Bill Simmons Examines Sports Suffering, Ironically Forcing Audience To Suffer Through Sports Column

I have laid off Bill Simmons for the past couple of weeks (months?). Mostly, the reason for this is that he hasn't written too many bad columns in that time span. It's hard to criticize something that isn't too bad. Well, as many had mentioned in the comments to the Friday post, Bill is adding to his "Levels of Losing" and makes some interesting choices in ranking the most tortured franchises. It's not the most tortured CITIES, but in some cases Bill talks about the overall sports city to see how tortured that city truly is. Enough explaining by me, let's let him explain.

A few weeks ago, I was trapped at home on a Friday night. My wife and daughter were away. My son was asleep.

Let me guess. Someone called repeatedly and asked if you had checked on your child lately and it later turned out it was someone INSIDE THE HOUSE...but then it just turned out to be J-Bug and House playing an absolutely hilarious practical joke based on an idea Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla had thought of?

(Speaking of Jimmy Kimmel, I like how he inserted himself into the Conan-Jay Leno-Letterman fight. It's like he had this one chance to remind everyone he still had a show on ABC and needed to do the most annoying things to remind people of this to boost ratings. If Bill wasn't up Kimmel's ass he would have given him an award for "Inserting yourself into someone else's argument to benefit your self" at some point in one of his columns. Kimmel said/did some funny stuff, but he needs to butt out. The big boys were fighting and he really had nothing to do with it. It's like when the small-time East Coast and West Coast rappers were backing either Biggie or Tupac in the mid-90's during "the feud," it wasn't really to take sides, it was just to remind everyone they DID exist as rappers and their album could be purchased at stores. )

The Celtics had just blown a winnable game in Atlanta. I was flipping channels and thinking about things like, "I wish we had gone for Jamal Crawford over Rasheed Wallace" and "I wish Rasheed Wallace didn't have bigger breasts than Rashida Jones." And as I was thinking about breasts, I stumbled across Jennifer Love Hewitt -- someone who, as far as I can tell, has made an entire career off her chest.

Hold on guys for a quick detour, Bill has to meet his word limit so he can still brag about how much he writes each week.

She was starring in "Ghost Whisperer," one of those network shows that remains on the air forever even though nobody has ever seen it. In this episode,...

Bill will be back, right after he sums up the entire episode that had absolutely nothing to do with "Levels of Losing," sports or Rasheed Wallace's breasts in general. It's pretty much an episode synopsis to tell his reading audience that Jennifer Love Hewitt ended the episode in a tight nightgown. I am pretty sure Bill is 40 years old.

I was thinking about her three Mondays later, after the NFC Championship Game, when I was sifting through e-mails from devastated Vikings fans, and I realized that, for some readers, I apparently have turned into the "Sports Whisperer." They channel me as an outlet for their pain.

Hey look, Bill just tried to make himself more important than he truly is by giving himself a nickname. Remember "the Sports Czar" and the "VP of Common Sense?" No one is as good at giving himself nicknames and fake sports jobs better than Bill Simmons. If he didn't have a job, giving himself fake jobs would be his job.

He spent 5 years of his column-writing life whining about the Red Sox, then whined about not being able to whine about the Red Sox after they had won the 2004 World Series, then whined about the Celtics when they don't get Greg Oden, whined about how people treat the Patriots after Spygate, then whined about losing the Super Bowl, and finally because his teams are all good at their respective sports he has to finally start whining about how bad NBA General Managers and officials are.

My point is that if there is ever a guy who would expect to hear complaining about their team's difficulties, it's Bill Simmons. I would think that a guy who bases his career partly on speaking and writing from a fan's point of view could understand before this point in his career how fans might write to him about their sports pain. Apparently the only job description Bill doesn't seem to want is the actual job description he currently has, which is to write like the average fan.

Why me? Because I have a column and an e-mail address. Because, as a Red Sox fan, I suffered through a lifetime of losing lowlighted by two of the worst defeats in sports history.

Bill is so tortured everyone! There have been 2 GAMES that Bill's team should have won, but did not, in sports history. Just as a note, Bill's three favorite teams (Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics) have won 9 championships in their respective sports since 1980. Many other people would love to be as tortured and deal with the lowlights Bill has had to go through.

I know Bill would never realize this, but there are other people in this world without a sports column on ESPN.com who hear about the pain of a team's loss from that team's fans. Of course Bill believes he is special in this respect, but he really isn't. It's sort of what people do. They vent to other people. In fact, I am writing this post to people I have never met about Bill Simmons' column because I want to vent about it or at least discuss it.

Because I once wrote the "Levels of Losing" as a way to quantify sports pain. Because things worked out for me; the Red Sox eventually won titles in 2004 and 2007. If any stranger could understand your anguish after a heartwrenching loss, it's me.

Or perhaps anyone else who cheers for a sports team that has suffered a tough loss could understand the pain of these fans who write in. Another name for these people who could understand is "anyone who follows sports." These people are also qualified to understand your anguish.

Let's mock some emails from Vikings fans:

I'm watching the Vikings-Saints game. So are the guys in the apartment next to me, only my TV is running 10 seconds slower than theirs. I just heard Favre's pick before it happened. And now they're going to OT, where the Saints are sure as hell gonna win the toss. The girl I love won't talk to me. Please give me a reason not to kill myself.
-- Nick, Minneapolis
You just wrote into Bill Simmons telling him all of this. There is no real reason not to kill yourself at this point.

As a lifelong Vikings fan, son of a lifelong Vikings fan, and grandson of a Vikings fan the day the team came into existence, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that tonight's game would end the way it did. Eight months ago I had my tonsils removed. Two percent of people have issues with the incision bleeding when they have a tonsillectomy. Again, as a Vikings fan I knew without a doubt that it would happen to me. It did.-- Peter D., St. Paul
Perhaps this is just God's way of punishing whiners. If I were Bill I would do whatever I could to stop propping up these people who feel so badly about their lives they have to write Bill Simmons about their sports problems. At one point, Bill got it. That was my favorite Bill Simmons. He doesn't get it anymore because his favorite teams won 6 titles during the 2000's and I think he is trying to be more of a brand at this point.

To make it a little easier, of the possible 30 seasons in the 2000's to win a championship in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL, Bill's favorite teams won the championship 20% of the time. So let's say he shouldn't really be feeling anyone's pain for a few more years. Bill made part of his career on complaining about how bad his teams were or at least sharing his pain with the world, but it's just not true anymore, and hasn't been for nearly a decade now.

I don't know where this falls on your levels of losing rankings, but I can tell you I'd feel a lot better if somebody had just punched me in the stomach. I definitely feel it in my stomach, but it feels more like a virus, like a big, painful empty hole in the pit of my stomach, accompanied by throwing up, irritable bowels, shaking ... I just feel like curling up in a dark bathroom for the next 48 hours. I've been a Vikings fan my entire life, and I find myself questioning why. I'm not a religious man, but I imagine this is what a crisis of faith feels like.
-- Ryan K., Bloomington, Minn.
Oh my God, grow a pair or find a psychologist. It was a tough loss, but what the hell did you expect when your favorite team signed Brett Favre? He specializes in tough losses in the playoffs. The loss was tough, but being overly descriptive and feeling even sorrier for yourself by writing a guy whose favorite teams are all winners isn't the solution.

That was just half of the self pitying emails from his readers Bill Simmons received. The others were along the same lines as these.

Collectively, hundreds of those anguished Vikings e-mails made me wonder: Did I make a mistake with the top level of the Levels of Losing? Am I not channeling other people's pain well enough?
As I have mentioned several times already, Bill's teams won 6 titles in the 2000's, so he probably was not channeling other people's pain that well. It's hard to feel empathy when you are on top of the sports world.
Originally, I named Level 1 "That Game," a Guillotine/Stomach Punch combination that happened only one time: Game 6 of the '86 World Series. After all, no effed-up franchise ever came closer to winning a title without actually winning it, and no franchise ever blew that same chance in such agonizing fashion.

I hate to break this to everyone, but there was a Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. The series wasn't over when the ball went through Buckner's legs. Even though it may have felt like the series was over, it really wasn't. So while I am respectful of how difficult that loss was for Red Sox fans everywhere, it wasn't like Bill Buckner's error directly and at that moment lost the World Series for the Red Sox. The Red Sox still had a chance to win the 1986 World Series. The pathetic showing in Game 7 lost the World Series for the Red Sox. Of course Bill has to have his team's losses be the most difficult losses in the history of sports, but other teams have lost difficult, important games as well.

See, Game 6 might have been the most powerful Level 1 example, but it wasn't the only example. The Bartman Game, Byner Fumble, Pedro/Grady Game, Gary Anderson Game, No Goal Game, Darrin Nelson Game and Jose Mesa Game all were Guillotine/Stomach Punch combos for effed-up franchises.

I have a few problems with this list. For the Bartman Game, I don't think fans can bitch and moan about being cursed or stomach punched when it is one of their own idiots fans who screwed up a game. Second, the Pedro/Grady game was just poor managing. Granted there was a ton of people who knew to pull Pedro from the game and the Red Sox fans were hurt by this, but this was about poor managing and not anything close to Bill Buckner's error. The Red Sox won the freaking World Series the year after that happened, so it didn't hurt them too badly in the long haul. Also, Darrin Nelson dropped the ball, but it was tipped. Plus it was a tough catch anyway. I know it hurt the Vikings but I can't buy that a Level 1 example of Bill's stupid list can be something like a tough catch wasn't made or a manager made a bad pitching move. I just don't see it that way.

It's Bill's dumbass list, so I let him make the rules, but it doesn't mean I won't argue with them.

Limiting Level 1 to the Red Sox was purely an only-child, everything-revolves-around-me decision. I mean, Steve Bartman had to leave the country. That wasn't a Level 1 defeat?

I don't think it was a Level 1 defeat but probably a Level 1 fan screw up. I don't know why I keep arguing with Bill over his own criteria, it feels pointless, yet I keep doing it.

The Norwood Game seems like a Level 1 loss in retrospect, but Bills fans weren't fully tortured yet. Only AFTER the agony of that defeat did they become Level 1 eligible. Same for Browns fans after The Drive paved the way for the Byner Fumble a year later. The key is "fully tortured." You can't be a little tortured or pretty much tortured. You have to be fully tortured. Haunted, even.

Which makes me wonder how the Pedro/Grady game can make Bill's list since the Red Sox won the World Series the year after that incident. So if Bill is going to take in account what happened to the Browns after The Drive, shouldn't he discount the Grady/Pedro incident? That incident pretty much was the end of the Red Sox Curse, it was the final nail in the coffin before the turnaround the next year. I just think even though the Red Sox fans were "fully tortured" (mostly by some of their fan's need to feel tortured in my mind), if Bill looks into what happened the year after Norwood's kick and The Drive, he has to look at what happened to the Red Sox after Pedro/Grady. It was a tough game given the history of the franchise, but I don't think the game in itself should be ranked this high on Bill's list.

Here I go arguing the criteria for his list again instead of making fun of his choices.

1. You need at least a 35-year drought without a title.
So that means in 2030 I can be a tortured Panthers fan? This just seems stupid to me.

Just look at the difference in desperation between Mets fans (last title: 1986) and Knicks fans (last title: 1973). Starting with Dwight Gooden's positive coke test in 1987, Mets fans have suffered as much as any fan base in sports over the past 23 years: the Scioscia homer, the fall of Doc and Darryl, the Bobby Bo era, the Kenny Rogers Game, the 2000 Subway Series, Yadier Molina's homer and the Collapse of 2007.
Every franchise has tough losses, I don't get why Bill has to collect all of a franchise's tough losses and then try to get their fan base to feel sorry for themselves. It's like he is the spokesperson for complaining about your team. Some teams win and some teams lose, but that shouldn't give you permission to excessively cry about how bad you have it.

I think we are broadening the list a little bit for a Mets fan to feel tortured. I know Mets fans may disagree but the Bobby Bo era involved bad signings by the front office (I have a hard time counting an entire era as a time when the fan's were tortured. It's too broad of a timespan to me), the Subway Series is where the Mets got their ass kicked by the Yankees and the Braves blew a couple leads in the Kenny Rogers game, so it's not like the Mets were dominating. Put down the tissues and just deal with it. Fans shouldn't feel tortured because their team makes bad personnel decisions, get their ass kicked in the World Series, and can't put away a team on the road.

We just entered our sixth straight decade without the Royals/Kings franchise making an NBA Finals. But the Kings moved to Sacramento in 1984, making them ineligible for Level 1 because anyone who cares about them could start caring only 26 years ago.

Bill is an idiot. There is no way a Royals fan could still like the team now that it is in Sacramento?
What kind of sense does this make? Did Brooklyn Dodgers fans not cheer for the team when they went out to Los Angeles? I would be many did.

3. During that 35-plus years without a title, it's not enough to lose. You need to have your guts wrenched a few times.

A great example: Heading into 2005, the White Sox hadn't won a World Series since 1917 and the Cubs hadn't won since 1908, but only Cubs fans were considered "tortured." And with reason. Maybe White Sox fans hadn't won anything, but they didn't have a ton of scars, either.

So it's fine to feel tortured if your team has been good enough to make the playoffs on several occasions but it's not fine to feel tortured if your team has never been good enough to make the playoffs enough to blow a few of them. So in Bill's world, good teams have more cause to whine than bad teams can. How is a person who follows a successful team "less tortured" than a person who follows a team that hasn't been as successful? Has Bill ever had to sit through his team missing the playoffs a few years in a row? I know he has, so he should know this is a dumb rule.

4. Only teams in cold-weather cities are eligible for Level 1 unless the situation is so cruel/unusual/unforgiving that it's practically unprecedented.
Rule #7 (for next year) "The team has to have played in Boston at some point."
Suns fans are a good example. On paper? Level 1 eligible. Forty-one seasons, no titles. Lost the Kareem/Neil Walk coin flip. Lost the famous triple-overtime game in 1976. Lost three agonizing games in the 1993 NBA Finals, as well as Mario Elie's "Kiss of Death" 3-pointer that ended their season in '94. Their Nash era stretch from 2004 to '07 was basically one long liver punch. And yet, how could Suns fans be truly tortured? They live in Arizona! They have things to do!

It's Bill's list, it's Bill's list, it's Bill's list, it's Bill's list. (Bengoodfella trying to hold it back)

THE WEATHER IN AN AREA IS RETARDED REASONING FOR A FAN BASE NOT BEING TORTURED!

And maybe being a Saints fan (as I wrote last week) hasn't been a barrel of laughs, but there's a spiritual optimism around that team -- something tied to the festiveness of Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras and the city in general -- that was beaten out of Jets/Bills/Vikes/Browns/Eagles fans a long time ago.

Of course this spiritual optimism is held back by the massive hurricanes, general poverty of some sections of New Orleans and the fact few teams from New Orleans have ever succeeded over the past 30 years. Let's just face it, Bill think Northern teams have it worse than Southern/Western teams because Southern/Western teams don't have writers like Bill writing for ESPN telling everyone how tortured they are.

On Wednesday's podcast, I asked my buddy Geoff (die-hard Vikes fan) whether he actually thought Minnesota was going to win on the final drive of regulation. This is someone who started rooting for the Vikes at age 6, the year of the Hail Mary play, and spent the next 35 years getting kicked in the teeth. What was his answer?

YES!

How dare he have some optimism about sports! Doesn't he know that you don't get any sympathy and no one is going to write about how you are long suffering if you don't spend at least 2 days feeling pity for yourself and telling everyone how bad you have it? How will his teams ever get attention for being so special as to suffer? Doesn't he want to be self-pitying and loathing?

So when that brutalization kicks into motion again, even casual fans with no real interest instinctively start rooting for that team to NOT get brutalized. It cannot be up for debate. There are no degrees. It's like how we should figure out prospective Hall of Famers -- either you know or you don't.

Absolutely, the Hall of Fame should be decided on whether the voters KNOW a player should be in the Hall of Fame or not. No statistical evidence or any other type of evidential proof, just a gut feeling.

Actually I think that is how it is decided now, at least in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Possible factors that could negatively affect this empathetic assessment: success of other teams in the same city (for instance, nobody is feeling bad for Boston Bruins fans after the other three Boston teams won a combined six titles this past decade)

Yet, Bill has two Red Sox moments in his new Level 1. I guess he just assumes everyone still feels bad for the fan base.

lack of media attention;

You know I have a problem with this. How the holy fuck could a team be knocked down a level on anything (real or made up) because of a lack of media attention? So basically the teams the media follows the most are the most eligible for Bill's fake list. This is the epitome of stupid.

and steady losing devoid of playoff nightmares (like the Lions or Saints).

I still don't get how a team that has been so bad as to never make the playoffs but loses in a tough fashion when they do, is less tortured than a team that loses tough in the playoffs but overall has a history of having good teams. I just don't get this. A constantly bad franchise is just as torturous for a fan base.

(This is why I don't cover Bill Simmons columns, halfway through I always feel like I am speaking in tongues and can't remember what I had written before. He has an effect on me that way.)

14-15. Seattle Mariners/Seahawks

They have never won a title. Ever. The Mariners won 100+ games one year and then got their ass kicked by the Yankees, lost Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and Ken Griffey Jr. and they have to deal with a ton of depressing rain. The Seahawks had never made a Super Bowl and then they finally were able to and the officiating was cruddy. The next year the franchise back (Shawn Alexander) decided he wanted a contract extension AND wanted to pick that season to be washed up/get injured. In later years the quarterback for the team (Matt Hasselbeck) aged 20 years in one season and now they just hired Pete Carroll as the head coach. These two franchises have suffered more than a #14/#15 should just based on the entire Seattle area's suffering.

Additional Thoughts: Had to be included after the repeated failures of the Griffey/Ichiro Mariners, Super Bowl XL and the Sonics hijacking. Only a title can snap the city out of it. The good news: They listen to the right kind of music to get through this. "Black hole sun ... won't you come ... and wash away the rainnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."

Yes, because it is 1994 and everyone is still listening to grunge in Seattle. Keep believing this.

13. Portland Trailblazers

Last Title: 1977.

Um...I thought there was a "35 years without a championship" rule among the 6 that Bill just listed? I guess Bill is just going to arbitrarily not follow the own damn rules that he set. THIS is why I can criticize Bill's rules because even he doesn't follow them.

Additional Thoughts: Even though they shouldn't be eligible until 2012, I'm including them because of the many Drexler Era meltdowns, the 2000 collapse, the Bowie and Oden decisions, and the team's "only child" status in Portland.

Why make a list of anything if you can't even stick to your own criteria in making the list? Why even make the rules if you can't follow them? Why have rules for choosing the teams at all? Bill is going to choose the teams he wants to choose anyway, he should just not have rules for his tortured franchises and say he is going to choose whoever the hell he wants. He's doing that anyway.

12. Philadelphia Eagles

Last Truly Devastating Defeat: 2008 NFC title game (to Arizona).

I don't know if this was a devastating defeat or not. I know we have some Eagles fans out there...was this a devastating defeat? I wouldn't see how this loss would be any worse than the other NFC Championship Game losses at home or losing to the Cowboys this year in the playoffs.

This is the kind of thing that happens when Bill Simmons thinks he can speak for fan bases of sports teams all across the nation. That kind of thing is him irritating me by actually believing he knows which games left these fans the most tortured.

Mitigating Factor: The Phillies' 2008 title knocked the Eagles down a few spots. At least the people of Philly know God isn't against their city now. Or, they're reasonably sure.

So a championship in the same city with a different team in a different sport is a mitigating factor? Let's remember this.

Switch McNabb for Favre this past Sunday, and Eagles fans absolutely would have been waiting for that interception to be thrown. To rope them into a Level 1 loss would take a Herculean choke.

So because the Eagles fans don't have any hope and never think their team can win that makes them less tortured? Shouldn't it be the opposite? See, Bill's rules (when he follows them) don't make sense.

11. New York Jets

So the Eagles got mitigated because the Phillies won a World Series title, but the Jets are mitigated even though the Rangers, Giants, Islanders and Yankees have won titles? I like lists, lists can be fun, but they have to be logical and make sense. It doesn't make sense to mitigate one team because of championships in the same city with different teams in different sports and not mitigate the ranking for every team on the list due to another team in the city winning a championship. Like Joe Morgan says, I need some consistency.

8. New York Knickerbockers

Last Title: 1973.

Like I wrote with the Jets, shouldn't the Knicks spot be mitigated in some way by the fact the Yankees, Giants, Islanders and Rangers have all been good? (Yes, I realize all Knicks fans aren't fans of those other New York teams) Not to mention the fact the Knicks haven't even been any good for the last 10 years, so it's not like the fan base has had any recent disappointments. Shouldn't a team have to be good during the 35 year period or does having Isiah involved with the team count as torture?

I know the fan base is tortured, but somewhere in that fan base there are also fans of the teams that have won championships and I would think this would mitigate the pain some. Not to mention, New York has so many damn sports teams, the torture of the Knicks stinks for their fans, but there are other teams in the area that can take a fan's focus away from a team like the Knicks. Basically, a Knicks fan doesn't have to dwell on the Knicks losses and can move to the Yankees or Giants if they need to make themselves feel better. Of course Knicks/Mets/Jets fans are just shit out of luck.

6. San Francisco Giants

Last Title: Never (unless you count 1954, when the team was in New York).

Of course that shouldn't count because the team relocated and there are no fans of the New York Giants who became fans of the San Francisco Giants according to Bill Simmons retarded "relocation rule."

I think I am getting hung up on other teams in the area being mitigating factors, but San Francisco has 2 major sports teams and the 49ers won 5 Super Bowls between 1981-1994, have seen two of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time play for their team and it is a sunny and warm weather city. What happened to Bill's rule about sunny and warm weather cities? It goes out the window because he wants to ignore that rule right now.

Additional Thoughts: You'd think a 66-year title drought, the Bonds/BALCO fallout, a borderline Level 1 loss in 2002 and having its first World Series home game in 27 years postponed by a devastating earthquake

The Bonds/BALCO fallout isn't really a reason for Giants fans to be tortured. Let me explain. The fans of Bonds/Giants were pretty complicit in the whole thing. San Francisco Giants fans defended Bonds a lot when there were rumors that he used steroids and even after there was proof. They stood by their man, at least many of the fans did. There is nothing wrong with this, but I think we have to take this into account into whether the BALCO/Bonds issue tortured them or not.

Some of the Giants fan base would only believe Bonds used steroids if somebody snapped a picture of him with a syringe and a hooker...even then some Giants fans would probably believe the hooker set him up. So either they don't care or don't believe it, but either way I am not sure we can throw a pity party for Giants fans because of BALCO, simply due to the fact they supported Bonds a ton during that time.

I think the most impressive part of these additional thoughts is that Bill can predict the future. He said the Giants have a 66 year title drought. They last won a title in 1954. I am no math major but I think that is a 56 year title drought, not 66 years. So Bill knows the Giants won't win a World Series until at least 2020 or he can't do math and neither can his editor.

5. Cleveland Indians

Last Truly Devastating Defeat: With apologies to the 1999 Indians (shut out by an injured Pedro Martinez coming out of the bullpen in a wild Game 5) and 2007 Indians (blew a 3-1 series lead to Boston), the answer is still Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. Every bit as devastating as the 1986 Red Sox collapse at Shea, but without the fanfare because of residual bitterness from the 1994 lockout.

I don't think it was so much the residual bitterness from the 1994 lockout that caused the lack of fanfare of the Indians collapse compared to the 1986 Red Sox collapse, but a lack of media coverage (Dan Shaughnessy, East Coast media, etc.) between the two collapses. I hate to sound like a bitter "I hate the East Coast" person (because I really don't) but the reason the Game 6 collapse is so well known is because it involved a team from Boston and a team from New York. Nevermind the Red Sox could have won Game 7, so the Buckner error didn't end the series, yet that game is still seen as a greater collapse than other Game 7 collapses.

Meanwhile, when the Indians blew Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, they didn't have another game to try and win. Meanwhile, I don't think the 1997 World Series collapse got as much fanfare because it involved a team from Cleveland and a near-expansion team from Florida. Those aren't exactly sexy teams.

Rock Bottom: Two recent Cleveland aces (Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia) starting Game 1 of the 2009 World Series ... but not for Cleveland.

I will not argue with the Indians at #5. Heck, maybe they should be #2 or #3 because of the eternal sucking of the Browns and Cavaliers.

Additional Thoughts: Lost some "tortured" street cred because "Major League" and "Major League 2" have been on cable so often that 30.9 percent of Americans now mistakenly believe that Charlie Sheen was the 1994 World Series MVP.

Two words for Bill Simmons when he talks about street cred and Hollywood movies in regard to MLB teams..."Fever Pitch."

3. Buffalo Bills

Rock Bottom: Let's go with this one -- a while back, I wrote that Buffalo had lost three straight Super Bowls, and my editor corrected me that it was actually four. But still, the Bills lost so many Super Bowls in a row that someone who writes about sports for a living couldn't remember the exact number. We'll never see anything like that again.

Three things that shock me about this passage:

1. Bill thinks rock bottom for the Bills was when he personally couldn't remember how many Super Bowls the team lost in a row. He thinks the franchise's rock bottom revolved around something he personally couldn't recall. How self-involved can you be? I think he truly believes the world in some ways revolves around him and what he does. It may be "only child syndrome," if there is such a thing.

2. An ESPN editor corrected something? I don't believe this. This may be the 1st time I have ever heard of this happening.

3. The same guy who writes about (Boston) sports for a living also just thought 54 + 66 = 2010...let's just say Bill seems to have trouble with basic math, so I wouldn't have high hopes for his memories of the early 90's. No to mention, and I am fine with admitting his strengths (the NBA, getting people to read his column, he's fairly creative, and can write good columns when he wants to), but knowing much about other NFL franchises outside of the Patriots isn't a Bill Simmons strength.

2. Minnesota Vikings

Every 10 years or so, they rip the intestines out of their fans. Happened in 1975 (the Hail Mary), 1988 (Darren Nelson), 1998 (Gary Anderson) and 2009 (12 men). ... By the way, none of those were the four lost Super Bowls. Not even the Red Sox annihilated their fans at such a consistently efficient pace.

I'm going to go ahead and say I think the Vikings should be #1 on this list. Losing 4 Super Bowls, these 4 things Bill just listed here that didn't happen in the Super Bowl, having the Timberwolves in the same city, and having the millionaire of the Twins act like he has to shop at Dollar Tree so they can't keep a good team together when free agency comes for their star players all potentially add up to this conclusion. Of course the Twins have won championships (1987 and 1991---damn that Kirby Puckett) and really aren't an overall unlucky team. I would be very close to putting Minnesota #1 on this list despite these two championships...especially compared to #1.

I really think Seattle should be ranked higher overall.

1. Chicago Cubs

Last Truly Devastating Defeat: Bartman.

I still question whether it can be devastating if the fans themselves are the ones doing the devastating.

Additional Thoughts: Cold weather, a 102-year title drought, a checkered history, a Level 1 loss that happened recently, self-loathing fans, a nagging sense that it can never turn around ...

Again, when it comes to other teams in the area being able to mitigate the fact a franchise hasn't won a World Series...the Bulls won 6 NBA Titles and clearly God doesn't hate Chicago because the White Sox won a World Series. So I think Chicago, as disappointed as the fans are that they haven't won a World Series since 1908, has had some of the disappointment mitigated by the fact they got to witness the best basketball player of all-time win 6 NBA Titles. Of course Chicago did have to deal with Jay Mariotti writing for its city paper for many years, so I should factor that in I guess.

They get my "fan base that's wired the most tightly" vote for this reason: Remember Game 1 of the 2008 playoffs at Wrigley, when the Dodgers jumped out to an early lead and the crowd died immediately? No faith at all. It has been beaten out of the fans.

I am telling everyone, and I mean this as no offense to Cubs fans, but once the Cubs win a World Series title they will easily be the most annoying fan base in the United States. For anyone who thought Red Sox Nation was bad, just wait until the Cubs win a World Series. The bandwagon will all of a sudden get many, many, many more people.

I can accept the Cubs being #1 on Bill's list if he had not used the Phillies World Series victory to lessen how tortured Eagles fans were, but he didn't do that. I think the Cubs are #2 on the list, but the success of other teams in Chicago wouldn't make them #1 in my mind. Of course I can't expect Bill to fully stick to his own rules, so I really have no point.

You'll shed some blood and tears. You might need a miracle to turn momentum around, and you might even need to sell the soul of one of your kids. But it has been done. Hell, I was there for one of those karma swings: Oct. 17, 2004, Fenway Park, Dave Roberts sprinting for second right in front of me, my whole life about to change ... and I had no idea.

(the sound of Bengoodfella banging his head against his desk for no good reason)

I am a 17-year-old senior at Averill Park High School in upstate New York, the only Vikings fan amidst the swam of Pats and Giants fans. I inherited the Vikings from my dad, and my first sports memory is watching the Gary Anderson game. For the past decade, I have suffered with the Vikings, watching everyone else celebrate the Giants' and the Pats' Super Bowls, while my Vikes continued to lose in ever escalating horrible ways.
Hey buddy, try being a Lions fan. I am sure they don't have a lot of sympathy for Vikings fans right now.
But I kept coming back every year, as they found new ways to torture me, because sports are what I live for. Then came the NFC Championship, and once again, I was caused excruciating pain by the thing I love most. I'm finding it hard to commit myself again, as after each year I suffer more and more. Being a Red Sox fan, you have experienced this same pain, but ultimately, you got your redemption. All I ask for is something to remind me that the misery and despair are worth it all, and that being a sports fan isn't just masochism with commercials.
-- Patrick, Albany, N.Y.
Patrick, with all due respect, you are 17 years old and having a typical "my life is over" teenage breakdown. Be glad you aren't the fan of a team that has stunk for the past decade and get over the Vikings loss. Writing Bill Simmons to help make you feel better is pathetic. Sports are fun, but they are not life, quit acting like they are.

All this drama is a bit much.

Maybe I can't contact ghosts, and maybe I don't have spectacular breasts, but I can feel your pain, Patrick. No, being a sports fan isn't just masochism with commercials. Yes, the misery and despair will be worth it some day. Keep the faith.

Bill COULD feel his pain. He no longer feels the pain of a fan who follows a team which is tortured, I would hope the 2 World Series titles have eased that pain a little bit. Maybe I should create a "Levels of Bad Sportswriting" pyramid or something to be ironic...or would that be too Simmons-like?