So Long, Sports Guy
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by user Kevinsecaur
Welcome everyone. Long time, no articles. I’ve actually been eager to write for some time now, but I simply couldn’t come up with anything relevant/entertaining/important enough to tackle. I found myself abandoning a running blog of a recent Reds game in the fourth inning for no other reasons than it was a boring game and the Reds just plain suck. I also have half of an article about soccer, which I intend to either finish or blow up completely and start from scratch.
I was determined to put my writer’s block and/or lack of motivation behind me when it hit me. I can’t write because of Bill Simmons. The primary (and basically only) reason I began blogging in the first place is also the reason I can’t come up with anything to write. The world has a cruel sense of humor sometimes.
So I sat and pretended to ponder my situation, all the while fully knowing what this meant: I have to stop reading him. Cancel my subscription to ESPN the Magazine. Block espn.com on my laptop.
Now, if you’re not a fan of the Sports Guy and if you don’t know me very well, you’re probably wondering what the big deal is. Well, I’ll tell you. Bill Simmons is the only sports columnist – the only columnist, for that matter – who I read on a regular basis. I discovered the Sports Guy fairly late, but I made up for it in a big way. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that, in the past two years, I have read every word Simmons has written. Not every word he’s written in the past two years. Every word he’s written. Like, ever. Every mailbag, every chat, every running diary, every boring NBA column where I had neither a clue about nor an interest in what he was talking about. Hell, I even read Simmons’ book, though I didn’t buy it. You name it and, if he wrote it, I’ve read it.
That last paragraph sounds pretty pathetic even to me, and I’m the one who wrote it, but it’s true nonetheless. I have very mixed feelings about my self-imposed Simmons ban, so let’s break down the positives and negatives to reading my favorite sports columnist.
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The Pros
1. Simmons has had a huge influence on me as a writer. He inspired me to write in the first place, and – even though he’s obviously completely oblivious to this fact – Simmons has been something of a “writing coach” to me. Let’s just say you don’t need to be a literature scholar to see that he’s shaped my writing style.
2. His hooks are great. The stuff I mentioned above – the running diaries, the mailbags, picking games versus the spread, etc. – is all gold. I shamelessly steal his gimmicks on a regular basis (and will probably continue to do so) because I could never come up with stuff that creative and entertaining.
3. The dude’s funny. I’ll admit that I’ve soured on his sense of humor lately, but I still have to give credit where credit is due. He’s made me laugh out loud at his writing on a fairly regular basis over the past two years, and I’ll probably miss that.
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The Cons
1. Simmons has had too much of an influence on me as a writer. The Sports Guy could probably sue me for plagiarism at this point and win. The only problem is that I don’t make a dime off of what I write, so it may not be worth his time. Aside from stealing his gimmicks, I once wrote two whole paragraphs on Adam Morrison’s mustache for my college newspaper that were especially Simmons-like. It’s almost like I’ve been subconsciously asking myself, “What joke would Bill Simmons make in this situation?” or “How would the Sports Guy write about this particular event?” And that isn’t good.
2. His columns are getting old. The Sports Guy is nothing, if not, predictable. Monday he wrote a column about spending a weekend with the guys in Vegas. Wow! What will he come up with next? An article on how he likes Boston’s sports teams? Criticism of NBA announcers not named Marv? An analogy comparing something in sports to the Godfather movies? Where does he get this material?
3. His jokes are getting old. I know up in the pros section I gushed about how funny Simmons is – and he is. It’s just that the punch line has gotten too predictable at this point. The point of this blog is not to bash the guy – far from it, actually – but the guy’s repertoire has become pretty stagnant. I mean, how many more “I will now light myself on fire…” and “If gambling were legal…” and “I would say more, but my editors are currently shocking me with 10,000 volts of electricity…” jokes are we supposed to put up with? You’re extremely talented, Bill, but when someone like me can see the end of the joke coming a mile away, it’s time to try something new.
To me, the argument for abstaining from his columns is the stronger of the two. So, Sports Guy, I’m afraid it’s time to bid you adieu. You’ve been like a father to me. Actually, no you haven’t. Not even close. You’ve been more like a dorky older brother with way too much spare time on his hands. But hey, your writing has been entertaining.
In the end, this all comes down to attempting to find my own voice as a completely unknown and irrelevant online sports blogger. No longer will I attempt to look at the sporting world from Bill Simmons’ perspective. No longer will I strive to write like or be as funny as the Sports Guy. Instead, I aim to find my own voice and write like … well, like me.
Note: I actually have a theory in which Bill Simmons realizes many of the things I criticized above (i.e. his shtick is getting old, he’s not as funny as he used to be, humor/sports columnists have a shelf life, and so on) and moves back to Boston to host a local sports talk radio show.
It makes sense for a number of reasons. He can’t do the espn.com thing forever. … He is a Boston native, so you gotta figure he’ll want to move back east to be with his family, especially his parents as they grow older. … He has a young daughter. Do you really think he wants to raise her out in L.A. where she can learn from stellar role models such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears? … He has his own podcast on the espn.com site. Hosting a radio show is just like hosting a podcast except for three hours at a time instead of twenty minutes and you don’t have a guest to interview the whole time.
But ANYWAY … The 2007 NBA Draft will be held on June 28th. Some time on the morning of June 29th (more likely early that afternoon; I like to sleep in), I will read the Sports Guy’s running diary of that event, and it will mark the last time I read the writings of one Bill Simmons.
The word “ever” was originally in that last sentence, but then I figured forever is a long time. This is like a guy who listens to nothing but Pearl Jam for two straight years. I’m talking every CD in his car, every song on his ipod, all Pearl Jam all the time until he finally gets so sick of this phase that he vows never to listen to them again. Then he’s in his car listening to FM radio one random day when “Alive” comes on. And he’s like, “This song is badass! Why did I ever stop listening to these guys?” (This might be an incredibly weak analogy; I’m not sure, I’m not really a big “music guy.”) So I guess what I’m saying is nine months from now, I might stumble on a Sports Guy column and find it to be simultaneously the most brilliant, hilarious and insightful sports writing in the history of the planet. At which point, I will destroy the contents of this blog and refuse to speak of it ever again.
The end.
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