Grantland has another MLB guy besides Jonah Keri. He's a dumbshit.

[Edited to change my comments on this bozo's Nationals 2B situation analysis.  He's a bozo.  I'm a bozo.  We're all bozos.]

Before I get into this though, you know what I noticed while cruising around Bill Simmons's Grantland Brought To You By Bill Simmons And Edited By Bill Simmons By Which I Mean Not Edited At All?  Bill did part 1 of his NBA trade value column back in late January, and hasn't done part 2 yet.  (There's a disclaimer at the end of part 1 that says part 2 will happen after the Super Bowl.)  This asshole is just as lazy as I am!  Holy shit, how do you let yourself get away with that as the EIC of a major content mill?  "Yeah, I just kind of set my own deadlines and then I don't stick to them, because I had some podcasts and TV work to do."  Sure, I do that all the time around here.  I also don't make a dime from this, and have another job to work in order to make dimes.  Fuck you, Bill.  I'll start working on that trade value column next week.  (Seriously!  I will!)

In the meantime, as I've said many many times, I don't really mind Jonah Keri that much.  But today I stumbled across an MLB spring training preview piece written by some diptard named Michael Baumann.  As you'll see when you start to read it, this isn't really meant to be taken as 100% serious analysis.  There's a decent number of "jokes" and a medium amount of whimsical bullshit.  But you'll also see that Michael actually does take his baseball knowledge seriously.  And that's why I'm writing this post.  Michael is also, according to his mini-bio, "author of the upcoming book Philadelphia Phenoms: The Most Amazing Athletes to Play in the City of Brotherly Love, due in November 2014."  This will be relevant later, when I get butthurt about what he says about my favorite team.  Away we go.

Yesterday, I listed the pressing spring training question facing each American League team. 

And don't think I won't take a shot at that if I get positive feedback on this post, buster.

Today, it’s the National League’s turn. 

Can't believe Simmons is paying someone to write about AAAA baseball lololololololol

I hope his AL-only keeper league has disbanded due to everyone in it realizing what a turd Bill is.

Here’s hoping we get some resolution by Opening Day! 

You sound like you're writing for Bleacher Report when you start an article like that!

Arizona Diamondbacks: Is Archie Bradley Archie Bradley again?

Excellent non-question.

Diamondbacks fans don’t have much to feel optimistic about, but that could change if Bradley, arguably the top pitching prospect in the game a year ago, 

Sure, but that was coming off of his 20 year old season spent at AA ball.  Even if he had been awesome in the minors in 2014, he probably wouldn't be slated for a callup until late this summer at the earliest.  As things stand, there's no way he's in Phoenix before 2016.  Not sure why this would be a really exciting spring training question.

bounces back from the injuries that derailed his 2014 campaign. 

Even during his awesome 2013 season, he still had a BB/9 over 4.  He needs a little more work.

Those ailments led to ineffectiveness and mechanical inconsistency, and so the cycle goes, but a healthy, effective Bradley has the potential to be the team’s best homegrown pitcher since Brandon Webb. 

Webb was never even any kind of elite prospect--he was an 8th round pick who didn't debut in the majors until he was 24, and had little minor league track record of dominance.  Those lucky assholes in Arizona. 

We’ll get a sense of his progress in camp. 

I know the Diamondbacks are going to suck this year, but I'm pretty sure you could have come up with something better than this angle.  Christ, just note that Paul Goldschmidt had an amazing 2013 and then just a really good 2014 and ask if he can get back to being an MVP candidate.

Atlanta Braves: How do Nick Markakis and Melvin (yes, Melvin) Upton look?

SO HILARIOUS AND INTERESTING THAT THIS TERRIBLE PLAYER WHO WILL BE OUT OF MLB IN A COUPLE OF YEARS DECIDED TO GO BY A DIFFERENT NAME.  I'M NOT AT ALL SICK OF HEARING ABOUT IT YET.  Christ.  If Upton played in New York or Boston this would be the biggest story in the game for the next six weeks.  Let's all count our blessings that this isn't the case.

After liquidating Jason Heyward, Evan Gattis, and Justin Upton, 

Eh, they got Shelby Miller for Heyward, but I'll grant that "liquidating" is an accurate verb as to what they did with Gattis and Upton.

the Braves brought in Markakis to play right field on a four-year, $44 million contract, which is weird, because that seems like a lot to give a 31-year-old corner outfielder who doesn’t hit for power and needed offseason neck surgery. 

Well, take a little trip on the Google machine and try "Braves new stadium racism."  Here's a great start!  It shouldn't be a surprise that they're doing a mini-rebuild that crafts a team, ahem, a little more in the image of their target fan demographic.

Even if he’s not 100 percent to start the season, though, Markakis can’t possibly be more disappointing than the newly christened Melvin Upton. 

WAIT DID HE CHANGE HIS NAME I DIDN'T HEAR!

It’s hard not to feel bad for Upton at this point, 

He is on a $75MM contract, and his problems at the plate are a result of his failure to change his approach once pitchers stopped throwing him fastballs.  Stuff your sorries for MELVIN in a sack, Michael.

but maybe something will finally click this spring and he’ll return to something approaching his former glory.

Doubtful.

Chicago Cubs: Who are those guys with the jersey numbers in the 70s?

Maybe they play offensive line for the Bears lol!!!!!

Adding ace Jon Lester and veteran outfielder Dexter Fowler will help the Cubs in the short term, but the buzz building around the franchise is largely based on Chicago amassing, in scientific terms, a butt load of young position players. 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We saw Javier Baez, Arismendy Alcantara, and Jorge Soler for the first time last year, 

All three of these guys could become good players, although Baez (admittedly the one with the highest pedigree) struck out in more than 40% of his PAs last year.  Obviously that will have to change.

and here’s a partial list of the nonroster invitees who will get a crack at major league camp: Addison Russell, Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, and Kyle Schwarber. 

True, this is regarded by pretty much everyone as the best farm system in baseball for good reason.  Now watch the Cubs find a way to royally fuck it up.

Also new to the team and sporting a number in the 70s: Joe Maddon, in case all the commotion made you forget that Chicago also added the game’s best manager this offseason. 

/Larry B adds "managers don't do that much" tag to post

The Cubs are either another year or another big trade away from making a run at the playoffs, but right now, this team is where the Nationals were four years ago. 

Hopefully they are leading the division in July, get greedy and deplete the farm system by trading for some rental player at the trade deadline, lose in the divisional round, and go back to sucking.  Doesn't sound like something Theo Epstein would do, but I can dream.

Cincinnati Reds: Can this team prove that the complex interpersonal relationships surrounding baseball are more interesting than the game itself?

No, because that premise only holds any water if you're a boring idiot who doesn't actually care about sports.

I make no secret of how profoundly boring I find exhibition baseball, 

Whoa, don't go too far out on that limb!  Most baseball fans, especially die hard baseball fans, find ST games RIVETING.

but the first week of Reds camp has shown that spring training can be interesting if you don’t pay attention to the games. Would I watch a matchmaking show about pitchers picking throwing partners in the style of a turn-of-the-century MTV dating program? Yes. 

WHO SAYS NO

Was the highlight of the preseason Mat Latos not only burning the bridge he just crossed to leave Cincinnati, but rigging it to explode in a shower of glitter and flower petals? It was, until out of nowhere, in came Marlon Byrd — who wasn’t even on the Reds last year — off the top rope to fire back at Latos. I’m so drunk on human drama I can’t keep my metaphors straight.

More interested in gossip than actual events that affect the outcome of games/seasons?  You're fitting right in at ESPN, buddy.  Good job.

Colorado Rockies: Y’all want a hug?

Fuck you, no they don't.  (This is where I get butthurt, as referenced earlier.)

I’m serious. I spent forever trying to give Rockies fans a reason to be optimistic other than “Maybe Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez won’t get hurt this year?” but I struck out.

Well, they have some actually-relevant-like-not-just-relevant-to-Rockies-fans young players like Nolan Arenado, Corey Dickerson and (maybe, fingers crossed) Tyler Matzek.   That's still a fair point--they will probably suck this year.  HOWEVA.  Here's where I lose my shit.

The Rockies are going to be bad again, and unlike other similarly bad teams, they don’t have a great chance of bouncing off rock bottom and back into contention thanks to their farm system or front office.

Oh, really?  Interesting--there is a pretty good consensus out there, from Keith Law (who I hate, but who knows prospects and farm systems very well thank you very much) on down, that the Rockies have a top 10 farm system.  I see that you are apparently a Philadelphia native, sir, and therefore likely a Phillies fan.  How are they doing these days?  What's that?  Just as shitty as the Rockies?  Interesting--they appear to also have, by most accounts, a bottom 10 farm system.  Can't wait for that Ryan Howard contract to finally come off the books in two seasons though!  Go fuck yourself, needledick.

But hey, Coors Field is lovely. I haven’t seen such a beautiful building filled with so much garbage since my last trip to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, though.

OH ZING WOW.  MODERN ART BURN. 

I hope the Phillies never win another game.

Los Angeles Dodgers: How weird is it going to be to see Jimmy Rollins and Howie Kendrick in Dodger uniforms?

Ooh, this guy has learned well from Simmons.  "How [noteworthy/interesting/weird] is [thing that isn't noteworthy/interesting/weird]?" has been a Bill staple for more than a decade now.

The Dodgers now have a pair of very experienced, very good two-way middle infielders in Rollins and Kendrick, 

Good to see him carrying water for former Phillie Rollins, who did have a good 2014, but was terrible in 2012 and 2013 and is on the wrong side of 35.  I'm sure the Dodgers won't miss Hanley Ramirez at all.

both of whom come from extremely stable double-play combinations (Rollins with Chase Utley since 2005, Kendrick with Erick Aybar since 2007). This spring, they’ll have to develop that kind of chemistry with each other. 

That's your spring training angle for this team?  This World Series contender, with the best pitcher in the game and one of the most interesting and talented young position players around?  Their new 2B and SS need to develop "chemistry?"  Hmm.  Arizona preview = boring.  Colorado preview = inaccurate.  Dodgers preview = boring.  Excuse me while I cry myself a river, but I've got a vague idea that perhaps Michael doesn't really give a flying shit about things that happen west of Pittsburgh.  We'll see what he does for the Giants and Padres.

Truthfully, though, the adjustment probably won’t be as hard on them as it will be on the fans; it’ll probably be June or July before seeing these guys in Dodger blue stops being jarringly weird.

GOD IT'S SO WEIRD THAT GUYS SWITCH TEAMS ISN'T IT?  SO WEIRD.  SPECIFICALLY WITH REGARD TO J-ROLL, WHO EVERYONE AGREES IS AS PHILADELPHIAN AS THE LIBERTY BELL AND CASUAL RACISM.

Miami Marlins: How is the Mighty Giancarlo Stanton’s Face?

I'm sure it's fine.

The big questions for Miami’s playoff hopes (when will Jose Fernandez come back? Is Dee Gordon actually good? What’s Christian Yelich’s ceiling?) can’t be answered in the spring. 

Uh, the last two of those sort of can.  Hell, all three of them sort of can.  I'm not going to look it up but I'm sure Fernandez is at spring training, going through rehab.  He had his surgery last May and was throwing by September.  He'll probably be ready for game action in the minors soon after the regular season starts.

But we haven’t seen TMGS take a swing in game action since Mike Fiers hit him in the face with a baseball in September. It’s overwhelmingly likely that he’s fine, 

Because that was a freak accident and baseball players get hit with pitches all the time, and you don't need your face to hit or throw, for fuck's sake it's not like the guy tore his hamstring or broke his back or something.

because the Marlins wouldn’t have signed him to a $325 million extension if they didn’t think he was, but I won’t be able to relax completely until he hits his first home run. 

What the fuck are you talking about?  Do you know what baseball is?

Milwaukee Brewers: What critter will the Brew Crew find at the ballpark this year?

OK, admittedly, drivel like this makes my criticism of his blurbs that seem to contain actual analysis feel a little out of place.  I don't care, it's my blog and if you don't like it I'm taking my ball and leaving.

The highlight of last season — yes, including Jonathan Lucroy’s insane breakout performance — was the emergence of Hank, a stray bichon frise mix who wandered into the team’s spring training facility and became the Brewers’ unofficial mascot. 

That was a highlight of last season on par with Lucroy's performance for Brewers fans under the age of 10 and over the age of 90.  Everyone else, I'm sure, was much more interested in Lucroy than a dog.

Hank was adopted by Brewers executive Marti Wronski, leaving a spot open for another animal to sneak into Maryvale Park and, from there, into our hearts. I’m rooting for a sheep this year.

Awesome joke.

New York Mets: Is it time for Thor? WE WANT THOR! WE WANT THOR!

I left that link in on purpose--I guess Mets fans refer to Noah Syndergaard as "Thor."  Mets fans are fucking idiots and I've never met one I liked.  This does not change that.

“You know, between Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, and Bartolo Colon, the Mets have a decent rotation. Matt Harvey’s throwing again — I don’t think you guys need to rush Noah Syndergaard to the maj—”

[A terrifying, baseball-headed man bursts through the wall, followed by a mob of blue-and-orange-clad villagers.] “WE WANT THOR! WE WANT THOR!” 

You know, that's less unfunny than most of Simmons's little imaginary dialogues.  Points for trying.

Philadelphia Phillies: Are the broken pitchers still broken?

Chad Billingsley and Cliff Lee would’ve made a great one-two punch in 2008, yet in 2015, the best-case scenario for the Phillies involves both returning to health. 

Sure, their current roster is a garbage fire past old-ass Chase Utley, "please trade me now" Cole Hamels and injured-ass Cliff Lee, and they have hands down the WORST front office in MLB, but totally, that's the big question this spring--can Lee and Chad Billingsley pitch up to expectations?  If they do, this team might win 75 games!

This team probably wouldn’t go anywhere even if both pitchers could return to their 2008 form, 

It sure as fuck wouldn't.

but both would make for attractive trade chips come midseason if would-be trade partners were convinced they’d stand up to a playoff run. 

Yeah, Ruben Amaro Jr. might be able to turn them into a couple bags of magic beans.  Phight on!

Pittsburgh Pirates: What can the Bucs expect from Jung Ho Kang?

What's this?  Relevant analysis that's more or less on point?

Spring training will be our first extended look at Kang, a 27-year-old South Korean infielder who arrived in Pittsburgh this offseason. With only $16 million invested in Kang, and Neil Walker and Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison already in the fold, the Pirates don’t need Kang to perform, but it’d sure be nice if he did. 

My God!  It is!  Who ghost-wrote this section for him?

Translating performance in the Korean Baseball Organization to MLB is still very much an inexact science, 

Oof, I don't hate the Pirates, but that translation is "an inexact science" in the sense that "the KBO is significantly worse than the NPB, and even the best players from the NPB often struggle to transition to MLB, sooooo....."

so even a few dozen spring at-bats should help the Pirates get a better idea of the kind of player they’ve bought. 

Fair enough.

San Diego Padres: Who’s going to play center field?

Hmmm.  After those Diamondbacks/Rockies/Dodgers blurbs, I was hoping this would say "Haha will the Padres be too distracted by San Diego's beautiful weather to have a good season?"  This is still a pretty dumb question, but it's made less dumb by the fact that Petco's CF is gigantic.

Contrary to popular opinion, going to war with three outfielders who fall just short of being able to play center field isn’t a season-killer. 

I... I don't think that's popular opinion.

The Dodgers, Cardinals, and Nationals have all won division titles without a real center fielder in recent years, though in all cases, that was a temporary solution. 

"Popular opinion, which no one actually subscribes to due to these very recent and obvious counterexamples..."

Right now, it looks like Wil Myers is going to play center field for San Diego, though if he doesn’t bounce back from a down sophomore season, it might be time to have a serious talk about whether Cameron Maybin, if healthy, can do enough on defense to be the more productive player overall. 

Maybin has a career 87 OPS+ in 2000 PA, and it's significantly worse than that since 2012.  It's time to stop thinking of him as a starter no matter how good his glove is.  Myers was rotten last year, but come on, he's got to be better than Maybin or the Padres just spent a bunch of money for no good reason.

San Francisco Giants: Do you think wearing three World Series rings at once looks tacky?

THERE we go.  There's the "other side of the country" analysis I expected.

PS--fuck the Giants

There’s not much to worry about here, since the Giants return almost everyone from the pretty well-rounded, veteran team that won the World Series last year. 

Oh for fuck's sake, come on.  This was an 88 win team that wouldn't have even made the playoffs prior to the second wild card being added in 2012.  They backed in, and then won it all because playoff baseball is much different than regular season baseball and Madison Bumgarner went apeshit.  Outside of Posey and Pence, the offense is a total joke.  If they don't get amazingly strong late career performances from Hudson and Peavy again, they're going to be an 84 win team that plays golf in October instead of what they were last year.  Some of this is sour grapes, but go on, convince me that there's "not much to worry about" for a team with this many old pitchers and shitty hitters. 

Some might worry about the downgrade from Pablo Sandoval to Casey McGehee at third base, but that’ll largely be offset by signee Nori Aoki filling the Mike Morse–size defensive hole in left field. 

Except that Aoki was awful on defense last year too, and unlike Morse, he can't hit for shit.  McGehee was a nice story last year but I'll be shocked if he can replicate Sandoval's numbers.  This team is going to score even fewer runs than they did last year, and I don't see that working out for them unless Bumgarner makes like 50 starts.

Now, watch them win 88 games and a wild card again, thanks to twenty walk off wins on infield singles at home and twenty 2-1 road wins where the other team strands like a million baserunners and the Giants get both their runs on a walk-error-bloop opposite field double sequence.

I see no reason why the Giants won’t be good again in 2015, then go on to win the World Series again in 2016.

Fuck the Giants.

St. Louis Cardinals: Will a change of scenery do Jason Heyward good?

Well, even though his power seems to be eroding as he enters his mid 20s (huh?) he was still worth 6.3 rWAR last year.  So I'm not sure he needed a change.

Heyward isn’t the player we’d hoped he’d be when he came up, but he’s already one of the top outfielders in the National League, and he’s still only 25. A shoulder injury he suffered as a second-year player kicked off a never-ending cycle of swing tinkering that seemed to limit his offensive potential, a theory Heyward himself spoke about after arriving in Cardinals camp. 

Big story here: player hasn't been playing well; blames nagging injury.

If Heyward doesn’t improve one bit, he’ll be a massive addition for St. Louis. 

Correct.

But if he meshes better with the coaching staff in St. Louis than he did in Atlanta and turns into a monster power hitter, we could see a breakout season of biblical proportions.

I have a hard time seeing him go from 14 HR to 11 HR to "monster power hitter" in three seasons, but he is really really good.  Knowing the Cardinals, he'll hit 40 this year.

Washington Nationals: How will Danny Espinosa do against righties?

No.  No.  A thousand times no.  This is not one of the fifty most pressing questions facing the Nationals this spring.  Espinosa has less than 500 PA in the last two seasons combined, because he can't fucking hit.  I'm sure failing at switch hitting is a big part of that, but who cares?  The Nationals traded for Yunel Escobar this offseason, and he's going to start.  Whether Bryce Harper RESPECTS THE GAME ENOUGH is a more pressing question than whether Espinosa can hit righties from the right side.

There aren’t many guys who have 20–home run power, 20-steal speed, and the ability to play above-average middle infield defense. Espinosa is one of them. 

And the Nationals don't need or want him to be one of them anymore, because they're trying to win right now.  Thus, he is a bench player, and thus, there are no pressing questions about him.

The problem is that though the switch-hitting Espinosa hit .301/.374/.485 while batting right-handed last year, he hit only .183/.241/.291 from the left side, which, given the prevalence of right-handed pitching, he did twice as often. 

He still only had 364 PAs, because for a lot of the season the Nationals tried to keep Zimmerman at 3B and Rendon at 2B.

Therefore, in addition to growing a stupendous, Jeff Daniels–in-Gettysburg mustache, 

NEW COLUMN IDEA: WHICH MLB PLAYER'S MUSTACHE IS BEST EXPLAINED BY EACH 2015 BEST PICTURE NOMINEE.

Espinosa is toying with the idea of giving up switch hitting. It’ll be very interesting to see how well that experiment works, and how long he sticks with it.

Michael Baumann sucks.

Some jackass wrote a puff piece about Simmons for Rolling Stone, and it's horrible (part 3)

First of all, I meant to include this in the initial post in this series but forgot.  Check out the photo accompanying this piece, which presumably took up a full page in the print edition of Rolling Stone.  Look at it.  It's magnificent.  HE'S SO EDGY.  Nothing says "Authority on Sports" like an awkward dad wearing a douchey LA outfit about to throw a basketball at you.



This is your favorite "sports" columnist, America.  Good job.  You assholes.

In his columns, Simmons embodies the precise average of American maleness: He loves sports, 

Fine.

movies, 

Women love movies too.

fantasy baseball 

Much as I enjoy it, fantasy baseball is not that popular.  

and hot actresses, and is not unfamiliar with porn. 

YEAH!  THAT'S TOTALLY ME!  OMG I SHOULD WRITE HIM A LETTER AND TELL HIM AND MAYBE I'LL GET PUBLISHED IN THE MAILBAG!  YEAH TITS HIGH FIVE BRO

"I don't have a shitload of hobbies," he says. "I'm not very complicated."

You don't say.

Once a year, he goes to Vegas with several friends — 

 But why????  Tell us, Rob Tannenbaum!  Why would anyone go to Vegas?  It's hot there!

to gamble. 

No fucking way.

This is so shitty.  Why is this an article?  Even for Rolling Stone, this sucks.  Would it have been "controversial" if he went there to visit strip clubs?  More importantly, does anyone give a flying fuck why this simpleton goes on vacation?  He could be going to Vegas to check out its public library.  Who cares?  Is any of this relevant?

"He's much more interested in playing cards than in seeing naked girls," Jimmy Kimmel says, with a tone of disdain. 

OK?  I guess Kimmel is razzing him?  Is this relevant?  Come to think of it, it might be relevant, because if he's as bad at cards as he is at picking NFL games, man, he's going to have some financial problems.  

On his podcast, Simmons often talks about betting on games — up to $1,000 on individual games, or $2,000 on futures bets, he tells me. "I love gambling. I wish it was legal. But I never bet a lot, even in Vegas. Unless I'm really drunk."

HIGH FIVE AGAIN BRO!  REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU WERE SO BOMBED????  Bill Simmons is a 17 year old boy who somehow makes 7 figures a year.

He won't say whether or not he has a bookie in L.A., which means he likely does. 

SPICY!  SALACIOUS!  Who is reading this and going "Wow, I gotta keep going.  There might be something EVEN BETTER further down the page!"

And if he offers you a bet, you should probably take it — last football season, he won only 108 out of 256 picks against the spread in his column. "It was kind of a bummer," he says, though he points out that in 2006, he had his wife Kari make her own football picks in his column. "And she beat me. So if I had credibility after that gimmick, it was an accident." 

Another surprising display of self awareness.  Fair enough.  Although I suspect he is only saying this because he feels he has to, and still is 100% confident in most picks he makes.  THAT SPREAD IS WAY TOO HIGH.  THANKS FOR THE FREE TWO POINTS, VEGAS.  /team Bill didn't bet on beats spread by two touchdowns

(Kari was also at least as funny as her husband. 

Not a chance.

She said Lindsay Lohan would "look like a leather purse in 25 years no matter how much Proactiv she takes," and theorized that Katie Holmes "had her ankles removed" so she'd be the same height at Tom Cruise.)

Watch out, Joan Rivers!  Someone's coming for your "queen of celebrity bashing" crown!  Actually, now that I re-read the first part of that parenthetical, I totally agree.  Bill's wife IS about as funny as he is.

Simmons will always be associated with New England — he might love Tom Brady and Larry Bird as much as he loves his wife and two kids — but he's unsentimental about his roots. 

Wrong.  I can't wait to see how he spins this one.

"I don't think you could get him to go back to Boston at gunpoint," Kimmel says. 

If he could maintain his current role at ESPN while doing that (which of course would be impossible if he wanted to stay on NBA Countdown and he obviously does), I'm sure he'd do it in a second.  TOO MANY LAKER FLAGS ON CARS.  GOD THOSE FANS ARE JUST INSUFFERABLE.  FACK YOUUUU!

Simmons is credited as an Internet visionary, but he went into new media only because old media rejected him. 

That is completely correct.  While this article does suck, I like that it's being honest about Bill imperfections.  It's not that in 1990whatever he was like "I know exactly what the internet will be in 2014, so I'm getting on the train early."  It's that he's a bad writer and allegedly insufferable to work with, so he couldn't get an old media job.  Just because he stumbled ass-backwards into success by being good at making pop culture references appreciated by people as dumb as him (and I was that kind of person until 2004 or 2005, I admit, but I was also a lot younger and dumber then) doesn't mean we need to pretend like he invented the idea of blogging about sports.

"Boston," he says, "is where I failed."

Well, Los Angeles is where you continue to fail, but yeah, I get what you're saying.

He began his career as a lackey at the Boston Herald, the lesser of the city's two daily papers, "organizing Chinese-food orders" and covering high school teams. 

His co-workers could never understand what he was saying due to the huge silver spoon in his mouth.  I wonder how many other "applicants" he beat out to get that job?

He stood outside the Herald building on the Mass Turnpike, smoking cigarettes and "wondering what the fuck I was gonna do with my life."

Bill Simmons is, and always was, a boring clod.

Except for the addition of tall buildings, Boston hasn't changed since Paul Revere bought a horse. 

Still as racist as ever!

TV anchors and newspaper columnists keep their jobs for decades, and at the Herald, "mediocre writers were blocking my way," Simmons later wrote. 

Just as they should block the way of any sub-mediocre writer.  You know, I hate that all those guys who play minor league baseball are blocking the way and preventing me from playing major league baseball.  They've got a lot of nerve!

"I didn't do myself any favors," he adds now. "I was probably too arrogant, 

NO WAY I DON'T BELIEVE IT NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT

and could barely hide my disdain for some of the writers." After three years, "frustrated to the point of insanity," he quit and worked as a bartender. At 24, he began smoking pot, 

MORE SCANDAL.  I BET HE HAD A BOOKIE TOO.

and soon owned a four-foot purple bong. (In L.A., he discovered West Coast weed was way more potent, and one night, ended up "hiding behind the curtains in my living room for 40 minutes because I thought somebody was watching us. After that, I phased back big time.") 

BUT DOES HE LIKE STRIPPERS?????

He considered going into commercial real estate 

Dear sweet baby Jesus, can you imagining negotiating a contract with this guy?  My head hurts just from typing that sentence.

with his stepdad before he came across a new website, AOL, where even a Herald reject could write.

What if he had somehow caught on and stayed there, rather than moving to ESPN?  Would ESPN still be as cool as it was in the 90s, with AOL's sports wing filling ESPN's current role of "purveyor of incredibly shitty and celebrity-obsessed sports content?"  I guess it all depends on who gets bought by Disney in this hypothetical world.  Fuck Disney.

He wrote with a fan's dismay and delight, rejecting the idea of being objective (a Boston partisan, he openly despises the L.A. Lakers and any team from New York), 

Here are all the teams from New York he can name:

1) YANKEES!  FACK THE YANKEES IN SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER!

2) Knicks (but really, why hate them, they're not really worth hating)

3) Nets INSERT MIKHAIL PROKHOROV/YAKOV SMIRNOV JOKE HERE

4) They might have another baseball team, but I don't follow the minor leagues

5) /Bill eats paste

and attacking local sportswriters by name. No team would give him a press pass, so while newspaper guys padded short articles with boring quotes from athletes, Simmons distinguished himself by mixing in references to bands and movies (especially Shawshank Redemption and Karate Kid), 

Thank goodness.  Someone who really had their finger on the pulse of America's tastes.

and by writing long: "85,000-word essays about Rocky IV," Kimmel jokes.

OK, I will back off a little and admit that I like Rocky IV.  Non-ironically.

Simmons' early work had flaws — bitterness, cheap cracks about the manliness of female athletes, praise for the Counting Crows — 

Please delete the word "early" from that sentence and change "had" to "will always have"

but it was also funny, fresh, expansive, and even sentimental, especially when he wrote adoringly about his dad and their sports bond. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That's the secret element of Simmons' success: He's the most emo sportswriter around. 

I wouldn't call it a secret.  I'd call it an unfortunate and insufferable reality.

He once penned a 3,000-word column describing how his dog Daisy died of lymphoma. It's the Fall Out Boy of sports columns.

In that it's terrible and no one should pay attention to it?  Gotcha.

In 2000, when ESPN launched Page 2, a site that mixed sports, pop culture and humor, Simmons waited for his phone to ring. "That was probably the lowest I sunk, when ESPN didn't hire me for Page 2," he says. 

What an entitled little shithead.

He was in his early thirties, still borrowing money from his parents. 

But those mean people at the Boston Herald were mean and didn't let me write whatever I wanted to write!  It wasn't fair!  I didn't want that stupid really hard to get job anyways!

A few months after the launch, he wrote a column mocking ESPN's annual awards show, and his taunts got noticed. "I was on the floor laughing," recalls ESPN's John A. Walsh. 

John Walsh is a fucking dummy.  He certainly comes off as such in Those Guys Have All the Fun.

Soon, Simmons had his first ESPN assignment. If there's a moral, it's this: Bite the hand you cannot kiss.
I'd say the obvious "moral," if you're going to give the story of Simmons's success that much gravitas, is to appeal to stupid people.  There's a lot of them and they're easy to please.  His rise to power at ESPN is idiocracy in corporate media form.  I'll give him this, though--he's probably less of a shithead than Mariotti.

I'll wrap this up later.

Bill Simmons started watching the 2013 Red Sox in August, and hey, what do you know, a championship! Time to write about them like he had been paying attention all season (Part 1)

This article is actually an expose on Big Papi, rather than the 2013 Red Sox as a whole.  But they're one and the same for our (OW-UH) purposes.  And since Bill couldn't be bothered to watch the 2012 Red Sox after it became clear by early summer that they were not going to be the Best Team Ever, nor was he able to stomach the 2013 Red Sox until most of the way through the season when it became clear they would make the playoffs, he begins with 4,000 words about something exactly like Big Papi and the Red Sox: Bill Russell.

Tomorrow afternoon in Boston, Massachusetts, the great Bill Russell finally gets his own statue.

I'm just going to get this out of the way early and not go back to it (unless Bill does something really super terrible later on): Boston is a racist city that actively disliked Russell while he was leading the Celtics to like 12 championships in 13 years or whatever it was.  Racism.  Boston.  Potato.  Poe-tah-toe.  It still makes me laugh even though it's so sad.  But I don't want to go back to the well for that kind of joke 50 times throughout the course of this post, so that'll be it for now.

Details were scarce until recently. We know the statue will be unveiled in City Hall Plaza, that it stands about eight feet tall, that a talented local artist named Ann Hirsch created it.

WE KNOW THE FACKIN' C'S LET US DOWN YET AGAIN LAST YE-AH AND HAVE NOW GAWN FIVE SEASONS WITHOUT WINNING A TITLE; IT'S ALMOST TO MUCH TO BEH-AHHHHHHHHHHH.  I AM AN NBA AWWWWWW-PHAN UNTIL FAHTHAH NOTICE.

We know President Obama passed through Boston on Wednesday and caught an early glimpse. We know Russell and his family will attend the ceremony — no small feat, because Russell is wired like a Sicilian mafia boss. He remembers every slight, every offense, every ill word, everything. Boston let him down for good a long time ago.

At least Bill acknowledges it.

He gave up on Boston. Gave up on the city. Gave up on the people. Bill Russell has spent the past four decades living in Seattle, on Mercer Island, about as far from Boston as you can get without falling into the Pacific Ocean.

When I spent the day with Russell last November, 

NO BIG DEAL

he maintained that he didn't care about Boston anymore. 

I think moving to Seattle is a pretty good hint that he's not bluffing.

Little clues throughout our conversation said otherwise. He remembered everyone mistakenly assuming that a budding Celtics dynasty would come to a halt in 1963, when Bob Cousy retired, as if the Cooz was the reason for those first six titles. He remembered playing more than one Game 7 in a Boston Garden that was only 70 percent full, and he definitely remembered Bobby Orr's Bruins selling out games in December and January. He remembered the reaction after Red Auerbach named Russell as his coaching successor, as if nobody could believe that a black guy — a black guy — could tell a bunch of white people what to do. He remembered the idiots who wrecked his new house, destroyed his trophies and defecated on his walls, because how would anyone ever forget something like that? He definitely remembered how Boston fans deified Larry Bird, how they put him on a pedestal for winning eight fewer titles than Russell did.

It seems Bill is trying to get into a semantics argument and say that "still being really angry at a city that never appreciated his greatness because of his skin color" is different than not caring.  You and I, since we have brains, know that you can be furious about something but not really, truly care about it.  You can just leave it behind and let it fade away.  Which sounds exactly like what Russell was doing, except that it's harder for him to forget all those things than it is for you and I to forget that the coach cut us from the 9th grade baseball team, because 1) as Bill just said, Russell is wired like a crazy person and 2) he was disrespected because of the way he was born; you and I were disrespected (read: told by the universe to give up) because we sucked at baseball.

These moments kept coming up, and they kept coming up, and by the end of it, I just assumed that Bill Russell would never return to Boston. That he would live the rest of his life and die in Seattle, and that would be it. 

And all they had to do to lure him back for a few days was PUT UP A FUCKING STATUE OF HIM.  What a faker that Russell is--always pretending like he was deeply hurt by racism!

We spent the first chunk of our interview in Russell's basement, with the six-time MVP standing in front of his trophy case and telling stories about everything inside it. A few months earlier, he had undergone a heart procedure and was still recovering from it. Someone close to him warned us, "Make sure he doesn't stand for too long — he's still a little weak."  Like a dummy, I became so enthralled with our conversation that I kept him standing for 90 solid minutes. 

Riveting journalism.  "I interviewed Bill Russell.  He was standing.  Someone told me to make sure he didn't stand too much.  Later, we sat."

I can remember exactly where we were — the left corner of his basement,

I FEEL LIKE I'M THERE!  Also, what the fuck is the "left corner" of a room?  Is Russell's house in a side scrolling video game?

at the tail end of a wall covered with framed photos, magazine covers and newspaper clippings. Russell had framed a Boston Herald article from June 1986, right after Bird won his third title — the summer when Larry Legend could have announced that he was walking across the Charles River and 50,000 locals would have scurried down there to witness it — 

OW-UH FANS AHHHH MO-AH GULLIBLE THAN YO-AH FANS!

when many believed that Bird was the greatest basketball player ever. 

I said I wouldn't do more racism jokes.  I said I wouldn't do more racism jokes.  /grits teeth

You know who disagreed with that argument? Larry Joe Bird. He maintained that Bill Russell was the best, that the 11 rings spoke for themselves. The headline of the piece said something like "Bird: Russell Still the Best." If you think it doesn't mean anything that Russell framed this article and put it in his basement, then you don't know anything about Bill Russell.

And since you've never met him and stood with him for a medium amount of time, you definitely don't know him like I do!  Hey did I mention I got to meet Bird at one point too?

And as we were talking about it, suddenly, his eyes went blank.

A FAKE FORGETFUL blank.

I was standing there looking up at Russell — remember, he towers over me by eight inches — 

Still more beautiful and expository writing.  Bill Russell is tall.  Also a nice humblebrag tucked in there; just so you know, Bill is over six feet.  AND HE PLAYS PICKUP BASKETBALL STILL HIS KIDS ARE CRAZY KOBE BRYANT USED STEROIDS EFF YOU MODE!

waiting for his next sentence to come. We had a camera crew watching us from a few feet away, along with a few other selected guests. 

Peter King was there, for some reason, asking Russell what his favorite Sam Adams seasonal was.

I thought Russell had dramatically paused before his next point, eventually realizing that he couldn't get his next breath. I can still see his face — dark and weathered, white beard, whiskers popping from the sides like snowflakes. I can still see his blank eyes. I remember panicking about 1.8 seconds before anyone else started to panic. Oh my god. We killed Bill Russell. Someone frantically pulled over a tall stool. We urged him to sit down. Russell asked for a minute. We stood there in silence, watching one of the greatest athletes who ever lived now struggling to breathe. Someone gave him a bottle of water and that helped.

Bill Russell is 79.  Everyone knows this (NO ONE DENIES IT!).  This is not even slightly interesting, and I would be shocked if Bill wasn't embellishing the amount of drama in the moment.  The guy is old; old people get tired just from watching TV, let alone talking.  Please, continue this riveting tale.  What happened next?  Did you continue the interview?

We decided to change locations, moving upstairs into Russell's living room, 

So, how about David Ortiz and those 2013 Red Sox?  What a playoff run.

where we had arranged one of those traditional interview setups with two chairs facing each other. Russell made his way up the stairs — slowly, painstakingly, to the point where you could feel every step — 

Copy and paste my analysis from above.  Also, that's truly horrendous writing.

before finding his chair and sitting down. The camera crew hustled to turn on the lights and set everything else up, 

And to turn on their cameras and set up the sound and stuff!  It was neat!  This is turning into a long-winded 2nd grader's story about a trip to the zoo, only less interesting.

and now Russell and I were just looking at each other. I was concerned. Really, really concerned. Russell was staring at me with glassy eyes. He was in another place. Just concentrating on his breaths. 

HOLY SHIT BECAUSE HE'S OLD.  HAVE YOU EVER SPENT TIME WITH AN OLD PERSON BEFORE

The room was dead silent, like a church, with everyone else fretting and talking in hushed-beyond-hushed tones. His friend Charlie kept telling us, "He's fine, just give him a minute, he's fine."

And then … BOOM! Bill Russell was fine. He sprang back to life. "I'm OK," he said, unleashing his trademark laugh, and I can still feel my own heart racing happily after he said it. 

I considered doing that thing that I often do with TMQ writing where I cut a paragraph off midsentence and fast forward to the next point, but I wanted to firmly establish for you how horrendous this article is.  So far, in like 1500 words, we have 1) learned that Simmons did an interview with Bill Russell 2) learned that one part of the interview involved Larry Bird praising Bill (what a shock that that made it into the article) and 3) had Simmons tell us what walking around a house with a 79 year old is like.  Jesus H.

We spent the next 90 minutes talking about his life. The interview ended and everyone shook hands. 

But what about Charlie?  You can't just bring in a new character and then leave us hanging!

Our crew started packing up. I sat down at Russell's kitchen table with my friend Hirschy, the biggest basketball fan I know, 

And we agreed that the Thunder at 7/1 to win the title this year is WAY TOO HIGH.  THANKS FOR THE FREE MONEY, VEGAS.

as well as someone who had helped arrange the entire day. This wasn't just one of the highlights of our careers; this was one of the highlights of our lives. We were trying to act like adults. We were trying to remain professional. 

Just take about 5 semesters of high school level English composition classes and you might get there one day.

We were fighting off the urge to repeatedly high-five each other while screaming "YES!!!!" and "WE DID IT!" A three-hour hang in Bill Russell's house? With Russell talking about anything and everything?

We thought he'd schedule the interview, invite us in, and then only want to talk about NASCAR!

"Where's Bill?"

Russell's voice.

"Where's Bill?"

Me?

WHO'S ON FIRST LOL

I stood up.

"Come here. I want to show you something," Bill Russell said.

"It's the door.  Beat it, you fucking moron."

Bill's mailbag of horseshit is horsier and shittier than ever, part 3

Woof.  Not sure I'm going to be able to finish this.  It's at least one post after this one, and in the meantime he has put out a hilarious NFL season preview in which the Patriots are the second best team in the NFL.  Gotta get to that eventually.  Anyways, I'll try to breeze through this.  Some of it is bad enough to be presented without comment.  Like this:

Q: Are you aware that the President of the American Leprosy Missions is named Bill Simmons?
—Warren K, Adelaide, AUS

SG: Did you know that my middle name begins with a "J," and that the second Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1915 by the Reverend William J. Simmons? 

Yep, so that's that.  Go to Grantland if you don't believe me.  Actually, unless you feel very very compelled to do so, don't go to Grantland.  It sucks.

Q: How is it possible that Grantland's Best Song of the Millennium Bracket did not include "Seven Nation Army"? As the commander-in-chief of Grantland, I am appalled that you allowed this travesty to transpire. It is probably the most distinctive guitar intro of the last decade plus, and the song was definitely played enough to warrant a spot on the list. Use your powers and fix this immediately.
—Andrew, Thousand Oaks

IT IS INFURIATING TO ME THAT YOUR NONSENSICAL BRACKET BASED ENTIRELY ON SUBJECTIVITY DID NOT INCLUDE A SONG THAT SOME PEOPLE HATE AND SOME PEOPLE LIKE AND WHICH I LIKE.

SG: Heat fans ruined that song. 

Everyone ruined that song, including Andrew from Thousand Oaks.

Q: In light of the ongoing debate over the name of the Washington Redskins, don't you think it's time Boston changed the name of Yawkey Way, given that Tom Yawkey was an open racist who refused the integration of baseball?
—Kieran, Portsmouth

Let's watch Bill tapdance around this one.  And by tapdance, I don't mean give the very obvious answer: "Redskin is a slur and Yawkey is not, so there's that.  On the other hand, Yawkey was a huge bag of shit.  It's unlikely either name will change, although there are great arguments that both should, but mostly let's just agree that racism sucks and both Washington's NFL team (ACTUALLY THEIR STADIUM IS IN MARYLAND LOL, signed TMQ) and Boston could use a lot less of it." No, by tapdance, I mean, talk about what a great guy Yawkey was and try to come up with reasons why honoring racists is a good thing.

SG: Given that Yawkey Way is the road you walk down as you're about to stroll into Fenway Park, yeah, I'd say that's a little awkward. Especially if you were a black Red Sox fan thinking to yourself, Wow, if it were 1949 and I was good at baseball, the guy they named this street after wouldn't have let me play on his team. Hold on, lemme work up a good loogie to spit.

But Yawkey owned the Red Sox for 44 years (longest baseball reign ever at the time), 

Irrelevant.

helped turn the Jimmy Fund into one of America's best cancer charities 

Relevant, but only to the extent Yawkey was actually responsible for this, and who knows what that extent is.  Also, when I say relevant, I don't mean "Maybe Yawkey was a good guy after all," I just mean "Maybe Yawkey wasn't 100% a piece of shit."

and even got elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame. 

Irrelevant.

His shadow hangs over the 20th century for Red Sox fans, for better and worse. 

Mostly for worse.  And he didn't even give Red Sox fans trying to defend him today the cold comfort of some on-field success.

Dave Zirin and I discussed this very theme on Wednesday's podcast: Changing a street name, pretending your history doesn't exist, 

Love the ability of some people to pretend that not honoring someone or something is the same as pretending they didn't exist.  We HAVE to name a street after Yawkey!  We don't have a choice, we'd be lying to ourselves if we didn't!  It's not hate, it's heritage!

and not giving your fans a chance to discuss and digest what happened … 

And again, apparently without that street being named after him, there's just no way fans will be able to learn and digest the team's racist history.

I mean, that isn't the greatest idea, either. Yawkey was a flawed guy in extremely flawed times, and if the street makes you remember that and appreciate the progress we've made over the past six decades, maybe that's not a bad thing.

Yeah, that's it!  Let's have an annual "Yawkey Day" at Fenway, where minority fans have to sit in segregated sections, and the Sox have to field an all-white lineup!  It's the best way to appreciate how far we've come!

Here's what I'm thinking: What if we went the other way? What if you kept the name of the street, but you built statues of Pumpsie Green (the first minority Red Sox player), Jim Rice, Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz 

Torii Hunter is extremely angry that Bill is trying to lump those last two in with the first two.

that would be strategically positioned along Yawkey Way? And then, you point out on each statue that the Red Sox were the last franchise to integrate their team, and that once upon a time, our racist owner Tom Yawkey fought for years and years to maintain an all-white Red Sox team? (Thinking.) Or we could just change the name to Dave Roberts Drive and be done with it. What Red Sox fan wouldn't feel like a million bucks walking down Dave Roberts Drive? I need to think about this some more.

He tried to save it with a half-joke at the end there, but let's face it, that whole answer is pretty sad (though not unexpected).

Q: I was just rereading "Now I Can Die In Peace" for the 10th time and couldn't help but notice your take on A-Rod after he slapped the ball out of Arroyo's glove like a ninny in Game 6: you said the play " … exposed A-Rod as a liar and cheater of the highest order, the kind who would turn over an R in Scrabble a pretend its a blank letter." Touché sir. You called it.
—Tyler, Durham, NH

Remember that time A-Rod broke an on-field baseball rule?  THAT TOTALLY PROVED THAT HE WOULD ABUSE STEROIDS THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER.  GOOD JOB BILL NOW PUBLISH MY LETTER.  Tyler from Durham sucks.

Q: Did you read Bill Barnwell's piece on the yearly QB Championship belt? He gave Peyton Manning six seasons of belts and Tom Brady 1. My roommate and I think he's trying to get you to fire him so he can join Peter King's site.
—Danny, Lincoln NE

SG: We certainly can't rule it out. Obviously, I would have given Brady the 2003 and 2004 belts for leading a juggernaut that won two straight Super Bowls, 

Or you could just do what Barnwell did in that article, and give the belt to the guy with the best stats, rather than the best defense and coach.

finished 34-4 over that stretch (including an NFL-record 21 straight victories) 

18-1.  18-1.  18-1.  That is all that matters.

and beat the Colts all four times they played (including twice in the playoffs). 

That PROVES that Brady was better!

We left the 2004 playoffs believing that Brady was the next Montana, that he owned Manning and the Colts, and that there was no better money QB in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. 

Stealing my damn bit.

Had someone written a column in February 2005 based around the premise "I don't care what just happened, I'm still giving the QB Championship belt for these past two years to Peyton Manning," he would have seemed like a crazy person … right?

With Barnwell's stat-based criteria?  No.  Manning had like 1500 more yards, 25 more TD, 6 fewer INT, and a QB rating about 20 points higher those two years.  Brady had an awesome defense and Bill Belichick.

And just so you don't think I'm a homer (you're right, we're about 10 years too late), I would have given Eli Manning the 2011 belt for carrying a 9-7 Giants team past Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, a terrific Niners defense in San Francisco, then Brady in the Super Bowl. We left that season believing that he was the best big-game QB in football, right? Same logic as Brady in 2003 and 2004. 

You're an idiot.

As for 2012 … I don't know. Joe Flacco submitted one of the best QB postseasons ever, but didn't that feel more like a good QB catching fire for a month than someone becoming the league's best QB? 

YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

Q: After Game 7 of the NBA Finals, SportsCenter cut you in the postgame show off right as you were going to say something about The Decision! What was it?????
—Matt Scully, SF

SG: Part of me never wanted to answer this question, just because I enjoyed so many conspiracy theorists thinking ESPN intentionally cut me off there. Really, you think ESPN would do anything like THAT? (Thinking.) Fine, it's probably the wrong week to ask that question. But if that were true, then that means I uttered the words "The Decision" and a panicked director in Bristol immediately screamed, "CUT HIS MIC!" within 0.015 seconds. Come on. Nobody can react that fast.

First of all, it's insulting that he thinks anyone reading this doesn't know that TV is on a delay FOR THIS EXACT REASON, that mics can be cut if people say bad shit.  Second of all:  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (link does not refer to this same incident, but to one similar enough to make everything he just said pathetic and obviously disingenuous)

So what did I actually say? The same thing I've written in my column before — that "The Decision" was considered a disaster when it happened, but it's really the best thing that happened to the NBA since Jordan came back from baseball. From the spring of 2010 through the summer of 2013, everything happening with LeBron James was more interesting than anything else happening in any other sport. 

Just like how Midnight Run is our least-aged 1980s comedy!

Anyway, that's what I said — and I did make that entire point. Magic was even nodding with that super-impressed, "I like where you're goin' with this, Bee-wwl" look on his face. 

That's kind of racist.

Q: Did you see Nestle launched a contest to build a female sports fan her own Wo-man Cave, or as they're calling it, the WoCave? If anyone can come up with a better name than WoCave it's you.
—Sarah, DFW

SG: Thanks for your unwavering support, Sarah. You're right, if I can't top a name that sounds like the name of a magazine targeted at gynecologists, I should just retire right now. In my opinion, no female-twisted play on the words "Man Cave" can work. Especially the reprehensible WoCave. Forge your own identity, ladies. Since it's a place to hang out, a cave-like word like "nest," "den," "lair," "bunker," "lounge," "haven" or "hideaway" needs to 

This goes on for an additional paragraph.

Q: What's your very best piece of life advice?
—Chuck Alexander

SG: You mean something that didn't come from George Costanza ("Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it"), David Halberstam ("Being a professional means doing your job on the days you don't want to do it"), Ferris Bueller ("Life moves pretty fast — if you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it") and Milton Berle ("If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door")? Hmmmmmm. I'd go with this advice …

Don't worry about what other people are doing. Worry about what you're doing.

Nope.  Not here at this blog.  Worrying about what other people are doing is pretty much the only thing we do.

Bill's NBA offseason tardfuckery, part 1

To the commenter from last post asking me if I saw the Deadspin thing with the dunk contest participant responding to Bill, why yes, of course I did.  All that needs to be said is that if anyone is surprised by Bill 1) not knowing the name of a common hairstyle worn predominantly by black people and 2) picking the very unremarkable and only white entrant as the winner of a dunk contest, they shouldn't be.  Anyways, come along with Bill on a memorable revisiting of one of the 250 greatest comedies of the 1980s.  Just wait until you see which Midnight Run lines he associates with which NBA offseason storylines!  You'll find yourself laughing out loud while also (nodding)!

"Marvin! Marvin! Look out!"

One of the movie's best running jokes (Jack Walsh repeatedly tricking a rival bounty hunter into turning around so Jack can sucker punch him) goes to the Thunder, who keep allowing their title chances to get sucker punched because of their irrational love of Kendrick Perkins. 

OH MY GOD IT'S PERFECT.  GUY GETTING PUNCHED = TEAM WITH QUESTIONABLE ROSTER MANAGEMENT SKILLS.  HOW DOES THIS MAN SO SEAMLESSLY WEAVE SPORTS AND POP CULTURE TOGETHER?  HE'S A MAGICIAN

Have you ever impulsively bought a piece of furniture you didn't really need — like a coffee table or something — 

No?

and within three weeks, you begrudgingly realize that it doesn't fit in with everything else in the house?

No?

And that you blew it? And should stick that dumb purchase in the garage, where it belongs? But you get all stubborn about it, so that coffee table lingers in your house for an extra three years before you finally suck it up and do something about it?

"Hey, do you ever do that thing where you spend a bunch of money on a beautiful but useless thing, but then end up holding onto the thing when you should just chop it up and use it for firewood in your beautiful fireplace in your beautiful Brentwood mansion?  Happens to me all the time."  Christ, what a fucking asshole.

(That's why I still find it bizarre that they didn't shoehorn Perkins's deal into that Harden trade. And, hey, here's an idea if you're worried about money — don't move from the 14th-biggest TV market to the 45th-biggest TV market.)

Look, I hate the Thunder and I'm sure Clay Bennett is a gaping asshole.  But that was kind of the point when he bought the team, no?  It wasn't "I'm buying this NBA team, and also, hey, maybe a move to OKC would be nice," it was "I'm buying this team so I can move them to OKC."  So that last sentence is kind of worthless in the context of this paragraph.  One of these years Bill will stop bringing up the Harden trade/Perkins contract, and the world will be a better place for it.  It's like the interplay between those two decisions and the effect they had on the Thunder is the only mildly nuanced thing he's ever figured out in his entire life, so he has to jam the fact that he knows how it all worked down our throats every fucking column.

(By the way, I don't know why the guy who plays Marvin didn't become, at the very least, the star of a funny sitcom, and I don't know if he's That Guy Who Played Marvin Dorfler or That Guy Who Played Billy Rosewood's Partner.

Earlier in this same column (from my last post), Kid Show Business enlightens us:  Some people never find the right part, and there's more luck involved than you'd think.

Four paragraphs later:  I CAN'T BELIEVE THINGS DIDN'T WORK OUT FOR THAT ONE GUY WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THAT

"I'm gonna tell ya something. I want this guy taken out, and I want him taken out fast. You and that other dummy better start getting more personally involved in your work, or I'm gonna stab you through the heart with a f----ing pencil."

To Larry Legend again — 

He already spent a whole paragraph (not copied/pasted here) crediting Bird for every win in Pacers franchise history, writing War and Peace and the invention of the airplane.  But sure, how about some more reminders that Bird used to play for Bill's favorite team?

he quickly dumped every recent Indy move he didn't make (D.J. Augustin, Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee), and he didn't even have to stab GM Kevin Pritchard with a f---ing pencil. Much respect to Larry's Pacers 

That's what their uniforms should say next year!

for assembling a legitimate contender despite (a) the crippling aftereffects of the Artest melee, 

Holy Jesus on a pogo stick, are you fucking serious?  THAT HAPPENED ALMOST NINE YEARS AGO.  The day after the suspensions for that incident were handed down, if you told a Pacers fan "Don't worry, you'll have a good team again by 2012 or so, they'd say to you "I sure as fuck hope so."  Crimny, why don't you just credit him for overcoming the difficulties associated with the ABA/NBA merger while you're at it?

(b) everyone in Indiana turning on the team and professional basketball in general, 

Again, this happened in 2005.

(c) being a small-market team that could never pay the tax under any circumstances, 

That's like 24 out of the 30 teams in the league.  GOOD JOB LARRY, WAY TO WORK WITHIN THE SAME CONFINES AS PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE ELSE

and (d) never picking higher than 10th. Degree of difficulty there: 9.89 out of 10. Now if he can only convince Paul George to switch to no. 13 so we can call him PG-13. Come on. How hard is this?

We have covered that last part already.  It wasn't funny three months ago, and it's not funny now.

"Can I at least have some French fries?"
"I said no, pecker breath, now shut up."

One of my favorite throwaway exchanges goes to my favorite throwaway revelation of the summer: George telling Slam Magazine about the time Larry Legend showed up for a Pacers practice, "picked a ball up that had rolled over," then "rolled up his sleeves and made about 15 in a row and just walked out like nothing just happened," adding, "We were speechless. We didn't know whether to keep shooting or just to end practice. It was sweet, man." The Legend!

There are people that think Bill Simmons is a great sportswriter.  If you know any of them, push them under the next steamroller you see.

"SERRANO'S GOT THE DISKS! SERRANO'S GOT THE DISKS! SERRANO'S GOT THE DISKS!!!"

The flimsiest plan in the movie (Jack Walsh somehow talking the FBI into trying that crazy airport plan to catch Serrano, then pulling it off) goes to David Stern's flimsiest plan, which could be summarized like this …

1. Allow the Sonics to move to Oklahoma City (and ruin basketball in Seattle).
2. Don't allow the Kings to move to Seattle (so we don't ruin basketball in Sacramento).
3. Keep Seattle open as an ongoing threat to every other NBA team that doesn't get an arena deal done.

Again, like Clay Bennett is a huge piece of shit, David Stern is also a huge piece of shit.  But let's give him a sliver of a benefit of a doubt and think that, hey, gee, maybe Stern worked overtime to keep the Kings in Sacramento because he learned from his mistake with Seattle.  Maybe he didn't want to be the guy that "killed" basketball in two cities.  It's pretty lame to see a guy not repeat his past actions, actions for which he was excoriated, and then say "You're a flip-flopper!"

In other words, Stern turned Seattle's NBA situation into Los Angeles's NFL situation — a lucrative potential market that helps the league more if nobody ever actually moves there. 

Keep that tinfoil hat fastened securely to your head.

Seattle owner-in-limbo Chris Hansen was willing to badly overpay for the Kings and didn't get them. You would think the league would jump at this and say, "Wow, we gotta get this guy a team! What about Milwaukee or Charlotte?" Nope. And he's not getting an expansion team, because the other 30 teams would never give up an extra fraction of their TV rights — 

If they gave one up for the Bobcats, they're capable of being convinced to give another.

what do they care if Seattle has a basketball team or not? This situation sucks. I hate it. The Seattle SuperSonics should exist.

AND SHOULD HIRE A VP OF CAWMAWN SENSE!!!

As for De Niro, his iconic roles will always be Raging Bull, The Godfather: Part II, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Heat in some order; Midnight Run slips through the cracks because it's a comedy. Just name me another actor who could have pulled off everything that went into Jack Walsh, a beaten-down, sarcastic, cranky, charismatic, volatile, chain-smoking, has-been Chicago cop who always makes you feel like there's a heart beating behind every F-bomb and every menacing threat. He's a hard guy to like and you end up loving him.

Hollywood Bill strikes again!  Can I think of another actor who could have pulled that off?  Well, I don't know.  I might DIE trying to think of one, that's a pretty HARD question.  Not even BRUCE Banner climbing the WILLIS Tower would have enough strength to think that deeply.

I apologize for using that very trite device to reveal my snarky answer.

Finally, here's his attempt to squash his beef with Doc Rivers.  A beef that can be summed up by Bill saying "I KNOW YOU BETTER THAN YOU KNOW YOURSELF, FAMOUS PERSON" and Doc saying "Whoever Bill Simmons is, someone shut him up before I shut him up myself."

The day after we exchanged barbs during the NBA draft, Doc and I talked for 45 minutes on the phone and agreed to disagree on how the Boston thing ended. He truly believes the Celtics didn't want him to come back or pay him all that money as they were rebuilding. I don't buy it, as I told him — I thought that they didn't want to pay him that money once they believed he didn't want to be there. Also, I told him that I thought he didn't want to rebuild for a third time, and that the thought of coaching a contender and starting fresh in Los Angeles — where he gets to pick his own players, no less — was overwhelmingly enticing for him. He actually agreed with that. He just doesn't think he quit on the Celtics — he thinks the situation ran its course. So it's a he-said, he-said thing. 

No, you fucking dolt--it's a "he lived it, he is only pretending to know anything about it" thing.  What a clueless dickface.  

Bill fixes the Lakers, tests my patience (part 3)

To briefly recap, step 1 to saving the Lakers is to be bad next season, win the draft lottery and get Andrew Wiggins.  Step 2 is to clear cap space and sign LeBron.  Are you with Bill so far?  It's a bit complicated (only an NBA NERD with SOPHISTICATED KNOWLEDGE of the salary cap and which players are good and which players are not could possibly have hatched this plan) so he'll excuse you if you're a little behind.

3. Trade Steve Nash to Toronto.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA

Steve Nash turns 40 in February.  He's perhaps the worst defensive player in the league at this point.  He just came off a season in which he only played 50 games and showed heavy statistical regression.  Meanwhile, the Raptors sort of kind of showed some life late throughout the spring and maybe kind of contended for a playoff spot for the first time in five years.  They would have been trounced by the Heat in the first round had they made it, but hey, the point is, they're on the upswing, trying to build around a respectable young core.  They already have the "Hey, he's somewhat competent" Kyle Lowry manning the point.  There is zero reason for them to do the Lakers the favor of taking Nash's crappy contract.

Admittedly, Nash doesn't have much market value right now. He's 39 years old, his body is breaking down in a variety of ways, he seemed a step and a half slow last season, he's a turnstile defensively, and he's making $9.3 million in 2014 and $9.7 million in 2015. Other than that, he's pretty enticing. 

Careful, NERD ALERT ahead.

But you know where he's still a hero? CANADA! What would be better than Nash finishing his career on Canada's only NBA team?

You know what would be better for Toronto's coaching staff and front office?  Not bringing on a sentimental favorite who can barely play anymore, solely for the sake of helping the second most hated team in the NBA clear cap space for a run at LeBron.

Now here's where you say, Wait a second, the Raptors just hired Masai Ujiri from Denver. 

/Nuggets fan Larry B grinds teeth

That dude is a shrewd mf'er — he'd never trade for Nash. Au contraire! Thanks to Rudy Gay's onerously onerous deal, DeMar DeRozan's extension, the cap-clogging quartet of Landry Fields, Marcus Camby, Tyler Hansbrough and Steve Novak (nearly $20 million combined in 2014-15) and a few other commitments, Toronto can't become a free-agent player until the summer of 2015 ... right as Nash's deal is expiring. So why not bring him aboard as their feel-good Canadian basketball ambassador?

Hey, fuck it, the guy basically has no knees left, he just registered his worst season in ten years, he can't play defense... but the Raptors aren't going to go after free agents during the summer of 2014, SO WHY NOT PAY HIM $10 MILLION A YEAR TO PROBABLY CONTRIBUTE NEXT TO NOTHING?  WHO SAYS NO?????

Do you realize trading for Nash would immediately become one of Canada's five greatest NBA moments ever? 

FOUR AND ONLY FOUR MOMENTS HAVE BEEN BETTER

Since Toronto and Vancouver were added as expansion teams in 1995, here's that list right now:

Highlight No. 1: Vince Carter wins the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest.

Highlight No. 2: The Raptors come within a missed Vince jumper of advancing to the 2001 Eastern finals.

Highlight No. 3: Kobe scores 81 points against the Raptors. Hey, at least they were part of history.

Highlight No. 4: The Grizzlies move to Memphis (so Vancouver doesn't have to watch them anymore).

That would have been a sweet joke in 2004.

Highlight No. 5: Actually, we're done. You want to know what the greatest running Canadian NBA moment is? Every time Vince comes back to Toronto, they boo him lustily for four quarters. It's the only real Canadian basketball tradition they have. I'd say they need to rent a basketball ambassador. Call me crazy.

You're not crazy, you're just stupid, unfunny, a bad writer, and maybe 1/4th as smart as you think you are.

Anyway, here's my offer: Nash for Linas Kleiza's expiring contract and Aaron Gray's expiring contract. I can't do better than that. I'M GIVING YOU CANADIAN BASKETBALL HERO STEVE NASH FOR TWO SCRUBS!!!!!! Take him! I'm putting a ribbon on him, including a Labatt hat and everything! Just call this trade into the commissioner's office already.

(By the way, I just downgraded the Lakers' 2014-15 salary cap to $0.00.)

If he were more self-aware and less prone to being a self-important little shit, I would think he meant the tone there to be jokingly cocky.  Like if you do something totally trivial, like successfully shoot a balled up piece of paper into a trash can from ten feet away, and then shout "I AM THE GREATEST ATHLETE OF ALL TIME."  But no, I'm pretty sure he's being actually, legitimately, cocky there; sincerely celebrating the nonsensical trade he negotiated against himself.  In case you weren't aware, Bill Simmons is a piece of shit.

4. Trade Pau Gasol.

You know who's not helping us Riggin' for Wiggins? A future Hall of Famer playing for a new contract. I don't need Pau dropping 23 and 11 every night. No thanks. That leaves two possible trade destinations for him.

To the extent we're taking this seriously (and that extent should be: not at all, not even one little bit, but let's do it just this one time for just this one little part of the article), if they traded Nash and Gasol, Kobe would demand to be traded and threaten to retire if they didn't do so.  And while I said a couple posts ago that Laker fans could get over the idea of not getting LeBron (if the team makes some moves this offseason to improve their chances in 2014 while also ruining their cap room), I can promise you they would never, ever, ever, ever, ever get over Kobe leaving the team on bad terms and finishing his career in a different jersey.  And thus, those trades would happen: never.  To be honest, I am a little surprised at how well Kobe took the amnestying of MWP.  But I would imagine that if they go any further in cutting salary/scuttling next year's team, they're going to have one irate Kobe on their hands.

Whew.  My head hurts.

• Destination No. 1: Hey, Cleveland, why roll the dice on Andrew Bynum's fusilli knee ligaments when you can rent Pau in a contract year? You know he'll be motivated. You know he's one of the league's best 25 players when healthy — a superior low-post player, a proven playoff guy and a perennial staple on the NBA's "Most Fun Guys to Play Basketball With" All-Stars. 

And on the "Guys Who Play for the Lakers but Who Boston Fans Would Allow to Date Their Sistahs" All-Stars.

Why not use your excess cap space to upgrade from Anderson Varejao ($9.8 million expiring) to Gasol ($19.3 million) and flip the Lakers your 2014 no. 1 pick for their trouble? The Lakers save $30 million in luxury tax money, add a first-rounder and willingly worsen their team. Cleveland becomes a pseudo-contender while preserving their cap space to get their hearts broken by LeBron again next summer. Everyone wins!

Clearly the Lakers would not do this.  It's too bad Varejao is made out of glass, because if he were a good bet to play 70+ games next year, I could argue that the Cavs wouldn't do it either.  A healthy Varejao is one of the best rebounders and defenders in the NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION.  He also runs the pick and roll just fine (Gasol may be better, but whatever), meaning he's not exactly dragging their offense down.  I don't think they'd give up their first in a loaded draft to get the offensive upgrade and defensive downgrade Gasol would represent.

Even better — this trade gives the Lakers a low-post combo of Chris Kaman (always gets hurt) and Varejao (always gets hurt). They could be the Twin Owww-ers. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Better than your Thanksgiving dinner of bad basketball joke from last post.

You're not getting more than 75 games combined from Kaman and Varejao next season unless they're borrowing copious amounts of PEDs from the Seattle Seahawks defense. 

A cross-sport reference!  What happened to the Real World/Road Rules Challenge reference I requested?  Is he saving it for later?

And even then, you're probably not getting there. Who's ready for a little Robert Sacre next season! Check that — who's ready for A LOT OF ROBERT SACRE next season!

Probably not your franchise cornerstone/most popular player.  You know what, fuck it, I need to stop taking his analysis seriously like I promised I would.

• Destination No. 2: Flip Gasol's expiring contract to Chicago for Luol Deng's and Kirk Hinrich's expiring contracts. Just a fascinating trade. 

"I'm so glad I thought of it, aren't you?"

The Bulls know Jimmy Butler can replace Deng's minutes, and that a crunch-time five of Gasol, Joakim Noah, Derrick Rose, Butler and Mike Dunleavy Jr. (to spread the floor) would be more potent than Noah, Carlos Boozer, Deng, Butler and Rose. They'd have to say yes.

WHO DOESN'T SAY YES???

For the Lakers, they'd keep Deng for a couple of months before rerouting him to a contender for expiring deals and a pick. (You don't need Deng in a contract year making you slightly better than you need to be.) But here's the crucial part …

NERD ALERT!

The Lakers can't sign LeBron after he wins his third straight NBA title for the simple reason that, in the history of basketball, the best player on a championship team has NEVER subsequently ditched that team. Shit, even Wilt wouldn't have done that. LeBron would get crucified for turning his back on a chance to win four straight.

Good point!  He would never do something like that!  When has LeBron ever made a decision that involved turning his back on something, and then gotten crucified for it, and come out ahead in the long run?

No competitive person would ever, in a million years, do something like that. 

Unless a certain VP of NERDERY on their new team talked them into it!

That's why the Lakers need to improve the Bulls — they can't get LeBron unless Chicago, Houston, Oklahoma City, Indiana or Golden State beats the Heat. And Chicago's the best bet of them all.

(Wolf Pope Simmons's recommendation: Make the Deng-Gasol trade.)

Larry B's recommendation: stop reading this blog, and any other blog or website that might bring you into contact with Bill's writing.  You're getting stupider every time his ideas enter your brain.

Rick Reilly: is a gargantuan asshole

Which of these lines from his column from last week about how to spend a day at the Masters most loudly and embarrassingly screams "I WANT YOU TO KNOW HOW IMPORTANT I AM!!!"?  Your call.  I want to apologize in advance for alienating any of our seven readers who love the Masters.  I actually enjoy golf quite a bit (despite the shit I give morons like Reilly for loving it) and I'll always watch Sunday at the Masters.  As usual, some of this is just hating for hating's sake.  I'm sure any of you who are huge golf fans would agree that Reilly is out of fucking control here.

Luck just French-kissed you. You've been handed a one-day ticket to Thursday at this year's Masters. But now you're freaking. You'll never get this chance again. What should you do? Where should you go?

Well, this will be my 25th Masters. 

What an asshole.

6:05 a.m. -- Wait! Leave your cell phone! Get caught with one on the course and you're banished for life. I know. I was standing on No. 1 once, watching Tiger Woods putt, when my phone rang in my pocket. Ring tone: "Fly Me to the Moon." Utter horror. Two Pinkerton guards took me roughly by the arms and escorted me toward the front gate. I was staring at a lifetime of standing outside the gate next to Gary McCord when I happened to see Augusta National chairman Billy Payne, whom I knew from his running of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. "Billy! Save me!" And he did. But he's not going to save you.

Do you not know Billy Payne?  Oh, pity.  I certainly do.  Like I was saying, Rick Reilly is a fucking asshole.

6:15 a.m. -- Park for free, like everybody else, in one of the 8,500 no-charge spaces that are really close.

What a breath of fresh air!  Free parking!  In a midsized city on the Georgia-South Carolina border, no less!

Once [your chair] is down, leave. Nobody will take it and nobody will sit in it. The whole deal runs on the honor system, and the Masters is nothing if not honorable.

Totally.  Once you get past the rampant racism and sexism, the place is oozing honor and class.  It was especially honorable when, in 1984, the tournament decided to start letting pros actually bring their own caddies, rather than forcing them to use the club's caddies who were, you guessed it, all black.  And when I said 1984, I mean the 1984 that was 29 years ago.

9 a.m. -- Observe, for a moment, the most well-run sporting event in the world.

Holy hell.  It's a fucking golf tournament.  Let's see the geniuses that manage to somehow coordinate a slow-moving event with like 80 participants and a few thousand fans successfully put on an Olympics.  And geez, much as I despise the NFL, those fuckers have "well-run" down to a science.  Any sold out regular season game is a fuck of a lot harder to coordinate than a golf tournament.

And observe all of the stuff you don't see. No ads. 

The game of golf should be pure!  No ads!  No vaginas!  No people whose skin color would make you lock your car door if you were waiting at a red light and they were standing on the median holding a sign that says "Hungry please help!"

Nobody holding any signs. 

Especially not "Hungry please help!" signs!

No port-a-potties. No cars suspended on lakes. No electronic scoreboards.

Yeah, I agree, sports are just SO much better to watch when you have to wait twenty fucking minutes for the scoreboard to change.

Just golf played on giant fairways and M.C. Escher greens in front of a lot of Southern women in big hats. Fabulous.

This is the guy who thinks baseball is slow and boring.

10:20 a.m. -- Now, as Jim Nantz would say,

Makes sense that one smarmy buttwipe would enjoy referencing another.

over to 16, 

The only golf commentator to ever use that line!  Just like how John Madden was famous for saying "That's a first down."

where you can sit and watch players try to par the Lindsay Lohan of golf holes -- short, gorgeous and shady.

That would have been a non-horrible reference a mere five or six years ago.

For one thing, they're separated from the fans by 150 yards, so they can swear all they want. Certain players (cough, Tiger, cough) really like that.

Golf fans who perceive Tiger to be some kind of "bad boy" are just a bunch of tards.  They really are.

d) the Eisenhower cabin, built in the 1950s to the exact standards of the Secret Service. I slept there once. It's not much.

No big deal.

A sitting room and six bedrooms with twin beds. There was a rather pedestrian painting on the wall above my bed. I had a hunch. I checked the signature in the corner. Yep. Painted by Eisenhower.

NO BIG DEAL.

The room on the corner is where the club's patron saint, Clifford Roberts, always stayed during the "toonamint."

Good ol' Cliff!  What a delightful piece of human garbage he surely was.

I slept there once, too.

NO

BIG 

DEAL

In the desk drawer, there was a little white pamphlet that listed the entire membership. My eyes bulged, but my host asked me not to publish it, so I didn't. The Masters is nothing if not honorable.

Augusta National is nothing if not interested in not pissing off its members, who enable it to do things like offer free parking.

The first time I met Jack Nicklaus was outside this door on Wednesday in 1986 and I had to ask him if he was broke.

Oh, have you not met Jack Nicklaus?  I have.  I even asked him a "hard-hitting" question that was actually quite a softball.  Then I slept in the Eisenhower cabin for.... I believe it was... yes, it was the seventh time I slept there.

12:50 p.m. -- If you're really daring, try to sneak a peek at: a) one of America's finest wine cellars (I've seen it;

NOT THAT I'M BRAGGING

1:05 p.m. -- The waiter writes out the bill on a simple little check pad you could buy at Walgreen's for $1.99.

Isn't that uninteresting factoid proof of the greatness of the Masters?

Leap to get it, but the waiter is going to give you the stink eye if you give him anything but cash. Imagine: Augusta National hosts captains of finance and industry and yet if you're not staying on the property, they're not taking any chances with your Visa card.

Imagine: a place that wants to pretend like it's still 1935!  It'll shock you to find out that it's located in the South.

2:40 p.m. -- See if you can find Bubba Watson on the course. You want to see what his caddie is wearing on the front of his white overalls: The number 1. It goes to the winner's caddie each year. Who says golf doesn't have jersey numbers?

No one?

3:45 p.m. -- Tired yet? Then go sit in your chair on 18. Savor the quaint tradition of a Masters member announcing the names of the players who are about to approach the green, without a microphone. Shake your head at a tournament with no hospitality tents and yet with hospitality coming out of its ears.

What the fuck are you talking about?  Rick Reilly is the worst.

FireJay lurches its way through the summer

Sorry about the lack of posts.  I've been trying to, like, go outside and shit.  Play some baseball.  (Well, softball.)  Do stuff besides write a blog.  Feel the infield dirt between my fingers.  Listen to the sound the bat makes when it hits the ball.  Move runners over.  Lay down bunts.  Steal bases, even though that's not legal in softball.  Play the game the right way.  Talk to a woman without having to give her my credit card number.  And let me promise you: I have been extremely uncomfortable doing those things.  Back to the basement for me.  What's that, Bill?  You're using your sphincter as a mouth again?

Now that we're a mere 53 days away from the start of the 2012 Patriots 19-0 victory party NFL season, 

2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP0Q5I0vgS4

2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJshw2Axsqc

2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-3dGiilJjM

2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuClWeD9ouI

2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAO0AwlH9KA

Etc., etc., I'm just as petty and pathetic as Bill is, etc.

I have some good news for you ... Drew Brees signed a five-year, $100 million extension with the Saints!!!!!! Why did that deserve six exclamation points? Well ...

1. One of the dumbest ongoing sports stories is finally over. 

At last, we finally know what LeBron thinks about Tim Tebow's first training camp as a Jet!  Oh, sorry, just had Sportscenter on in the background and starting typing what I was hearing.

I hate any sports story that doesn't lend itself to an argument or at least two fairly interesting opinions. 

Yeah, talking about what happened during a game?  BORING.  Guessing point spreads, and telling everyone who will listen how the billion dollar gaming industry has incorrectly set certain of those spreads?  RIVETING.  

Why wouldn't the Saints take care of Brees? 

They feel like he's getting old and they didn't necessarily want to spend a jillion dollars on him?  I'm not saying that's necessarily the right perspective, but he's 33.  With Sean Payton suspended for the upcoming season, maybe they felt like they were on the verge of entering a rebuilding phase.

What took them so long? What were they doing? They couldn't say, "Well, they never won a Super Bowl with him," because they did. They couldn't say, "Well, he doesn't really mean that much to our franchise or our city," because he does. They couldn't say, "He stopped throwing up monster fantasy seasons," because he never stopped. 

Bill is a perfect example of a fan who thinks real players and teams give a shit about fantasy sports.  I'd never fully realized it until now because of the fifty other obnoxious traits he has, but that comment kind of drives it home.  I can almost hear him complaining about a coach who uses a committee of running backs right now.

They couldn't say, "Well, the Mannings and Brady didn't get taken care of, either," because they did. They couldn't say, "We don't really need the good publicity or the good will with our fans," because post-Bountygate, they clearly did. They couldn't say, "If only his ESPY speeches could be a little longer," because they always are. 

THERE ARE SIX AND ONLY SIX REASONS TO NOT GIVE A GIANT CONTRACT TO YOUR FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK.  NONE OF THEM APPLIED TO BREES SO HE GOT PAID.  WHO SAYS NO?

So what was happening here? Shit, the Bensons BOUGHT AN NBA TEAM during the time they could have been taking care of Brees. I remain confused.

It's almost like an NBA team is a business that, with sports as popular as they are these days, is virtually guaranteed to generate a ton of cash for its owners.  And at the same time, it's also almost like Drew Brees is a super talented player who can help his team generate cash, but can also get injured or start playing poorly and immediately become a money pit.  It's almost like that's the world we live in.  MY NEIGHBOR INVESTED A BUNCH OF MONEY IN MUTUAL FUNDS INSTEAD OF BUYING A LUXURY CAR.  I REMAIN CONFUSED.

2. Brees was headed for the first defensible contract holdout in the recent history of team sports. 

Except for all the guys in the last thirty plus years whose abilities greatly exceeded the contracts they were signed to, and thus were able to get a new contract that more accurately paid them what they were worth in light of the fact that in most sports you are always literally a single play away from being forced into retirement.  Except for all those guys, who were able to get the market to pay them what they were worth, this would have been the first defensible holdout.

When does that ever happen? Did you really want to sit around with your friends saying, "Yeah, I don't blame Brees at all, playing for $16 million this season would have been totally insulting."

Let me try to parse this.  Bill thinks Brees would have been justified in holding out.  He then says that CLEARLY, it would have been no fun to have Brees hold out because then everyone would have noted that it was OK for Brees to hold out, and for some reason, apparently no one wants that.  Huh.  Also, remember when he said he hates stories that don't allow for two interesting opinions?  I guess "GRRRR HONOR THE CONTRACT YOU SIGNED OR IN THIS CASE THE FRANCHISE TAG CONTRACT THAT YOUR UNION APPROVED DURING THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING PROCESS" vs. "THEY SHOULD TAKE CARE OF HIM BECAUSE HE IS REALLY GOOD AND LIKES THE CITY AND STUFF" doesn't count?  Even though that's, like, a pretty interesting argument?  Especially if the person pushing the first opinion is a loud idiot?  Why am I ending every sentence with a question mark oh God I am turning into Simmons? 

(nodding)

3. Did you really want to read fantasy football previews that had an asterisk next to Brees? Did you really want to do Chase Daniel research? Did you really want some asshole in your league to take a fourth-round flier on Brees, then luck out five days later when Brees signed? Or conversely, did you really want to pick Brees, then have him torture you for the first weeks of the season?

I mean, sure, a holdout would have made playing fantasy football in 2012 1% more stressful than it usually is, making it still extremely fun and a great distraction from all the stuff in life that actually sucks ass.

4. The bad news: They announced the contract on Friday the 13th. That's a terrible idea. I wouldn't even buy one of those 27-inch LCD TVs from those weird companies that you've never heard of at Best Buy on Friday the 13th.

CURSES AHHHHHHHH REAL!  MAHHHHHHK MY WARDS!  GRADY SHOULD NEVAH HAVE LET LET PEDRO STAHHHHT THE EIGHTH IN THE FARST PLACE!  FIE-AH GRADY!  FIE-AH BAWBY V!

5. The good news: Brees's contract guarantees him $60 million ... a million less than the Nets guaranteed Brook Lopez this week. I think this cancels out the Friday the 13th thing — when you're paying your franchise QB a million less than the "good" Lopez, you have to feel good about that.

Nice job shoehorning in some irrelevant bullshit about NBA salaries, probably the only substantive area of sports he actually knows anything about.

6. What's worse than reading about someone's contract holdout every day? 

Having NFL analysis crammed down your throat in March or June?  Having to watch WNBA highlights ever?  "Who's Now?"

Even the hideous Dwight Howard trade quagmire is more fun — at least there, you can enjoy derisive Internet nicknames like "Dwight Coward" 

BURNSAUCE: BROUGHT

or derisive headlines like "Dwightmare"; 

!!!!!

you can make up fake trades for hours on end; you can watch Daryl Morey keep adding assets and doing everything but open a www.dwightorbust.com website; 

And that is certainly a last ditch bottom of the barrel plan a GM who is trying to trade for a superstar player would enact!  I mean, it would never happen, but you know that at some point, Morley has said to himself "I should open that website I've been thinking about, maybe that will get Dwight's attention.  NO WAY, NEVERMIND, WHAT AM I, CRAZY?  THAT'S TOO FAR!"

you can make jokes like "any time you can give up every asset you have AND take on multiple bad contracts for a wishy-washy guy coming off back surgery who doesn't want to play for you and can easily leave in 11 months, you have to do it"; 

Seeing as how Bill's basketball opinions are infallible, I have to conclude that there is no other interesting opinion on Houston's pursuit of Howard.  Therefore: BORING STORY.

and you get to hear Chris Broussard and Stephen A. Smith drag out the word "Daaaaaah-wight" for five or six seconds at a time. 

Racist.

Contract holdouts aren't nearly as much fun.

And if it's not fun and it doesn't lead to obnoxious, blithering PTI-style banter and it doesn't involve Greg Steimsma, BILL DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT.  MOVE ALONG, NON-STEIMSMA STORIES. 

In conclusion, here is Drew Brees doing Drew Brees things.