March 01, 2005

Shut Up, Sports Guy

I really don't care about the Sports Guy.

I mean, I like his writing okay. He's relatively entertaining and I admit that I'm partial to the kind of pop-cultural writing that praises obscure background That Guy actors. Heck, I've even appeared in his column (as "Seattle reader Monty", which admittedly isn't like I was writing a guest column or anything). But this attempt to make him a beloved recurring character? Both boring and pointless.

Take a look at his home page, the "Sports Guy's World". Right there the name tells you that it's not just a collection of columns; it's an ethos they're trying to sell you. They have a Sports Guy Cartoon that I, frankly, have never bothered to look at. I realize that in his columns, he's built up this whole environment, but that stuff isn't particularly interesting to me. It's when he wanders out of his safety zone of sports and pop culture that he loses me. When he drops casual misogyny, I don't care for it (and that happens a lot, by the way -- he really doesn't seem to like women at all). When he talks about his constant gambling, I kind of zone out. His "world" isn't as fascinating as he or his editors think.

And then there's this "Intern" thing. After they gave Bill Simmons (that's who the Sports Guy is when he doesn't have a wacky tag) his own subsite, they claimed he was going to write a lot. But when the columns slowed down, they brought in this kid who, as far as I could tell, was just some guy doing all of Simmons's running jokes. Apparently he'd known Simmons at some point, but it didn't really ring true. Or, and this is the important part, funny. And eventually the guy stopped doing it and now, now there's a big "Sports Guy Intern Contest" where a bunch of people I don't care about all squabble in an attempt to fill a position I don't care about. And that counts as "Sports Guy Content" to the good people at ESPN2, completely missing the point that it's not, in fact, remotely interesting. Well, at least to me. I guess it's possible that there are people who are fascinated.

And you know, the more I think about Bill Simmons, the more I notice his flaws. In particular, it's amazing what a bad gambler he is. It's easy for me to say, but I would think that someone as compulsive as he is (seriously, anyone who's constantly aware of how much he can take out of the ATM so he can go lose a few hundred bucks at the blackjack table) would be better at it. He's got a huge list of NFL Playoff Rules that result in him basically going .500. He honestly believes in wildly irrational things like "if somebody bets on Don't Pass, that's bad luck for the table" and -- look, just take it from me: he's both a total gambling addict and completely unaware oif how bad at it he is.

And the misogyny isn't just occasional. I don't have time to dig up a lot of quotes, so here's a random one I remember from a recent column:

"Why aren't you watching this game with anyone?" the Sports Gal asked me.
"Nah, not this one. I'm watching this one alone."
She waited for an explanation ... and I waited for her to leave the room.

Classy! Yeah, that's true love right there: glaring at your wife until she exits your presence so as not to jinx the game. C'mon, his basic rule is "women ruin everything" for Pete's sake. More and more I think the problem is that his "comic persona" has "Guy" in the name. He's so desperate to act like he's on "The Man Show", he used to be a writer on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Frankly, what I'd like is a bit less Sports Guy, boiling off the parts I particularly dislike, rather than a whole mess of extraneous stuff like they have now. It's like they've decided they need five times as much "Guy" and about half as much "Sports".

Oh thank goodness I'm not the only one getting fed up with Simmons lately. Plus, I hate the fact that you can't go back in the archives to read some of his older (genuinely funny) material without subscribing to ESPN Insider. I'm not paying extra, thanks. I'd rather go without.

Posted by: Coleen at March 1, 2005 09:44 AM

*Thank you* for calling out Simmons's near-pathological misogyny. It's all over Page 2, really, but Simmons is the worst of the lot. His columns have become almost disturbing in the way he talks about women. I'm not sure if it's better or worse to realize that he's probably not so bad in real life, and just writes this way because he thinks it's funny.

I love his passion for basketball, but it's increasingly difficult to deal with the rest.

Posted by: joshlee at March 1, 2005 10:18 AM

THANK YOU for calling Simmons on his crap. On my charitable days, I assume he's channeling a 13 year old boy stricken with priapism, and is therefore not mentally evolved enough to realize that women are actual people and not merely decorative objects/bete noirs. Because everyone loves a funny writing persona, and what's funnier than a 13 year old boy stricken with priapism?

I look forward to future entries where you examine Simmons' other extremely annoying habit: climbing on a cross, then explaining to the rest of us how he's martyred himself to Boston sports fandom. Dude, they WON. And the Patriots are hardly the underdogs of the NFL. A little self-awareness, please?

Posted by: Lisa S. at March 1, 2005 05:38 PM

I agree with you 100%. The intern thing is total crap, especially how he's being so charitable including women as contestants, albeit the only ones who managed to work their breast size in their entry essay.

Posted by: Kara at March 1, 2005 08:00 PM

I have actually emailed the SG to give him crap for his constant habit of blatently excluding (and demeaning) his female readers. He did respond with a "point taken" response, but of course nothing changes. You're right... it's that whole "man show" mentality.

Posted by: jen at March 2, 2005 07:08 AM

Count me as someone else who is always sort of creeped out by the misogyny. Those columns always made me uncomfortable (such as the entire column devoted to rules for women watching sports with guys). He can't really be like that in real life AND get married. He's portrayed the Sports Gal as a fairly reasonable woman, one whom I can't imagine putting up with that sort of crap.

Does the ESPN Page 2 readership REALLY appreciate that?

On the other hand, I do appreciate his writing on the Sox (I, too, am a lifelong Sox fan). Yet, if Game 6, 1986, classifies as one of the five worst days of your life, well, you've lived a pretty charmed life.

Posted by: Ryan at March 2, 2005 07:46 AM

Hey buddy, I can tell you one thing about the sports guy. He is a fan. Like you don't have any friggen flaws. You are building your website based on bashing other people. You sound like a real chooch bag. It's entertainment. you really think he glares at his wife to make her leave the room? I mean come on. You are dumb enough to believe that, you should'nt be allowed to comment on anything. Sports guy keeps it real. You are just a chooch!

Posted by: Mike at March 4, 2005 01:02 PM

Ok, so you have a problem with the Sports Guy. Here's a solution: don't read his articles. See how well that works? If you don't like something, don't subject yourself to it -- I doubt someone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read everything he writes.

By dedicating a portion of your website to publicly state how much you hate the Sports Guy you only give him the publicity that all writers/entertainers crave. Do you remember how Howard Stern got famous? If you don't go watch "Private Parts". It's a great movie and there are a couple excellent titty shots in it.

Posted by: Ferrario at March 4, 2005 01:23 PM

Actually, what I was saying was that I wanted *more* Sports Guy and *less* Sports Guy Cartoon, Sports Guy Intern Hunt, and Sports Guy World content. I also took a moment to object to some elements of Bill Simmons's writing.

Reading comprehension is fun!

Posted by: Monty at March 4, 2005 01:27 PM

You totally missed the point -- all of those elements make up the Sports Guy, you have to take the good with the bad (or what you preceive to be bad). The Sports Guy has always made it a point to balance out his columns on sports with his columns on Vegas, pop culture, etc. So when you title an entry "Shut Up, Sports Guy" it indicates your general distaste with what he is doing. Kind of like when you say, "the more I think about Bill Simmons, the more I notice his flaws" or "C'mon, his basic rule is 'women ruin everything' for Pete's sake."

So to your point, reading comprehension is fun! But it's not as much fun as knowing what you yourself write. Plus, you should probably watch the Sports Guy cartoon before you blast it -- you don't want to fall into the trap of ignornace.

Posted by: Ferrario at March 7, 2005 06:55 AM

You say: "The Sports Guy has always made it a point to balance out his columns on sports with his columns on Vegas, pop culture, etc."

Right after a column in which I said: " It's when he wanders out of his safety zone of sports AND POP CULTURE that he loses me."

In other words, I *like* the pop culture stuff. And you can tell that because I said so. And I didn't "blast" the cartoon; I said I wasn't interested in it.

A couple final points before I give up:

Commenting on specific flaws is not the same thing as evincing "general distate". In certain ways, it is the opposite.

Mr. Ferrario, you said this particular entry constituted "dedicating a portion of your website" to the Sports Guy, and that would only "give him the publicity that all writers/entertainers crave". Taking your second point first, I encourage you to go back through the entry and look for the part where I mentioned I'd actually appeared in his column. It's in the second paragraph, so it's hard to miss. I would have thought.

For your first point, though, observe the URL. See the "000675.html"? That means this is the 675th entry here. Go click on the word "Archive" at the top of the screen and you will see many, many other entries on astoundingly unimportant topics. I think you overstate the case when you say I've dedicated a portion of my website to the Sports Guy, because really, he's only being put on the same level as such past topics as the Wacky Races, Popeye (the movie), "the time my car was broken into", and "the other time my car was broken into". I write about a wide range of things, and I assure you that I shall continue to do so even if it annoys some idiot who writes angry comments without reading the entries. By which I mean you.

Posted by: Monty at March 7, 2005 09:02 AM

Ok, so you like the pop culture stuff and the sports stuff but you're just not interested in the cartoon. Somewhere north of 99% of the Sports Guy's writings fall under the category of sports and pop culture -- his intern contest is based on how well these applicants can interweave the two topics. So why do you want him to shut up? Is it because he enjoys Las Vegas and you don't gamble? Or is it because he makes jokes about his wife and his marriage?

There's nothing wrong with disliking either of those things -- America needs people like you to take the moral high road from time to time for us to realize how seriously we don't need to take ourselves. And for the record, I'm not angry ... nor do I think I'm an idiot. But if you insist on calling me names, so be it -- I won't stoop to your level. But you might want to base your conclusions on facts -- you'll be much more convincing, I assure you.

Posted by: Ferrario at March 7, 2005 10:18 AM

What conclusions? The reason I called you an idiot is that even after I clarified my position (which I phrased as "*more* Sports Guy") you continued to try to argue with an imaginary person who hates the Sports Guy. That's not even reading copmprehension, that's just you not bothering to read at all.

I'll restate my opinion one more time, from the second paragraph of the piece: Bill Simmons as a writer? Fine. A couple objections, but on the whole, I ENJOY HIS WRITING. The attempt to make the Sports Guy a recurring character with cartoons and interns ripping off his jokes and all that "Sports Guy's World" stuff? I don't care about. *That's* what I'm saying "Shut Up" to.

Just out of curiosity, how did you decide I was taking "the moral high road" when I objected to his gambling columns on the grounds of Simmons being a lousy gambler?

Posted by: Monty at March 7, 2005 10:33 AM

You're saying "shut up" to something you haven't even heard yet (i.e. the cartoon). That is the equivalent of me telling you to shut up before I heard you speak. Do you get it now?

As for him being a lousy gambler, that's certainly a conclusion you draw without any factual basis. Unless of course you can itemize his performance throught his gambling career. And if you really knew anything about gambling, you'd know that being .500 is beating the house, (which you obivously don't) leading me to believe that you don't gamble. That as well as the insitance that his is a misogynist, which is patently ridiculous. Don't get so angry -- everyone makes mistakes. I've certainly made my share -- posting on this website is looking like another one.

Posted by: Ferrario at March 7, 2005 10:44 AM

Patently ridiculous? Even Simmons himself (in this article: http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/021025 from 2002, which I'm kind of surprised I could remember, let alone locate!) mentions that his schtick includes being an "occasional chauvinist". I'm not making this stuff up here: he puts in shots at women because he finds them funny. Personally, I don't.

My objection to the cartoon is that they announced "lots more Sports Guy". And then that turned out to mean "about the same amount of Famous Original Sports Guy and several things like the Cartoon and the Intern's Column which have the Sports Guy label on them". Remember when they said "five updates a week"? I was hoping those would be "five columns a week", but it was not to be. And now I notice they've taken off the "Last Updated/Next Update" thing.

My conclusion that he's a lousy gambler comes from his blackjack columns that are full of things like "we lose the cards that were working so well for us" and his playoff betting rules that are a mix of logic and superstition. He thinks he should go 12-0 for the playoffs but ends up doing as well as a coin flip.

Look, maybe he's a better gambler than I think. That's a perfectly valid argument to make and if you had posted that, I would have shrugged and said "Yeah, maybe". But telling me how much I "hate the Sports Guy" is just weird and wrong, and I still don't see how you got that from what I wrote.

I don't mind being disagreed with. But when someone argues with me and assigns me an opinion I don't actually hold, I'm going to speak up.

Posted by: Monty at March 7, 2005 11:06 AM

Oh, I get it now. You're unhappy about the disparity between what the Sports Guy means when he says "more Sports Guy" and what you expected when he said "more Sports Guy." Well, you can't please everyone (you should know that, right?), and I still think it's in your best interests to actually watch the cartoons before you claim indifference. FYI, the last updated tag is still there, but I'm not surprised you haven't noticed -- it's listed right next to his cartoon head.

Furthermore, calling youself an occassional chauvinist is much different that being a misogynist. A chauvinist thnks of themeselves as being superior to the opposite sex (there are both male and female chauvinists), whereas a misogynist hates women -- there is a difference, and it's in the dictionary, so don't even bother trying to refute it (think of it as the criminal difference between someone who runs a stoplight every now and then and a serial killer).

Going back to the gambling thing, I think you're missing the point. If you go 6-6 in the playoffs, you've beaten the house (and SG's record is above .500) -- why is this so hard to understand? The casino industry doesn't report several billion dollars in profit every year because any idiot can go .500. And when you get to the end of a great shoe in blackjack, you absolutely are losing cards that were working so well for you because the shoe needs to be reshuffled. He is a better gambler than you think (I'll wait patiently for the shrug) -- and I think you're out of your element on this one.

Anyway, this debate is getting boring (not to mention useless). Feel free to argue with me at [URL deleted] -- I am nothing if not an equal opportunist.

Posted by: Ferrario at March 7, 2005 11:30 AM

Re: the "Last Updated" tag. Oh, you're right. They moved it above the nav bar, and I guess I just never looked up there.

Re: Misogyny. No, I really do think his comedic persona hates women. And from that, I'm guessing that Simmons himself has a problem, because he finds jokes like "Women ruin everything" funny.

Re: Gambling. The only gambling I do is the occasional poker-playing, so I freely admit that you may be right about me being out of my depth. On the other hand, it seems like his last few Vegas columns have ended with him being down several hundred dollars.

Re: this debate. "Getting" boring and useless?

Posted by: Monty at March 7, 2005 11:39 AM

Well, misogyny and chauvinism are just different parts of the pig. Stop-light runners and serial killers are both breaking the law. The difference is degree. So that wasn't exactly a compelling argument that he couldn't possibly be misogynistic.

I have to say I feel he is. Which depresses me, because I love the Sportsguy otherwise. But this consistent semi-indulgent/semi-girls-are-icky-13-year-old vibe (someone upthread said charitable, which I think is exactly right) he puts out about women is kind of gross.

Posted by: Julia at March 7, 2005 12:00 PM

"If you go 6-6 in the playoffs, you've beaten the house (and SG's record is above .500) -- why is this so hard to understand?"

Add me to the list of people who don't understand. You're saying there are sports books that not only don't have a vig but have an anti-vig so you WIN money when you go 6-6? My next trip to Vegas is just over a week from now. Please direct me to these magical sports books.

Sports Guy rules.

Posted by: Jay at March 7, 2005 02:37 PM

I'm so glad I found this article. Yeah, there's been something seriously lacking with the Sports Guy lately, I don't know what it is. Maybe Bill feels that he doesn't have to try anymore because the Sox finally won. I used to read his column all the time (and his archives before the ESPN Insider), but now he's writing less and annoying me more, ESPECIALLY with this Intern Contest crap. The old Intern was so appallingly unfunny, it made me cringe, and these new "writers" are trying so hard to emulate their internet hero with their wacky pop culture references and sycophantic nods to Boston sports. It's nauseating.

At first, I considered his off-hand misogynistic remarks as innocent "guys at the bar" banter, but as they start to pile up they're a bit troubling. I don't know anything about The Sports Gal, but man, it sounds like Bill's lucky to have someone who puts up with his crap (I guarantee she's not allowed in the room while he's watching the Celtics games, or the NCAA tournament). He reminds me of a roommate I had at college who was from suburban Boston: a smug, self-absorbed, condescending, know-it-all who thought that his little corner of Massachusetts was the Center of the Universe. Ugh.

But for the most part, I'll continue to read his free column (whilst avoiding the cartoons), because his observations on sports and pop culture usually hit the mark. Plus, his reviews of such things as the movie "Youngblood" are incredibly funny (but I could do without his pointing out that there's a "wet blanket" girlfriend in almost every sports movie). And thankfully, I'm not a gambler, otherwise I would be tempted to listen to his shoddy advice.

Posted by: GuinnessJeff at March 20, 2005 03:45 PM

hey c'mon now is bill simmons realllly that bad? woman hater? terrible gambler? 13 year old? smug know-it-all who thinks boston is the center of the universe? he's just a guy who gets to write about sports, movies, music, and just about anything he wants to, and most of these hate-postings are probably from people who are just jealous that they aren't getting paid for what they are typing about, like bill. anyone one of you (and myself) would love to have his job...even if we got torn apart on websites for talking about things we like and dislike.

Posted by: jameson fire at March 21, 2005 12:50 PM

Shut Up, Sports Guy

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