BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR
The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, the original proto-blogger himself, describes what most readers already suspected about his post-Pats Super Bowl slump:
Well, something weird happened. After that game, I couldn’t stop thinking, “All right, what happens now? What do I do? How can I top my dream moment?”
And the thing is, you can’t. The moment happens, it ends, you celebrate and feel good about yourself … and then it’s on to the next day, and you have to figure out what the next challenge is, and deep down, you’re wondering why you didn’t enjoy that watershed moment more than you thought you would. I don’t know Theo, I have never met him, and the experience of being the general manager of the first Red Sox championship in 86 years was roughly 100,000,000 times more profound and important than my experience in New Orleans. But the fact remains, after that Super Bowl column, I struggled writing this column for the next seven to eight months; eventually, I ended up moving to California to write for a fledgling late-night television show. That Super Bowl trip changed everything for me.
Which explains a lot. Again, be careful what you ask for…
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tony says:
I still can’t make myself feel bad for him reading these columns of personal angst surrounding his teams winning things.
“Oh, it’s so terrible, this feeling that your team won and now you can’t be known as a loser anymore because they won, and you just wouldn’t understand how hard it is, and look how shitty my life is with this column I’m forced to write for on a sports website at least once a
dayweekfew times a month. It’s just so awful!”And that goes for each of the 2,318 times the douchebag has written pretty much the exact same thing and passed it off as a column.
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:33 pm
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Bullfrog says:
I’m a Sox fan and have been reading Simmons since his pre-ESPN days.. He’s become a mockery of himself. Every freaking column has a reference to Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla in it these days. We get it, you know Kimmel and Corolla. Now stop.
November 3rd, 2005 at 2:47 pm
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gatorjess says:
As someone in the direct demographic of “The OC” (21-year-old female), but hasn’t sat through two minutes of it, I can’t help but lose a little respect for a grown man with a child and sports obsession, but knows and loves the show enough to do a ‘Curious Guy’ on it. http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050908a
That said, and I am certainly biased, but what kind of a guy calls himself the “Sports Guy” and then gives a literal Heisman (arm shove) to the world of college football? Have you been to America?
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:14 pm
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Orson Swindle says:
He’s from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, remember.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:17 pm
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Bill (from BC) says:
I say he is either fooling himself or trying to win back his core following. His move to LA was not about feeling lost after getting discovered by ESPN and seeing the Pats win the Super Bowl. I think that he always had stars in his eyes and jumped at the chance to move to LA and rub elbows with Kimmel. The new job was hard work and not easy for a guy who set his own rules for a decade. So he bails on Kimmel and goes back to his comfort zone…the ESPN column. If the celebrity aspect wasn’t a huge factor in his move, he would be back in Boston now.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:24 pm
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Ian says:
http://sexy-results.blogspot.com/2005/10/sports-sports-sports-sports.html
Gatorjess- my take on it.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:24 pm
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Brian says:
“Oh, it’s so terrible, this feeling that your team won and now you can’t be known as a loser anymore because they won, and you just wouldn’t understand how hard it is, and look how shitty my life is with this column I’m forced to write for on a sports website at least once a day week few times a month. It’s just so awful!”
I love ya, Tony, but we’re about to get in a major slapfight. Simmons has specifically and repeatedly trashed this inane “RSN has no identity” idea with a Brian-on-Whitlock level of vitriol (racism!).
I don’t think his cited point is whiny. Reaching the top and looking around for something else to do is universal. Trust me: I beat all the Mario games without warping. Even #2. When I was done, I lost interest. I thought his Theo column was his best in approximately forever. He’s clearly trying to grapple with the fact that he’s lost his fastball, and as such should be cut some slack here.
When does a trademark slide into self-parody? I don’t know. Familiarity breeds contempt in both readers and authors; I know at some point just about everyone will cease finding “OMG!!!” entertaining. Moving on and reinventing yourself is insanely difficult. For reference, I suggest “Comedian”.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:28 pm
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gatorjess says:
“…the biggest problem I have with Simmons: he calls himself the SPORTS Guy, yet while he’s merely ignorant of hockey, he’s outwardly hostile to college football. Lemme ask you: who DOESN’T like college football? And if they do, should they be employed at ESPN? Not liking college football is similar to not liking alcohol: the only excuse for it is doctor’s orders, and it’s a weak one at that…”
Quite right! Funny how you also posted about the single-sleeves in the same post, and that’s precisely what my last post ranted on. Though, I think I’m tyhe only one who doesn’t give a damn, and possibly, kind of thinks they’re sort of not really all that bad. I respect others’ takes that they may be ugly, but the Nike backlash for the sake of backlash that Lukas was sporting made me want to puke. Don’t go anti-corporate on me, Disney(-ABC-ESPN) employee.
Anyhow, this is good gameday fodder. Y’all are the first men I’ve read in quite some time that weren’t lining up to fellate Mr. Simmons. He’s funny, but he’s no god.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:38 pm
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Ian says:
I agree- the Theo post was excellent, but it proved that he’s best when he sticks to Boston sports. Otherwise, you get his NBA Preview the next day wondering why “no one’s talking about Dwight Howard.” What NBA preview have you read that DOESN’T predict a breakout year for that exact guy?
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:39 pm
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Nestor16 says:
Fuck the “Sports Guy.” I don’t read clowns who are so outwardly hostile to college football and west coast team. No need to waste our time paying attention to this douchebag.
November 3rd, 2005 at 3:58 pm
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Craig says:
There are 21-YEAR-OLD FEMALES reading this site?!?
Damn, boys. Well done.
November 3rd, 2005 at 4:40 pm
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tony says:
Brian… Bring it, bitch.
I mean, um, I see your points. Maybe I’m just lost in this whole argument because I really stopped reading him (aside from the occasional mailbag) months ago. And I avoided the Epstein article with the thought of “here he goes again on the Boston kick”. His act is tiresome. It may be years before I’m tired of “OMG!!! ____!!!”, but if you wrote for a national outlet and everything you wrote was “Receiver X is like Desmond Howard” and “OMG! NEW MATH!” and “Try as he might, Michael Jackson still doesn’t treat small boys as well as Red Berenson”, it would get old. He could write about RSN with the passion of 10,000 “Brian-on-Whitlocks”, but when it comes down to it, he’s still writing about Boston. Again. It’s that part that gets old and turns me off to him. Unfortunately, it’s been semi-justified over the past few years, with Sox and Pats winning titles, but in a national forum, I still say it’s bunk. Fortunately for him, I occasionally peruse Scoop Jackson’s column first, and it makes the 19,385th Karate Kid vs. Dwight Evans reference a little more palatable.
I pray that some day I will experience “not knowing what to do next”, but for now all I have to go on is the 1989 UM hoops title, which was quickly tempered by the resident drug addict at my high school throwing down some idle threats because he lost some big bucks on Seton Hall that night, and the ‘97 football championship which was less a celebration than a “how long have I been drinking in one spot now?” Even then, there was the Nebraska waiting game, followed by the “Good bye and good luck, Tom!” split championship. What a party, eh?
November 3rd, 2005 at 5:01 pm
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Nathan says:
His best work is still his NBA work, by far. Outside of that he’s funny at times, but he also clearly is less comfortable and knowledgable.
November 3rd, 2005 at 6:26 pm