Check out Michael Silver's pimpin' new mug and column name!

When sites make me click over too many pages, I usually head straight to the printable version. That's almost always on one page and means they only get to show one ad instead of the three or so ads that are typical on each page of a piece split over five pages.

 

I see from Silver's mug that the business has come full circle. I know many pubs prohibit the use of serious-guy-on-phone, the apogee of photo hackery:

 

I'm sure the photo and title of his column is a tongue in cheek reference to the buddy-buddy style of his writing, and most people are taking it a mite too seriously. I think it works well in this format.

 

'Rollin' With....??

What's he rollin, a joint? A log? A wheelbarrow?

Michael Silver, the Sisyphus of SI....

 

You really think so? I can't see him being self-aware of this reptuation. I think he probably thinks everyone's jealous of how "down" he is with the athletes.

 

"It was the interviewer's equivalent of an afternoon quickie, only with far more performance anxiety on my part."

Anybody know if some organization still holds those old bad-writing contests, the ones where contestants try to write as atrociously as possible?

Not just with the above line, awful though it is, but this guy could be a bad-writing-contest dynasty.

 

That definitely could be true. I don't know the guy. I like most of his stuff, moreso in the magazine where it's, you know, edited, but I would think he has some sense of humor. Ya never know. At least he's not rolling with some shortstop from Cal's softball team.

 

I have an idea. Instead of 'rollin' with' athletes, how about covering them?

 

21 -- Chair of the SportsJournalists.com Classics Department.
Well-played.

 

Column-naming ... eh, to each his own. To paraphrase JBL, you can't name your own wrestling moves. So you shouldn't name your own column either.

I bucked the trend at my shop. Everybody has a witty column title (sarcasm), and I was told to come up with a new one. I'm told that it distinguishes us from the AP columnists (Litke, etc.) because they don't get titles. I said that I'm pretty sure that when I write about Podunk Co. High, no one will mistake me for a national AP columnist. So I just use my name. No pretentious shit.

That being said, we had an angry Detroit Lions fan write us last year to complain about "our" columnist, Jerry Greene. Dumbass actually thought Greene worked from Idaho, despite the fact that we keep his Orlando tags on the copy.

 

i think Michael is a pretty dammn good writer...i agreee sometimes he comes off buddy buddy with the guys he covers..but sometimes his stories are those type of fluff pieces...he can be very good at game stories at big events...i admit i am biased cause i have "rolled" with him and he is a good guy

 

Hey, we all have to write hum jobs sometimes. It comes with the territory. I know I've written my share. I just don't like his because they smack of 'I'm WAYYYYYY cooler than you' to the reader [he probably is, but that doesn't prove anything]. That's not something I want to read further, when the writer is basically big-timing the reader.