It’s really too bad. I love Bill Simmons. He’s funny. He’s to the point. And his Sports Guy blog is so delightfully long and rambling. Plus, he gives hope to bloggers everywhere that one day, you too may be plucked from obscurity by ESPN and get paid to do what you already do for free.

But in this column from last year which ESPN has just resurfaced, he’s not really that funny. And not really to the point. I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now.

He gets off to a decent start:

Normally, I enjoy the week the Baseball Hall of Fame inductees are announced. Not this year. With Mark McGwire’s inclusion on the 2007 ballot, we have officially entered the Let’s Blackball the Potential-Steroids-Guy Era.

Some writers won’t vote for McGwire because he probably used steroids — keep in mind there’s never been proof that he did, other than a visible bottle of andro and those 135 pounds of muscle he added from 1990 to 2002 — which would be fine if they weren’t so pious about it.

135 lbs of muscle? Pretty funny. Okay. Pious? Yeah, fair point. What else you got, Sports Guy?

Not content with simply dismissing McGwire’s candidacy and moving on, they need to climb on their high horses and rip the guy to shreds. Of course, many of them would appear on any radio or TV show for 50 bucks and a free sandwich. We’re supposed to believe they would refuse the chance to take a drug that would enable them to do their job twice as well and make 10 times as much money? Yeah, right.

Totally valid. In fact, 50 bucks is what the Metro pays me per column (sandwich not included). Unfortunately, this may be the last valid point Simmons makes in this column, so take a minute to savor it. Go on. I’ll wait.

Ready?

Read the rest of this entry »

This story was sent to ESPN writer Bill Simmons by one of his readers and published in his Sports Guy column. It made me laugh:

Q: Went to the Yankees home opener and was using one of the urinals in the men’s bathroom. Two stalls over, a guy had his daughter in one of those baby papoose things around his neck. The guy between us strikes up a conversation with the dad. “So how old is she? Is this her first baseball game? Is this her first Yankees game?” Then he says, while talking stupid baby talk, “I bet this won’t be the only time you go to a Yankees game.” Just then, another guy walks behind us and says, “I bet this also won’t be the only time she’s in the men’s room,” and keeps on walking past. Welcome to Yankee Stadium.

–J. Coyle, Morristown, N.J.