Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

by haymister on Aug 17, 2006 10:04 PM EDT

Personally, I took no offense and found this kind of funny:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060816

"10. Cleveland
Not sure what happened with these guys. The Indians would have made a much better roto team.

(Note: Normally I'd have more to say, but I'm tired of Cleveland readers complaining every time I write something even mildly negative about one of their teams, no matter how accurate that assessment might be. Now I'm thinking that Cleveland fans are like women -- if they ask you how they look, just tell them, "You look fine, you look great" or else you're in for 20 minutes of pure hell. So to recap, the Indians look fine, they look great. Let's move on.)"

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Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Bill Simmons jumped the shark for me a long time ago. How he can criticize any fan base while cheering for the Red Sox and Patriots is beyond me.

by afh4 on Aug 17, 2006 10:07 PM EDT 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

I like what he said about Seattle and hope that Tribe fans asking the FO to overpay for a name take this to heart:

"The most common mistake in pro sports? A franchise overpaying a name player who isn't a sure thing, with the reason usually being, "Look, we spent all this money, we're serious, we want to win!" (Just look at what happened in the NBA this summer -- Peja for $64 million, Nene for $60M and whatever Al Harrington ends up getting ... this might be the first summer where 90 percent of the teams actually got worse.) You can absorb those mistakes when you're the Yanks or the Red Sox, but for a medium-sized team like the Mariners, it's like playing Russian roulette: Sure, you might win, but do you really want to go there? Probably not. And by the way, I LIKE Beltre, he's playing hard and seems like he gives a crap. But $65 million for someone coming off a fluke statistical season in the Steroid Era for a team that already got killed by Bret Boone? Come on."

July 28, 2006 - The Andy Marte Era officially begins.

by woodsmeister on Aug 17, 2006 10:49 PM EDT 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

I like Bill Simmons, but he truly has nothing nice to say about Cleveland sports. Not even a "Things are looking up".

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "...and Victor Martinez grounds into a double play", i'd be rich.

by Rayman on Aug 17, 2006 11:41 PM EDT 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Yeah. The man wrote a 4,000 word article about how LeBron was leaving 2 days before he signed the extension. Simmons may be more pessimistic about Cleveland sports than even Clevelanders are.

by dctribefan on Aug 18, 2006 11:49 AM EDT up 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

I think he did acknowledge that the obvious suitors (Lakers, Knicks, etc.) had mismanaged their cap space and the only candidate[s?] for signing him may have been the Clippers; he rated this as one of Thomas' biggest blunders yet.

Thank god there aren't 'max-contracts' and mid-level exemptions in MLB. It far from perfect, but at least MLB approximates a dynamic marketplace... NBA contracts seemingly have more to do with timing and convenience than real performance. Roster size and the distribution of playing time make it difficult to compare the NBA to MLB, but I still feel like the NBA is doing something wrong.

by homelytourist on Aug 18, 2006 12:24 PM EDT up 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Well as long as Lebron can't go to New York or LA like Hafner will I'm going to enjoy the NBA's cap (even though I agree you get alot more bad contracts in the NBA than in MLB).

by hans on Aug 18, 2006 1:20 PM EDT up 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Nice article about the whole thing

http://www.swerbsblurbs.com/article_detail.php?id=706

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "...and Victor Martinez grounds into a double play", i'd be rich.

by Rayman on Aug 18, 2006 1:28 PM EDT 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

very good article.

by hans on Aug 18, 2006 1:39 PM EDT up 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Great article, and the guy didn't have to resort to pop culture metaphor after pop culture metaphor(Simmons's hallmark/crutch).

by JulioBernazard on Aug 18, 2006 2:41 PM EDT up 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

This is how everyone else sees the AL, isn't it? It's Red Sox, Yankees, and a bunch of guys to fill out fantasy teams.

I still enjoy Bill Simmons sometimes, but my biggest problem is the legion of hacks aping his style all over Deadspin and the rest of the web.

by mkwng on Aug 18, 2006 10:46 PM EDT 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Yeah, I still read him. Not for baseball analyis, but he's still funny more often than not. He doesn't know anything more than your average fantasy leaguer. And he doesn't know anything about the NL.

On the other hand, I actually think he knows a lot about the NBA. I think he puts in his time following the whole league there, and there are so few interesting writers on the NBA.

by dgcambridge on Aug 18, 2006 10:55 PM EDT up 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

Yeah, Simmons is great for the NBA. But he's too wrapped up in his Red Sox to actually follow baseball.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "...and Victor Martinez grounds into a double play", i'd be rich.

by Rayman on Aug 19, 2006 12:10 AM EDT 0 recs

Re: Bill Simmons on Cleveland/Tribe fans

I think he has stated that he is even more of a Celtics fan. Lucky for all of us, there isn't much to cheer for there. All he can do is pine for LeBron.

by oxforddave on Aug 19, 2006 2:47 PM EDT up 0 recs