A Large Regular

Grantland was shut down today by ESPN. This was a move you could see coming a mile away yet the Internet was abuzz today with the gnashing of metaphorical teeth. This opinion may be unpopular but I won't miss Grantland. Yes I feel awful for the writers, editors and others who lost their jobs today but I'm guessing Disney is handling out pretty generous separation packages.

ESPN's first foray into smart sports writing was 15-years ago with Page 2. They fielded an all-star line-up of Ralph Wiley, Hunter S. Thompson, David Halberstam and a young Bill Simmons. Ralph Wiley and Hunter S. Thompson passed away. David Halberstam lost his enthusiasm for writing about sports after 9/11. That left just Simmons.

He was a hot property and he felt ESPN did a poor job with Page 2 so he leveraged his contract negotiations with the World-Wide Leader to let him create Grantland. His vision was to create a place where young hot writers could write what they wanted about sports and culture. He brought in and nurtured some very talented writers - that cannot be denied. But the problem was too much hipsterism. In many cases these hot young writers seemed to be writing to impress each other (and Simmons) instead of the general sports-loving public. The page views for Grantland just weren't there. The site wasn't close to being as successful as Deadspin or The Big Lead - but that was OK with the Grantland staff because they looked down their noses at those base sites that catered to the unwashed masses.

I was a regular at Grantland for a while but mostly for articles by Simmons or Charlie Pierce. Once Simmons was let go - I basically just read Pierce's brain droppings at the site (and I'm guessing Charlie will be just fine after today). Sure I gave many other Grantland writers a chance but to be honest I found most of their articles pretentious. Sorry - that's just my honest opinion.

Today many people are comparing the closing of Grantland to the similar fate of The National. No offense but this is like comparing the 27 Yankees to the 1987 Pawtucket Red Sox. Ironically Grantland did a great job of chronicling "The Greatest Paper that Ever Died".

Bill Simmons' hands are not clean with today's closing either. His understandable wish to get some measure of revenge on ESPN played a part in today's shuttering of Grantland (a situation Deadspin did a nice job of describing).

So Grantland has closed it's doors today. But it honestly won't be missed by me.

The New York Times has interesting look at fake Twitter followers. The big take-away for many is the fact that they say 70% of Barack Obama's followers are fake.

The Big Lead takes it the next step to see who in the sports world has fake followers and how many.

BTW - my Twitter handle is @ALargeRegular. I don't care if you are real or fake - just follow OK?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

- The Big Lead cashes in! Congrats to Jason McIntyre

- I guess you really could add Jason McIntyre's name to this list of people who used the web to get jobs

- Bud Light Swear Jar - classic beer commercial

- 24 cupcakes in 90 minutes for $25k - I'd do that in a heartbeat

Utah as National Champs

A post at The Big Lead spurred me to post about something I was thinking about earlier in the day. Utah won't get the chance but I have to say that I see no way that Utah would be able to beat a Florida, USC, Oklahoma or Texas team this year. No way. That's my personal opinion. It's not something that has been proven on the field of play.

The real reason you won't see a clamoring for Utah being named national champs, though, is because of the opinions of others. Utah as national champs would be a complete slap in the face of the football writers who vote in the AP poll. A poll that did not even have Utah in their Top 25 in the preseason rankings. To acknowledge even a pretext of a possibility of Utah having a claim to the national championship would be to at the same time say that all the voters in the AP poll had their heads so far up their asses as to not even see the potential of a Utah team in the top 25 never mind as national champion. The egos of the sportswriters aren't geared toward admitting their mistakes.

Thus - don't expect many "Utah as national champs" stories coming from anyone soon who votes in the AP poll.

Brenda Fraser?

The Big Lead had this post.

With this picture.

I was mesmerized. It was the girl's face. It looked like someone photoshopped the face on the body and the face looked familiar. I couldn't look away. Then it hit me. She looks like Brendan Fraser.

Has anyone ever seen those two people in the same room? Just asking.

Interesting Question

The Big Lead posts and interesting question, "If you could have any pitcher in baseball and salaries were not a factor" (who would you take)?

I've been thinking about the question all morning and I think I'd have to take Tim Lincecum. I know some people are worried about his body size and delivery style but I can't help but think of the same things being said of Pedro Martinez when he was with the Dodgers.

It should be noted that I've done a 180 on Jon Lester and I would seriously give him consideration as my top choice if the team I was picking for had a park that favored lefty pitchers over righties..

Bill Simmons

Josh Q. Public calls out Bill Simmons in an open letter. He basically accuses Bill of going from the Vito Corleone of sports blogging to the Fredo "I knew it was you" Corleone of sports loyalties.

I must point out that I called this back in 2002 and even pinpointed the time the change happened in Simmons' sports soul:

This past fall Bill had a column that announced that he had gone over to the dark side of luxury boxes instead of bleacher seats. He even switched the picture that accompanied his columns from the one of him wearing a Red Sox jersey to one of him wearing a suit and tie. (In yesterday's mailbag Bill tries to pass the buck to management on the new picture but the excuse is as weak as the last few columns - come on Bill you could have said no to the new picture and you know it.)

I don't think that Bill realized that the "going over to the dark side" column was symbolic in more than just his choice of seating at the ballpark.

Suit Simmons has always been different from the jersey Bill we all learned to love. We still read him though because every once and a while jersey Bill makes a reappearance.

HT The Big Lead

Athletes Who Served

Very interesting post by Josh Q. Public on athletes who served our country in the military. Of course Ted Williams is the centerpiece.

I was aware of most of the names on the list but I had no idea that Al Bumbry was a platoon leader in Vietnam.

HT The Big Lead

Larry Bird



The Big Lead had a post on Larry Bird which made me check out YouTube looking for the Robert Parrish take-down of Bill Laimbeer. I found the above instead.

Chuck Klosterman

Another solid interview by The Big Lead. This time Chuck Klosterman (the man Bill Simmons yearns to be) answers some questions.

Jay Glazer Interview

Nice interview with Jay Glazer over at The Big Lead.

Nicely done!

PTI and the Dumbing Down of America

Norman Chad has an amusing column on sportswriters on TV. Norm was just half-joking but he's hit on a serious problem. Sportswriters on TV are responsible for the dumbing down of America and they must be stopped.

First there was The Sports Reporters which was lead by the great Dick Schaap. It was a veritable Algonquin round table for serious sports fans. However, after the passing of Schaap it became the Mike Lupica show and the quality of the discourse went down the tube because the other guests were too worried about wearing the same tie as or looking the little dictator directly in the eye to make cogent arguments.

Sports Reporters spawned Pardon the Interruption (PTI), which as Chad points out, took two of the best sportswriters in the business out of the business of writing. PTI spawned Around the Horn which is to intellectual improvement what cockfighting is to sports. (While I'm throwing around analogies - Stephen A Smith is to bleeding ears what Japanese cartoons are to sudden epileptic seizures.)

The trend has been downward in quality of discourse and upward in volume. At the same time, as Chad points out, the sportswriters have stopped writing. It gets confusing because if they are not writing then they can't be sportswriters. Since most of them never played the game they can't be called sports personalities. Yammering white guys would cover 90% of the TV talking heads but I think it wouldn't be politically acceptable.

If you think I'm kidding consider that while at the same time the sportswriters on TV phenomenon was spreading a gender gap in education was also developing. Girls were surging ahead of boys in reading and math skills. Boys who used to read the Kornheisers and Wilbons of the world were now just vacantly staring into a boob tube. Instead of working out the math of a boxscore - boys just assumed the numbers Woody Paige shouted out were correct.

There has been a serious dumbing down of the American male youth and ESPN is to blame. They must be stopped before something worse than Stephen A. Smith is forced upon the youth of America.

If you need any further proof that what I claim is true - just look at the recent Who's Now "competition" on ESPN. Never mind the inanity of the idea behind the competition - just look at the grammar of the title of it.

(Oh and Norm - just an FYI - Nipsey Russell died 2 years ago.)

HT The Big Lead for the Chad column

Mike Freeman Interview

The Big Lead has a very interesting interview with sports journalist Mike Freeman. The interview covers the gambit of work ethics of sports writers, the Internet being the death knell of big time sports sections, myopia at ESPN and a host of other subjects including Brady Quinn:

As for Brady Quinn, he is by far the most overrated quarterback prospect in perhaps the last 10 to 15 years. I cannot believe the nonsense some in the media say about the guy. I’ve seen most of his big games and he is just not very impressive against better competition. A lot of NFL writers are in love with his size and his whiteness. I look at him and see Kerry Collins. Not a bad player but both possess what one scout called “shrinking violet syndrome.” In big games, Quinn was non-existent. He never led his team to a huge win against a formidable opponent. If I was an NFL team, that would scare me. But then again what do I know. I love the show “Cold Pizza.”

I would counter that the come-back win at Michigan State in the driving rain was a big-time win but I would also concede that everyone knew LSU was going to rip ND and Brady Quinn in the Sugar Bowl this year. Damn you Mike Freeman - now every time I see Brady Quinn the thought of Kerry Collins will pop in my head (although a Kerry Collins who could handle his drinks wouldn't have been a bad first round pick).