark, hot summer weather, much of the 2003 title team was dismantled and shipped away before the 2004 season even started.  None of those things are anywhere close to being good enough to explain those attendance numbers.  The 18th place finish in attendance in 2012 is the worst for any team in a brand new stadium since 2001, by the way.  No other team since then finished below 13th (Cincinnati in 2003, Milwaukee in 2001).  You know what I said about Heat fans being bandwagoners?  It appears there are no Marlins fans at all.  And a town that doesn't support one team at all is probably the kind of town that will have bandwagon fans for other teams.

I won't bother to post the Panthers' attendance numbers, they're too depressing.  And NFL attendance is meaningless.  In conclusion, feel free to continue commenting on this matter, but unless you want to address what I just presented or otherwise show that Heat fans have always supported the team and are definitely not frontrunners, maybe just keep your mouth shut.

-----------------------------

Bonus!  You complained that Deadspin was going out of its way to show the bad side of Heat fans.  While I agree that Deadspin wants (and gets) clicks by putting up posts about true and hilarious things, like the fact that many Miami fans are frontrunners, they also posted a counterpoint piece over the weekend.  It's got some real gems of non-insight and unintentional comedy.

Miami Heat Nation Encompasses More Than Brats, Ghouls, And Idiots

Awesome, awesome headline.  I think "Miami Heat Nation" is my favorite part, but use of the term "ghouls" in this context is a close second.

When the Miami Heat won its only LeBronless title, in 2006, I was living outside Fort Lauderdale. My building fees included basic cable, which was enough to get just about every Heat game and virtually nothing else worth watching. My girlfriend at the time could tolerate basketball well enough — better, in fact, than we could generally tolerate one another. So there were abundant Heat games on at my place.

It helped, too, that they were a great bunch to adopt.  Practically everyone seemed to be getting the most out of his talent, which is all it really takes to make a city proud.

So while the author is obviously not a Heat fan by birth, he claims to have adopted the team.  That's fine.  He then explains how likable the players were, from old Shaq to young Wade to supporting case members like White Chocolate and James Posey.  All things told, the author's purpose is to establish the credibility of Miami fans, a group of which he is clearly establishing himself a fringe member.  

The night they won the title my girlfriend insisted we go to the beach instead of watching the game, so I set the VCR (seriously) to record Game 6. 

OK, again, I get that this guy was not a Heat fan by birth.  But still, I find this very funny and completely out of place in an article meant to defend the honor of Miami fans.  This was your adopted team, you watched a lot of their games, and on the night they could clinch a title... you went to the beach.  Got it. 

I'd planned to drive straight back home, rewind the game and watch in something close to real time. Instead, as we walked back to the car, an unmistakable sound came down A1A: BEEEEPbeeepbeeepbeep BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Dammit, I thought. They won it.

I should've known better than to think I could block out an NBA title in South Florida, and looking back, that's why I get my hackles up any time someone shits on All Miami Fans.

How fucking great is that?  Let's summarize: "I was kind of a Heat fan, but not enough of one to pass up a trip to the beach (which is open and beautiful 365 days a year) to watch their title clinching game.  And then, would you believe it, PEOPLE WERE BEEPING THEIR CAR HORNS WHEN THE HEAT WON IT ALL.  WHAT A BUNCH OF CAPITAL T TRUE CAPITAL F FANS.  To this day I get annoyed that people call them frontrunners, because they know exactly how to beep their horn when their team wins a championship."  Get the fuck out of here.

The city may be an open sewer of humanity, all drug-money mansions and teen-aged plastic surgery and narcissism as a dogma, and it may include this shameless harpy, and this slappable douche nozzle, and these window-fogging twits, and after the Heat won this year a club owner comped them the one hundred thousand American dollars the team rang up for 103 bottles of Champagne, which, hospitality aside, is a moral abomination in a city that for all its overcompensating opulence routinely ranks among the nation's poorest.

Hey, at least this author probably wouldn't try to debate whether or not Miami is superficial.  Then he goes on to point out that of course, Miami is more than just South Beach, and there are a lot of poor people and regular blue collar people and middle class people, none of whom are the glitz and glam plastic surgery fake tans expensive jewelry superficial types.  Sure.  Fair enough, although I don't really think any of that challenges the idea that Miami sports fans are mostly shitty.  Then:

Rembert Browne picked up on this as he reported this serendipitous Grantland piece; (note: link removed because fuck Rembert Browne and the rest of his shithead fellow Grantland writers) left without a seat of his own (metaphor!) 

OH MY GOD THAT'S SO DEEP

he circles the concourses until he winds up in the bowels of the arena where the rank-and-file building and team staff are hanging on every play. The Larry O'Brien trophy goes by, and one person, a mover, dares to predict, "There go the trophy, bruh, right there. You know we 'bout to get that," only to see the Heat's lead become more tenuous. Brown notes the key pronoun here — "we," instead of "they" — 

SOMEHOW EVEN DEEPER THAN THE SEAT THING!!!!!

and concludes that these folks are some of the most unabashed fans in the building, the ones who possibly wouldn't be able to afford to enter the building had they not been paid to be there.

There you have it, folks: there are some low level employees in American Airlines Arena who like the Heat and seem to be "real" fans.  Therefore: everyone who likes the Heat is a real fan.  Case closed.

Seriously, give me a fucking break.

Now that the Heat are champs, let us review the dumbest "fan opinion" article ever written

Deadspin is generally fucking worthless, but it does a good job of dumping on the silliness that is ESPN First Take.  Not that First Take is hard to dump on (although let us never forget that Skip rules all shit), but I appreciate the way Deadspin covers it. For example, on Tuesday, they posted this.  It's a great demonstration of the absurd contrarianism First Take tries to cultivate, while looking incredibly silly in the process.  So you think that with as good as they are at pointing out that First Take is idiotic, they would never publish something like what you're about to read.  But you'd be wrong.  It is the most embarrassingly bad "Hey I'm just a fan and this my opinion on what it means to be a fan" piece I have ever read.  I'm sure you could pick up the topic from the title or first couple of sentences, but I'll just let you know that it was posted Wednesday morning in response to the (rightful) laugh America had at the expense of "fans" of the Heat who headed for the exits when Game 6 was still well in question.

In Defense of Leaving Early

by Bobby Big Wheel

I do not want to put on my Bill Simmons hat (fortunately I don't even have one) and try to write my own little manifesto about when it's OK to leave a game early and when it is not.  Instead, before we get into the substance of the article, let me just address Tuesday night's situation with as much tact and sophistication as I can muster: If you are a Heat fan (as opposed to some lucky piece of shit who doesn't care about the Heat or Spurs and just stumbled into Finals tickets and decided to go on a whim--this is not addressed to you) who was not having a medical emergency and you left that game early, you're a fucking idiot.  A fucking.  Idiot.  Period.  You deserve to be laughed at forever.  Now, let's give Bobby the floor, to explain why what I just said is wrong, because something Hartford Whalers something traffic.

I always hated leaving Whalers games early. 

Someone has their communications degree, or at least a minor.  "Establish credibility with the audience by acknowledging the validity of the opposite viewpoint of the one you're about to take.  If possible, connect with that opposite viewpoint via a personal anecdote or story so as to make your acknowledgement more authentic."  You're welcome, I just saved you $500 in devry.com online lectures.  

Maybe if they were down three goals I could be coaxed out of my seat when the PA announcer said, "Oooooooone minute left in the period." But it would take all of my father's cajoling to get me to leave the Hartford Civic Center before the crush of 10,000 people parked in the same three garages made his trek home a nightmare. He didn't spend five minutes backing a Mercury Grand Marquis into a too-small parking spot just to get stuck afterward in a 15-minute line of cars crawling toward a cash-only booth.

Surely that anecdote is very relevant to the way parking is handled at American Airlines Arena in Miami in the year 2013.

I won't pretend he had to clock in at the steel mill the next morning. He had a white-collar job at an insurance company, one that paid well enough for him to afford Whalers season tickets. 

Simmons, if given the chance to write about that same situation: "My dad was barely making ends meet!  He thought about selling our playoff tickets to put bread on the table for another week, but he just couldn't do it. Those moments are too special.  Later, he was fired from the steel mill for consistent absenteeism.  Fortunately he also had a job as an investment banker, so we ended up doing fine."

But he faced the same problems the rest of the 99 percent faces. Nobody has a pension; 

What?  Please get back on topic.

nobody has a guarantee; and raising three kids takes a big bite out of your nest egg. He had to be in the office the next morning around the same time that I had to be at the bus stop, and getting home at 11 p.m. would've just made everything even more of a hassle. So fuck it, we were going home, even though we were down only 3-1 to the Penguins.

That's fine.  It's worth pointing out that the difference between getting home at 10:45 and getting home at 11:00 is really pretty tiny, but I will honor his point and acknowledge that his dad did save some time in this madeup story.  On the other hand, here's something pretty fucking important to consider: the Whalers never met the Penguins in the playoffs, nor did they ever play any NHL team (other than the Canadiens, in 1986) in any round of the playoffs other than the first round, so the above anecdote about leaving during the 3rd period of a 3-1 game most definitely did not happen during the Stanley Cup finals.  Say, in game 6.  Say, with the Whalers down three games to two in the series and down by a single goal in the game.  So really, Bobby Big Wheel's attempt to establish credibility regarding the Heat's game six early exiters has failed miserably, because: it's not even close to the same fucking thing.

It's easy to make fun of Heat fans for leaving Game 6 

Oh yes, it's very easy!  I'll even link to Deadspin without making fun of them again, to prove my point: look at these people!  They look (and sound) like fucking assholes!  It's hilarious!

when it'd looked like all was lost. 

Oh, but here's the thing.  To a fan with any knowledge of the game, as well as the knowledge that this is a "win or season over" game, all was never lost.  They were down five with 0:28 to go, but had the ball.  Then they were down three with 0:19 to go, but again had the ball.  Neither of those are "whelp pack it in, it's over" moments.  Maybe down seven with 0:19 and without the ball, having just fouled.  At that point I'd say all is almost lost.  Other team makes the free throws, pushes it to nine, all is lost.  You are free to go.  But where the Heat were on Tuesday night before Ray Allen's big game tying three?  Nope.  

Even local TV reporters, a class of professionally unembarrassed people, said they were embarrassed, that the stereotypes about Heat fans were true, that Miami was a Bad Sports Town. 

All of these things are true.  Doesn't make Miami a bad city, but they are definitely true.

But fandom isn't the same thing as slavish devotion. 

/watches Bobby Big Wheel climb onto rickety soap box

Your favorite team doesn't pay you, and it doesn't owe you anything. 

And how do you know this?  Please stay on topic.

I learned that lesson when the Whalers left for North Carolina. 

/rickety soap box collapses, leaving Bobby Big Wheel bleeding on the ground

Let's be very, very clear about this: realizing that pro sports owners are assholes who will sell out fans to make a buck has goddamn nothing to do with whether or not you, if you are a real fan of a team, should leave a playoff elimination game while the outcome is still in question.  Fuck you.

Sportswriters easily forget that for most people attending a game is a hobby, a fun diversion, not a job.

That's fine, I agree that you don't have to be a diehard to attend a game, but to get tickets to a possible championship deciding game, you're either a rich prick or a very devoted fan.  I didn't look at the prices on StubHub on Tuesday night but I'm sure the cheapest nosebleed seats were hundreds of dollars.  There were no groups of friends there who said on a whim "Hey I know none of us care about the Heat, but let's go to the game anyways, could be a fun evening!"  Everyone who was there was, again, either a rich prick who can handle being mocked, or someone who had one of the most telltale signs of ostensibly serious fandom: spending gobs of money to see the team play.  Spare me your pathetic sermon about how IT'S JUST A GAME PEOPLE SHEESH LIGHTEN UP.  Yes, it is just a game.  Doesn't change the fact that the people who left early are bad fans and complete tards.

Expecting fans to stay until the end of a game reeks of the same fogeyism that bemoans kids checking their phones all the time. 

In fact, I AM a kid who checks his phone all the time.  The people that left are still fucking assholes who deserve to be mocked.  I am repeating myself, but one more time, just to be clear: game 6 of the NBA Finals with the Heat down three games to two and down five points with 0:28 left is not on the same fucking planet as the Whalers trailing the Penguins 3-1 with four minutes left during regular season game #19 in December 1991.  

Maybe in the '50s—when we all had pensions 

Why again with the pensions?  Stop it with the pensions.

and a union, and the day could more easily be carved up into eight-hour blocks of sleep, work, and leisure—maybe then sports fans could be expected to devote four hours to watching a game in-person. 

It would be much easier to do it then, I agree.  It's still very possible to do it now, ESPECIALLY FOR GAMES LIKE THE ONE IN QUESTION.

But this is 2013—the friction of everyday life is far too great to expect total devotion from all but the obscenely wealthy or the totally unemployable. 

Here's the coup de grace, folks.  While I earlier noted (correctly, I would think) that everyone who could afford tickets to Tuesday's game was probably rich or a serious fan, here is Bobby's knockout punch: in fact, the only people who should bother with staying until the end and dealing with traffic are those same richie riches and people who are really dumb.  

Fans already endure the indignities of wretched traffic, overpriced concessions, and the potential for heartbreak when they attend a game in person. 

You know why they do it, or at least why I do it?  Because if the team wins, it's awesome!  And if they win a historically great game, like game 6, it's even more awesome.  And if you leave when they could still win because you feel like beating traffic, you deserve to be mocked.  Not too hard to figure out.

Don't they at least deserve the option to look away when things go sideways and maybe get a good night's sleep, too?

Down twenty with three minutes to go is sideways.  Down five with 0:28 to go is not.

At least some of the Heat fans who left the game early were doing the same back-of-the-envelope math that my father used to do. 

When he made you leave a meaningless regular season game early.

(Down 5 + 58 seconds left) x (10 minutes to the car + 30 minutes of traffic) / (Joey's math homework + an 8:30 conference call) = we're headed for the exits. Look again at the fans leaving early. 

Thanks, I will!  What a bunch of bozos!

You don't see a lot of the chinstrap beards and glass earrings we expect of our Heat stereotypes. I just see a bunch of weary-looking people who were at a basketball game less than nine hours before they had to leave for work the next morning. It's like they don't even listen to Pitbull.

The Pitbull line is actually pretty good.  Unfortunately the sentence before it is one of the most idiotic in this post.  Less than nine hours!  Why, some of them probably only got six hours of sleep!  What is this world we live in???????

As last night reminded us, sports are fun. At least, they're supposed to be. But you have to fit them into an already cluttered life, and sometimes the fit isn't perfect. The Heat fans who left the game early were playing the percentages. They surely regret their decision today, but it's not an indefensible one. 

Your attempt to defense it looks like the Hindenberg landing right now.

Sports intrude on everything now—on your workday, on your mood, on your taxes, on your cable bill.

Uh... if you let them, I guess?  A lot of people don't, but they're still going to get fired the fuck up if they pay big bucks to see their team in person in a championship round game.  And most people who do let sports intrude on everything are the kind of people who would kill to be at a game where their favorite team won the way the Heat won on Tuesday.

Nothing wrong with fans exercising their diminishing prerogative to check the fuck out. 

If you were in attendance on Tuesday night, and are a Heat fan, and said to yourself with 0:28 to play, "Eh, you know what, I've followed the Heat closely all these years, but I'm so tired of sports being such a big part of my life.  Now is the exact correct moment to fight against that trend.  I think I'll leave right now", then I hope you get mangled in a parasailing accident.  The end.

Simmons: Still Putting Minimal Effort Into His Writing, Still a Dipshit

Jack from Swarthmore, Pa., e-mailed Wednesday just to say, "69 days!

What's that you say? The people are demanding more mindless bullshit? Well, I hope they're also demanding a bunch of unoriginal "Boston is full of racists" jokes from me. Because they're about to get both.

Also- heh heh. Sixty nine. Am I right? You know what I'm getting at!

69 days since your last mailbag!

Wait, how many? 69? 696969696969? Mmmmmmmm-hmmmmmm.

You're killin' me! For god sakes, I went through finals without a fresh mailbag to sink my teeth into.

Simmons remains eminently popular with his base: retarded 19 year-olds attending snobby schools in the northeast.

Over 1,500 hours of mailbag-less time.

How are we supposed to survive without Bill's opinion on the current season of "Lost?"

Quite frankly I've stayed awake many a night pondering my mailbag future.

Quite frankly, I hope you get run over by a cement mixer.

So please for me and the rest of your readers -- write another mailbag!"

I promise I'll write you a saccharine-sweet email if you do!

Fine, fine, fine.

An excuse not to write a real column? Twist my arm.

As always, these are actual e-mails from actual readers.

Q: I am a broke college student

Read: polysci major at Boston College whose parents have threatened to take back the Lexus and cut the monthly stipend back to $500.

who recently spent two weeks of beer money for a bleacher ticket for A-Rod's first Fenway game just so I could chant "A-Roid" with everyone else.

Ahhh. A-"Roid." I see what you did there.

Now they're saying he could be out for two to four months, and I won't be living here when he finally comes to Boston.

You never know when he'll be back, either. Damn you and your unpredictable scheduling, MLB.

Can you please rank this on the Levels of Losing for me?
-- Sean P., Boston

By taking the time to write this email, you've pretty much lost at life.

SG: The levels of losing? Can't you see the big picture here? We haven't seen the Karma Police work this quickly since Swayze's sleazy buddy got impaled on the broken glass in "Ghost."

Hey- remember the 80s?

Either A-Rod needs surgery, or he's going to play in pain all season. In fact, I demand that Fenway plays "Karma Police" for A-Rod's first at-bat.

And the 90s? Bill does!

Although we won't hear it because everyone will be singing "A-Roid! A-Roid!"

He's totally going to hear us, and there's nothing he can do about it. THE FENWAY FAITHFUL GET THE LAST LAUGH AGAIN.

Holy hell am I excited for the 2009 baseball season.

You mean, holy hell am I excited for the Yankees and Red Sox games of the 2009 baseball season. What? There's a whole other league out there, which contains neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox? Fuck 'em.

Q: This is a little bit closely related to your holiday gifts column only with a spin: How about sponsoring Mike Dunleavy's page on basketball-reference.com and making a sarcastic comment about him on it? Hey, its only 10 bucks.
-- Bilal, Boston

SG: Done and done. What's sad is I spent a solid 45 minutes crafting the right testimonial before finally settling on what I wrote.

ONLY 45 minutes, you say? (Go click on it, everyone.) Yup. This is the razor-sharp wit of The Sports Guy. That Jimmy Kimmel is a lucky, lucky man to have talent like this backing him up.

Q: Too bad you decided not to have break-up sex with the Boston Bruins this year, isn't it? It's like an ex-girlfriend who switched to contacts from glasses, let her hair grow out and discovered aerobics. Now she's the hot girl at the bar.
-- Alex, D.C.

SG: Only I'm still taking medication for the VD she gave me. I'll be back for the playoffs. I always get sucked back in for the playoffs. Too many memories. The truth is, the only reason the Bruins became competitive again is because the salary cap evened the odds for Jeremy "The Grinch" Jacobs. Nobody can outspend him anymore. The Bruins don't care about their fans any more than they did during the first 24 years of my life -- when they were bending my ankles back over my head more times than a Pilates instructor.

Wow, he's like the vulgar Rick Reilly.

Their fans deserve better regardless how this season turns out. As I have said a million times, as soon as the Grinch sells the team, they have me back 365 days a year. And not a moment sooner.

It's cute how he pretends he never totally disowned them. (Read the first mini-paragraph here) I mean, they're good again! What do you want him to do? NOT jump back on the bandwagon? Pretend like he didn't originally swear them off not because of some bullshit about the owner, but because they were bad for a few years in a row?

Q: Do you think the relationship between Rocky and Apollo could be considered the original bromance?
-- Kevin McB, Oakland, N.J.

SG: No way. The original bromance was Lewis and Clark.

This is why he makes the big bucks. He also goes on to list off about 75 other famous alleged bromances. Conspicuously absent from that list: anyone from Boston and a black person.

Q: I recently watched "Almost Famous" for what has to be the 20th time, and it seems like every time I've watched it, the movie was better than the previous time. It got me thinking about other movies where this applies, and my short list included "Pulp Fiction," "Shawshank," and "The Usual Suspects." I feel like there has to be some sort of name for this phenomena, and of course, I have come to you for guidance.
-- Bhavin, Philadelphia

Because I am too fucking stupid to formulate my own opinions about this very subjective and reasonably simple question.

SG: I'd go with a wine reference even though it doesn't totally work. Most movies are like chardonnays or pinot noirs -- you can drink them right away or any time within a span of 10 years. Many cabernets, Bordeaux and Barolos hold their vintage really well and you can actually enjoy them for as along as 10-20 years. Kinda like "Midnight Run" or "Hoosiers."

AND TEEN WOLF! AND KARATE KID! DANIEL-SAN AND MR. MIYAGI HAD A BROMANCE!

Q: Can you think of the sports equivalent of the spouses of buddies whose Facebook friend-request you accepted who constantly update their status on the topic of taking care of their kids? Like "Jenn is watching her little ones nap" and "Sarah is playing 'Bob the Builder' with her kids! Yay!" As a 28-year-old unmarried man, it's not that I don't appreciate females or motherhood, it's just that I don't care. For the same reason that I don't update my status with "Kully just put on jock itch cream."
-- Kully, Guangzhou, China

SG: Wouldn't the sports equivalent be like ending up with an undesirable throw-in for an NBA trade (aka Marcus Banks)? The more interesting angle for me is how Twitter and Facebook reflect where our writing is going thanks to the Internet. In 15 years, writing went from "reflecting on what happened and putting together some coherent thoughts" to "reflecting on what happened as quickly as possible" to "reflecting on what's happening as it's happening" to "here are my half-baked thoughts about absolutely anything and I'm not even going to attempt to entertain you," or as I like to call it, Twitter/Facebook Syndrome. Do my friends REALLY CARE if I send out an update, "Bill is flying on an airplane finishing a mailbag right now?" (Which is true, by the way.) I just don't think they would. I certainly wouldn't. That's why I refuse to use Twitter.

Thank goodness. At least someone in the sports journalism world is maintaining some standards regarding the way he writes. It's been at least two weeks since he wrote a column comparing the Bird-era Celtics to the current Celtics by using a grading scale based on "The Hills," and concluding the former were better because they had more white guys.

Q: I listened to your spot on Adam Carolla's new podcast, and for the first time ever you swore and it wasn't bleeped out. It was surreal, and I gotta say I'm developing a taste for it, Simmons. I'm afraid I won't be able to go back to the genteel Sports Guy. It's like your long-term girlfriend, who's really conservative in bed, gets really drunk one night and she unexpectedly turns into an animal. How can you go back? How?!
-- Max R., Sydney

Tee hee! Bad words!

SG: Just wait until my book comes out! Lots of swears and even a few completely inappropriate topics handled without any diplomacy whatsoever.

I couldn't possibly be less titillated. What? A book featuring an opinionated idiot talking about "inappropriate" topics using swear words? What's next, porn on the internet?

Q: When De Niro gets off the highway to kill Waingro at the hotel in "Heat": The whole movie you want De Niro to kill Waingro, but you don't want De Niro to go back when he's home free with Judge Amy. Is there a more ambivalent occurrence of emotions in any movie?
-- Alex, Syracuse, N.Y.

Hey, does anyone out there want to hear Bill break down "Heat" again? I sure hope so.

[Simmons' opinion omitted]

Q: In Matt Cassel's first news conference with the Chiefs, someone asked Cassel if he was looking forward to meeting Bernard Pollard. Shouldn't he immediately take some of his new money and buy Pollard a new car? The best full circle moment is the fact Cassel would still be a nobody if it weren't for the Chiefs and now he is playing for them. GOD, I LOVE THE NFL!
-- David, Elon, N.C.

SG: I'll go one further -- imagine if we learned Cassel offered Pollard $3 million to take out Brady's knee in Week 1? Would that be one of the five biggest scandals in sports history?

1. Black Sox (to his credit, mentioned by Bill)
2. College basketball point shaving (also mentioned by Bill)
3. Steroids in baseball/the Olympics/pretty much every sport
4. Tim Donaghy
5. Pete Rose

So, no. Especially when this imaginary situation involves something so incredibly difficult to do. You can hit a QB in the knees 100 times and not do what Pollard did to Brady once. It's not like, even if this had happened, Pollard could just up and guarantee that he would end Brady's season. I'm really doing far too much to dignify this scenario by writing four sentences about it.

Q: I listened to your Monday podcast and was interested in your "Kansas City Theory." I thought that a good example of these things being cyclical was Cleveland in 2007. Both the Browns and Indians had unusually successful seasons when compared to their normal vomit-inducing play. If you add this with the Cavaliers' play in the LeBron Era, it's hard for anyone to deny that this theory bears at least some merit.
-- Brad H., New York

For those who are unfamiliar, the gist of this theory is basically that sometimes multiple teams from the same city all do well at the same time. Genius! What brilliance! It's got to be attributable to some bullshit Bill made up, rather than just random statistical chance.

SG: See? It happens! Some other good examples: the '84 Tigers (paved the way for the "Bad Boy" Pistons, the Barry Sanders Era and the Steve Yzerman Era); the '01 Pats (the '04 Red Sox and '08 Celts, as well as two more Pats titles); Chicago in the mid-'80s (the '83 White Sox, '84 Cubs, '85 Bears and the Jordan Era); Seattle in the mid-'90s (Sonics and Mariners); Pittsburgh in the late-'70s (Steelers and Pirates); Cincy in the late '80s ('89 Bengals, '90 Reds); Boston in the mid-'80s ('85 Pats, '86 Celts, '86 Red Sox); New York in the late-'90s ('98-'99-'00 Yanks, '00 Mets, '99 Knicks; '00 Giants); and L.A. in the late-'80s ('88 Dodgers, '87-'88 Lakers, '89 Raiders). There is ample evidence that a city can catch fire like a hot blackjack table. Just remember we had this conversation when they're calling it "The Year of K.C." in seven months.

See????!?!? That proves it!

Q: Let's say you are at LAX and you are about to board your flight, but then you notice one of the cast members from "Lost" on the same plane. Do you still get on that flight?
-- Brian, Richmond, Va.

THERE'S your "Lost" question. The Big Lead approves.

Q: I was just looking over previous mailbags and came across your prediction of Olivia Wilde becoming a bigger, more relevant star than Mischa Barton within five years. This is uncanny. I shall never doubt you! Any other bold predictions?
-- Vinit, Winnipeg

Yeah, he was really going out on a limb with that one. I mean, everyone and their brother was convinced that Barton had unlimited talent and was due for a multi-Oscar career. How bold of Bill to predict that her career would flop after she left "The O.C."

SG: I have 10 for you, other than the one from last Friday that the 2011-12 NBA season will be canceled by a lockout. First, Jay Leno will be hosting "The Tonight Show" again by September 2010.

Possible. Who cares.

Second, the words "Michael Phelps" and "rehab" will appear in the same sentence.

Wrong. At least, wrong for the next, say, 20 years.

Third, at the end of the NBA Finals in June, one of the happy players will yelp happily to Michele Tafoya, "We goin' to see Oh-baaaaaaaa-maaaaaaaaaaaa!" exactly how I just wrote it.

LOL, black people talk funny! That's why people from Boston hate them so much- Bostonites are supposed to have a monopoly on that.

Fourth, America will turn against Judd Apatow.

Given that we haven't yet turned on Michael Bay or Brett Ratner, I really don't see this happening.

Fifth, they're going to figure out a way to retroactively test all the Olympic urine samples from the '70s, '80s and '90s, and that will become the next gigantic sports scandal that dominates your life (and not in a good way).

Wrong.

Sixth, Mike and the Mad Dog will be back together in time for Opening Day 2011.

Possible. Who gives a shit though.

Seventh, the Detroit Tigers will have a fire sale for their players starting in June that will rival anything the Marlins ever did.

In order to have a fire sale, you must have valuable players with whom you are willing to part. So Cabrera, Verlander, and Granderson are out since the team isn't trading them. Similarly, guys like Guillen, Thames, Sheffield, and Ordonez really don't have much value left. But when the Tigers ship Placido Polanco and Brandon Inge out of town... you heard it from Bill first.

Eighth, Howard Stern, David Letterman and Bruce Springsteen will all retire within three months of one another, it will happen within the next 30 months, and all three of them will do it quietly without fanfare. So, there you go.

A prediction so obscure that I won't bother criticizing it. Could happen, I guess.

Q: I've written many times and I am pretty sure you have never looked at my e-mails. But in all seriousness, I like the podcasts even more than the columns. I was introduced to you five years ago when I entered college by my first roommate.

At Brown.

Never listened to a podcast 'til my senior season.

On the lax team!

Now I love them because they drown out the voice of my wife.
-- Charlie, Endicott, N.Y.

Oh man, married life isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it? Harf harf harf harf! I once saw a sitcom about that very topic! Bill, your thoughts:

SG: That was the first installment of a new mailbag feature tentatively called "Fellas, Don't Get Married." I have high hopes for this one.

Therrrrrrre we go.

Q: Thanks for making me choke up at work with the column about your dog. I decided to move The Dooze immediately into my greatest dog rankings, just ahead of the dog from "Amityville Horror" that saved the dad from falling into the gate of hell. Powerful column. Thanks.
-- Andy, Decatur, Texas

I didn't rip on this column at the time it was written because I figure it was super-low hanging fruit. But really, come-fucking-on. Holy Jesus balls. Your dog died of old age? What a horrible, horrible hand fate has dealt you. Surely that warrants a 12,000 word column. You're a sportswriter, cocklips. Write about sports. I'd rather read five more columns about the 2007 Patriots than one more sentence about Bill's personal life and its mundane tragedies.

SG: ...even my wife would admit The Dooze didn't top the "Amityville Horror" dog. I mean, we're talking about a black lab rescuing a master from the gates of hell here. The Dooze only would have toyed with the gates of hell if a tennis ball rolled near it. I still have the "Amityville Horror" dog ranked first, the Dooze second, Hooch third, Scooby-Doo fourth, Marley fifth, Cujo sixth (just because he came soooooooo close to mauling the annoying little kid from "Who's the Boss?"), Dino Flintstone seventh … and Paris Hilton's chihuahua last.

TOPICAL! How about that Octomom, huh?

One more note: Four of the five greatest sports movies of all time are "Hoosiers," "Field of Dreams," "Rocky" and "The Natural" in some order. The fifth is up for debate. Just make sure those four are included.

Only Bill's opinions on movies count. Yours is wrong. (See Jack's post below.)

It cannot be argued or debated from the standpoint of quality, originality, rewatchability, likability and chill scenes.

What makes for a good movie is now objective, not subjective.

What's interesting is that THREE of those movies undeniably have racist undertones: "Hoosiers," "Rocky" and "Field of Dreams." The first two revolve around a white underdog toppling an invincible black champ;

The kind of movie people from Boston can really get behind.

the third completely ignored a half-century of indefensible prejudice against minorities in Major League Baseball. Even worse, I loved all three movies for years and years and would watch any of them right now if they came on. Does this mean I should be writing this column with a white hood on? I can't come to grips with this.

It sounds like you're pretty close. It's a rare moment of self-awareness for Bill.

Q: I'm a 30-year-old ex-college athlete who likes rare steaks and fake breasts. I just read your Dooze column and had to disappear into the bathroom at work so my co-workers would not see me crying. Damn you.
-- Dave, Philadelphia

Pretty weird how Bill's editors keep making him print these congratulatory emails, huh? Yeah, if he were choosing the emails himself, it would be pretty fucking lame of him to keep choosing ones like this. Good thing it's not him doing that choosing though. Yeah, it's definitely someone else.

Q: We've all seen "Cast Away" and, of course, remember the emotional scene as Wilson the Volleyball floats away from Tom Hanks in the middle of the ocean. It's time to admit to ourselves those two were more than just friends. I mean come on … four years on an island together … no female or any other sexual outlet around. Hanks did the deed with the Volleyball and probably regularly.
-- Carl F., Merrimack, N.H.

SG: Yup, these are my readers.

Who may or may not be funnier than Simmons himself. Hard to say. Is it possible for all of them (as well as Simmons himself) to simultaneously contract kidney failure? If only.

I Don't Think I've Ripped on Simmons in a While

Probably because he's putting out about a column a month these days, and the last one was about his late dog. Now, I'm not saying it's not a sad story- but I am definitely saying that I don't give a flying fuck about it. I go to ESPN to read about sports. I do not go there to read about what happens in the personal lives of the columnists. I don't really care if John Holinger's wife has a baby, or if Buster Olney finds $5 on the beach. OK, enough of the mini-rant. Let's review the stupidest things said during Bill's latest chat. In some cases I'm going to pick on the idiots asking the questions rather than the dipshit answering them, but I think it's legit considering he picks every question he answers out of tens of thousands submitted during the course of the chat. Aaaaand... Teen Wolf discussion staaaarts.... NOW.

Nathan (Cambridge, Mass.): Is Mike Tomlin the coolest Super Bowl coach in history? That dude is the Samuel L. Jackson of the National Football League!

Because he's black! Note the city and state of the guy who felt the need to point that out to you.

Bill Simmons: Not just for Super Bowls - I say he's the coolest coach in any sport ever. Even cooler than Coach Fenstock. By the way, the over/under for Teen Wolf questions or references is 7.5 for today's chat - take the over. They gotta stop showing it. I am becoming obsessed.

How old are you, 12? It's OK to enjoy a largely irrelevant movie without pushing it on everyone, you know. You don't see me trying to work "Envy" into every single goddamn post.

Brian (Milwaukee, WI): OK, Redd is out for the year, if the Bucks had hired you as GM(which they should have), what do you do to get the Bucks to the playoffs?

The "Hire me as Milwaukee's GM- I mean, why not?" thing: easily one of my least favorite Simmons topics/running gags/running non-gags/retarded ideas.

Bill Simmons: Anyway, it's clear that the NBA GM job is overrated as we've seen by how many people have failed at it - why not take a chance with someone like me and get fans talking and message boards buzzing?

Because you're an idiot who knows about 5% as much as you think you know about basketball.

What could the Bucks possibly do that would be a bigger national story than a controversial GM or coach hire?

Why should that be their goal?

Name me one thing. You can't.

I don't need to. They're doing alright without your tiny brain controlling the franchise.

The other move would be to just make someone a player-coach... which I think is illegal.

Not that Bill has time to research this during the chat, but it's not. I'm pretty unsurprised that Bill's hunch was wrong.

Joe (Decatur, GA): Cavs question. When Delonte and Big Z come back, will the Cavs be good enough to win the title without adding a piece by trading Wally?

Bill Simmons: Yeah, everyone's missing that about the Cavs right now - they are missing two starters and really won't be the team they will be until April. I would not sleep on them. By the way, Devin Harris making the AS team over Mo Williams was an outrage.

So playing on the same team as LeBron, who can create unlimited looks for his teammates, and averaging 17/4/3, is better than carrying a terrible Nets team and averaging 21/6/3? Later on, Bill presents that argument that "anyone" can get good stats on a bad team like New Jersey. Then how come more players don't? There aren't a lot of guys out there on any team averaging 21 and 6. That puts him in the top 15 in both categories; if that's so "easy" to do, how come no one else on a shitty team is anywhere close to doing it? Because Bill is smarter than me, that's why.

Dave (Baltimore, MD): Which one is more bizzare? The Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl, the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series, or Mickey Rourke vs Chris Jerico at Wrestlemania 25?

Bill Simmons: I still think Tampa making the World Series.

There are no other teams in the AL East besides the Red Sox and Yankees; just ask any Red Sox or Yankees fan. I often read MLBTradeRumors.com, which may have even more obnoxious commenters than Deadspin. This offseason has been hilarious over there. Everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten the elephant in the room, with a pitching staff (even considering the addition of Burnett and Sabathia) that can crush either Boston or New York's. I'm looking forward to watching things unfold again this season. I will definitely grant to Bill that Tampa going all the way to the WS was extremely surprising, but the subtext of this answer reeks of narrow-minded Boston/New York/nothing else matters dumbfuckery.

Oh, and from eariler:

I couldn't agree more with Kenny Smith - it's EASY to put up good stats on bad teams or mediocre teams. The Cavs are a super-contender for 2 reasons: Bron is so much better/hungrier, and Mo Williams has made a huge difference for them. They are 20-0 at home. How the hell can they only have 1 All Star?

Because they have one awesome player who's probably the league MVP as of right now, and a bunch of role players who fit well around him. I'm not sure what's so hard about this. Williams is really good. Is he better than Harris? It's not even close.

All Star teams, MVPO votes, Hall of Fame votes and Oscar/Emmy nominations really make me crazy. I can't handle it.

Bill Simmons: Like Brad Pitt getting nominated for Ben Button - I almost put my fist through a wall. HOW TERRIBLE IS THAT??????? I defy anyone to watch that movie and say that Brad Pitt even "acted." he just played himself. I can't stand it.

I can't comment becuase I haven't seen this. But if Bill's movie opinions about movies are as well-founded and intelligent as his opinions about sports...

Tim (Walla Walla, WA): Why don't you ever go on ESPN First Take to debate Skip Bayless?

Bill Simmons: You Know, I've thought about doing this.

Please please please please, someone set this up. I will cancel whatever it is I have going on that morning and watch.

My plan would be to go on, then after every point he makes, I'd do a Sarcastic Clap like the SNL skit with the Sarcastic Clapping Family. And I'd never make any actual points. Just two hours of sarcastic claps. I think he'd be flustered.

Hilarious! Bill Simmons, master of comedy. We've finally found someone who could make Skip Bayless seem intelligent and witty if they were both on the same set.

Henry (Los Angeles): Any interesting prop bets on/related to the Super Bowl? I'm thinking of putting 10$ on the line with 10000:1 odds that the first guy to score is TO. Chance at 100k with his ego? Good enough for me.

Topical! But still unfunny.

Bill Simmons: Also liked this one...

Bill Simmons: Jersey Number of Player to score First Touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII: Over/under for number is 38.5 (-115 for each side)

Bill Simmons: So if you think a WR is scoring, or any defensive player or returner... you take the over. I like that one a lot.

Anyone who has watched any football at all in the last month, you know, like maybe the fucking conference championships games, should be able to pretty much instantly remember that Larry Fitzgerald wears 11 and Santonio Holmes wears 10. Most people will also remember that Steve Breaston wears 15. Also- "any defensive player"- what about, you know, all the defensive backs who wear numbers in the 20s or 30s who maybe might return a pick or fumble for a TD? But hey, give bill this- if Darnell Dockett or Brett Kiesel had taken a one to the house, he would have cashed in big time. And hey, James Harrison did in fact do just that. Wasn't the first TD though. And it was still a dumb idea to bet the over. Gary Russell, wearing #33, scored first.

(Bill was corrected about Fitzgerland and Holmes almost immediately. Why didn't he know their numbers offhand, even though both had great seasons/postseasons? Probably because they don't play for THE GREATEST FAHCKIN' TEAM EVAHHHH! 19-0! 19-0! 19-0!)

Bill Simmons: If you missed Monday's podcast, Cousin Sal and I broke this down and Sal loved Gary Russell -300 NOT to score a TD.

Oops!

Jason (Boston, MA): Dan "The CHB" Shaughnessy says Tom Brady is now soft because a smoking hot Brazilian super model was offering him a bite of her lunch. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Boston print media!

Bill Simmons: Nothing ever changes in Boston. It's amazing. WEEI just re-signed Glenn Ordway for 5 more years. It's Groundhog Day. The Globe has had the same two sports columnists for TWENTY ONE YEARS.

Only in Boston does this pattern happen! Only he-ah! No one else undastands us! We ahhhhh different than the rest of you cawksawkas!

PeteFitz (chicago): Mr. Sportsguy, Any reason for the podcasts over the columns these last two weeks? I personally like the columns better (for selfish reasons, I like to read at work), so I was wondering if there was a specific reason.

Bill Simmons: Again, I am desperatrely trying to finish my book - so that's one reason, I only have so many writing hours in me each day. The other reason is that I love doing the podcasts and feel like I'm on the ground floor of a medium that is really starting to take off. It's like radio on demand and I think it's going to kill satellite radio in 2 years. I really do. It's also a huge threat to real radio in my opinion, especially when people can get internet in their cars and can just cue podcasts up within 3 clicks.

Write that down. By early 2011, satellite radio will be bust. (Actually, that might happen, but not because of podcasts.)

It's astonishing to me that nobody has written a long piece about podcasts yet. This is EXACTLY the same as what happened with sportswriting in the late-90s where nobody was taking the internet seriously and suddenly within 7 years there were a million sports blogs, mainstream sites were crushing newspapers and newspapers were hemorrhaging money.

EXACTLY like that. But really, completely different. I don't have time to explain why. We can discuss in the comments if any of you Anonymouses want to call me out.

RC (District of Columbia): Manny averages an OPS+ of 155 and a lifetime EqA of .327....with those numbers he can play LF in a diaper for all I care

Bill Simmons: See, another team that should sign him - the Nats. People in DC do not care about that team. At all. Manny doesn't make them more interesting?????

Maybe, just maybe- and I'm going way out on a limb here- maybe the Nats front office is more concerned with formulating a long-term plan to get the team to the playoffs than making the team "more interesting" for the next 2 or 3 years. I know that as GM of the Bucks you would be exclusively focused on making interesting, exciting moves. But some people have a different agenda. Try to imagine that, hard as it may be.

They're willing to give Tex 170 million - a guy who has played on bad teams for nearly his entire career - but Manny isn't worth $75m for three? He wouldn't sell tickets? He wouldn't hit?

Like I said. Manny would definitely hit- he would also make the 2009 and 2010 Nats 75 win teams instead of 68 win teams. 2011... maybe they have a shot at something if their pitching develops. And at that point, they're out $75 million with no playoff appearances to show for it. See how that works? They were willing to sign Teixeira not for 2009 and 2010, but for subsequent years when he still has some value and they have a chance to be good. Use your noggin, dummy.

Marty Weikart (Brier WA): You have discussed Cardinals fans in your recent podcasts. I thought I would bring up how bad it was. even this summer. When I was in AZ for a business trip in Aug, there were advertising pre-season tickets as a package with the Dallas regular season game as a "Protect the House" scheme. As I understood it, in order to get the pre-season tickets, you also had to buy the regular season ticket, and the objective was that "real Cardinals fans" would be sitting in the stadium during the Dallas game, instead of a stadium completely filled with Dallas fans like had happened in the past. What other city could you ever imagine that happening in?

Bill Simmons: I am torn on this one - I get the whole "you didn't hear from us Cards fans because our team was just hopelessly bad" argument, but there is also undeniable evidence that Phoenix is a top-3 lousy/indefensible major sports city along with LA and Washington DC. So I don't know what to think.

This from the guy who "swore off" his longtime favorite hockey team, the Boston Bruins, because they "were just too painful to watch" or some bullshit like that. (I googled around for the column for a while and couldn't find it. If i'm wrong, feel free to let me know. I'm pretty sure that's the gist of it.) So yeah, asshole, I'm sure you "get" the whole "you didn't hear from us because our team was bad" thing. Until this year, when they're suddenly good again and you will inevitably eventually write a "I'm back with the Bruins, baby!" column, you've been living that "thing." You also openly threatened to "live" it after the 2007 NBA draft lottery, in which it was revealed that Boston wouldn't be getting Kevin Durant or Greg Oden. Yeah. You "get" it. Fairweather dickwad.

Jay (Toronto): So what did SportsCenter steal from you without telling you first?

Bill Simmons: The Mount Rushmore gimmick. I've been doing that in columns and mailbags for at least 18 months. Even did a whole Mount Rapmore last February. I just think it's petty to say, "hey, that's a good idea, let's take it."

Later on, he complains more about this. Guess why no one at ESPN thanked, cited, or included you, Bill? Probably because you're a fucking self-righteous asshole who no one likes. I hate you and I've never even met you; I can only imagine what it's like to be your employer or coworker.

Tom (Meridian, Idaho): Bill. We haven't heard your thoughts on Jim Rice FINALLY making the Hall of Fame. What's the over/under on the length of his speech? 5 minutes, 10? My bet is he says thanks, then sits down and lets Ricky talk for the next hour.

Bill Simmons: Talked about it on a podcast a little. My thoughts go like this: If he wasn't a HOFer for 14 years, why is he one now?

Plus, as many Boston fans would remind you, he was black. HE AIN'T NO WELKAHHHH, I'LL TELL YOU THAT MUCH!

Ron Philly: SG, you've been mentioning Teen Wolf so much recently, but have not mentioned the final scene when the extra in the stand shows his "anatomy". This was apparently looked over by the editors. It was recently voted one of the biggest movie edit mistakes ever.

Bill Simmons: It's great and the best part is that he zips it up right as Michael J Fox is basically mounting his Dad in celebration like Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls ... it has to be one of the strangest last few seconds of any movie that's ever been made.

Although this only gets us 2/3 of the way through the chat, I think that's a good couple of notes to end on. What better sums up a Simmons chat than a quick reminder that Boston is full of racists and that Bill likes Teen Wolf? Yup, I've definitely had just about enough of this.

Oh, one last thing- Karate Kid!