Whew! I feel better now. Thanks for lasting through that tirade (if you did). I think the Good Doctor summed it up (below) better than I ever could. I agree that I don't think I was hard enough on him, which is probably in direct correlation to the fact that I WANT him to write good articles again. But this, coupled with the "Guaranteed to be Awful" WSOP Article coming, I don't think that is possible anymore. Read the Good Doctor's take and enjoy your weekend YouTube Video.......Ninjas are rad and the music accompanying said Ninja is radder (Band=Rise Against, check them out)

Wild as it is, I think you are taking it a little too easy on Billy. You have, over these three posts, consistently given Simmons credit for having a main point to the article (a main point that was never really discussed at all, but it was at least there). That is, taken from his mailbag question, “who is more clutch, Bird or Ortiz?”

After reading the article I am convinced that it has entirely NO point, not even “who is more clutch?” Even though Rusty is wondering this, I don’t see any indication that Simmons ever attempts to tackle this topic with a breakdown, “Dr. Jack-style.” Case-in-point, “clutchness” is a category in the breakdown! If you asked which of 2 players has hit more home runs in a season, is the actual # of home runs only 1 category of many used to deduce the answer?

What is nice is how you’ve broken down Simmon’s painful-to-read logic. This piece was brutal from start to finish: literally pointless, terrible reasoning, and nothing more than a bj to some of Billy’s sports heroes.

Simmon’s decline over the past few years, essentially since he left Boston for Kimmel, should make us all understand why, especially with writing, miserable people are usually the most entertaining. I think that, even given his success with ESPN, the shitty Boston winters probably kept Billy great to read for a while after he enjoyed commercial prosperity. Now with a successful book under his belt, a child, and a nice home in an area of the country where the weather is perfect everyday, what is there in Billy’s life to keep him interesting? Given this, can you blame him for pounding out several thousand words of stupid crap twice a week and not caring if its good?
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Posted by the good doctor to AwfulAnnouncing at 8/04/2006 12:44:25 PM