Simmons on Boston beat writers ...

At his best, Simmons is an excellent, voice of the fan NBA, NFL, and MLB guy. As well as cultural/commentator critic.

At his worst he's a unbelievably sensitive, I'm cool watch me make porn jokes, overly focused on Boston, too-verbose hack with a ridiculously bad media voice.

When he sticks to his strengths and doesn't get overly full of himself or his biases (like the no Super Bowl talk for a week), he's damn good. And I give him FULL props for making his way as he did via the 'net. I've written him and told him just that.

He just needs to stay in his wheelhouse while he continues to build himself up for the next gig. Please don't use the column as a screenwriter's audition, or for whining about your blogging brethren, and things work much better, IMO.

 

Is he a journalist? Does he need to be? No, when he genuinely provides insight. The informed fan perspective is often interesting, and when written well, it's very entertaining. But he's not putting forth the effort he used to. Too often, he's simply the rantings of a fanboy who has no clue.

He can do better, he used to do better. As Page 2 columnists drop like flies and others come in to fill those slots, he has been a constant for five-plus years. I hope he does better again, and usually his NBA stuff is a great example of what he can do at his best. I also liked his Holy Cross basketball stuff; nothing wrong with an alum who cares about his alma mater, even if he sounds like the Big West fans who can't accept that glory has been left to past decades.

He blew an opportunity to do something fresh when he did that great choosing of an English soccer team to root for, then dropped the idea completely as soon as the season stared. Why do that when you can just rant about the Celtics, pick the Patriots, and put on a show of lamenting the Sox even though they achieved the ultimate a couple of short years ago? Why, with all this success behin you, bother learning more about the Bruins and writing some hockey once in a while? Why bother with new ideas, when a reality TV reference is all it takes to fill your column?

But he's got the mailing-it-in formula week down to a science.

Blog, Karate Kid reference, short half-ass column for espn the magazine in which I go to every pop-culture well I usually do and provide little actual insight. Mailbag, end with "Yup, these are my readers. (Hope espn.com doesn't realize a lot of them are more clever than me at this point). Column about how great Boston team other than the Bruins is . . . blog again.

Rinse, wash, repeat. Continue to get all of the reward, with nowhere near the effort or creativity (or insight) that got him the espn.com reward in the first place.

Yet I click all the time, hoping that today's column will be good. Yup, I'm still a fan of what work like his could be. I hate the imitators (there was an indianasportsguy!), but everyone always tries to copy a successful formula.

 

Piotr - Great take. Can't disagree with anything you said.

 

In the interest of full dislosure, I need to repeat my standby Simmons point that he apparently fights to keep his archive as free as possible. The older stuff goes to insider, but you can see a lot of his content for free.

Dude does care about his fans. It's just that he's a victim of his own success, and of the success of Boston teams. I have no doubt he gets really crappy writers' block while trying to compose his columns, comparing them to classics like the levels of losing, Ewing Theory, and the all-timer about why Roger Clemens is the devil. Now, his lamentations unfortunately ring hollow due to the Sox and Patsies' wins. And the giddy fan joy he wrote about after the first Patriots Super Bowl spoke to me, for sure. His subsequent column in which he said "I want MORE!" spoke to Yankees fans, I'm sure.

So when the Sox won it, he was already spoiled by the Patsies. Passion backed by disappointment (catastrophic disappointment, even) can be very compelling to read. But I found his Sox win! stuff a little bland.

And that passion and disappointment, again, is why dude should have stuck to his idea to become a Tottenham Hotspur fan.

 

Simmons has been unbelievably prolific and refreshing, I totally agree.

I constantly give him shit here and in other places, but I fully respect his output and his approach. The guy didn't get where he is by accident. Yes, he didn't pay the same dues some here have, but he saw an opening and he took it. I totally respect that.

Of any columnist I've read over the last 5 years, his stuff makes me laugh and shake my head in agreement more than anyone else. That is meaningful, and marketable.

He's an easy punching bag, and the fact that he doesn't handle criticism particularly well makes him even more tempting of a target. But he's the most successful/influential of the 'new Jacks,' and he's doing his thing.

I agree, his writing is not what it once was, but as you said, Piotr, how many new ideas are there when you have come up with so much great stuff? The guy has a kid now, and that changes things. His teams have won, and that changes things.

I still read his stuff most of the time, and he still entertains me. That's a lot more than I can say about a lot of writers. Plus, he knows the NBA, which means I'm going to read his stuff anyway. Hell, I endure articles in "Dime," etc. to get my NBA fix, so Bill's like Shakespeare after that.

 

Her twin sister Josefin does.

 

Unless Josefin marries Rodinho or Steve Nash, or Steve Jobs, boy, THAT son-in-law will be the underachieving slug at family get togethers.

 

Simmons is a "new Jack"?
Rok, dude, he's the whitest man writing.
To borrow a line from Bette Midler, he makes us look third-world.
And Michael? Where's Josefun finding her dates? eOverachievers.com?

 

JDate.com.

Hey, I can dream...

 

It's easy to say "don't read Simmons if you don't like him," but when that's the only sportswriter many of your friends read it's difficult not to, for conversation's sake -- no matter how infruriating he is. I personally take a twisted pleasure in reading some of his stuff and finding glaring contradictions.

Take for example this: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070119. I'll spare you having to read it, but say this: he spends about 250 words just on the introduction before getting into the heart, and that is sports fandom is a culture of "hate." Of course, he says this in relation to the Patriots, and in that case it's a shocking and terrible thing. And naturally, in the same column he trashes Peyton Manning, his second favorite target behind the Yankees. Hypocritical much?

He recently had a diary (I don't EVER read those) about Matsuzaka's debut. I happened to catch just the intro, which went something like this:

"If I did this from home," I told them, "I'd just feel like some guy or gal sitting on the couch making fun of the play-by-play announcer and bemoaning commercials."

"But wait, that's why it would be entertaining," they argued.

Oh, yeah. I forgot.

So he takes a potshot at the guys who are there live, and in the same paragraph pats himself on the back for being "entertaining." OK, so he doesn't like beat writers. That's apparent. But he also has trashed bloggers in the past. So who does he like if beat writers are crotchety dinosaurs and bloggers are losers living in their parents' basement?

In all honesty, I don't think Simmons' writing his bad. It's not insightful, and it stopped being groundbreaking a long time ago. But if it weren't for the jabs and self-congratulatory tone it would be harmless fluff. Factor in the aforementioned baggage, however, couple that with his huge readership, and for my money he does the greatest disservice to sports writing of anyone out there today.

I just want to add, RokSki: I agree with you that he's been very influential, and in many good ways. He paved for the way for stuff like Deadspin. He's the innovator, and for that he gets total credit and respect. In the last year or so though, he's the guy who gets to the top and is so paranoid of losing his crown that he wants to hold everyone else down.

 

Are you guys positive that DOC RIVERS said the quote Simmons referred to, and NOT Bob Ryan? Because to me, that's probably worth a post. I just looked it up and couldn't find it.

I actually think Ainge as more fault than Rivers, but that's just me.

 

Yeah it is mean-spirited and probably is over-the-line, but the line works because we all know there's a lot of truth to it. Now that he's won a major and is no longer a nobody, don't be surprised when you see a new Mrs. Johnson in a couple years that looks a bit more like Mrs. Mickelson and Mrs. Woods (well, not THAT good).