Bill Simmons is Still Pissed

So I'm perusing The Sports Guy's most recent column over at ESPN.com, a premature farewell to Boston Celtics Head Coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers - all you can really do with a column that long is peruse it, after all, it can't really be read - and suddenly I realize that the piece has veered sharply off course and I find myself squarely in the middle of a dissertation about why the world doesn't need beat writers or columnists.

Vintage Bill Simmons, right there.

Now, don't get me wrong: I don't have much fondness for a lot of the garbage I read in the mainstream media, written by guys who went to the best journalism schools in the country, as you may have noticed recently. I always chortle lightly when I hear Mike Greenberg from the Mike and Mike in the Morning show on ESPN radio reference his journalism degree from Northwestern, because all I can think is that he could have saved himself the time and money and just went to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. Why do you need a degree from Northwestern to act like a dolt on the radio every morning for four hours?

Mike, why don't you "man up" as you're so fond of saying, and actually get a job where you do some journalism? That's actual, real investigation and writing, Mike - I know, it's been a long time, but I think you could do it if you concentrated hard enough.

And of course you have Mike Lupica at the Daily News, who has become so obsessed with the Bush administration and all of its perceived faults that he's turned what was once an okay sports column into an annoying and misplaced political op-ed piece. Yeah, and Jay Mariotti is pretty much a joke at this point.

I won't be an apologist for the mainstream media, either - they don't need me to do it, and I don't want to do it. But, this diatribe by Bill Simmons in his recent column shouldn't be allowed to stand:

This speaks to a whole 'nother issue: When I started writing columns for my old Web site and built a miniscule base of loyal readers, the local establishment (the Globe, Herald and WEEI) pooh-poohed me in a variety of ways. At first, they played the "nobody's reading him" card. Once it became apparent that some people WERE reading me, they switched to the "he doesn't matter, he doesn't come into the clubhouse card," which was funny because I wanted to infiltrate the clubhouses. Unfortunately, this was the late '90s -- when you told someone you wrote an Internet sports column, they reacted like you were selling knives door-to-door. Really? You get paid for that? I didn't have a chance in hell of getting a press pass from any local team. Not being allowed in clubhouses was the best thing that could have happened -- it forced me to think outside the box, write from the fan's perspective, try to anticipate potential column ideas before everyone else and offer something different from newspapers. In time, I came to realize that you didn't need a press pass to write an entertaining column about sports. So thank you, everyone who blackballed me.

Now it's 2006 and I'm wondering if a press pass does any good. Unlike the old days, basketball reporters rarely get extra access anymore -- it's just the same herd of writers hovering around the same people, day after day, writing down the same boring quotes from the same group of bored people who just want them to go away. Unlike the old days, we can watch every minute of every game on TV. We can watch the postgame press conferences. We can watch highlights and sound bites on ESPN. We can argue about the team with other fans on message boards and blogs. By the time most newspaper stories are published, the news always feels a little dated. I'm telling you from experience -- it's possible to follow a professional basketball team without reading the local beat writers now. I do it every day.

It's just a different world. For instance, reading the Boston papers as they sorted through the wreckage of a shocking Patriots loss, the Herald reporters (John Tomase and Michael Felger, both of whom do a good job) played up the relative discontent in the locker room, with a couple of veterans openly declaring that they had been outplayed and outcoached. And that's exactly how the Herald guys should have played it; it was the best newspaper angle to take. On the other hand, they had been outplayed and outcoached -- anyone who watched the game already knew that. So why was this a big deal? Isn't that like interviewing Britney and having her say, "In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have married K-Fed"? Thinking over the past 10 months of Boston sports, I can't remember a single time when somebody with "inside access" helped elucidate something about the Red Sox, Patriots or Celtics that I couldn't have figured out myself.

Damn, there's so much wrong with that longwinded bit of pomposity, I don't know where to begin.

First, let's start with the idea that one can write an entertaining column about sports without having a press pass: hey, that's insightful! I present to you: blogging! Alas, the argument here is not whether you can write an entertaining column about a game, or a team, the argument is whether that column will have the depth of detail or subtle touches that you might find in a column written by a person who spends most of their time with the players, coaches and front office folks the way beat writers and columnists do.

The answer to that is quite obviously no, because it's really apples and oranges. To say that you are fully informed on a game (or a team) because you watched the game from your couch and then watched blurbs from the postgame interviews is just, well, dumb. You don't see the guy who's limping through warmups, you don't appreciate the angst of the head coach, you don't see Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran on the field hours after a game practicing their swings together, you don't hear the chatter on the team flight, you don't watch the coaches go over plays, you don't see the work ethic of a player in practice.

All you see is the game. That's it.

Essentially, as I understand it, the point that Mr. Simmons is making is as follows: res ipsa loquitur. For any of you out there who were smart enough to steer clear of law school, where they turn bright, creative kids into aggravating, obnoxious and dispirited adults, the phrase means "the thing speaks for itself." Simmons believes that the game and the postgame comments speak for themselves, and need no further illumination from a guy with a press pass.

Let's take that idea step further, shall we? If the guy with the press pass can't give you any information that you can't glean from watching the game on television, how in hell can a blogger enlighten you? How can a guy who watched the game from his family room, getting up during commercials to let the dog out and fix a burrito, how can he provide any additional insight? By Simmons' logic, none of us should bother writing about sports because everything about every game and every team is obvious to every one of us who watches the games and the postgame comments.

So, inadvertently of course, Simmons has not only obliterated any use for mainstream beat writers and columnists, he has done the same to alternative sports media, like bloggers. If we all have the same access to the same information and can take the same things away from it, there's no need for anyone to write anything that includes information or analysis about any sporting event. It's right in front of our eyes, just look!

At the end of the day, the alternative Internet media provides the same service to the public that the mainstream media does: reporting and entertaining. Mainstream writers and columnists do, however, have access to information that the rest of us don't, and occasionally they put that information to good use. Whereas, while bloggers may not have access to that information, they can present whatever analysis and angles they come up with in a less structured, more informal and, thus, possibly, more entertaining way. Where is the mutual exclusivity, Bill?

Would I want to live in a world where I couldn't get an account of a game, or analysis of a team, from a guy who actually followed the team every day? A world where the only source of information about a team came from a guy like Bill Simmons, who watched the game on television the same as me?

Of course not. (The thought actually makes me a little ill.)

Again, it's apples and oranges.

So, then, why is it that a guy like Bill Simmons, who knows better, really, would take the ridiculous position that mainstream sports coverage adds no value and should probably just be eliminated altogether?

Just read that first paragraph from his column again, there's your answer. Bill Simmons is pissed, and he's not letting it go.

In the same way that you'll find the mainstream media carping about alternative media, referring to them as uninformed and irresponsible and even depicting them as a bunch of kids living in their parents' basements, because they're threatened by the idea that mainstream media is becoming less relevant, you'll find guys like Bill Simmons out there who will urge the banishment of mainstream sports coverage because they were treated badly by the establishment at some point and harbor resentment about it.

Dang, can't we all just get along? There is a need and a market for mainstream sports media, just as there is a need and a market for alternative sports media: again, apples and oranges.

And, oh by the way, here's the delicious irony in all of this: Bill Simmons gets paid enormous amounts of money to write for ESPN.com. And that, friends, is about as mainstream as it gets.