The Derek Jeter Appreciation Tour has continued for most of the summer. Along with this appreciation comes puff pieces about Jeter and his accomplishments as a MLB player. Most of these tributes are pretty innocuous and well-deserved, but then there is the occasional article where the author should take a cold shower or a brief break before posting what he/she has written. AND THEN, there are those who get very carried away writing about Jeter and end up writing something that is incredibly embarrassing. You know, those people who write a letter to Derek Jeter's non-existent children on the topic of their father's baseball career. "Those people" are Rick Reilly and it's a little creepy to write a letter to someone else's children. I ask this a lot, but I have no idea how this article got posted on ESPN.com. It's not only a bad idea, even for someone like Rick Reilly who seemingly has tons of bad column ideas, but it's just a little weird.
To Derek Jeter's kids (whenever you come along):
Writing letters to someone else's children is just a little weird. It just is. I can't argue with anyone about this. If Derek Jeter wanted his kids to read a letter about his playing career he would do it or just cue up one of the thousands of videos online of his MLB career for his children to watch.
You were born too late to know your father the way we did,
And Rick Reilly knows Derek Jeter well, which is why this isn't an interview with Jeter and instead is a creepy stalker letter directed towards Jeter's unborn children.
Don't you like how Rick is playing the "insider sportswriter" role here as if he has special access to Derek Jeter? It's almost like Rick isn't talking about one of the few sports superstars that few know anything about. Seriously, does anyone know anything really specific about Derek Jeter other than he likes attractive brunette women? But no, Rick will pretend he knows something everyone else doesn't and that he truly knows Jeter.
so I want to take just a minute to let you know what he meant to us.
He meant the Braves didn't win two more World Series in the 90's to me, so I'm still pretty pissed off about that.
He was a kind of prince in baseball cleats, George Clooney in pinstripes,
A Chris Cornell in cleats, the Neil Patrick Harris of outstanding clutch plays, and the John Grisham of shortstops.
He was humble and handsome and yet hard to hate.
Does Rick Reilly know that Derek Jeter is humble and hard to hate? I would seriously doubt that he knows Jeter personally enough to know this is a fact and not just a set of characteristics he's looking to project onto Jeter.
He was like a good magician. You could never figure out how he did it.
Dedication, hard work and talent he cultivated within himself through this hard work. Doesn't seem too hard to figure out.
He was the best player in baseball for a good 10 years straight and yet
he never won a batting title, never won an MVP, never was the
highest-paid player in the game.
"I'll take ridiculous observations that casual fans of baseball would make for $100, Alex."
He spoke to the media every day, yet managed to say nothing.
BUT RICK KNOWS JETER IS HUMBLE! HE KNOWS THIS BECAUSE HE PROJECTS THIS QUALITY ONTO JETER.
He never showed up in the clubhouse with a black eye to explain, a headline to deny or a photo to justify.
No, but his spending the night on the town was questioned at one point, which lead to this VISA commercial. It was all much ado about nothing, but I think it's funny that sportswriters tend to forget that Jeter did hit the town in the younger years. He was quiet-ish about it, but he wasn't quite the stay-at-home guy that writers like Reilly want to remember him as being.
"He could sense trouble coming," said his best friend, former teammate and retired catcher Jorge Posada.
"We'd be at a restaurant. He'd say, 'That guy in the blue shirt. He's
going to come over here and ask for an autograph.' And sure enough, 15
seconds later, the guy would be standing at our table."
Two things:
1. Since when does an autograph seeker count as "trouble"?
2. Derek Jeter is incredibly famous in New York and around the United States, so the fact he thinks a guy looking at him will come over for an autograph is simply a reflection of his fame, not a reflection of his heightened senses.
How he was loved! In a league full of bloated steroid cheats, he kept the same body, the same weight, the same helmet size.
By the way, Jeter won World Series titles and part of his legacy is tied to the team success that was assisted by steroid cheats, but let's completely not mention this okay? Writers and players point out Jeter is a winner and the ultimate champion, while differentiating him from the steroid cheats, but always conveniently leave out part of Jeter's legacy is what it is because he played with a list of steroid cheats. It's all part of the game the media plays. They manage to separate Jeter out from the steroid cheats, give reason to taint the accomplishments of these cheats, but refuse to see Jeter's accomplishments in any way tied to the accomplishments of these cheats.
In a world of my-agent-doesn't-want-me-to-play multimillionaires, he
played hurt more than we know. "Most of the time, he wasn't 100
percent," Posada said. "He'd come out of spring training and tell me,
'I'm already hurting,' but he wouldn't tell anybody else. He just kept
going."
I'm interested to know who Rick Reilly thinks the my-agent-doesn't-want-me-to-play multimillionaires are, but I'm guessing he can't name one.
Your father was everything men wanted to be. The guy with the $15
million Trump Tower penthouse. The dude dating Miss Universe. The man
with all of the talent and none of the jerk. He was everything women
wanted, too.
No kid wants to hear this shit about their father, even kids who aren't born yet or may never be born yet. Rick Reilly is writing a letter to Derek Jeter's semen right now. Pretty creepy.
The elegant athlete who loved books, paid for everything, and had a limo waiting for them when it was time to go.
He had a limo waiting for him when it was time to go, BUT BOY THAT JETER WAS HUMBLE!
The stat-heads scoffed at him, but then the stat-heads never figured out a way to measure the things he did.
Yes, it is difficult to measure hyperbole, intangibles, and anecdotal evidence...most likely because they don't exist in a way where they can be measured.
Some guys would lean over the wall in foul territory to make a catch.
Jeter would launch himself over it, sometimes two rows deep. He'd come
out with a bruised face, a cut chin, and the ball.
He did this once. It wasn't a thing he did a couple of times a year.
Fourteen Yankees were captains, but none longer than your father, and that includes Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
Who is going to write the letter to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig's great-grandchildren telling them of their father's accomplishments?
Your father was like a rooster's crow. You could always depend on him.
This letter is getting even more creepy. Now Rick is comparing Derek Jeter to a consistently performing cock. This is after mentioning Jeter's ways with women a couple of times in this letter...not that he is blurring the line between hero worship and creepy of course.
Oh, he had his faults. If you crossed him, even once, you were out
forever. If he didn't get to the World Series, he would slip into a
terrible funk.
Rick is still writing this column like he had a deep, personal relationship to Derek Jeter. Like he was the Gail to Jeter's Oprah. The Brett Favre to Peter King. The Lance Armstrong to Rick Reilly.
He refused to use public bathrooms unless it was an emergency.
(Derek Jeter begins to walk into the bathroom at Yankee Stadium and sees a shirtless Rick Reilly peeking out the side of it)
(Rick Reilly starts waving his finger for Jeter to come into the bathroom) "Hey Derek, why don't you come in here? I have a question for you. Maybe you could pee in a cup and prove you aren't a steroid user."
(The Jeter) "Nah man, I'm good...I was just walking down the hall."
(Rick Reilly looks around) "There's nothing else down here...and no one else down here. There's no where to go but to the bathroom. Where were you going Derek?"
(The Jeter) "I mean...I was...I thought about heading to the bathroom, but I only go if it's an emergency and I've decided it's not an emergency."
(Rick Reilly) "I saw you coming from down the hall doing the pee-pee dance. It certainly looked like an emergency (removes his shoes and socks). Come on in the bathroom and use one of the urinals. I'll be right behind you."
(The Jeter) "Nah, I don't use public bathrooms except if it's an emergency and it's not (runs the other way)"
(Rick Reilly whispers) "No one knows you like I do. We should be together."
Nobody had to yell at him much. He threw right, hit to right and did
right. He began a foundation called Turn 2, which helps kids growing up
in lousy situations, and he gave far more to it than money. One time, he
showed up to watch a hapless Turn 2 Little League team. Not only hadn't
they won a game, they hadn't even scored a run. When they finally
scored one that game, he celebrated as though they'd all just landed on
the moon.
This certainly sounds like a story that Jeter could tell his children himself. Not to step on Reilly's toes in this really creepy letter to Jeter's unborn children or anything.
He had this way of making you feel you belonged. Before the first World
Series game at Yankee Stadium after 9/11, President George W. Bush was
to throw out the first pitch. Everybody was tense. Jeter walked up to
Bush and said: "Throw from the mound or else they'll boo you."
If Jeter was really helpful he would have told Bush there were no WMD's in Iraq. That would have been super-clutch of him.
Yet again, this sounds like the kind of story that Jeter could tell his children himself. So I'm still not sure why Reilly feels the need to be so weird.
He was hilarious, but he didn't want you to know it. In his final
goodbye season of 2014, I asked, "Who would you cross the street to
avoid?"
"You," he said.
Rick Reilly laughed as Derek Jeter stood stone-faced staring at him, being absolutely serious about his answer. Rick then put his hands around Jeter's neck and pretended to choke him in the hopes someone would take a picture of it. What a jokester that Jeter was, saying he would avoid his soulmate on the street. If Jeter avoided Rick Reilly then who would be around to tell Jeter's non-existent children about his exploits on the field?
When his body just couldn't do it anymore, it was bittersweet. Nobody
loved playing baseball more than your dad, but he was ready. "I'm going
to finally see what Europe is like in the summer," he told me. "I've
been on a schedule my whole life. The plan now is to have no plan."
You can feel the personal connection Jeter and Reilly had. It's palpable. In fact, the personal relationship between Rick Reilly and Derek Jeter is the Derek Jeter of personal relationships. It's the best.
After that, he said he was going to settle down and have a family, which
was unthinkable. Derek Jeter settling down? It was like an eagle
deciding to take the bus. Glad he did, though, because genes this good
shouldn't be wasted.
Plus, it gave Rick a chance to mail in a creepy column where he pretended to write a letter to Derek Jeter's hypothetical children. I'm assuming Reilly didn't tell Jeter of his plans to write a letter to his hypothetical children or else there would have been mention of a restraining order in the news somewhere.
Of course, who are we to believe these quotes from Jeter are even accurate? I mean after all, Rick is the guy who misquoted his own father-in-law.
If there was a better man in sports, I never met him. Your father was a gentleman. A charmer. A 1,000-point star.
Jeter and Rick are going to get married, get married on the top of a mountain at a wedding no one else will be invited to and then have a baseball field of children who will have this letter read to them by Rick and Jeter every night before bed.
He was ours for 20 years, but he's yours now, and I just wanted you to know how lucky you are.
I would ask how this column slipped by ESPN's editors, but I'm assuming they let Rick do whatever he wants to these days. And what Rick wants to do is be extra-creepy and write a letter about how great their father is to Derek Jeter's children that don't exist. He wrote a letter to semen. Just when you think Rick can't be more lazy and more terrible, he goes and lowers the bar for himself one more time.
Showing posts with label Rick Reilly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Reilly. Show all posts
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
0 comments Ten Things Things I Think I Think Peter King Has Not Thought Of: Terence Moore Likes Expanded Replay Now Edition
Usually there is a common thread that runs through these Things I Think I Think Peter King Has Not Thought of, but there really isn't one this time. I would say these are all "bad ideas" but that's not entirely true. These are all articles I think that deserve some mention but don't merit an entire post written about them. These are the links I have been staring at for a few months/weeks/days/hours/minutes and want to comment on in some way. As written in many religious texts, let's start with Mitch Albom, as that's how it is always supposed to be.
1. Mitch Albom isn't writing a book called "The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven Who Used the N-Word," but he did write about the NFL looking to prohibit use of the N-word on the field. I think Mitch just likes writing "the N-word."
To me, the N-word is a hateful slur based on a person’s skin color. Yet because my skin is also a certain color, I am told I cannot I criticize its usage.
It’s not my word.
Every word is Mitch's word! Look for more clarification in his new book, "The Five Words You Will First Hear in Heaven," which will be available as soon as he writes this column for the "Detroit Free-Press" where he lies about being at a basketball game last week with John Wooden and Carmelo Anthony.
But sooner or later, everyone, black and white, will stop saying it in public. This is inevitable.
I severely doubt this. I had someone walk in my office and use the word twice just a few days ago. It wasn't a white person and was a college educated African-American female. She's not a stupid person and didn't use the word in an angry manner, but a joking manner. Just saying, it's a word that people probably won't stop using. Maybe someone will read what I just wrote in 100 years, laugh, and then drive off in their hovercraft. Who knows?
Instead, I’m referring to a very vocal minority — at least I believe it’s a minority — of athletes, entertainers, commentators and advocates who are mostly African American, and who claim the NFL’s possible initiative is a move that, as one such critic for huffingtonpost.com wrote, “emboldens whites who assert their privilege over use of the N-word.”
Huh? Look. I don’t shake the rafters of this idea and find sociological ghosts of white supremacy.
Exactly. Mitch writes schmaltzy books about heaven and every once in a while writes a column containing a few easily detected lies. In what spare time he has, he berates those who work in the field of customer service and wonders why he's so perfect and the world around him is so flawed. He's got no time to think about white supremacy because this barista at Starbucks just dared to repeat his order back to him. It's ass-kicking time.
So critics who say the NFL has no right are wrong. The field is a stage; NFL owners are the directors. If you feel compelled to scream the N-word, you can do it, without a paycheck, in the parking lot.
A trickier debate is why black players want to cling to the word in the first place.
Yeah, stupid black people always clinging to racial slurs. Good point, Mitch.
Admittedly, I am not black,
ADMITTEDLY, Mitch is not black! He wants the truth to be out there now. Mitch Albom is not black nor is he Asian. He's white. He wants there to be no further misunderstandings about his race, so he finally admits he is indeed not black. All further confusion has now been avoided.
But that doesn’t make me — or other whites, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, etc. — stupid or insensitive. We recognize history.
Admittedly, Mitch does recognize history.
Jews were systematically executed, gassed and buried in mass graves — all less than 70 years ago — and they don’t defiantly cling to the K-word. Nor do Chinese Americans boast the C-word, Italians the W-word, Germans the K-word, etc.
Mitch admits he's not capable of understanding how it feels to be called the N-word, so he would never put himself in the shoes of those who do understand this, but he feels free to question why those people wearing these shoes continue to use the word. He knows he can't understand, but he definitely can judge.
The N-word fight is unique. And while nobody should dictate private conversations, if the NFL is going to suspend a white player for using the N-word at an off-season concert or suspend an African-American referee for allegedly saying it to an African-American player, then why the shock at a yellow flag? It’s 15 yards, not a lifetime ban.
As I said at the time the NFL was considering this, it is nice to try and get rid of the N-word, but is very, very difficult to actually put this plan into action. It would have been nearly impossible for the NFL to properly enforce.
Eventually, I believe, people will get tired of defending this hateful slur. In years to come, it may even seem silly. But this is how things change, in fits and starts, coughs and sputters, some easy, some hard.
That's what she said.
It is not my word. In time, it won’t be anyone else’s.
The day can’t come quickly enough.
When that day comes, Mitch can write the book, "The Four People Who Used the N-Word and Didn't End up Heaven You Will Talk To When You Reach Heaven."
2. Hey, guess what? Terence Moore doesn't want anyone overreacting to the expanded use of instant replay.
Terence may be losing his mind because HE is the one who was overreacting to the use of expanded instant replay here, here, here, and here. But it's his readers who need to stop overreacting about the use of expanded replay, right?
I'm having less of a problem with these new guidelines regarding home-plate collisions.
Did I just type what I just typed? Yep, and upon further review, I don't even need smelling salts. I'm changing my mind (well, sort of) on the implementation of the replay thing and the home-plate thing for the Major Leagues this season, because I'm looking at what's happening to other sports these days by comparison when it comes to changing stuff.
Of course Terence's reasoning for not hating expanded replay has to suck. He doesn't like the idea because it's a good idea, but because other sports are messing up the way they use instant replay. Okay then.
About the replay thing: all baseball officials seek to do is make sure they are using the best technology possible to determine the accuracy of nearly everything that happens on the diamond.
This is literally the exact argument I was making in the four columns I linked above where Terence Moore argued strongly against expanding replay. I'm glad Terence has finally come to his senses and realized, "Hey, it may not work perfectly all the time, but if MLB has the technology to get the calls right they should do it."
Then Terence begins discussing how other sports mess up replay, which apparently means MLB's expanded replay is a good idea.
So the replay thing and the home-plate thing?
I'll survive.
Oh sure, NOW Terence will survive after spending the better part of a year arguing about why expanded replay is such a terrible, no-good idea. It's almost like he should give ideas a chance to be implemented before stomping his foot down angrily that this idea will ruin the sport of baseball.
3. I don't know if this is a joke or not, but Woody Paige thought John Elway should have drafted all Stanford players in this year's NFL Draft.
See, it would show "school spirit" and why the hell school spirit is important in drafting players to an NFL team is beyond me.
Will John Elway and the Broncos draft guard David Yankey in the first round, defensive end Trent Murphy second, inside linebacker Shayne Skov third, free safety Ed Reynolds fourth, running back Tyler Gaffney fifth, fullback Ryan Hewitt sixth and center Khalil Wilkes seventh?
1. Mitch Albom isn't writing a book called "The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven Who Used the N-Word," but he did write about the NFL looking to prohibit use of the N-word on the field. I think Mitch just likes writing "the N-word."
To me, the N-word is a hateful slur based on a person’s skin color. Yet because my skin is also a certain color, I am told I cannot I criticize its usage.
It’s not my word.
Every word is Mitch's word! Look for more clarification in his new book, "The Five Words You Will First Hear in Heaven," which will be available as soon as he writes this column for the "Detroit Free-Press" where he lies about being at a basketball game last week with John Wooden and Carmelo Anthony.
But sooner or later, everyone, black and white, will stop saying it in public. This is inevitable.
I severely doubt this. I had someone walk in my office and use the word twice just a few days ago. It wasn't a white person and was a college educated African-American female. She's not a stupid person and didn't use the word in an angry manner, but a joking manner. Just saying, it's a word that people probably won't stop using. Maybe someone will read what I just wrote in 100 years, laugh, and then drive off in their hovercraft. Who knows?
Instead, I’m referring to a very vocal minority — at least I believe it’s a minority — of athletes, entertainers, commentators and advocates who are mostly African American, and who claim the NFL’s possible initiative is a move that, as one such critic for huffingtonpost.com wrote, “emboldens whites who assert their privilege over use of the N-word.”
Huh? Look. I don’t shake the rafters of this idea and find sociological ghosts of white supremacy.
Exactly. Mitch writes schmaltzy books about heaven and every once in a while writes a column containing a few easily detected lies. In what spare time he has, he berates those who work in the field of customer service and wonders why he's so perfect and the world around him is so flawed. He's got no time to think about white supremacy because this barista at Starbucks just dared to repeat his order back to him. It's ass-kicking time.
So critics who say the NFL has no right are wrong. The field is a stage; NFL owners are the directors. If you feel compelled to scream the N-word, you can do it, without a paycheck, in the parking lot.
A trickier debate is why black players want to cling to the word in the first place.
Yeah, stupid black people always clinging to racial slurs. Good point, Mitch.
Admittedly, I am not black,
ADMITTEDLY, Mitch is not black! He wants the truth to be out there now. Mitch Albom is not black nor is he Asian. He's white. He wants there to be no further misunderstandings about his race, so he finally admits he is indeed not black. All further confusion has now been avoided.
But that doesn’t make me — or other whites, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, etc. — stupid or insensitive. We recognize history.
Admittedly, Mitch does recognize history.
Jews were systematically executed, gassed and buried in mass graves — all less than 70 years ago — and they don’t defiantly cling to the K-word. Nor do Chinese Americans boast the C-word, Italians the W-word, Germans the K-word, etc.
Mitch admits he's not capable of understanding how it feels to be called the N-word, so he would never put himself in the shoes of those who do understand this, but he feels free to question why those people wearing these shoes continue to use the word. He knows he can't understand, but he definitely can judge.
The N-word fight is unique. And while nobody should dictate private conversations, if the NFL is going to suspend a white player for using the N-word at an off-season concert or suspend an African-American referee for allegedly saying it to an African-American player, then why the shock at a yellow flag? It’s 15 yards, not a lifetime ban.
As I said at the time the NFL was considering this, it is nice to try and get rid of the N-word, but is very, very difficult to actually put this plan into action. It would have been nearly impossible for the NFL to properly enforce.
Eventually, I believe, people will get tired of defending this hateful slur. In years to come, it may even seem silly. But this is how things change, in fits and starts, coughs and sputters, some easy, some hard.
That's what she said.
It is not my word. In time, it won’t be anyone else’s.
The day can’t come quickly enough.
When that day comes, Mitch can write the book, "The Four People Who Used the N-Word and Didn't End up Heaven You Will Talk To When You Reach Heaven."
2. Hey, guess what? Terence Moore doesn't want anyone overreacting to the expanded use of instant replay.
Terence may be losing his mind because HE is the one who was overreacting to the use of expanded instant replay here, here, here, and here. But it's his readers who need to stop overreacting about the use of expanded replay, right?
I'm having less of a problem with these new guidelines regarding home-plate collisions.
Did I just type what I just typed? Yep, and upon further review, I don't even need smelling salts. I'm changing my mind (well, sort of) on the implementation of the replay thing and the home-plate thing for the Major Leagues this season, because I'm looking at what's happening to other sports these days by comparison when it comes to changing stuff.
Of course Terence's reasoning for not hating expanded replay has to suck. He doesn't like the idea because it's a good idea, but because other sports are messing up the way they use instant replay. Okay then.
About the replay thing: all baseball officials seek to do is make sure they are using the best technology possible to determine the accuracy of nearly everything that happens on the diamond.
This is literally the exact argument I was making in the four columns I linked above where Terence Moore argued strongly against expanding replay. I'm glad Terence has finally come to his senses and realized, "Hey, it may not work perfectly all the time, but if MLB has the technology to get the calls right they should do it."
Then Terence begins discussing how other sports mess up replay, which apparently means MLB's expanded replay is a good idea.
So the replay thing and the home-plate thing?
I'll survive.
Oh sure, NOW Terence will survive after spending the better part of a year arguing about why expanded replay is such a terrible, no-good idea. It's almost like he should give ideas a chance to be implemented before stomping his foot down angrily that this idea will ruin the sport of baseball.
3. I don't know if this is a joke or not, but Woody Paige thought John Elway should have drafted all Stanford players in this year's NFL Draft.
See, it would show "school spirit" and why the hell school spirit is important in drafting players to an NFL team is beyond me.
Will John Elway and the Broncos draft guard David Yankey in the first round, defensive end Trent Murphy second, inside linebacker Shayne Skov third, free safety Ed Reynolds fourth, running back Tyler Gaffney fifth, fullback Ryan Hewitt sixth and center Khalil Wilkes seventh?
Monday, March 31, 2014
3 comments Jay Mariotti Bemoans the Loss of Sports Journalism as He Stands Over It's Corpse with a Bloody Knife
Jay Mariotti has attempted to reinvent himself with the Sports Talk Florida site as the man who is going to come in and save journalism from itself. I'm not sure he's preaching to a very large audience, or at least an audience that leaves comments, because most of his columns don't have any comments under them. I'm sure Jay would say that's because everyone agrees with him. Jay is one of the reasons for the decline of sports journalism though. He's never been a very good writer and mostly he exists for pageviews from people who don't like him or want to read his latest attack on a certain person/place/thing. That's what Jay is good for. He's a mercenary who in the past (though possibly not now) gets eyes on his columns. Somehow this has led Jay to believe he is in a position to talk about the decline of sports journalism as if he isn't partially responsible for the ESPN-ification of the profession. So Jay bemoans that Rick Reilly will no longer be writing for ESPN.com and thinks this is another death-knell for the sportswriting profession. It is not. Sportswriting will still be around 20 years from now and Jay only says the profession is declining because no one will hire him to write columns anymore for a major sports news organization. This is typical Jay Mariotti. He hates what he can't be. He pimped his radio show out to ESPN, FoxSports, and other major news organizations who declined to work with him (he admits this in his introductory column to this Sports Talk Florida site), so naturally because these major sports news organizations won't allow Jay to write sports journalism then he takes the position the profession is dying. If Rick Reilly not writing columns anymore is a sign the profession is dying, then sports journalism never had a shot to begin with.
On Rick Reilly’s final day at ESPN.com, his two March efforts were the highest-read pieces on the site.
Being well-read is a good thing. Being well-read doesn't mean quality though, it just means people read what you write. Danielle Steel has sold a ton of books, but I'm not sure anyone would argue she is one of the best writers on the planet. The same goes for music. The best quality music isn't always the highest quality music. Sometimes being popular doesn't guarantee high quality.
As he ends the most accomplished sportswriting career of his generation,
I'm sorry, I think Jay meant "As he ends what no one would argue is the most accomplished..." Let's read that again just to be sure.
As he ends the most accomplished sportswriting career of his generation,
Oh. Well, this sentence is how Jay can lose credibility with me immediately. The only thing Reilly has accomplished in the last 5 years is plagiarizing himself repeatedly.
he embarrasses the industry traffic whores who’ve mocked him as their cheap way of attracting eyeballs.
(Jay glances at himself in the mirror subconsciously, not understanding why)
So Jay says that Reilly had the most-read piece on ESPN.com during his final day, then says that Reilly embarrasses traffic whores who mock him as a way of attracting eyeballs. Couldn't it be possible that some of those pageviews were redirected from sites mocking him? And also, Reilly is terrible. Those people mocking Rick Reilly are not about attracting eyeballs, but about pointing out terrible writing.
A gifted paragon in an increasingly wayward, soulless, Beavis-and-Butthead profession,
Hey Jay, the 90's called and they want their pop culture reference back.
Reilly has had to absorb cheap shots from hopeless hacks who can’t draw readers with their own dreck and rely on ripping a master to make a few nickels.
Much like Rick Reilly has to rely on ripping his own past work off in order to churn out a weekly column? Or like how Jay has to write columns ripping on fellow sportswriters, athletes/coaches and generic Internet bloggers in order to gain attention for himself?
His piece last week on Jim Kelly and his horrific obstacles in life, including cancer, stirred tears. His recent commentary on why Tony La Russa, Joe Torre and Bobby Cox were voted immediately into baseball’s Hall of Fame — though all managed teams with stars immersed in performance-enhancing drugs — provoked widespread debate.
His columns where he plagiarized his own work and misquoted his fucking father-in-law of all people also provoked widespread debate. How about the column where he basically called Jonathan Martin a wimp? That provoked some debate, yet Jay conveniently leaves out these columns that provoked debate because they are a part of the Reilly legacy over the past five years that doesn't make him look so good.
Reilly made you think, made you cry, made you LOL, made you get to know a subject, made you love sports and hate sports and love him and hate him.
Maybe he did a decade ago, but in the last 10 years he has mostly made people hate him for writing about sports.
He is leaving the writing game to concentrate exclusively on television. Anyone who knows Reilly knows this is ass-backwards, that his flowing prose doesn’t come across so well on TV.
I absolutely agree. Reilly has the presence of a creepy uncle on television, but the problem is his writing (no matter what Jay says...and remember, Jay thinks his own personal writing is good so I'm not sure he's capable of understanding what good sportswriting is) hasn't been up to par for a while now. It's so bad that Reilly has been copying his old work at least once a year. But yes, Rick Reilly's skill set doesn't really translate well anywhere except for in his writing, and his writing isn't very good anymore.
But ESPN president John Skipper, who has a bizarre hard-on for a comparatively inane Bill Simmons and has overpromoted a glorified Boston sports fan at Reilly’s expense,
This ESPN president John Skipper is also the guy who brought Jay Mariotti's name to the national conscience by hiring him to be on "Around the Horn" and giving him a forum to be the Jay Mariotti that I have come to know and dislike. One would think that Jay wouldn't take cheap shots at Skipper, but Jay is still bitter that he was fired from ESPN and of course has to take a shit on Skipper due to this. It's Jay's M.O. He bashes his ex-fellow employees on his way out the door.
is ignoring Reilly’s robust readership and turning him strictly into a talking head who will create stories for “Monday Night Football” and SportsCenter. This is a forced move, with Skipper conveniently playing to Reilly’s social-media critics — and playing to his pal Simmons, too — rather than protecting Reilly and having his back.
You only have to search the archives of this blog to see I'm not the biggest Bill Simmons fan in the world. If I'm the head of a major sports network and having to choose between Rick Reilly and Bill Simmons, then I am choosing Bill Simmons every time. The bottom line is Rick Reilly doesn't fit in with ESPN because Reilly is a one-trick pony. He's good at writing a weekly column at the end of a magazine and he was good at that when working for "Sports Illustrated," but at ESPN he simply isn't able to create stories or contribute anything to a discussion about sports. Rick Reilly doesn't do sports. He does human interest stories about people involved with sports. I don't understand what Skipper would have had to do to have Reilly's back other than to ask him to not continue to write in a shitty fashion.
“Life’s 2 short 2 work full-time. Letting my column go + will just do features 4 MNC + SC. Thx 2 John Skipper 4 this!,” Reilly tweeted.
Thank John Skipper? For what, ruining sportswriting?
The idea Jay Mariotti is accusing someone else of ruining sportswriting is delicious. Jay Mariotti is a man responsible for picking fights with athletes and managers, re-writing an entire column because within 6 hours of posting the original column he looked like an asshole based on the premise of his original article, and just generally writing in the manner of a troll to gain attention.
Also, didn't ESPN hire Jay Mariotti to do some freelance writing recently? Last year in fact. Unfortunately this wasn't Mariotti's big triumphant return to writing he wanted it to be because ESPN didn't publish anything else after that one column about Kobe Bryant. Not that Jay is bitter of course, but he was doing freelance work for the guy he now claims ruined sportswriting.
Not to mention, I have seen this Mariotti column all across the Internet with people commenting on it. It's a little ironic that in the column where Mariotti complains says:
he embarrasses the industry traffic whores who’ve mocked him as their cheap way of attracting eyeballs.
That Jay himself is using Reilly's name to increase his traffic and get his name back out on the keyboards of those who follow sports. It's just typical Jay. He complains about traffic whores while being jealous he doesn't have the traffic he wants, so he takes steps towards being a traffic whore himself. Jay accuses someone of stealing bread while he has a loaf hidden under his shirt.
When I started this multi-media sports site,
I'm sorry, this is funny. This is like old bands starting their own label because, "We want to produce and control the content of our music and how it's distributed." This means: "No major label will sign us right now." Yeah, this is a multi-media sports site, but the relevance of this sports site Jay runs pales in comparison to the relevance Jay believes it carries. Jay thinks he's winning the marathon when he's just so far behind everyone else he can't see his nearest competitor.
I wrote that the best writers are the most versatile — strike a romantic nerve, break a scandal, rip an owner, question a strategic move, profile a great athlete, rejoice after a marvelous performance or human triumph. You must do it all.
Interesting, because Jay is incapable of doing at least half of these things the best writers do. Rick Reilly was capable of doing these things at one time until the sportswriting landscape shifted from under him and readers requested more from a writer than a few bad jokes and a generic look at a sports event. Rick isn't relevant anymore because there are writers who can be funny while also taking a more in-depth look at a sports topic. Rick has struggled to find his place in the new sportswriting landscape. I love to blame John Skipper for things, but this one isn't his fault...outside of hiring Reilly in the first place...and giving him a new contract. Okay, so maybe the whole "hiring of Reilly" is John Skipper's fault.
Sportswriting should be less about analytics and fandom and more about passion, debate, raw energy, feel, criticism.
Not true. Sportswriting should be about analytics and fandom, along with passion, debate, raw energy, feel and criticism.
The problem that Jay doesn't seem to understand is that Rick Reilly didn't provide any passion in his columns at ESPN. Many of them were mailed in. The next time Rick Reilly provides any debate or raw energy in his columns will be the first time he does so. Rick provides criticism sometimes, but it's more of a "casual sports fan" criticism (as seen from his comments about Notre Dame football two years ago) where you can tell Rick is providing an uninformed opinion.
I’ve yet to see Simmons evoke an emotion other than “Who is that guy, why is Doug Collins looking at him funny on an NBA pre-game show, why is he writing 20,000-word monstrosities that say nothing and why is he championing `smart writing’ when he and his offshoot site, Grantland, are comprised of pretend intellects who also write way too long and say nothing?” When a writer has to tell someone he’s a smart sportswriter, he probably is not a smart sportswriter and is more a self-promoting, write-for-his-peers charlatan.
“Smart writing,” Skipper says, repeating whatever Simmons says.
Blowhard masturbation, I say.
There's a certain amount of truth in these statements. There's also a hell of a lot of jealousy to go along with the truth in these statements. Jay was discarded by ESPN twice and he's not happy about it.
And I’m afraid ESPN is further suppressing and marginalizing what once made sportswriting great — passion, fun, controversy — by forbidding anyone but Simmons to stand out from the rest.
If Jay is complaining that ESPN isn't allowing ESPN.com to turn into one big "First Take" episode then I'm very glad for this. I think it would also be effective if Jay gave specific examples of this phenomenon he claims to see, because I'm sure they exist. Without these specific examples it seems like sour grapes to me.
Also on tap are sites targeted specifically for niches — Skipper has hired Nate Silver to operate a metrics/ geek platform (again, smart sportswriting)
I HATE smart sportswriting. I prefer emotional, unintelligent ranting in my sportswriting. Because you know, as a reader I don't deserve smart sportswriting. I deserve the writing that's best used for lining the inside of a litter box, writing that is emotional, overly-critical without thinking the criticism through, and writing with a bias. I deserve Jay Mariotti's writing.
that is capitalizing on Silver’s ability to accurately predict all 50 states in a presidential race for the New York Times, though I’m not certain how that relates to whether Tiger Woods should keep playing or rest his bad back for the Masters.
I think Jay has a fundamental misunderstanding of what Nate Silver's site will be doing. They won't be determining if Tiger Woods should keep playing (how the hell would they even do that?) or rest his back for the Masters. Jay may want to bone up on what the Nate Silver site will be doing before criticizing it.
Also coming is a site promoting African-American content, which is fine as long as ESPN also adds a site promoting Asian-American content, Italian-American content and Icelandic-American content.
Hilarious. I see Jay has the same amount of respect for minorities as he has for women. Wait, I'm sorry, that's right. Jay was framed by a she-devil and he would never hurt another woman.
Seems the thinkers are overthinking. And wrecking the business.
So a site promoting African-American content is "overthinking" sporstwriting? Jay was never good at the whole "thinking" thing, so I can see how he's intimidated by a move to more cerebral-oriented sportswriting that doesn't involve taking cheap shots at the local MLB manager.
Reilly’s departure means sportswriting officially is dead.
No, it doesn't. If sportswriting didn't die from Jay's repeated efforts to kill it, then the departure of a writer who was good at his craft a decade ago isn't going to make a difference.
ESPN now will trot out megadoses of Simmons, whose popularity stems from “reader letters” he actually is writing to himself — a practice he lifted from a brilliant sports columnist named Mike Downey.
It disturbs me a little bit that Jay and I have noticed the same thing about Bill's mailbags.
Once, the business was flowing with big money, and the best sportswriters made millions.
Or, in the case of Jay Mariotti, who was that industry whore trolling for eyeballs on his columns, even the worst sportswriters made a million or so. Jay is mad he isn't rolling in the money like he used to be. If you notice, I think many of Jay's complaints about others center around rejections Jay has experienced during his professional career. He hates FoxSports and ESPN because they don't want to hire him. He's mad that the sportswriting industry is moving away from his shitty writing towards a more thinking-man's writing because it affects Jay's paycheck. Jay isn't capable of thought-provoking writing.
Now, irresponsible entrepreneurs hire writers on the cheap to write lies and drive traffic.
Jay misses the days when irresponsible newspapers hired him to write cheap lies and drive traffic. Those were the good old days.
The clown who started the trashy Deadspin site once wrote he had it on 80 percent authority that Albert Pujols used steroids — Pujols should sue him, as he sued former major-league slugger Jack Clark for making the same claims — and the writer since has devolved into another humdrum no-read for a site co-owned by (ready to howl?) MLB.
Gosh, I'm howling.
Deadspin is among the sites that like to think they took down Reilly because he recycled some old lines.
I don't think those sites think they took Reilly down. I would like Jay's take on how Reilly recycled some old lines from a 500 page column isn't basically recycling the same column and how this matches up with Jay's insistence that Rick Reilly has had the most accomplished sportswriting career of his generation. Is Rick such a great writer even he wants to copy himself? It's hilarious that Jay accuses Deadspin of printing lies, but everything they wrote about Rick Reilly was true. Jay skips over this little fact, that he calls Deadspin liars while refusing to acknowledge the subject of this column (Rick Reilly) was a target of Deadspin only peddling the truth.
Not only do those stoners struggle to match Reilly’s worst sentences on their best writing days, they have as much right to assess integrity as Pinocchio and Dick Nixon.
What? I don't even understand this, other than Jay throws two dated pop culture references at his readers. Jay can't fight Deadspin with an intelligent retort on the facts of what Deadspin wrote regarding Reilly because he knows Reilly recycled his own columns, so being Jay Mariotti, he takes the low road and starts making the discussion personal. Jay can't argue on the merits, so he tries to drag people down into the mud with him.
Maybe Jay likes Rick Reilly so much because Jay likes to recycle jokes too. Look for the "Pinocchio/Richard Nixon" joke in the first paragraph of that Mariotti column.
In the 21st century, as always, the essence of sportswriting is telling the reader what he doesn’t know and giving him a reason to chew on what is so compelling about sports. Rick Reilly did it better than anyone I’ve read.
You should have read more over the last decade, because while at ESPN Reilly has been nothing but a bust and disappointment. He was given a forum and a chance to write, with every column posted on ESPN.com's front page and he never repaid ESPN's faith in him. In fact, Reilly spit in ESPN's face by recycling old columns while they handed him a paycheck worth millions.
“Thanks to everybody who liked the column and even those who hated it. You fired me up. It was a privilege,” he tweeted.
Rick Reilly tweeted. Consider those three words.
Yes, the dichotomy of Rick Reilly using new media Tweeting his departure from sportswriting while part of the reason he is departing is because he couldn't adjust his writing to new media is interesting.
It’s all you need to know about the death of sportswriting.
That sportswriting isn't dying at all, it's just some older sportswriters who have failed to adjust to sportswriting in the 21st century are being left behind? Sportswriting can't be dying. Rick Reilly hasn't been a good writer for almost a decade now and sportswriting has somehow survived Jay Mariotti's repeated attempts to kill it. If sportswriting can survive this and this then I think the profession will be able to survive pretty much anything.
On Rick Reilly’s final day at ESPN.com, his two March efforts were the highest-read pieces on the site.
Being well-read is a good thing. Being well-read doesn't mean quality though, it just means people read what you write. Danielle Steel has sold a ton of books, but I'm not sure anyone would argue she is one of the best writers on the planet. The same goes for music. The best quality music isn't always the highest quality music. Sometimes being popular doesn't guarantee high quality.
As he ends the most accomplished sportswriting career of his generation,
I'm sorry, I think Jay meant "As he ends what no one would argue is the most accomplished..." Let's read that again just to be sure.
As he ends the most accomplished sportswriting career of his generation,
Oh. Well, this sentence is how Jay can lose credibility with me immediately. The only thing Reilly has accomplished in the last 5 years is plagiarizing himself repeatedly.
he embarrasses the industry traffic whores who’ve mocked him as their cheap way of attracting eyeballs.
(Jay glances at himself in the mirror subconsciously, not understanding why)
So Jay says that Reilly had the most-read piece on ESPN.com during his final day, then says that Reilly embarrasses traffic whores who mock him as a way of attracting eyeballs. Couldn't it be possible that some of those pageviews were redirected from sites mocking him? And also, Reilly is terrible. Those people mocking Rick Reilly are not about attracting eyeballs, but about pointing out terrible writing.
A gifted paragon in an increasingly wayward, soulless, Beavis-and-Butthead profession,
Hey Jay, the 90's called and they want their pop culture reference back.
Reilly has had to absorb cheap shots from hopeless hacks who can’t draw readers with their own dreck and rely on ripping a master to make a few nickels.
Much like Rick Reilly has to rely on ripping his own past work off in order to churn out a weekly column? Or like how Jay has to write columns ripping on fellow sportswriters, athletes/coaches and generic Internet bloggers in order to gain attention for himself?
His piece last week on Jim Kelly and his horrific obstacles in life, including cancer, stirred tears. His recent commentary on why Tony La Russa, Joe Torre and Bobby Cox were voted immediately into baseball’s Hall of Fame — though all managed teams with stars immersed in performance-enhancing drugs — provoked widespread debate.
His columns where he plagiarized his own work and misquoted his fucking father-in-law of all people also provoked widespread debate. How about the column where he basically called Jonathan Martin a wimp? That provoked some debate, yet Jay conveniently leaves out these columns that provoked debate because they are a part of the Reilly legacy over the past five years that doesn't make him look so good.
Reilly made you think, made you cry, made you LOL, made you get to know a subject, made you love sports and hate sports and love him and hate him.
Maybe he did a decade ago, but in the last 10 years he has mostly made people hate him for writing about sports.
He is leaving the writing game to concentrate exclusively on television. Anyone who knows Reilly knows this is ass-backwards, that his flowing prose doesn’t come across so well on TV.
I absolutely agree. Reilly has the presence of a creepy uncle on television, but the problem is his writing (no matter what Jay says...and remember, Jay thinks his own personal writing is good so I'm not sure he's capable of understanding what good sportswriting is) hasn't been up to par for a while now. It's so bad that Reilly has been copying his old work at least once a year. But yes, Rick Reilly's skill set doesn't really translate well anywhere except for in his writing, and his writing isn't very good anymore.
But ESPN president John Skipper, who has a bizarre hard-on for a comparatively inane Bill Simmons and has overpromoted a glorified Boston sports fan at Reilly’s expense,
This ESPN president John Skipper is also the guy who brought Jay Mariotti's name to the national conscience by hiring him to be on "Around the Horn" and giving him a forum to be the Jay Mariotti that I have come to know and dislike. One would think that Jay wouldn't take cheap shots at Skipper, but Jay is still bitter that he was fired from ESPN and of course has to take a shit on Skipper due to this. It's Jay's M.O. He bashes his ex-fellow employees on his way out the door.
is ignoring Reilly’s robust readership and turning him strictly into a talking head who will create stories for “Monday Night Football” and SportsCenter. This is a forced move, with Skipper conveniently playing to Reilly’s social-media critics — and playing to his pal Simmons, too — rather than protecting Reilly and having his back.
You only have to search the archives of this blog to see I'm not the biggest Bill Simmons fan in the world. If I'm the head of a major sports network and having to choose between Rick Reilly and Bill Simmons, then I am choosing Bill Simmons every time. The bottom line is Rick Reilly doesn't fit in with ESPN because Reilly is a one-trick pony. He's good at writing a weekly column at the end of a magazine and he was good at that when working for "Sports Illustrated," but at ESPN he simply isn't able to create stories or contribute anything to a discussion about sports. Rick Reilly doesn't do sports. He does human interest stories about people involved with sports. I don't understand what Skipper would have had to do to have Reilly's back other than to ask him to not continue to write in a shitty fashion.
“Life’s 2 short 2 work full-time. Letting my column go + will just do features 4 MNC + SC. Thx 2 John Skipper 4 this!,” Reilly tweeted.
Thank John Skipper? For what, ruining sportswriting?
The idea Jay Mariotti is accusing someone else of ruining sportswriting is delicious. Jay Mariotti is a man responsible for picking fights with athletes and managers, re-writing an entire column because within 6 hours of posting the original column he looked like an asshole based on the premise of his original article, and just generally writing in the manner of a troll to gain attention.
Also, didn't ESPN hire Jay Mariotti to do some freelance writing recently? Last year in fact. Unfortunately this wasn't Mariotti's big triumphant return to writing he wanted it to be because ESPN didn't publish anything else after that one column about Kobe Bryant. Not that Jay is bitter of course, but he was doing freelance work for the guy he now claims ruined sportswriting.
Not to mention, I have seen this Mariotti column all across the Internet with people commenting on it. It's a little ironic that in the column where Mariotti complains says:
he embarrasses the industry traffic whores who’ve mocked him as their cheap way of attracting eyeballs.
That Jay himself is using Reilly's name to increase his traffic and get his name back out on the keyboards of those who follow sports. It's just typical Jay. He complains about traffic whores while being jealous he doesn't have the traffic he wants, so he takes steps towards being a traffic whore himself. Jay accuses someone of stealing bread while he has a loaf hidden under his shirt.
When I started this multi-media sports site,
I'm sorry, this is funny. This is like old bands starting their own label because, "We want to produce and control the content of our music and how it's distributed." This means: "No major label will sign us right now." Yeah, this is a multi-media sports site, but the relevance of this sports site Jay runs pales in comparison to the relevance Jay believes it carries. Jay thinks he's winning the marathon when he's just so far behind everyone else he can't see his nearest competitor.
I wrote that the best writers are the most versatile — strike a romantic nerve, break a scandal, rip an owner, question a strategic move, profile a great athlete, rejoice after a marvelous performance or human triumph. You must do it all.
Interesting, because Jay is incapable of doing at least half of these things the best writers do. Rick Reilly was capable of doing these things at one time until the sportswriting landscape shifted from under him and readers requested more from a writer than a few bad jokes and a generic look at a sports event. Rick isn't relevant anymore because there are writers who can be funny while also taking a more in-depth look at a sports topic. Rick has struggled to find his place in the new sportswriting landscape. I love to blame John Skipper for things, but this one isn't his fault...outside of hiring Reilly in the first place...and giving him a new contract. Okay, so maybe the whole "hiring of Reilly" is John Skipper's fault.
Sportswriting should be less about analytics and fandom and more about passion, debate, raw energy, feel, criticism.
Not true. Sportswriting should be about analytics and fandom, along with passion, debate, raw energy, feel and criticism.
The problem that Jay doesn't seem to understand is that Rick Reilly didn't provide any passion in his columns at ESPN. Many of them were mailed in. The next time Rick Reilly provides any debate or raw energy in his columns will be the first time he does so. Rick provides criticism sometimes, but it's more of a "casual sports fan" criticism (as seen from his comments about Notre Dame football two years ago) where you can tell Rick is providing an uninformed opinion.
I’ve yet to see Simmons evoke an emotion other than “Who is that guy, why is Doug Collins looking at him funny on an NBA pre-game show, why is he writing 20,000-word monstrosities that say nothing and why is he championing `smart writing’ when he and his offshoot site, Grantland, are comprised of pretend intellects who also write way too long and say nothing?” When a writer has to tell someone he’s a smart sportswriter, he probably is not a smart sportswriter and is more a self-promoting, write-for-his-peers charlatan.
“Smart writing,” Skipper says, repeating whatever Simmons says.
Blowhard masturbation, I say.
There's a certain amount of truth in these statements. There's also a hell of a lot of jealousy to go along with the truth in these statements. Jay was discarded by ESPN twice and he's not happy about it.
And I’m afraid ESPN is further suppressing and marginalizing what once made sportswriting great — passion, fun, controversy — by forbidding anyone but Simmons to stand out from the rest.
If Jay is complaining that ESPN isn't allowing ESPN.com to turn into one big "First Take" episode then I'm very glad for this. I think it would also be effective if Jay gave specific examples of this phenomenon he claims to see, because I'm sure they exist. Without these specific examples it seems like sour grapes to me.
Also on tap are sites targeted specifically for niches — Skipper has hired Nate Silver to operate a metrics/ geek platform (again, smart sportswriting)
I HATE smart sportswriting. I prefer emotional, unintelligent ranting in my sportswriting. Because you know, as a reader I don't deserve smart sportswriting. I deserve the writing that's best used for lining the inside of a litter box, writing that is emotional, overly-critical without thinking the criticism through, and writing with a bias. I deserve Jay Mariotti's writing.
that is capitalizing on Silver’s ability to accurately predict all 50 states in a presidential race for the New York Times, though I’m not certain how that relates to whether Tiger Woods should keep playing or rest his bad back for the Masters.
I think Jay has a fundamental misunderstanding of what Nate Silver's site will be doing. They won't be determining if Tiger Woods should keep playing (how the hell would they even do that?) or rest his back for the Masters. Jay may want to bone up on what the Nate Silver site will be doing before criticizing it.
Also coming is a site promoting African-American content, which is fine as long as ESPN also adds a site promoting Asian-American content, Italian-American content and Icelandic-American content.
Hilarious. I see Jay has the same amount of respect for minorities as he has for women. Wait, I'm sorry, that's right. Jay was framed by a she-devil and he would never hurt another woman.
Seems the thinkers are overthinking. And wrecking the business.
So a site promoting African-American content is "overthinking" sporstwriting? Jay was never good at the whole "thinking" thing, so I can see how he's intimidated by a move to more cerebral-oriented sportswriting that doesn't involve taking cheap shots at the local MLB manager.
Reilly’s departure means sportswriting officially is dead.
No, it doesn't. If sportswriting didn't die from Jay's repeated efforts to kill it, then the departure of a writer who was good at his craft a decade ago isn't going to make a difference.
ESPN now will trot out megadoses of Simmons, whose popularity stems from “reader letters” he actually is writing to himself — a practice he lifted from a brilliant sports columnist named Mike Downey.
It disturbs me a little bit that Jay and I have noticed the same thing about Bill's mailbags.
Once, the business was flowing with big money, and the best sportswriters made millions.
Or, in the case of Jay Mariotti, who was that industry whore trolling for eyeballs on his columns, even the worst sportswriters made a million or so. Jay is mad he isn't rolling in the money like he used to be. If you notice, I think many of Jay's complaints about others center around rejections Jay has experienced during his professional career. He hates FoxSports and ESPN because they don't want to hire him. He's mad that the sportswriting industry is moving away from his shitty writing towards a more thinking-man's writing because it affects Jay's paycheck. Jay isn't capable of thought-provoking writing.
Now, irresponsible entrepreneurs hire writers on the cheap to write lies and drive traffic.
Jay misses the days when irresponsible newspapers hired him to write cheap lies and drive traffic. Those were the good old days.
The clown who started the trashy Deadspin site once wrote he had it on 80 percent authority that Albert Pujols used steroids — Pujols should sue him, as he sued former major-league slugger Jack Clark for making the same claims — and the writer since has devolved into another humdrum no-read for a site co-owned by (ready to howl?) MLB.
Gosh, I'm howling.
Deadspin is among the sites that like to think they took down Reilly because he recycled some old lines.
I don't think those sites think they took Reilly down. I would like Jay's take on how Reilly recycled some old lines from a 500 page column isn't basically recycling the same column and how this matches up with Jay's insistence that Rick Reilly has had the most accomplished sportswriting career of his generation. Is Rick such a great writer even he wants to copy himself? It's hilarious that Jay accuses Deadspin of printing lies, but everything they wrote about Rick Reilly was true. Jay skips over this little fact, that he calls Deadspin liars while refusing to acknowledge the subject of this column (Rick Reilly) was a target of Deadspin only peddling the truth.
Not only do those stoners struggle to match Reilly’s worst sentences on their best writing days, they have as much right to assess integrity as Pinocchio and Dick Nixon.
What? I don't even understand this, other than Jay throws two dated pop culture references at his readers. Jay can't fight Deadspin with an intelligent retort on the facts of what Deadspin wrote regarding Reilly because he knows Reilly recycled his own columns, so being Jay Mariotti, he takes the low road and starts making the discussion personal. Jay can't argue on the merits, so he tries to drag people down into the mud with him.
Maybe Jay likes Rick Reilly so much because Jay likes to recycle jokes too. Look for the "Pinocchio/Richard Nixon" joke in the first paragraph of that Mariotti column.
In the 21st century, as always, the essence of sportswriting is telling the reader what he doesn’t know and giving him a reason to chew on what is so compelling about sports. Rick Reilly did it better than anyone I’ve read.
You should have read more over the last decade, because while at ESPN Reilly has been nothing but a bust and disappointment. He was given a forum and a chance to write, with every column posted on ESPN.com's front page and he never repaid ESPN's faith in him. In fact, Reilly spit in ESPN's face by recycling old columns while they handed him a paycheck worth millions.
“Thanks to everybody who liked the column and even those who hated it. You fired me up. It was a privilege,” he tweeted.
Rick Reilly tweeted. Consider those three words.
Yes, the dichotomy of Rick Reilly using new media Tweeting his departure from sportswriting while part of the reason he is departing is because he couldn't adjust his writing to new media is interesting.
It’s all you need to know about the death of sportswriting.
That sportswriting isn't dying at all, it's just some older sportswriters who have failed to adjust to sportswriting in the 21st century are being left behind? Sportswriting can't be dying. Rick Reilly hasn't been a good writer for almost a decade now and sportswriting has somehow survived Jay Mariotti's repeated attempts to kill it. If sportswriting can survive this and this then I think the profession will be able to survive pretty much anything.
On Rick Reilly’s final day at ESPN.com, his two March efforts were the highest-read pieces on the site.
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/rick-reilly-way-too-good-for-a-bad-business/#J1YFTUUQVa68oCdO.99
Read more at http://www.sportstalkflorida.com/rick-reilly-way-too-good-for-a-bad-business/#J1YFTUUQVa68oCdO.99
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
0 comments This Column Could Have Been Good if Rick Reilly Hadn't Written It
Rick Reilly has written an article where he essentially wonders how Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, and Joe Torre were elected into the Hall of Fame but the players who played for these managers that are accused or proven to use PED's are not elected into the Hall of Fame. In the hands of someone who isn't Rick Reilly this could be a thought-provoking and interesting column. Unfortunately, this column is in Rick's hands, so it's full of bad reasoning and the reasoning Rick does use could extend to where no baseball players who played during the Steroid Era could be elected into baseball's Hall of Fame.
I'm so pumped up for next July in Cooperstown!
I can't wait to see who's going to be in the crowd at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for new members Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.
You can tell Rick is being sarcastic because I'm not sure anyone really cares who is in the audience for the Hall of Fame induction.
Maybe Mark McGwire will show up? It might be as close as he'll ever get. La Russa managed him for 15 seasons in both Oakland and St. Louis and says he never saw McGwire do a single steroid. Imagine that.
I'm not sure Tony La Russa has ever actually stated he never saw Mark McGwire do a single steroid. I did a quick Internet search and couldn't find a quote from La Russa making this statement. Perhaps I did not search hard enough.
Maybe Alex Rodriguez will attend? He probably won't get in, either. Former New York Yankees skipper Torre says he didn't even notice A-Roid's alleged PED use in the four years he managed him.
Joe Torre has also stated he didn't go into any player's locker to check for steroids as well, so it's not necessarily as if Torre was in a position to notice A-Rod doing steroids. I would imagine A-Rod wouldn't do PED's in the locker room in full view of everyone. Of course it is A-Rod, so all bets are off I guess.
This is the next stage in steroid morality rage from columnists. It starts with the players who are accused (or suspected) of steroid use and now it is filtering down to the enablers who had a chance to turn in these steroid users but did not take that chance. Using the logic that Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre were in a position and had an obligation to report steroid use, then there is an argument to be made no players from the Steroid Era should be inducted into the Hall of Fame since they were all enablers. If Torre/La Russa/Cox were in a position to know and did nothing about, so that's why they should not be allowed induction into the Hall of Fame, the teammates of these PED users also had an obligation to report the steroid use and failed to do so as well. So if Cox/La Russa/Torre should not be allowed into the Hall of Fame as an enabler of steroid use, then no players from the Steroid Era should be allowed induction into the Hall of Fame.
Torre? No ban for him. In fact, he's an executive vice president of Major League Baseball now.
Let me be clear. If we are going to start pointing the finger and say, "This person benefited from the Steroid Era and should not be in the Hall of Fame for this reason," then that finger is going to get pointed at nearly every player who played during the Steroid Era. In some way, whether by being on the team of a player that used PED's or using PED's himself, almost every MLB player benefited from the Steroid Era in some little way. Some players were hurt because they were clean and didn't get a roster spot, that is absolutely true. So not all the players benefited, but Derek Jeter shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame if Joe Torre shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. Jeter had as much of a chance and obligation to report PED use in the Yankees clubhouse as Joe Torre did.
Maybe former Atlanta Braves manager Cox will look out in the crowd to see his old star Gary Sheffield. Probably not. Cox says he never saw all the PEDs Sheffield was taking when he had him right under his nose in the Atlanta clubhouse.
Sheffield spent two seasons in Atlanta. He was also taking PED's under the nose of Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, and Greg Maddux. If Bobby Cox should be denied entry into the baseball Hall of Fame then all five of these players should be denied entry as well (I realize Andruw Jones probably won't make it to the Hall of Fame unless his defense is really, really considered). Is Rick Reilly fine with Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Chipper Jones not being in the Hall of Fame? I would guess not.
You could build a wing with the admitted and suspected drug cheats they won with: A-Rod, Roger Clemens (Torre), Jason Giambi (Torre and La Russa), McGwire, Jose Canseco (La Russa), Melky Cabrera (Torre and Cox), David Justice (Torre and Cox), Andy Pettite (Torre), Manny Ramirez (Torre with the Dodgers) and Sheffield (Torre and Cox.)
Rick also conveniently doesn't explain why he is expecting these managers to publicly call out members of their team for PED use when zero other MLB players and zero other MLB managers were alerting the world to the prevalent PED use in baseball. It doesn't make it right, but this same obligation that Reilly sees for Torre/La Russa/Cox also goes for Jim Leyland, Mike Scioscia and every other MLB manager during the Steroid Era. Again, this would go for every player during the Steroid Era as well.
It's just another year in the Hall of Farce, where the codes of conduct shift like beach sand; where the rules for one set of men are ignored for another; where PED poppers can never enter, but the men who turned their backs to the cheating get gleaming, bronze plaques.
If enablers were denied entry into the Hall of Fame then there would be no players elected into the Hall of Fame for the next 10-15 years.
La Russa's slipping on the Hall of Fame jersey Monday is the sight that really tested my gag reflex. He did more for juicers than Jack LaLanne.
These type of pop culture references is why I wish this column were written by another writer who actually had the skill to pull this type of column off.
Under La Russa, the Oakland clubhouse became a kind of leather-upholstered showroom for creams, rubs and injections that allowed players to work out harder, recover quicker and attack the game like a wolf in a hen house. It didn't change much in St. Louis, either, where he says he didn't notice what McGwire, Troy Glaus, Fernando Vina and Ryan Franklin were doing.
Albert Pujols didn't notice what these were players doing either. Neither did Yadier Molina, David Eckstein (yes, he of the grittiness), Chris Carpenter, Jim Edmonds, Tino Martinez, and Scott Rolen. Why isn't this scorn directed at them as well?
He spent eight hours a day around these guys, eight months a year, and yet he never saw a thing. Maybe he dressed in a different clubhouse?
I'm not going to defend these managers because nearly everyone, including sportswriters, turned a blind eye to PED use during the Steroid Era. It's not like these steroid users consistently shot up in the locker room with everyone around them watching them do so. Maybe they did. I obviously wasn't in the locker room every time a player used steroids, but I would imagine Bobby Cox didn't have a conversation about moving Gary Sheffield into the cleanup spot for a few games while Sheffield shot a needle full of steroids into his ass (Sheffield's ass, not Bobby Cox's ass...though if Bobby Cox did use steroids I wonder what kind of article Rick could get out of that revelation?).
But he goes into the HOF and those players never will. Maybe he can send them some Instagrams
Or these players could just visit the Hall of Fame and take their own pictures.
Hey, you think any of the three skips will mention how PEDS helped them get to that sunny afternoon in Cooperstown?
Oh, and I can't forget to thank Katalina at Tijuana Pharmacy for all her help. Like my players always said, "We can't get cut without Kat!"
Yet again, if we are going to use the logic that Bobby Cox shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame because he was aware of the PED use in the locker room, then every player who played on a team with a PED user (and yes, that includes Derek Jeter and many other beloved players) should not be inducted into the Hall of Fame either. I get the outrage at a manager having knowledge of a player using PED's, but this can be a slippery slope if Cox/La Russa/Torre are not allowed induction because of knowledge their players used steroids. No players or managers chose to out those players who were using steroids, so this is a group failure, not just the failure of a few managers who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
You won't even have to be in Cooperstown to smell the hypocrisy. Even the faintest scent of a rumor of PED use is enough to sink a player now.
Managers? Odorless.
There is a perceived difference in personally using steroids and knowing someone else on your team has used steroids. It's the same way I won't be accused of cheating if I knew someone cheated and didn't turn that person in. I enabled through my inaction, but I'm not guilty of the offense.
Take Houston Astros great Craig Biggio. He had more than enough career to get in, and even though there isn't a stitch of evidence against him, the writers have kept him out because they have a niggling hunch he might've used.
This is due to the overreactive nature of those in the BBWAA who enjoy tying a player's suspected use of steroids into proof this player did use steroids. The faintest scent of PED use does keep most players out of the Hall of Fame, but simply because this is the case currently doesn't make it right. If we tie the managers into PED use and prevent them from being inducted into the Hall of Fame, then this same tie-in has to go for the players during the Steroid Era as well...even those who didn't use steroids but had knowledge of PED use.
Remember, kids: If you play the game under even a single cloud of suspicion, you're out. Manage it under one? Come on in and pull up a plaque!
Fine, yes. It doesn't make sense. It's a slippery slope when discussing banning those who had knowledge of steroid use in their team's locker room from the Hall of Fame.
Next month, the writers are expected to vote down McGwire for the eighth time and Clemens for the second time. They're right to do it.
I guess so. They weren't the only ones who used steroids, but if the BBWAA wants to continue making an example of these players by not allowing them access to the baseball Hall of Fame then that's their right as voters.
Those guys are tainted beyond any reasonable doubt, though Clemens still maintains innocence. But for the expansion error committee to let these three managers in -- unanimously, no less -- after winning hundreds of games with better chemistry is the gold standard of double standards.
I'm not really fine with not allowing steroid enablers into the Hall of Fame, but pretending I was fine with it, then the BBWAA Hall of Fame voters would have to make sure no players who won hundreds of games on a team with a PED user makes it into the Hall of Fame either. After all, nearly everyone involved with baseball during the Steroid Era was an enabler in some fashion or another. Whether that means they didn't alert the public to the rampant PED use in baseball, turned a blind eye to steroid use on his team or took steroids himself, nearly all players are guilty of enabling in some fashion or another.
If you believe they didn't know, then you'll fit perfectly in Dupers Town.
I don't believe they didn't know. I simply believe they should be allowed to be in the Hall of Fame despite knowing about the PED use in their clubhouse. It's not excuse to follow the crowd, but no other players or manager blew the whistle on baseball's rampant PED use during the Steroid Era. If Rick wants to punish someone for a systemic failure then that is fine, but he needs to be sure he is ready to punish everyone in the system who failed by enabling.
I'm so pumped up for next July in Cooperstown!
I can't wait to see who's going to be in the crowd at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for new members Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.
You can tell Rick is being sarcastic because I'm not sure anyone really cares who is in the audience for the Hall of Fame induction.
Maybe Mark McGwire will show up? It might be as close as he'll ever get. La Russa managed him for 15 seasons in both Oakland and St. Louis and says he never saw McGwire do a single steroid. Imagine that.
I'm not sure Tony La Russa has ever actually stated he never saw Mark McGwire do a single steroid. I did a quick Internet search and couldn't find a quote from La Russa making this statement. Perhaps I did not search hard enough.
Maybe Alex Rodriguez will attend? He probably won't get in, either. Former New York Yankees skipper Torre says he didn't even notice A-Roid's alleged PED use in the four years he managed him.
Joe Torre has also stated he didn't go into any player's locker to check for steroids as well, so it's not necessarily as if Torre was in a position to notice A-Rod doing steroids. I would imagine A-Rod wouldn't do PED's in the locker room in full view of everyone. Of course it is A-Rod, so all bets are off I guess.
This is the next stage in steroid morality rage from columnists. It starts with the players who are accused (or suspected) of steroid use and now it is filtering down to the enablers who had a chance to turn in these steroid users but did not take that chance. Using the logic that Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre were in a position and had an obligation to report steroid use, then there is an argument to be made no players from the Steroid Era should be inducted into the Hall of Fame since they were all enablers. If Torre/La Russa/Cox were in a position to know and did nothing about, so that's why they should not be allowed induction into the Hall of Fame, the teammates of these PED users also had an obligation to report the steroid use and failed to do so as well. So if Cox/La Russa/Torre should not be allowed into the Hall of Fame as an enabler of steroid use, then no players from the Steroid Era should be allowed induction into the Hall of Fame.
Torre? No ban for him. In fact, he's an executive vice president of Major League Baseball now.
Let me be clear. If we are going to start pointing the finger and say, "This person benefited from the Steroid Era and should not be in the Hall of Fame for this reason," then that finger is going to get pointed at nearly every player who played during the Steroid Era. In some way, whether by being on the team of a player that used PED's or using PED's himself, almost every MLB player benefited from the Steroid Era in some little way. Some players were hurt because they were clean and didn't get a roster spot, that is absolutely true. So not all the players benefited, but Derek Jeter shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame if Joe Torre shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. Jeter had as much of a chance and obligation to report PED use in the Yankees clubhouse as Joe Torre did.
Maybe former Atlanta Braves manager Cox will look out in the crowd to see his old star Gary Sheffield. Probably not. Cox says he never saw all the PEDs Sheffield was taking when he had him right under his nose in the Atlanta clubhouse.
Sheffield spent two seasons in Atlanta. He was also taking PED's under the nose of Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, and Greg Maddux. If Bobby Cox should be denied entry into the baseball Hall of Fame then all five of these players should be denied entry as well (I realize Andruw Jones probably won't make it to the Hall of Fame unless his defense is really, really considered). Is Rick Reilly fine with Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Chipper Jones not being in the Hall of Fame? I would guess not.
You could build a wing with the admitted and suspected drug cheats they won with: A-Rod, Roger Clemens (Torre), Jason Giambi (Torre and La Russa), McGwire, Jose Canseco (La Russa), Melky Cabrera (Torre and Cox), David Justice (Torre and Cox), Andy Pettite (Torre), Manny Ramirez (Torre with the Dodgers) and Sheffield (Torre and Cox.)
Rick also conveniently doesn't explain why he is expecting these managers to publicly call out members of their team for PED use when zero other MLB players and zero other MLB managers were alerting the world to the prevalent PED use in baseball. It doesn't make it right, but this same obligation that Reilly sees for Torre/La Russa/Cox also goes for Jim Leyland, Mike Scioscia and every other MLB manager during the Steroid Era. Again, this would go for every player during the Steroid Era as well.
It's just another year in the Hall of Farce, where the codes of conduct shift like beach sand; where the rules for one set of men are ignored for another; where PED poppers can never enter, but the men who turned their backs to the cheating get gleaming, bronze plaques.
If enablers were denied entry into the Hall of Fame then there would be no players elected into the Hall of Fame for the next 10-15 years.
La Russa's slipping on the Hall of Fame jersey Monday is the sight that really tested my gag reflex. He did more for juicers than Jack LaLanne.
These type of pop culture references is why I wish this column were written by another writer who actually had the skill to pull this type of column off.
Under La Russa, the Oakland clubhouse became a kind of leather-upholstered showroom for creams, rubs and injections that allowed players to work out harder, recover quicker and attack the game like a wolf in a hen house. It didn't change much in St. Louis, either, where he says he didn't notice what McGwire, Troy Glaus, Fernando Vina and Ryan Franklin were doing.
Albert Pujols didn't notice what these were players doing either. Neither did Yadier Molina, David Eckstein (yes, he of the grittiness), Chris Carpenter, Jim Edmonds, Tino Martinez, and Scott Rolen. Why isn't this scorn directed at them as well?
He spent eight hours a day around these guys, eight months a year, and yet he never saw a thing. Maybe he dressed in a different clubhouse?
I'm not going to defend these managers because nearly everyone, including sportswriters, turned a blind eye to PED use during the Steroid Era. It's not like these steroid users consistently shot up in the locker room with everyone around them watching them do so. Maybe they did. I obviously wasn't in the locker room every time a player used steroids, but I would imagine Bobby Cox didn't have a conversation about moving Gary Sheffield into the cleanup spot for a few games while Sheffield shot a needle full of steroids into his ass (Sheffield's ass, not Bobby Cox's ass...though if Bobby Cox did use steroids I wonder what kind of article Rick could get out of that revelation?).
But he goes into the HOF and those players never will. Maybe he can send them some Instagrams
Or these players could just visit the Hall of Fame and take their own pictures.
Hey, you think any of the three skips will mention how PEDS helped them get to that sunny afternoon in Cooperstown?
Oh, and I can't forget to thank Katalina at Tijuana Pharmacy for all her help. Like my players always said, "We can't get cut without Kat!"
Yet again, if we are going to use the logic that Bobby Cox shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame because he was aware of the PED use in the locker room, then every player who played on a team with a PED user (and yes, that includes Derek Jeter and many other beloved players) should not be inducted into the Hall of Fame either. I get the outrage at a manager having knowledge of a player using PED's, but this can be a slippery slope if Cox/La Russa/Torre are not allowed induction because of knowledge their players used steroids. No players or managers chose to out those players who were using steroids, so this is a group failure, not just the failure of a few managers who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
You won't even have to be in Cooperstown to smell the hypocrisy. Even the faintest scent of a rumor of PED use is enough to sink a player now.
Managers? Odorless.
There is a perceived difference in personally using steroids and knowing someone else on your team has used steroids. It's the same way I won't be accused of cheating if I knew someone cheated and didn't turn that person in. I enabled through my inaction, but I'm not guilty of the offense.
Take Houston Astros great Craig Biggio. He had more than enough career to get in, and even though there isn't a stitch of evidence against him, the writers have kept him out because they have a niggling hunch he might've used.
This is due to the overreactive nature of those in the BBWAA who enjoy tying a player's suspected use of steroids into proof this player did use steroids. The faintest scent of PED use does keep most players out of the Hall of Fame, but simply because this is the case currently doesn't make it right. If we tie the managers into PED use and prevent them from being inducted into the Hall of Fame, then this same tie-in has to go for the players during the Steroid Era as well...even those who didn't use steroids but had knowledge of PED use.
Remember, kids: If you play the game under even a single cloud of suspicion, you're out. Manage it under one? Come on in and pull up a plaque!
Fine, yes. It doesn't make sense. It's a slippery slope when discussing banning those who had knowledge of steroid use in their team's locker room from the Hall of Fame.
Next month, the writers are expected to vote down McGwire for the eighth time and Clemens for the second time. They're right to do it.
I guess so. They weren't the only ones who used steroids, but if the BBWAA wants to continue making an example of these players by not allowing them access to the baseball Hall of Fame then that's their right as voters.
Those guys are tainted beyond any reasonable doubt, though Clemens still maintains innocence. But for the expansion error committee to let these three managers in -- unanimously, no less -- after winning hundreds of games with better chemistry is the gold standard of double standards.
I'm not really fine with not allowing steroid enablers into the Hall of Fame, but pretending I was fine with it, then the BBWAA Hall of Fame voters would have to make sure no players who won hundreds of games on a team with a PED user makes it into the Hall of Fame either. After all, nearly everyone involved with baseball during the Steroid Era was an enabler in some fashion or another. Whether that means they didn't alert the public to the rampant PED use in baseball, turned a blind eye to steroid use on his team or took steroids himself, nearly all players are guilty of enabling in some fashion or another.
If you believe they didn't know, then you'll fit perfectly in Dupers Town.
I don't believe they didn't know. I simply believe they should be allowed to be in the Hall of Fame despite knowing about the PED use in their clubhouse. It's not excuse to follow the crowd, but no other players or manager blew the whistle on baseball's rampant PED use during the Steroid Era. If Rick wants to punish someone for a systemic failure then that is fine, but he needs to be sure he is ready to punish everyone in the system who failed by enabling.
Monday, October 7, 2013
7 comments Rick Reilly Basks in the Glory of a Reaction to His Washington Redskins Column
I didn't cover the Rick Reilly column about the Redskins here, mostly because it had been covered other places and it was so bad. Sometimes an article is just so blatantly awful I don't cover it here. Rick's justification for keeping the Redskins name was basically "I have a family member who is a Native American and he isn't offended, plus I know other people who live on a reservation and aren't offended." I don't really care if the Redskins change their name or not. I use the term "Redskins" mostly because that's the team name right now and I don't feel like being cutesy and giving them a different name like I'm making some political statement.
So Rick Reilly goes through his mailbag and reacts to his readers reacting to his column. Both Rick and (not shockingly) some of those who write in show a sufficient display of dumbassery in discussing this topic. I think Rick did what many sportswriters do on Twitter, which is pick out the most ignorant response during a discussion to refute, because choosing the lowest hanging fruit makes your opponent seem less intelligent and your own point stronger. Because Rick is able to go through his mailbag and publishes the responses he wants to publish, he's going to pick the opposing arguments that he can best refute. Rick has a point of view and he's simply not going to publish an email written to him that makes an excellent point he can't refute.
My inbox flowed red this week after my column on the flap over the Washington Redskins name. You’d have thought I shot a boxful of kittens.
Or defended a term that some people consider to be at best racist and at worst very disrespectful towards Native Americans.
Some thought I should be fired. Some thought I should be elected. Some called me racist. Some thanked me for honoring a race.
Some thought writing the column was a good way to get attention so that Rick can feel relevant again. Rick's supposed basic point in the column, which he repeats a few times in this mailbag, was that a bunch of white people should not be able to decide whether "Redskins" is offensive or not. Of course while saying a bunch of white people shouldn't decide, Rick also came to the conclusion some Native Americans didn't find the term offensive and seemed to argue in favor of keeping "Redskins" as the name of the Washington NFL franchise. Rick doesn't see it that way of course. He was just a white guy giving a voice to those who he believed couldn't stand up for themselves. This is ironic because he accuses those who want to change the Redskins name of speaking for Native Americans and states these Native Americans can speak for themselves. Well, apparently those who don't oppose the Redskins name change can't speak for themselves.
Three reservation high schools I spoke with, in fact, use “Redskins” as their team name and wear it with pride.
These are reservations who are choosing to have the name "Redskins" used. They are not an NFL team whose fans dress up like pigs or wear headdresses and most of the fans and players around this team have nothing to do with the term "Redskins."
I’ve even felt strongly both ways. In 1991, for Sports Illustrated, I wrote that it was time to change the name. But in the 22 years since, I’ve grown to understand that it’s not up to me.
What really happened is that after he posted the column Rick remembered or found out on the Internet that he had already written a column in favor of changing the Redskins name. He thought, "Shit, how am I going to talk myself out of this one," and then proceeded to make the feeble excuse that he wants the name to come to a vote only among Native Americans. Yeah, that's what he was saying, despite the fact not once in his original column did he specifically state it should be up to Native Americans to decide on whether to change the name or not. The whole intent of his column just wasn't mentioned in the column, that's all. The closest Rick came was saying this:
Too late. White America has spoken. You aren't offended, so we'll be offended for you.
That's it. Then after Rick realizes he wrote a column 22 years ago that stated the exact opposite of what he wrote in 2013 he states he was just pointing out the name change shouldn't be up to him, but to Native Americans. Nevermind he never actually said those words in the original column.
It should be an issue decided by Native Americans, not this sudden wave of almost entirely white, politically correct sports writers.
That's not what the column said. I've read it five times. It states some Native Americans aren't offended so changing the Redskins name isn't necessarily offensive to Native Americans. That's the essential hypothesis and point of view of the column. Rick even finds Native Americans who aren't offended by the Redskins name as support for his point of view that the name isn't offensive to all Native Americans. If the column was about a vote or urging Native Americans to chime in on the issue, why didn't he actually suggest this? If giving pro-Redskins Native Americans a forum was the intent, then why not allow a pro-Redskins person to write the column or have a pro-Redskins and anti-Redskins person write columns arguing their side of the issue? This was a case of a white sportswriter wanting to affect the debate, which is what he accuses other white sportswriters of doing.
For some of you, if even one person is insulted, that’s enough to dump it. For others, it’s a non-issue that only smokescreens so many real problems Native Americans have.
For others, it is just a nickname that might be offensive and could be changed.
I know one thing, though. The larger the social media tsunami grows, the easier it comes for people to react easily and quickly, the more I notice a backlash against any stance that doesn’t fit the Consensus Opinion.
I love how Rick is hiding behind the "I don't fit with the mainstream and that's why you didn't like my column" excuse for why his column received such negative reactions. He chooses not to focus on whether his opinion was poorly supported and half-assed. "My father-in-law and is a Native American and doesn't mind the name. Case closed. Want to hear a joke about dentists?"
The whole "I don't fit with the Consensus Opinion" excuse is a good way to blame the reaction of others to an insensitive column a person may write. If I were a sportswriter writing a column about the NBA and stated "LeBron James looks like a monkey when he dunks the ball," then I could hide behind the fact my offensive sentence just isn't part of the Consensus Opinion and that's why you don't like it.
It shows how out of touch Rick is that he thinks the backlash against the column was simply because his view didn't fit in with the opinion of (what he perceives to be) the majority.
Is that what you want from your sports columnists, someone to simply parrot what the cool kids are saying? Because that will never be me.
Probably because Rick Reilly doesn't know any cool kids to parrot. Also, if he considers himself a sports columnist then he is wrong. He is a writer who tangentially writes about sports.
Then Rick starts printing the emails he received about the column:
Thank you for standing up for the right of white people to call native Americans “redskins.” I mean, African-Americans call each other the N-word, so why would anyone object if an NBA team called itself the N's?
Yeah Rick, thanks for standing up for those white people who not-so-secretly want to use racial slurs without any type of retribution.
I mean, in the 1930s there was a colorful term for every ethnic group. But there certainly was no prejudice; it was just good clean fun.
Yeah, it was just good clean fun with no prejudice. What ever happened to the "colorful" terms for every ethnic group? This kraut writing the email, Eric Schenk (whose name is of German descent), wants to know because he's a boche who hates political correctness.
Thank you, Rick Reilly for standing up for the right to call any group any name you want as long as there are some members of the group who don’t mind.
– Eric Schenk (Mill Valley, Calif.)
Thank you for standing up for racism and hatred. Find one black guy who doesn't mind offensive slang and just start spewing hatred, because it's all right, there's a black guy who doesn't mind. Besides, it's not fair other races get to be racist and Eric from California doesn't. Rick, these are the type of people who support your column. You may need to reconsider your position.
Well played, sir.
Really Rick? "Well played?" I'm not politically correct, but I'm not sure bemoaning you can't use racial slurs and saying there was no prejudice in the 1930's is "well played," it's ignorance.
Just because a few groups DON’T find Redskins offensive doesn’t mean we ignore the groups that DO.
– Shawn (Los Angeles)
Exactly. The fact Rick can find Native Americans who don't find the term offensive doesn't mean it isn't offensive. My father always taught me that if I'm not sure something is offensive then think how I would feel if everyone heard what I was saying. At this point, saying Redskins in public isn't offensive, so I would have no problem using the term. On the other hand, I will not do this:
Would you feel comfortable going up to someone of Native American descent and asking them, “Hey, are you a redskin?”
-Michael (Tuscon, Arizona)
I probably wouldn't do this, but of course I don't use the word "Redskin" for anything except to talk about the NFL team in Washington.
That’s just the point. “Redskins” is not a word that comes up on reservations, according to the people I interviewed. They only hear it as part of their own schools’ teams or the NFL team in Washington.
So because a lot of people don't know what the word means then we should keep using it? Fine, then the word isn't inherently offensive to Native Americans, but if some people don't know what the word means then what's the point of having a sports franchise named after that word? They could just be the Washington Sidurskis and we could call it a day.
It only symbolizes their teams and the pride they feel in their school.
How do they take pride in a word they don't know what it means and don't hear often?
To take that away just because a few find it offensive? I’m not convinced that’s fair.
Maybe it's not fair, but Rick is failing on all counts here. He's saying the word doesn't come up on reservations and has no meaning outside of sports, but it's unfair to take away the word because it symbolizes their teams and the pride they feel in school. It confuses me. It's not the word that symbolizes the pride, it's the word's connotation with their sports team, so calling the sports team "Cockaroos" would also symbolize pride.
You do realize that in arguing that “we” (whites?) shouldn’t make father-knows-best decisions on behalf of all Native Americans, and leave "Redskins" alone, you’re kind of speaking on behalf of all Native Americans?
- Matt (Tuckahoe, N.Y.)
Read the piece again. Nowhere in it did I say don’t change the name.
No, but you did attempt to state the word "Redskins" isn't offensive because your father-in-law doesn't think it is offensive. That's kind of stupid. Rick's piece also didn't state that it should be up to Native Americans on whether to change the name or not and he claims that was the entire point of the column. So clearly, Rick felt his readers need to reach certain conclusions based on what he was writing. I took the piece to mean "Maybe we shouldn't change the name" since it was mostly a pro-"Keep the Redskins Name" piece. Call me crazy.
Nowhere did I say “leave Redskins alone.” I’d be all for changing the name if the majority of Native Americans believed it was a slur.
Here's the catch...nowhere in the piece did Rick actually state this. It's what Rick wants to state in retrospect, but he didn't state in the piece. So his "I didn't write that in the piece" excuse fails for me because his entire claimed purpose for the column wasn't actually stated in the column.
Then Rick includes an email from Tom Friend, who is white and a contributor to ESPN. Rick doesn't think white people should decide the name of the Washington NFL team, but he sure doesn't mind getting the point of view of white people does he? It's interesting how Rick doesn't think the opinion of white sportswriters count unless that white sportswriter agrees with him.
This is exactly what I was thinking of writing. Thank you, Rick Reilly, for beating me to it. Couldn’t agree more. As someone who grew up at RFK Stadium, not one time have Redskins fans disrespected American Indians. They do not tomahawk chop like Atlanta Braves fans.
I tend to refrain from the Tomahawk Chop. I enjoy it when others do it, but I refrain because I think it makes me look silly.
The Redskins make no mockery of American Indians. Their fans sing only: “Hail To the Redskins.” Their emblem is one of honor. It is, in fact, almost identical to what is on the side of an Indian Head nickel -- which was a collector’s item when I was a boy.
I'm guessing Tom Friend was a boy back when every ethnic group had its own nickname and the racial slurs and segregation were all in good fun. And of course anything that is a collector's item can't be racist or in bad taste.
If there are high school teams on Indian reservations that go by the name “Redskins,” then why can’t the team in D.C.?
-Tom Friend (ESPN the Magazine, via Facebook)
Also notice how Rick made it very, very clear a colleague of his agreed with him. The more important the person, the more influential the opinion, right?
That final line -- “Kind of like a reservation” -- seems to have either infuriated people or delighted them. A lot of readers said it was insulting to Native Americans. Some said it opened their eyes to a new way to look at the problem. One blogger wrote that it was “a fireable offense.” Oh, please. Largely white media deciding what’s best for Native Americans, putting up verbal borders to “protect” them, as though they can’t stand up for themselves, has a scent of it, which is all I alluded to.
I can agree with this. Native Americans have stood up for themselves, which I'm guessing is just a point that Rick wants to continue to ignore.
It's not like Native American groups haven't protested against the use of the Redskins name. I guess these people don't count because Rick doesn't want them to count. He is acting like no Native American tribe nor organization has found issues with the "Redskins" team name. I do like the irony of Rick railing against largely white media deciding what is best for Native Americans by writing a column as a white media member to stand up for the Native Americans who don't mind the team name "Redskins." I guess Rick feels the Native Americans who agree with him can't stand up for themselves.
(1) How many natives would need to be offended by the name before you thought the name was offensive enough to change? (2) Why is it so important to you that the name remains the same?
-Maggie Lindstrom (Seattle)
2) Not important to me at all. I don’t think I should have a say. Your first question is what’s important to me. Answer: I’d want to see more Native American voices calling for a change before I’m convinced. Now, I only hear a few.
"A few more" Native American voices need to call for change. Thanks for being so specific, Rick.
Not to mention, only a few Native Americans have stated they don't mind the name. Maybe there should be a vote among Native Americans just like Rick (didn't) explicitly state should happen in his original column.
Finally a journalist in a profession of “sheeple.” Glad to see there’s still a man in your profession. PC wuss country we live in, drives me nuts.
- Brad (Odenton, Md.)
Now drop down and give me 50 pushups!
Your argument that some Natives have accepted the name and made it their own is flawed, because it still does not mean that this name is not offensive. Being a tribal member from the Chippewa Cree tribe in Rocky Boy, I take offense to the name. I have been to a Washington game and that was the last time I will ever set foot on their corporate land. The things I saw at the stadium and surrounding community are extremely demeaning to Native Americans. Having people play “dress up” with replicas of sacred cultural items is insulting and it gives our children a cartoon version of who we are. I know it’s my job to teach my children right from wrong, but for this garbage to be allowed in our country is embarrassing. The people you interviewed are not representatives of all Native Americans, and your presentation of such is one-sided. I hope you don’t ever have to sit down with your child and explain why other people are playing dress up with what your people consider respected aspects of your culture. Then you can tell your child, “Nothing’s wrong, because those people say they’re honoring us.
– Zane Rosette (Rocky Boy, Mont.)
Oh, so it is the fault of the fans that the name "Redskins" is offensive? I get it. Blame the fans, because we all know if the Washington NFL team was called the "Boa Constrictors" then the fans would all show up in headdresses and paint their face like an Indian still, right? It could never be the name of the team that causes idiot fans to dress up like this could it? Never...
I have zero doubt the Redskins will change the name sooner or later. This idea that “It just SOUNDS like an insult,” right or wrong, is not going to go away.
The Braves have mostly quit using the imagery of an American Indian, while the "Indians" isn't an offensive name, and the "Seminoles" is the name of an Indian tribe. I'm not saying the actions of these teams like the Tomahawk Chop, Chief Wahoo, and the guy dressed like a Native American who plants a spear at midfield have anything to do with Native culture, but the name of the teams isn't considered to be an inherently offensive word.
Who thought of the name doesn’t matter.
It does matter to an extent. If a billionaire owner calls his team the "Redskins" then this is different from a team on a reservation calling themselves the "Redskins." I don't know why, but it feels different.
What matters is how many Native Americans feel they’re being insulted. A few? Maybe it’s not worth changing. A lot? Get rid of it.
Or we could just ask Rick's father-in-law what he thinks and then let him decide for us. That's close to what Rick did in his original column.
If there were no teams that had ever been named Indians, Redskins, Seminoles, etc., but many named Cowboys, would the PC crowd today be demanding that every sports league add a Native American team name in the pursuit of equity? I’m just wondering.
Again, these are the people who 100% agree with you Rick.
I wish this article would get National attention! Redskin fans needed to read something like this and it’s nice to finally have a person in the “media” report the facts instead of creating them. … Well Done!
This is either a beautifully carved “insult” or you somehow think ESPN has an office in every city.
Why would this be an insult, Rick? He's complimenting you and it doesn't SOUND like an insult, so it must not be an insult, right?
I don't find the word "Redskins" offensive, but I'm also not the type of person who would get offended by that word. One thing remains clear, Rick wrote a column where he searched out people who agreed with his point of view and blatantly ignored there are Native Americans who opposed his point of view. It's interesting Rick tells us that white people shouldn't be able to decide whether to get rid of the Redskins name or not nor feel free to speak for those who oppose the use of the name "Redskins" when he takes it upon himself to speak for those who don't oppose the use of the name.
One thing is clear. Rick Reilly is still terrible.
So Rick Reilly goes through his mailbag and reacts to his readers reacting to his column. Both Rick and (not shockingly) some of those who write in show a sufficient display of dumbassery in discussing this topic. I think Rick did what many sportswriters do on Twitter, which is pick out the most ignorant response during a discussion to refute, because choosing the lowest hanging fruit makes your opponent seem less intelligent and your own point stronger. Because Rick is able to go through his mailbag and publishes the responses he wants to publish, he's going to pick the opposing arguments that he can best refute. Rick has a point of view and he's simply not going to publish an email written to him that makes an excellent point he can't refute.
My inbox flowed red this week after my column on the flap over the Washington Redskins name. You’d have thought I shot a boxful of kittens.
Or defended a term that some people consider to be at best racist and at worst very disrespectful towards Native Americans.
Some thought I should be fired. Some thought I should be elected. Some called me racist. Some thanked me for honoring a race.
Some thought writing the column was a good way to get attention so that Rick can feel relevant again. Rick's supposed basic point in the column, which he repeats a few times in this mailbag, was that a bunch of white people should not be able to decide whether "Redskins" is offensive or not. Of course while saying a bunch of white people shouldn't decide, Rick also came to the conclusion some Native Americans didn't find the term offensive and seemed to argue in favor of keeping "Redskins" as the name of the Washington NFL franchise. Rick doesn't see it that way of course. He was just a white guy giving a voice to those who he believed couldn't stand up for themselves. This is ironic because he accuses those who want to change the Redskins name of speaking for Native Americans and states these Native Americans can speak for themselves. Well, apparently those who don't oppose the Redskins name change can't speak for themselves.
Three reservation high schools I spoke with, in fact, use “Redskins” as their team name and wear it with pride.
These are reservations who are choosing to have the name "Redskins" used. They are not an NFL team whose fans dress up like pigs or wear headdresses and most of the fans and players around this team have nothing to do with the term "Redskins."
I’ve even felt strongly both ways. In 1991, for Sports Illustrated, I wrote that it was time to change the name. But in the 22 years since, I’ve grown to understand that it’s not up to me.
What really happened is that after he posted the column Rick remembered or found out on the Internet that he had already written a column in favor of changing the Redskins name. He thought, "Shit, how am I going to talk myself out of this one," and then proceeded to make the feeble excuse that he wants the name to come to a vote only among Native Americans. Yeah, that's what he was saying, despite the fact not once in his original column did he specifically state it should be up to Native Americans to decide on whether to change the name or not. The whole intent of his column just wasn't mentioned in the column, that's all. The closest Rick came was saying this:
Too late. White America has spoken. You aren't offended, so we'll be offended for you.
That's it. Then after Rick realizes he wrote a column 22 years ago that stated the exact opposite of what he wrote in 2013 he states he was just pointing out the name change shouldn't be up to him, but to Native Americans. Nevermind he never actually said those words in the original column.
It should be an issue decided by Native Americans, not this sudden wave of almost entirely white, politically correct sports writers.
That's not what the column said. I've read it five times. It states some Native Americans aren't offended so changing the Redskins name isn't necessarily offensive to Native Americans. That's the essential hypothesis and point of view of the column. Rick even finds Native Americans who aren't offended by the Redskins name as support for his point of view that the name isn't offensive to all Native Americans. If the column was about a vote or urging Native Americans to chime in on the issue, why didn't he actually suggest this? If giving pro-Redskins Native Americans a forum was the intent, then why not allow a pro-Redskins person to write the column or have a pro-Redskins and anti-Redskins person write columns arguing their side of the issue? This was a case of a white sportswriter wanting to affect the debate, which is what he accuses other white sportswriters of doing.
For some of you, if even one person is insulted, that’s enough to dump it. For others, it’s a non-issue that only smokescreens so many real problems Native Americans have.
For others, it is just a nickname that might be offensive and could be changed.
I know one thing, though. The larger the social media tsunami grows, the easier it comes for people to react easily and quickly, the more I notice a backlash against any stance that doesn’t fit the Consensus Opinion.
I love how Rick is hiding behind the "I don't fit with the mainstream and that's why you didn't like my column" excuse for why his column received such negative reactions. He chooses not to focus on whether his opinion was poorly supported and half-assed. "My father-in-law and is a Native American and doesn't mind the name. Case closed. Want to hear a joke about dentists?"
The whole "I don't fit with the Consensus Opinion" excuse is a good way to blame the reaction of others to an insensitive column a person may write. If I were a sportswriter writing a column about the NBA and stated "LeBron James looks like a monkey when he dunks the ball," then I could hide behind the fact my offensive sentence just isn't part of the Consensus Opinion and that's why you don't like it.
It shows how out of touch Rick is that he thinks the backlash against the column was simply because his view didn't fit in with the opinion of (what he perceives to be) the majority.
Is that what you want from your sports columnists, someone to simply parrot what the cool kids are saying? Because that will never be me.
Probably because Rick Reilly doesn't know any cool kids to parrot. Also, if he considers himself a sports columnist then he is wrong. He is a writer who tangentially writes about sports.
Then Rick starts printing the emails he received about the column:
Thank you for standing up for the right of white people to call native Americans “redskins.” I mean, African-Americans call each other the N-word, so why would anyone object if an NBA team called itself the N's?
Yeah Rick, thanks for standing up for those white people who not-so-secretly want to use racial slurs without any type of retribution.
I mean, in the 1930s there was a colorful term for every ethnic group. But there certainly was no prejudice; it was just good clean fun.
Yeah, it was just good clean fun with no prejudice. What ever happened to the "colorful" terms for every ethnic group? This kraut writing the email, Eric Schenk (whose name is of German descent), wants to know because he's a boche who hates political correctness.
Thank you, Rick Reilly for standing up for the right to call any group any name you want as long as there are some members of the group who don’t mind.
– Eric Schenk (Mill Valley, Calif.)
Thank you for standing up for racism and hatred. Find one black guy who doesn't mind offensive slang and just start spewing hatred, because it's all right, there's a black guy who doesn't mind. Besides, it's not fair other races get to be racist and Eric from California doesn't. Rick, these are the type of people who support your column. You may need to reconsider your position.
Well played, sir.
Really Rick? "Well played?" I'm not politically correct, but I'm not sure bemoaning you can't use racial slurs and saying there was no prejudice in the 1930's is "well played," it's ignorance.
Just because a few groups DON’T find Redskins offensive doesn’t mean we ignore the groups that DO.
– Shawn (Los Angeles)
Exactly. The fact Rick can find Native Americans who don't find the term offensive doesn't mean it isn't offensive. My father always taught me that if I'm not sure something is offensive then think how I would feel if everyone heard what I was saying. At this point, saying Redskins in public isn't offensive, so I would have no problem using the term. On the other hand, I will not do this:
Would you feel comfortable going up to someone of Native American descent and asking them, “Hey, are you a redskin?”
-Michael (Tuscon, Arizona)
I probably wouldn't do this, but of course I don't use the word "Redskin" for anything except to talk about the NFL team in Washington.
That’s just the point. “Redskins” is not a word that comes up on reservations, according to the people I interviewed. They only hear it as part of their own schools’ teams or the NFL team in Washington.
So because a lot of people don't know what the word means then we should keep using it? Fine, then the word isn't inherently offensive to Native Americans, but if some people don't know what the word means then what's the point of having a sports franchise named after that word? They could just be the Washington Sidurskis and we could call it a day.
It only symbolizes their teams and the pride they feel in their school.
How do they take pride in a word they don't know what it means and don't hear often?
To take that away just because a few find it offensive? I’m not convinced that’s fair.
Maybe it's not fair, but Rick is failing on all counts here. He's saying the word doesn't come up on reservations and has no meaning outside of sports, but it's unfair to take away the word because it symbolizes their teams and the pride they feel in school. It confuses me. It's not the word that symbolizes the pride, it's the word's connotation with their sports team, so calling the sports team "Cockaroos" would also symbolize pride.
You do realize that in arguing that “we” (whites?) shouldn’t make father-knows-best decisions on behalf of all Native Americans, and leave "Redskins" alone, you’re kind of speaking on behalf of all Native Americans?
- Matt (Tuckahoe, N.Y.)
Read the piece again. Nowhere in it did I say don’t change the name.
No, but you did attempt to state the word "Redskins" isn't offensive because your father-in-law doesn't think it is offensive. That's kind of stupid. Rick's piece also didn't state that it should be up to Native Americans on whether to change the name or not and he claims that was the entire point of the column. So clearly, Rick felt his readers need to reach certain conclusions based on what he was writing. I took the piece to mean "Maybe we shouldn't change the name" since it was mostly a pro-"Keep the Redskins Name" piece. Call me crazy.
Nowhere did I say “leave Redskins alone.” I’d be all for changing the name if the majority of Native Americans believed it was a slur.
Here's the catch...nowhere in the piece did Rick actually state this. It's what Rick wants to state in retrospect, but he didn't state in the piece. So his "I didn't write that in the piece" excuse fails for me because his entire claimed purpose for the column wasn't actually stated in the column.
Then Rick includes an email from Tom Friend, who is white and a contributor to ESPN. Rick doesn't think white people should decide the name of the Washington NFL team, but he sure doesn't mind getting the point of view of white people does he? It's interesting how Rick doesn't think the opinion of white sportswriters count unless that white sportswriter agrees with him.
This is exactly what I was thinking of writing. Thank you, Rick Reilly, for beating me to it. Couldn’t agree more. As someone who grew up at RFK Stadium, not one time have Redskins fans disrespected American Indians. They do not tomahawk chop like Atlanta Braves fans.
I tend to refrain from the Tomahawk Chop. I enjoy it when others do it, but I refrain because I think it makes me look silly.
The Redskins make no mockery of American Indians. Their fans sing only: “Hail To the Redskins.” Their emblem is one of honor. It is, in fact, almost identical to what is on the side of an Indian Head nickel -- which was a collector’s item when I was a boy.
I'm guessing Tom Friend was a boy back when every ethnic group had its own nickname and the racial slurs and segregation were all in good fun. And of course anything that is a collector's item can't be racist or in bad taste.
If there are high school teams on Indian reservations that go by the name “Redskins,” then why can’t the team in D.C.?
-Tom Friend (ESPN the Magazine, via Facebook)
Also notice how Rick made it very, very clear a colleague of his agreed with him. The more important the person, the more influential the opinion, right?
That final line -- “Kind of like a reservation” -- seems to have either infuriated people or delighted them. A lot of readers said it was insulting to Native Americans. Some said it opened their eyes to a new way to look at the problem. One blogger wrote that it was “a fireable offense.” Oh, please. Largely white media deciding what’s best for Native Americans, putting up verbal borders to “protect” them, as though they can’t stand up for themselves, has a scent of it, which is all I alluded to.
I can agree with this. Native Americans have stood up for themselves, which I'm guessing is just a point that Rick wants to continue to ignore.
It's not like Native American groups haven't protested against the use of the Redskins name. I guess these people don't count because Rick doesn't want them to count. He is acting like no Native American tribe nor organization has found issues with the "Redskins" team name. I do like the irony of Rick railing against largely white media deciding what is best for Native Americans by writing a column as a white media member to stand up for the Native Americans who don't mind the team name "Redskins." I guess Rick feels the Native Americans who agree with him can't stand up for themselves.
(1) How many natives would need to be offended by the name before you thought the name was offensive enough to change? (2) Why is it so important to you that the name remains the same?
-Maggie Lindstrom (Seattle)
2) Not important to me at all. I don’t think I should have a say. Your first question is what’s important to me. Answer: I’d want to see more Native American voices calling for a change before I’m convinced. Now, I only hear a few.
"A few more" Native American voices need to call for change. Thanks for being so specific, Rick.
Not to mention, only a few Native Americans have stated they don't mind the name. Maybe there should be a vote among Native Americans just like Rick (didn't) explicitly state should happen in his original column.
Finally a journalist in a profession of “sheeple.” Glad to see there’s still a man in your profession. PC wuss country we live in, drives me nuts.
- Brad (Odenton, Md.)
Now drop down and give me 50 pushups!
Your argument that some Natives have accepted the name and made it their own is flawed, because it still does not mean that this name is not offensive. Being a tribal member from the Chippewa Cree tribe in Rocky Boy, I take offense to the name. I have been to a Washington game and that was the last time I will ever set foot on their corporate land. The things I saw at the stadium and surrounding community are extremely demeaning to Native Americans. Having people play “dress up” with replicas of sacred cultural items is insulting and it gives our children a cartoon version of who we are. I know it’s my job to teach my children right from wrong, but for this garbage to be allowed in our country is embarrassing. The people you interviewed are not representatives of all Native Americans, and your presentation of such is one-sided. I hope you don’t ever have to sit down with your child and explain why other people are playing dress up with what your people consider respected aspects of your culture. Then you can tell your child, “Nothing’s wrong, because those people say they’re honoring us.
– Zane Rosette (Rocky Boy, Mont.)
This is the best argument to get rid of the name — all the
offending costumery and store-bought face paint and Halloween
headdresses that go with it. More than the name itself, the Native
Americans I spoke with were most offended by the inconsiderate fan
hoopla that rides shotgun with it.
Oh, so it is the fault of the fans that the name "Redskins" is offensive? I get it. Blame the fans, because we all know if the Washington NFL team was called the "Boa Constrictors" then the fans would all show up in headdresses and paint their face like an Indian still, right? It could never be the name of the team that causes idiot fans to dress up like this could it? Never...
I have zero doubt the Redskins will change the name sooner or later. This idea that “It just SOUNDS like an insult,” right or wrong, is not going to go away.
And also, if something sounds like an insult then it probably is an insult. After all, an insult is a word used that a person could take offense to. It's how the word is taken by the listener. Does calling the Indian soccer team "a bunch of cute little meerkats" sound like an insult? Probably not, but neither does saying the Chinese soccer team are "just some really tough red pandas." It doesn't sound like an insult, but it's how the listener takes the comment that determines if it is an insult or not.
I get that, but why is the pressure only on the Redskins to change?
Why not your stomach-turning Braves, the Cleveland Indians, and Florida
State Seminoles, whose foam tomahawk chant is purely Hollywood and has
no origin in Native culture.
The Braves have mostly quit using the imagery of an American Indian, while the "Indians" isn't an offensive name, and the "Seminoles" is the name of an Indian tribe. I'm not saying the actions of these teams like the Tomahawk Chop, Chief Wahoo, and the guy dressed like a Native American who plants a spear at midfield have anything to do with Native culture, but the name of the teams isn't considered to be an inherently offensive word.
Who thought of the name doesn’t matter.
It does matter to an extent. If a billionaire owner calls his team the "Redskins" then this is different from a team on a reservation calling themselves the "Redskins." I don't know why, but it feels different.
What matters is how many Native Americans feel they’re being insulted. A few? Maybe it’s not worth changing. A lot? Get rid of it.
Or we could just ask Rick's father-in-law what he thinks and then let him decide for us. That's close to what Rick did in his original column.
If there were no teams that had ever been named Indians, Redskins, Seminoles, etc., but many named Cowboys, would the PC crowd today be demanding that every sports league add a Native American team name in the pursuit of equity? I’m just wondering.
- John Costacos (Seattle)
Again, these are the people who 100% agree with you Rick.
I wish this article would get National attention! Redskin fans needed to read something like this and it’s nice to finally have a person in the “media” report the facts instead of creating them. … Well Done!
- Victor Corado (Manassas, Va.)
This is either a beautifully carved “insult” or you somehow think ESPN has an office in every city.
Why would this be an insult, Rick? He's complimenting you and it doesn't SOUND like an insult, so it must not be an insult, right?
I don't find the word "Redskins" offensive, but I'm also not the type of person who would get offended by that word. One thing remains clear, Rick wrote a column where he searched out people who agreed with his point of view and blatantly ignored there are Native Americans who opposed his point of view. It's interesting Rick tells us that white people shouldn't be able to decide whether to get rid of the Redskins name or not nor feel free to speak for those who oppose the use of the name "Redskins" when he takes it upon himself to speak for those who don't oppose the use of the name.
One thing is clear. Rick Reilly is still terrible.
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