9 comments Bill Simmons Still Writing For ESPN...Ruins Christmas Wish for Millions

Bill Simmons has a holiday mail bag up full of weird and bizarre "real" emails from his "readers." If you like douchebags that age in range from 18-25, talk like Bill Simmons, and are probably going to brag about this hot chick they hooked up with in college for the rest of their lives, then you are really going to enjoy the full mailbag. You can probably imagine what I would say to his comments.

I will cover the rest of the low lights for the rest of you. By the way, there is no appearance from the Sports Gal again, and I am starting to believe she and Bill may be separated at this point. I would never want anything bad to happen in anyone's personal life, but you can't blame her if he tells her the same jokes over and over like he does to his readers.

Maybe I needed a boost after the Celtics' 19-game winning streak came to a screeching halt on Christmas Day, thanks to Kobe and a gritty 15-man Lakers team (I'm including the refs).

4 sentences in and he is already whining about the Lakers whipping the Celtics yesterday.

I compared Bill Simmons to a boy band previously, because he has adoring fans that want to be just like him and there is not a whole lot of substance to what he does, and I think I may finally have a better comparison. I think he the writing equivalent of Maroon 5. The reason I say this is because at first glance there seems to be some substance there but once you turn your brain on, you realize he is doing the same thing over and over again, desperately attempting to appeal to the masses. I realized this Tuesday night when I saw Maroon 5 appearing on a "Crossroads" episode with Sara Evans on Palladia (only the awesomest music channel in the history of the world). Generally, the "Crossroads" episodes combine two artists, one that is a country music artist and another that has tinges of country music in his/her/its influences. Maroon 5 has ZERO country music leanings, absolutely none, so why in the hell did they appear on an episode of "Crossroads?" To appeal to the masses and get their shitty music out to more deaf ears. It was at that point I realized they were exactly like Bill Simmons...Initial glances make you think there is substance but once you really pay attention you realize what they do is just a desperate plea for attention and both are more impressed with themselves than they should be. Also, Maroon 5 sucks live and Bill Simmons is probably not very clever in real life.

Q: I'm 23 years old. I live in Seattle. I have a girlfriend who loves those damn "Twilight" books and promised sex if I agreed to watch the movie with her Friday night. We ended up waiting in line for 45 minutes and the theater was filled with high school females. There were maybe five guys there total, and I was the only one with a girl, so read between the lines there. Once we got home she was too tired to do anything and went to sleep. The next day my alma mater, the University of Washington, loses a double-overtime thriller to Washington State, probably the worst team in collegiate football history. Have I officially hit rock bottom?-- T. Chan, Seattle

This email was written a solid month to a month and a half ago. I just wish he could give us a mailbag that reference events that at least happened this month. You just know Bill Simmons has a folder in his email called "Yup, these are my readers" where he puts his really weird emails.

SG: Sure looks that way. We're about three weeks away from FX creating a sitcom called "It's Always Rainy in Seattle."

I love "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and I am pissed Bill tries to make a joke even in reference to the show. The show is not about it really being sunny in Philly, so the joke about rain and Seattle is not funny...especially since it is quite often rainy in Seattle...almost 200 days a year if I remember correctly, so the title would neither be ironic nor funny, but merely factual. When I start pulling out real life weather examples to prove Bill wrong, you know I am pissed.

Q: I recently read that the world's oldest woman died. She said she never drank alcohol or tried tobacco. I also read that last year's "world's oldest person" also refrained from doing those things. How does that make you feel that we have no chance of being the world's oldest people at some point?-- Eric, Philly

Nearly 40 year old Bill Simmons is about to reminisce to everyone about his crazy Holy Cross days now. Oh yeah, don't think a private school that did not admit women until 1972 (though it is primarily women now) and is known for its wonderful landscaping was not an institution of craziness back in the early 1990's.

SG: I knew I didn't have much of a chance when I was in a Quarter Keg race back in college where everyone had to make themselves throw up in a giant garbage can to keep going, only after about 15 minutes, you just had to look inside the garbage can and you'd start throwing up.

Crazy times in Worchester, Massachusetts! I think everyone loves hearing about college stories no one you personally know was involved in that happened many years ago (If I am wrong and someone really wants to hear how I beat a friend of mine at ping pong, left handed and on my knees---no sex jokes please---I will be glad to tell it). No one cares about this, yet still on some college campus, a 20 year old that has not heard of the Quarter Keg race will attempt to institute it in Bill's name. His master plan is working.

Q: So there's generally a ton of weed and tequila at our fantasy drafts. One rule we've put into effect is if you pick a player who's already been drafted, you must do a shot of Don Julio. Counter-intuitive, I know, but that caused me to draft Matt Leinart in rounds eight through 11 two years ago. What do you think of this idea for your Sports Czar campaign?-- Luke, San Francisco

Sports Czar thing=not going away. Bill loves this. Please someone stop this. Can I get ruling on this?

SG: Love it. Love it to smithereens.

Of course you do. I think Bill is going to singlehandedly be responsible for a college death in the near future. I am just warning everyone, a college student wearing a Wes Welker jersey is going to fall to his death or choke to death on his vomit trying to be like Bill was (according to him) in college.

Q: I had a stunning realization when I awoke this morning: Isn't Greg Oden the real Benjamin Button? I mean the injuries, the 45-year-old face, the creaky knees and geriatric hobble? This means for us Blazers fans things will only get better as he gets "younger." Phew.-- Phil Taylor, Brooklyn, N.Y.

I am so tired of defending Greg Oden, just like I got tired of defending Aaron Rodgers this past offseason, but he is not doing that poorly. He is averaging 7.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks in 22 minutes. No, he is not Shaquille O'Neal but he is not a complete bust.

I notice how Phil Taylor from Brooklyn, New York is a Trail Blazers fan and I wonder if he is jumping on the bandwagon early or has just given up on the Knicks until they become a good team again. I say by 2010 either Phil Taylor, who has never lived in Portland probably, will be a huge Blazers fan or have jumped back on the Knicks bandwagon.

PATRIOTS (-6.5) over Bills

A few readers pointed this out: In 2009, the Pats could become the best team to lose a Super Bowl and the best team not to make the playoffs. Great.

(Sound of the entire Patriots fan base feeling sorry for itself and drowing their sorrows in a Samuel Adams lager and growing out their Scott Ian of Anthrax type beards)

When it is the Patriots losing big games and not making the playoffs the Patriots are the best team to not win a Super Bowl and not make the playoffs. When it is the Buffalo Bills losing 4 Super Bowls in a row, the Bills are chokers and not the best team to not win a Super Bowl, and the same thing for the Atlanta Braves in the 90's regarding their massive failures in the World Series. The Patriots miss the playoffs one year and choke in the Super Bowl and all of a sudden they are the best team to do both and are not considered chokers like any other team would be. Perspective is a funny thing.

Maybe the 2004 Yankees were the best team to not make the World Series and did not really choke against the Red Sox!

Q: I read your comment in the last mailbag about women in Atlanta being horny, successful and fun-loving, looking for love and questioning their self-esteem. Although you made that assessment after just two e-mails, after living there for eight years, I can say that you're on the money. If you're a heterosexual male going through a dry spell, forget about Vegas and make your way to the ATL. Their advertising tag line should be, "Come to Atlanta where the nookie is plentiful and free."-- Michael, Columbus, Ohio

I think it tells you something about Michael that he thinks so highly of Atlanta and lives in Columbus, Ohio.

I know people who attended the following schools: Pepperdine, the University of California at Santa Barbara, USC, UCLA, Rollins, North Carolina, Arizona, Arizona State and the University of Texas. Here's how many of them regretted their choices: Zero. Meanwhile, the majority of my friends attended cold-weather schools … and only a handful of them would travel down that same road again. Again, why spend four years of your life in cold weather when you don't have to do it?

I just want to point out Bill went to Holy Cross, which the last time I checked was in Massachusetts, which has cold weather. Would he change his decision and go to a warm weather school? Never, because Bill makes wonderful decisions all the time and everything he does it awesome, like go to a cold weather college and then recommend people go to warm weather colleges.

I want to be an ass and point out there is no such school as North Carolina. You don't call UCLA, University of California, so don't call UNC-Chapel Hill (I assume that is what he meant) North Carolina. I feel better now.

I went to school in the cold and I really liked it. There is nothing like driving cars in an empty parking lot in the snow, skiing whenever you feel like it, busting your ass on ice on the way to class, taking a sled to class, and trying to parallel park on ice. It becomes fun after a while, I promise.

I feel like I am writing a personal ad right now, I will try to up the snarkiness.

And why pick a college with crummy sports when you don't have to do it?

So Pepperdine, University of California at Santa Barbara, and Rollins should be crossed off Bill's list then of potential warm weather colleges. I don't think he proofreads his own columns. He just hits send and then smiles happily at his keyboard, then goes to a Bill Simmons fan site and sits there naked for hours just playing with himself.

(Great image huh?)

So don't stress out about it, expand your horizons, don't be afraid to take a chance and please know that I'm telling you this only because I wish somebody had told me.

I guess he does regret his decision. You know what decision I regret? Reading this fucking column and trying to dissect Bill's retarded ass readers and their stupid ass questions.

Q: I renamed my fantasy football team after you. I did that because now, when I post all of my clever insults and below-the-belt jabs, it says "Posted by: Bill Simmons." Sadly, my team finished in last place, so this was the highlight of my fantasy season.-- Tom, Greenville, S.C.

These are the exact type of fanatical readers Bill has and it never ceases to amaze me. This guy needs to get locked in a broom closet for about six days until he never ever admits he did this or at least repents that he named his fantasy team after an ESPN columnist.

Q: I was out until about bar time Thursday, rolled into work at 8 a.m. Friday feeling like my face had fallen off somewhere between 11 p.m. and midnight, and I had failed to notice. I got the required coffee and greasy breakfast and sat down without a remote ability to perform actual work, so I hopped over to ESPN.com and quickly realized I had a mailbag waiting for me from the previous afternoon AND there would be a Part 2 later on. Honestly, it was like the heavens opened up. Not sure whether the greasy breakfast or the mailbag helped my hangover more, but I insist we incorporate Friday morning mailbags into your contract. You are the literary equivalent of an Egg McMuffin. Yes, that's a compliment.-- Sarah B., Chicago

I wonder how many emails Bill really gets that are weird. This mailbag his reader is referencing came out November 13th, so clearly "Sarah" wrote this email that day and Bill has been saving this email for a month and a half so he can write a "my readers are so fucking crazy and let me prove it" mailbag.

I bet Bill looks at himself in the mirror and routinely becomes more and more impressed with what he sees.

Q: So I had this idea for a movie. The bachelor version of a guy goes forward in time and finds his married self and kicks his butt for selling out his bachelor self and his bachelor values and going back on everything he promised he wouldn't do. The bachelor version finds him in the future by following his minivan to a toy store. The climatic encounter comes when the bachelor self finds the married self standing in an hour-long Black Friday line holding a Starbucks. And yes, I thought of this plot while standing in an hour-long Black Friday line amongst mostly female Black Friday shoppers in Christmas sweaters.-- (Name withheld), Denver

This movie could be called "The Bill Simmons Story." Here are things I vividly remember Bill saying he would not do that he has done already. I have no proof of these things but I know they existed.

1. Write about his personal life. At one point he knew no one cared.

2. No complaining about your favorite team for five years after they have won a title. At this rate, Bill would never write another column because his teams just keep winning and he would not be able to complain about anything.

3. Become obnoxious like New York Yankees fans.

4. Mention his children and what they are doing.

SG: We have Nic Cage! He's already signed on! We'll call it "The Time Machine Mentor" or "Love Mulligan" and bang this thing out for next August. Stay tuned. And since you didn't leave your name, I'm writing it myself.

And Bill just stole this poor guy's idea. Asshole.

Or Bill just made up this email and did not want to have people mock him for thinking of such a stupid movie. If I had to make a choice between Bill being an idea thief and making up emails...I am not sure I could make the decision.

Q: I dare you to think of anything better than taking a girl home from the bar on Halloween and watching her put on her costume as she's leaving the next morning. Yeah, can't be done. Hands down the best hookup moment possible.-- Adam V., Hibbing, Minn.

That is kind of weak but Adam V. does live in Minnesota and probably goes to a cold weather college so he can be excused in Bill's eyes.

Q: Hey, Bill, it's been a while since I e-mailed you and I am sure that you have missed me. I just wanted to stop in and let you know how much you suck. You are not a journalist. You are not even a sports journalist. You should be fired. It really makes me mad that people who actually work for a living are losing their jobs or are unemployed and you still get to sit there pretending to matter. I hope that soon ESPN comes to its senses and gets rid of you, but it probably wont. Anyway, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving, and I hope you have a good Christmas and New Year's.-- Brad, St. Louis

That would be how I felt if I changed my name to Brad and moved to St. Louis. I am shocked Bill put this in there, especially since the one time ESPN allowed comments on his pages the entire worldwide web went haywire and they never allowed the normal public to comment on his idiocy ever again. I thought to save his little feelings they had a permanent filter on Bill's email that would never allow him to hear the negative comments made about him.

Q: Beer + Weed + Bill Simmons = 1.9 GPA for fall quarter. Thank you, Bill, for helping me achieve my lowest GPA since the seventh grade.-- Tysen A., Bellingham, Wash.

SG: Um … you're welcome?

Come on, we all had those three in college and somehow managed to pass our classes. Tysen A. from Bellingham, Washington, you may just be a dumbass. Look into it...

My buddy Geoff and I had a running joke since the mid-80s about every Doobie Brothers concert ending with the stagehands drawing straws to see who had to spend the next three hours squeegeeing all the saliva from McDonald's mike. Never got old.

It never got old to you and your friend Gee-off? You told us this joke for the first time and it is already old.

Everyone has running jokes with their friends that we find hilarious, but not everyone is so self involved they feel the need to tell these jokes to a mass audience as an example of how funny our friends and ourselves are.

Q: How hilarious would it be if President Bush pardoned O.J.???!!! I just think that would be a great ending to a terrible presidency! He'd go out with a bang.-- Gian Gonz, Austin, Texas

There is no way you can tell me this is not a fake name. I went to whitepages.com and tried several searches for this person and came up with several people with the name "Gonz" but no Gian.

I get way too into proving Bill makes up his readers sometimes and I realize that.

Let's do three emails in a row, followed by Bill's response that includes a reference to pop culture, which is all Simmons has to really write about outside of his Boston teams. It usually goes like this (question from "reader," Bill either completely rejecting the idea and giving what he thinks is a better idea, completely ignoring the question and talking about a story that involves him, or accepting the idea and then improving upon it, and finally a pop culture reference in some fashion because he can't just say something, he has to compare it to something else). Let's look at some examples. I call myself a Simmonsologist because I am only 1 of 8 million people that notice these things.

Describe it and give us some other examples of people sporting the "Steve Young Face" other than Katie Couric during her Palin interview.-- Sean, Halifax

SG: See, I'd prefer to call it the Mike Myers "Nobody told me Kanye West was going to go off the cue cards" Face, which might have been my single favorite face ever.

Accepting the idea and improving on it because his idea is better.

Q: Shouldn't Scarlett Johansson's breasts get their own billing on the promotional posters and ads for "The Spirit?"-- Matt, Washington

SG: Absolutely. And I think they should do a press tour. I want to see Billy Bush interview her chest. I want to see Vanity Fair do a cover story on her chest. I want to see her chest appear on Letterman, Kimmel and Colbert.

Accepting and improving upon the idea. Then he gets a little off track and talks about how awesome he is and throws in a pop culture reference 15 years old.

By the way, if you never read the story about JackO and I seeing "Heaven's Prisoners" and me ruining the Teri Hatcher nude scene for him, click on my "Hardball" review and scroll down a few paragraphs.

Q: Is it just me or does JackO seem way too excited when he answers the phone for the B.S. Report? Like it's the only time the phone has rang the entire day.-- Adam, Chicago

SG: Believe me, I have this haunting fear that JackO got fired two years ago but pretends to go to work every day -- a little like Jules in "St. Elmo's Fire" -- and when we find out, it's going to lead to him having a mental breakdown, then all of my college friends trying to break into his apartment while he tries to kill himself by opening every window on a cold day.

Agreeing with the reader (it's Christmas, Bill has become agreeable lately) and then a pop culture reference going on 24 years old. This never gets old, unless there is a sportswriter for a major sports network doing it every single fucking week. At that point it becomes unbearable and you end up writing about it every single Friday so his idiocy ends up taking more of your time than just reading the column and forgetting about it.

Q: CC Sabathia's all-time stats against the Red Sox: Nine Games, 6.3 IP Average, 63 Hits, 15 Walks, 44 Strikeouts, 5.75 ERA, 2-7 W-L. I feel pretty good that the Yankees are gonna pay this guy $20 million a year to blow against the Sox.-- Jason, Vienna, Va.

All with the Indians, who by the way, have never had the offense the Yankees are going to have next year. I am not defending Sabathia, just saying he never had Tex, A Rod, and maybe Manny in his everyday lineup. Those are some bad stats against the Red Sox but I am not sure past history is going to determine future performance.

Q: We got Tex. We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.-- Uncle Rick, New York

Apparently Bill's Uncle Rick is way too excited for the Mark Teixeira era in New York.

SG: That's what my uncle e-mailed me right after the Yankees signed Teixeira. And after a brief emotional swoon, I'm firmly entrenched in "Why should I get bummed out that we lost out on a chance to spend $180 million on a guy who has never cracked the top six of an MVP vote?" mode.

I am not a Tex fan but I don't think cracking the top 6 in the MVP vote necessarily means a whole hell of a lot. Let's just say this is Bill talking himself into the fact the Red Sox are being fiscally responsible and did not make a mistake in not upping their offer.

Here is a quote from John Henry about the Yankees (Bill does not condone this comment but I thought it was funny to see the Red Sox owner act as if the Red Sox would not be the Yankees if the Yankees did not exist).

"From the moment we arrived in Boston in late 2001, we saw it as a monumental challenge," Henry said. "We sought to reduce the financial gap, and succeeded to a degree. Now with a new stadium filled with revenue opportunities, they have leaped away from us again. So we have to be even more careful in deploying our resources."

I mean, come on, everyone knows the Yankees are in a different world but the Red Sox are the closest behind them. Just because they make smarter personnel decisions, does not mean they are not throwing money around (The Red Sox did pay $102 million for a pitcher that had never pitched in the majors...it is working out though).

Just like when John Schuerholz issued the statement the Braves would not be working with Rafael Furcal's agents again, Henry needs to get over it and try to live in the real world. Just like the Red Sox are the Yankees in some ways, the Braves were trying to get Furcal at below market price and failed. At some point you have to quit asking players to take hometown discounts and stop whining about your payroll restrictions when you have the second highest payroll in baseball and have won 2 World Series in the past 5 years.

SG: Sorry, I had to condense the 400 taunting Lakers e-mails from Thursday night into one super-annoying e-mail. Look, I think we learned one thing other than it's hard to beat a good team at home when they're getting every call

Oh of course, I forgot. It's the referees fault the Celtics lost. Here I thought Bill would not make excuses and just accept the Celtics lost, like a real man does, and not make up reasons why they lost like a whiny little bitch would do.

And just an FYI: You can't get revenge for a 39-point loss in the deciding game of an NBA Finals by beating someone in a regular-season game at home. I am almost positive.

It must be nice to have a weekly column on the most popular sports web site where you can air your grievances and make horseshit excuses. FYI: The Celtics lost and I am pretty sure the NBA Finals were last year and they are playing a new season so last year doesn't matter anymore.

How bad would Bill have whined if Kendrick Perkins had gotten hurt last year and the Celtics had lost in the Finals? You don't hear him acknowledge even once Gasol played the entire series out of position at center. If it were Perkins who had gotten hurt and the Celtics had to use P.J. Brown at center, he would use that excuse at every possible chance as a reason the Celtics lost the NBA Finals.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and these may actually be Bill's readersbut this is definitely how Bill writes unfortunately.