Simmons confronts his worst nightmare
Since we've been harping on how much Yankee rhetoric has been posted lately, here is a post on the "other" rich kid on the block.
Simmons really lays it on thick too.
almost 3 years ago
talonk
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I was just about to post this. Doesn’t delve too deeply into anything, but a very entertaining read.
i agree, i never thought of anything like that before.
There is a significant lack of beards in this year's clubhouse...
by mixmasterasia on May 7, 2009 7:04 PM EDT up reply actions
New shirt idea:
*2004 World Champs
(asterisk should be very prominent)
No, not you. Your helmet!
by PatBordersHelmet on May 8, 2009 12:07 AM EDT reply actions
Honestly, I have felt the same way about our 1990’s teams after the Mitchell report came out. There is not one player on those teams that would surprise me if they juiced. It doesn’t take away from what they accomplished. They were an impressive collection of talent that played in a poor division. But, instead of being a once in a lifetime team that scored 1000+ runs, they were more likely a very good offense that were chemically inflated.
My primary gripe with this article is his portrayal of a six year old. It’s a good column but couldn’t he just pretend like his dad was a lucid 94 instead of imagining his six year old as some kind of savant?
My problem with it is that it still has a Boston is/was/could be a city on the hill attitude that I find intolerable. I don’t mind the sentimentality that Jay complains about below. And I don’t mind the precocious 6-year old.
by APV on May 8, 2009 9:26 AM EDT up reply actions
You know something, this was not a very good piece. Simplistic, sentimental, predictable, and not terribly well written.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 8, 2009 9:21 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
At the risk of seeming like some kind of self-hating person, Simmons just strikes me as “just a blogger.” He started out as a blogger and never really raised his game after going “legit.” I don’t think he has any more game. Now, he has had some ridiculously great highs as a blogger — the convention of terrible GM’s being my personal all-time fave — but there are probably a few dozen bloggers you could say that about with no credentials at all.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 8, 2009 9:38 AM EDT up reply actions
He appeals to a specific (large) crowd with his pop culture references and simplistic poop jokes. I find him entertaining, but don’t really care for his take on much of anything. I do think his best sport is the NBA, he actually provides decent insight every now and then
Yeah, he writes really good stuff about the NBA, it’s definately his best sport. And I enjoy it because it’s hard to find good basketball writing on the internet (at least I haven’t found much). He knows the game much better than I do and I enjoy his perspective on the game. If you skim pass all the pop cutlure references and stories about his buddies you can find some good insight, unfortunately those are hard to find sometimes. But articles like his “Best 100 players in then NBA” are very well-written and informative.
by Buckeye Brad on May 8, 2009 12:14 PM EDT up reply actions
It seems to me that mainstream basketball writing is, in general, much better than mainstream baseball writing. Could just be that I’m not as critical of basketball writing because I’m not as knowledgable about the sport, but I actually enjoy a lot of ESPN.com’s basketball stuff.
I'm *always* in the driver's seat, cugino -- Chuck
You’re right, I feel the same way about mainstream basketball writing. As you said, it could be because I’m not as knowledgable about basketball as I am about baseball, but also enjoy a lot of ESPN.com’s stuff. I really like John Hollinger, their basketball “stat guy”. He’s written a few times about how great LeBron James has been this year and putting his stats in historical context (i.e. if the NBA was played now at the same pace it was played in Oscar Robinson’s day, LeBron would have better numbers than Oscar has when he averaged a triple double for the year. That’s how unbelievably awesome LeBron was this year.)
And us Cleveland fans are also spoiled because we have Brian Windhorst covering the Cavs for the PD, and he’s one of the best beat writers in the country (even Simmons says so). He’s fantastic and one of the few good things about the PD Sports Section.
Boy … you guys sure think you’re knowledgeable about baseball.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 8, 2009 9:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Huh. I can’t totally argue with this, except you called Taibi a fantastic journalist yesterday. Judging but just these two linked pieces, that seems more than a little inconsistent.
Taibbi’s takedown of Cashman wasn’t sophisticated by our standards, but he got the basic story right, and his other work is far more substantive.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
The article could have taken it a step further by sourcing his claims that Cashman runs to the media to absolve himself of blame. I think this is the complaint my Yankees fan friends came back to me with after reading it
I had the same nagging reservation, but the heart of his point is that the sports media routinely plays out this story that Cashman is a genius and Steinbrenner screws everything up, and there is no real evidence of that or reliable sourcing of the discussions that would substantiate it. So it’s almost like an unsourced quid pro quo.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
by Jay on May 8, 2009 1:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Taibbi is terrible. Just a flat-out stiff. He makes Sheldon Ocker look like A.J. Liebling. He is a disgrace.
You bust him for relying too heavily on invective with invective.
Like it or not, he’s become one of our foremost public intellectuals. I can hardly begin to defend his merits without crossing political barriers, but you’ve got to admit that he’s had some interesting experiences and he interprets them in interesting, often provocative ways.
Referencing your dismissal of Taibbi in another thread, have you ever heard him speak? He’s a pretty chilled out, seemingly reasonable fellow. And he has incredible gifts for story-telling and humor.
Fire with fire was intentional, jhon.
I must take exception with calling him a public intellectual. Public intellectuals are I.F. Stone, or Norman Podhoretz. Slavoj Zizek. Not somebody who thinks political discourse is little more than lame (and to me unfunny) name-calling. When it comes to political name-calling, a lot of people (from Alexander Pope to H.L. Mencken) have done it a lot better. Replacing thought with provocation doesn’t do it for me. Hunter Thompson made a point of throwing curveballs—often in a subtle and unexpected fashion. There should be a subtlety and elegance to poltical thought, in my mind, that is clearly missing in MT’s writing. I think it says a lot about how lame our political writers have become.
Yes, I have heard him speak, a few times. I’ve met him. In my experience I did not discover any “incredible gifts.” I will grant that he has certainly had a lot of interesting experiences.
No problem, I think we can agree to disagree.
I think it would be a neat exercise to assemble a compilation of writings about baseball from among the public intellectuals, or writers whose bread-and-butter isn’t baseball. I think you’d find baseball junkies lurking everywhere—from food critics to graphic designers and political scientists.
I respect your opinion, even when you’re wrong.
But that’s true about baseball writing. I always find it cool when I discover someone is as big as a baseball lunatic as me. And from all walks of life. I imagine other sports have such fanatics, but baseball seems to have the most intriguing fans.
One thing i didn’t care for from some public intellectuals—George Will and David Halberstam come to mind, but they don’t really register as much more than replacement-level PIs—is their desire to expand baseball into having greater meaning. As if the game has to be elevated to higher ground. In the old days thinkers had to justify their stooping to address “low” culture. Someone couldn’t write seriously about “Mutt & Jeff” or “Gasoline Alley” without highbrows thinking they were a little nuts. That’s changed, but I think a little of it endures, and that’s why George Will has to gussy it up a little.
Don Delillo’s Pafko at the Wall or Philip Roth’s Great American Novel aren’t intellectual but they’re obvious expressions of love of baseball.
As someone said: Baseball isn’t life, but what is?
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