Rick Reilly Starting Out A Good Teammate, Throws A Dig At Simmons In An Interview
Monday, March 03, 2008
So much for team unity and Disnergy. Via reader GL comes this interview with Play Magazine in the New York Times with the newest ESPN Writer and personality Rick Reilly. It seems like Rick is falling right in line with the rest of ESPN regarding "Internet Writers", but it's the apparent dig at the end to Simmons that left me puzzled....
This might sound a bit strange. The Web is supposed to allow the sportswriter to unbutton his blazer and slough off the constraints of the print trade. What looks like a small masterpiece on the back page of Sports Illustrated might seem somehow smaller on the Internet. But where some of us gaze at the Web and see a delightfully shaggy form of journalism, Reilly sees too many sloppy, overly indulgent meditations. “A lot of these guys could use a Lincoln Continental, if not a Greyhound bus, full of editors,” he told me. (When I asked about popular ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons — soon to be his teammate — Reilly pretended that the phone had gone dead.)Man I really wished Simmons hadn't re-upped his deal with ESPN this past year. Think of all of the great articles he could write if he was allowed to say what he really felt. Oh and Rick Reilly....please get over yourself (if that's possible).
Yuckster Fricassee (NY Times)
12 Comments:
simmons is a hack
Mr. Metaphor
Simmons is better than Reilly. Fuck that narcissist asshole.
Rick Reilly: bangin' hot chicks since 08.
(Should use that picture for the caption contest, seriously.)
I like Simmons, even if he isn't the greatest, he is usually entertaining.
Rick Reilly reminds me of the South Park where the characters got smug and smelled their own farts after buying electric car. I could see him writing one of his smug columns about the loss of innoncence, or a handicapped boy, and smelling his own fart right afterwards.
To me, Rick is the national version of Bill Plaschke: A smug, I know what is best for you type of person who are only repected by other writers.
And the swimsuit issue just wont be the same without the annual "my son became a man at the photo shoot" column
Reilly writes a shitty golf article, then a shitty sappy article about *insert random unlikely hero here*, then a shitty article about Bonds, then rewrites each of them every 3 weeks and all of a sudden he thinks he's a real honest-to-goodness good sportswriter.
Simmons and Reilly....two little boys living in their own nerdy little worlds. Dorks gone wild. Bleccchhhhhh!
Is there any more annoying sportswriter alive today than Reilly? He thinks he's far more important than he really is, that he's a far better writer than he is, and he just needs to be slapped about until he's unconscious.
I like both Reilly and Simmons but if Reilly truly believes he is better than Simmons he's wrong. Simmons is a true original whereas Reilly produces far more "cookie-cutter" articles. Reilly might be a better writer, but then I think back to something Dick Schapp said, it went something like this: In order to be a good writer you must be able to fake sincerity. I think Reilly is extremely good at this in the same way that Tony Kornheiser was good at it. But Simmons is still way more knowledgable about actual sports and for those who follow him, much more entertaining. And far more prolific.
My respect for Reilly just went up.