Rolling Stone covers sports? Really??

As a Christmas "stocking stuffer" I got the latest issue of Rolling Stone -- the one with the top 50 songs and albums of the 2000s on the cover.

Haven't subscribed to the mag in nearly a decade, and have rarely seen an issue at all in the past couple of years (it's smaller!).

Anyway, thumbing through the back of the mag I see a sports column(?) on p. 92. It's called "The Curse of the Bears" by Matt Taibbi and it's about how Jay Cutler has continued Chicago's decades-long run of awful quarterbacks. It was a pretty good column (with a funny photo illustration), albiet on a subject matter I knew all too well

So, Rolling Stone fans/readers, is this something new, or has Jann W's crew been sneaking sports into the magazine regularly in recent years? When I used to get the magazine from the mid-1980s through 2000, I don't really remember any sports coverage, unless an athlete tried to pretend he was a musician (Shaq the rapper) or an actor (Shaq-Fu).

Just wondering.

Oh, and even though Jann Wenner's magazine is better than I remember, the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame is still a sham!

 

Taibbi started his career as a sports writer. In Moscow.

 

I think Taibbi fucked up his '70s attendance numbers for Russian basketball, though.

** **

Taibbi is my favorite writer. Couple of funny lines in that Cutler/Bears QB woes piece.

 

Yeah, it was a well-written piece. Here's one of the zingers I liked:

 

Toure and others have done sports profile pieces in the past, but Taibbi started writing a sports column in fellow Wenner mag Men's Journal a year or so ago, and I guess it was a Eureka moment for RS, because he's been doing these columns in Rolling Stone for a little while now. At least since football season started.

 

Didn't they also blister Eric Mangini earlier this year? Well-deserved, if so.

 

Yes - he compares Mangini to Augustus Glop. A laugh out loud funny column. Could not find link to full story but here are a few passages:

Memo to Eric Mangini: The part of Bill Belichick's career you wanted to emulate was the Patriots part, i.e., the successful part. The part that came before that, the stint Belichick had coaching the Browns, when the future Hall of Famer was a monosyllabic control freak who treated reporters like carriers of the Marburg virus and micromanaged his players' lives down to scheduling their bowel movements -- all en route to a losing record in four of five seasons and the eventual removal of the humiliated franchise to Baltimore -- you probably wanted to skip that.
Mangini's performance as head coach of the Browns has been one of the truly thrilling sports disaster stories ever, a sort of Hurricane Andrew of football mismanagement, replete with horrific losses and incredible tales of pointless disciplinary tactics"

Between taking out the capitalists of Goldman Sachs and Mangini Taibbi has had a great run.

 

Raoul Duke used to be their sports editor.

 

Yeah, it's kind of threadjack, but since the RS column on Mangini was referenced, here we go:

Mangini was an easy target in October and November. How about now?

And this is coming from somebody who wanted him gone then, too. Now I think he might have earned himself another season, especially if they beat Jacksonville next week and close with four straight victories.

But how many games did the Browns win under Romeo Crennel last year? And in four seasons, how many times did Crennel's Browns beat the Steelers?

Just saying.

Mangini is never going to be loved by the fan base, but it's not like he's a cross between Rich Kotite and Hitler, as Taibbi and others have painted him.