The Simmons Site

Really liked this Michael MacCambridge piece. For a section called Director's Cut, which will look back at classic sports journalism pieces. This one is about Kornheiser's story for Inside Sports on Nolan Ryan.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6761350/bringing-all-back-home

I'm a sucker for these types of stories so that obviously made me the perfect audience. I can see some thinking it's too inside baseball and "who besides sportswriters and people on this site give a shit about the behind-the-scenes dissection?" But how often, really, do you see stories like this? Thousands of places breakdown movies and TV shows. Love that it's being done with a piece of writing. Plus, if it took up space where a column about Jeter was going to go, I think we can all be a bit thankful.

It is a bit interesting that they chose this particular Kornheiser piece. It was an interesting profile and was the first cover story for Inside Sports, certainly a tremendous magazine. But it's certainly not - to borrow a Simmons phrase - a story that's usually put in the Pantheon of classic takeout pieces.

But...John Walsh was the editor of Inside Sports. And of course is an ESPN legend. And is a contributing editor to Grantland. And Kornheiser is now an ESPN institution. Wonder how much Walsh had to do with picking this particular piece to lead off the section. And it's especially interesting - especially interesting for the 1 percent of people who are into backstories of classic sports journalism - because Simmons has often cited one of Kornheiser's stories as being an all-time favorite. But it wasn't this one. It was his story on Rick Barry for Sports Illustrated. So why not that story for the Director's Cut? Well, obviously, Walsh was always a rival with SI, first for Inside Sports, then ESPN the Mag.

Regardless, I think this will be a cool feature on Grantland. And I've plugged it here 50 times before, but if you haven't read MacCambridge's history of Sports Illustrated, The Franchise, you're really missing out on a great book.

 

I was worried when this thread slipped to the second page today. Is that even allowed?

 

I shared those concerns, 21.

And while it would have required a hell of a lot of events and new topics - Gannett announces it's laying off all but 100 employees and will now compete with Demand Media as a content farm; Ian O'Connor pens a column wondering if The Flip and The Homer can count for Jeter's two miracles in his canonization application, even if they happened while he was alive; Rupert Murdoch resigns and says as penance for the News of the World scandal he will provide Mother Jones magazine with a $500 million gift; a first-year reporter wonders if he should write RBI or RBIs; Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and Janet Cooke team up for a story on Grantland about teenage hackers with sons who are homeless heroin addicts and brothers from San Antonio who were killed in in Iraq; a paper in California published a 25,000-word investigative piece on parking ticket fraud by a freelancer who's racked up $35,000 in "unfair" parking ticket fines; Jones writes a blog about how he punched Jeff George to death just so he could watch Jason Whitlock cry; Mr. Bio pimps his newest biofile - 50 things you didn't know about Max Mercy (No. 1: Even after everything he saw, even after the shattered light and the county fair strikeout and the busted ball, if he had to have a homer and he had to pick one guy to do it, he'd still pick The Whammer over Roy Hobbs); a desker and prolific SportsJournalists.com poster receives a call from a parent who demands to know why his "fucking rag of a paper" only publishes the top 25 finishers in the medley relay event at the local swimming invitational and the fact the "fucking piece of shit paper" doesn't do the top 27 finishers could cost his clean-shaven kid a scholarship to famed Kenyon College. SportsJournalists.com poster apologizes to caller, but helpfully points out that scholarships aren't even allowed in D3 - to move this thread to the third page...I just didn't want to take the chance.

 

Hey, Kenyon's a D-III powerhouse. I felt for the guy.

 

Anyone else checking this site daily? Some really good articles. I'd like to see them pursue Saraceno now that USA Today is underusing him.

 

Nothing posted on this forum has made me laugh harder. I offer you a sincere thanks.

 

Do you think the Kenyon College swim team kids ever get tired of quoting that David Foster Wallace commencement speech? Because I wouldn't. I would quote it every day at practice. "This is water. This is water."

And before every race, I'd totally say shit like "I wish you way more than luck."

Also, all my 200 IMs would have footnotes.

 

Kenyon College, Class of '49.