Le Batard: "Time to open a new chapter in my life"

It's strange - the column made me wonder about his personal life.

Usually when people say, "I need to grow up..." that means they've made a mistake.

 

A career built on jocksniffing is a mistake.

 

He's not the first newspaper writer to do this. He's not even the first Miami Herald columnist to do this:

http://www.davebarry.com/gg/NoMoreColumn%20interview.htm

And Dave Barry wasn't the first Herald star to take a sabbatical, either:

http://www.ednabuchanan.com/ednabio2.htm

Was Edna Buchanan the first? Who the fuck knows.

I don't think it was a terrific idea for DLB to write an entire column about it, but he didn't have to admit the column had suffered because of the outside work. How often have you seen a writer do that?

 

i enjoyed his columns until he felt the need to play the contrarian..sticking up for Bonds,Ricky W and others.He thought he was the voice of the downtrodden when he really wasn't...He turned into another writer who put tv and radio ahead of writing.Thats why I still believe guys like Wilbon,Mariotti,Wojnowski,and Plaschke still put the newspaper as number one.Mariotti and Wilbon dont miss their TV stuff that is true,but I dont get the sense that it really takes away from their newspaper work.

 

Interesting blog post by LeBastard! on tbl today.

http://thebiglead.com/?p=5820

The best part: The sports fan is starting to cover sports with us, invading our turf without going to journalism school or sweating on a beat. We can embrace that. Or we can fight against it and lose.

 

There's some serious self-loathing going on there.
I'd say he needs the sabbatical.

 

Or you can marginalize it by performing at a consistently-high level in print . . . something DLB hasn't done (given his seemingly-endless string of apologist pieces)
in years.

 

I've got to admit, I'm a sucker for an apology. It may be way too late and largely insincere (some here clearly believe that), but it still separates him from so many who never even blink about half-assed efforts. So I'm cutting DLB a itsy, bitsy amount of slack. Not that he cares...