6 comments Tom Brady Killed Baseball in Boston

Bill Speros of Boston.com, who refers to his column as "Obnoxious Boston Fan," wrote about how now that the Patriots have won another Super Bowl, the Red Sox will now need to keep pace and none of this will ever be enough for fans of these Boston-area teams. Basically, it's the type of crap no one wants to read coming from a group of fans who have nine championships since 2001. It must be those higher standards these fans have acquired over the past decade that will always leave them unsatisfied. Then the closing part of the column says that Boston is a football town now and not a baseball town. At this point, I think I would disagree. It's another "Baseball is dying" column, but more on a local level, and it blames the Patriots and Tom Brady for baseball's death in Boston.

Also, I don't really find Bill Speros obnoxious. Possibly trolling for pageviews? Yes. Looking for something exciting to talk about during the February lull? Probably. Obnoxious? Probably not obnoxious, even though he may want to be.

The sports psyche of Boston is layered with strata that constantly twist both emotion and attention.

One day, Tom Brady sucks.

The next, he's a four-time Super Bowl champion. 

That's every city with a professional sports team. I know it feels good to think that Boston is special and more important because the fans have knee-jerk reactions to their team's failures/successes, but it's exclusive to Boston in the same way this fragile fan psyche is exclusive to every city with a major sports franchise. Sorry, I know it sucks to only be a little special.

Those who called for Jimmy G. last fall can take some solace in the fact that he now has as many Super Bowl rings as Peyton Manning, and one more than Dan Marino.

Because being the starting quarterback for the Super Bowl-winning team and being the backup quarterback for the Super Bowl-winning team are virtually the same thing.

We're fickle and blessed. Fans can write off the Red Sox one day, and turn their focus to Patriots training camp the next.

Any city with multiple teams does this. Again, I know you desperately want these fans to be special, but other than having three major sports franchises in one city and one major sports franchise a short-ish drive away, they aren't that special. Nearly every fan base is fickle.

This week, the Patriots were riding Duck Boats while the Red Sox were counting down to Truck Day. Boston was once a "hockey town with a baseball team." It became the unquestioned domain and property of the Red Sox from the moment Bobby Orr left town until the day Tom Brady arrived. There was a brief gap when the Red Sox and Celtics shared the throne during Larry Bird's prime.

Generally teams that are the most successful tend to become the most popular team in a certain city for a period of time. It's not always permanent. Times change, the popularity of a team when that team is successful rarely changes. It's all cyclical.

Sometime in the past 15 years, and the moment depends on your perspective and preference, Boston became a "football town with a baseball team." 

It's official then. Baseball is dead in Boston and it's been dead during the time the Red Sox won three World Series titles. Wow, that's interesting for me to find out. I seem to recall the Red Sox being very popular in Boston over the past 15 years.

The Red Sox have won three World Series Cups in this century, but the Patriots have won four Lombardi Trophies. Where the Red Sox have mixed success with epic failure during this era, the Patriots have remained remarkably consistent when it comes to winning seasons, and playoff appearances. 

But remember, baseball has a competitive balance issue where the teams that spend the most money, like the Red Sox, dominate in the regular season and the playoffs. If only baseball had a salary cap like the NFL does, then there would be the competitive balance shown by the Patriots' success over the last 15 years.

In about 99 percent of the nation, this "dilemma" over which local team is No. 1 in the hearts and minds of fans seems nonsensical. The NFL team wins.

Well, the NFL is much more popular than MLB, but since there is really no way of measuring which local team has the fans' heart the most, I guess we'll just take his obnoxious word for it.

There are no wrong choices. It's really a matter of preference. 

And Bill Speros is rambling a little bit now.

New York may be the only other big city in America where the local NFL team [teams] is not the unquestioned winner when it comes time to pick the most "popular" team in town. The Yankees dominate the conversation in the Big Apple nine months each year.

You know, if two NFL teams are not the unquestioned winner when it comes time to pick the most popular team in town, then in 99% of the nation the NFL team doesn't win. Math says so. 2 divided by 32 is 6.25%. So maybe in 93.75% of the nation the NFL is the unquestioned winner when it comes time to pick the most popular team in town. Factor in that four NFL teams (Green Bay, Jacksonville, Washington, Buffalo) don't have another major sports franchise in their city or share their favorite major sports franchise with another city, then that means the NFL team is the most popular team in town in 81.25% of the nation, not 99%.

And yes, I know Green Bay fans are probably also Milwaukee Brewers fans and there is a strong overlap between Redskins fans with Orioles/Nationals fans (the Redskins play in Maryland, which isn't even in Washington, D.C.) and Bills fans are probably Mets/Yankees fans. I also know it's impossible to say what the most popular team in town is, but I just want to take the obnoxious crown away from Bill Speros.

Oh, and by the way, the St. Louis Cardinals are a bigger deal in St. Louis than any of the other major sports franchises. I'm not sure there is even an argument to be made here against this. So that's 78.125% of the NFL cities where the NFL team is king. 

Boston is a Patriots Town in February of 2015, even if the team's name says "New England" and its home games are played in Foxborough. 

Thanks for killing baseball in Boston* Tom Brady. You asshole. First you cheat, then you cheat again, and now you murder baseball in Boston. When will your misdeeds end?

*At least until the Red Sox win a World Series title or have success in the playoffs.

The Celtics, meanwhile, are losing season-ticket holders, never mind casual fans. It's not that people aren't interested. They just fail to see the financial logic in spending top dollar to watch a team that's building to rebuild with players who won't be here in the long run. 

Which does make sense. It's 2015 and completely possible to devotedly support a sports team without attending their games.

The 2013 Red Sox demonstrated that Boston has potential to be a baseball city again. But that was a miraculous run, in the wake of a devastating terrorist attack, and carried a season climax unmatched in 95 years. 

It was a season climax unmatched in 95 years, unless Speros wants to count the 2004 and 2007 seasons, which also matched the 2013 season climax. I'm pretty sure that the 2004 season was the most memorable of all the Red Sox championships over the last decade, but I understand Speros' need to try and explain away the excitement of the 2013 Red Sox title as if were unparalleled in order to pretend like the Red Sox aren't as popular in Boston as the Patriots are. He has to bend the truth and do some revisionist history to get there of course.

They followed up that with their least-interesting season since the 1994 lockout. 

Translation: They weren't very good. I would also argue that the Red Sox were interesting in that they started trading away players and adjusted their strategy to team-building for the immediate future, but I see Speros takes the same position that Bill Simmons tends to take with the Red Sox. Not winning games equals not being an interesting team.

David Ortiz and Pablo Sandoval Tweeted their excitement over watching the Patriots' parade.

Jackie Bradley Jr. told WEEI.com Thursday he was going "to go all Marshawn Lynch this year." Bradley hit .198 last year with 30 RBI and eight steals.

"Least Mode" to "Beast Mode." 

Somebody should probably first tell Jackie Bradley, Jr. that Lynch plays for the Seahawks and not the Patriots. 

A few members of the Patriots went to the Celtics game Wednesday night.

BASEBALL IS DYING! THE NBA IS MORE POPULAR THAN MLB! HERE IS PROOF!

Or when the Bruins bring the Stanley Cup into Fenway Park.

THE NHL IS MORE POPULAR THAN MLB! THE RED SOX NEED BRUINS PLAYERS TO SHOW UP IN ORDER TO GET A CROWD AT FENWAY PARK!

Or when the World Series trophy gets carried onto the 50-yard-line at Gillette Stadium. 

THE ONLY WAY ANYONE IN BOSTON CARED ABOUT THE RED SOX WINNING THE WORLD SERIES IS IF THE RED SOX TEAM SHOWED UP AT A PATRIOTS GAME.

No other city in the country boasts that kind of camaraderie among its teams. 

Pretty sure this is false. Again, Speros wants to equate some sort of inherent superiority and camaraderie among the teams in the Boston area that would be there anyway if multiple teams in one area won a title over a short time span. 

The Red Sox, especially, cannot afford to take another year off on the field. Not after what happened in Glendale. 

They must win the World Series in order to satiate Red Sox fans who insist on their teams winning titles every other year or else they won't feel like they can support a non-exciting team.

Boston fans will never be "spoiled" - at least not until my late father can see the Red Sox win a World Series in his lifetime. He never will. Therefore, all those titles will never be enough for some of us.

That's pretty much the definition of being spoiled.

The fans here have high expectations because they put up the cash via tickets, luxury boxes, and TV viewership, to allow it to happen. 

Every city with a major sports team puts up cash via tickets, luxury boxes and TV viewership. And yet, every team's fan base doesn't act like winning is a God-given right and try to explain away that the unreasonable expectations come from how much more they sweat into their team than you do for your favorite team. No really, Patriots and Red Sox fans aren't special because they put up cash for the team. I know, it's crazy to read, but every NFL and MLB team has fans that put up money to support that team. No matter what your mommy and daddy told you, you aren't special for being a fan of your favorite team.

"We're on to Cincinnati," the cries for Jimmy G., New England's 5-1 run in the middle of the season, clinching home-field, beating Baltimore and Indy, and Deflategate served to calcify and crystallize the Patriots fan base. You saw a wondrous coalition develop between the Newbies. the Red White and Blue Hats, the Old Guard, the Stat Boys, the Brady and Gronk Groupies, and the Regular Joes. 

Isn't it amazing how winning brings everyone together? This only happens with the Patriots though. Every other team's fan base splinters apart when success arrives.

By the time Sunday's game began, whatever and whoever constitutes Patriot Nation was 100 percent unified behind the team, its legacy, its coach, and its players.

Thanks Bill Simmons. I love hearing hyperbolic stories about how fans are unified behind a super-special team that is more super-special than any other team that has ever competed for a title ever before. In fact, I love hearing these stories so much that I feel like I have heard similar stories about the Red Sox all three times they have won the World Series in the last decade.

After the interception, after the win, after the trophy presentation, after Gronk finally runs out of energy, after Julian Edelman checks off everyone on Tinder in his Zip Code, 

It's a recent reference to Julian Edelman's sexual habits! How timely and shows that Bill is in touch with "the kids" and what they like.

No matter what the NFL says about Deflategate, the Patriots are now the most powerful franchise in the most powerful league in American sports. 

Okay. I don't think it really matters that much, but okay. Next year a different team may win the Super Bowl and they will be the most powerful franchise in American sports. Also, if the Dallas Cowboys do anything controversial then I guarantee Speros' opinion of how powerful the Patriots are will be tested.

They boast the greatest NFL QB who ever played, and perhaps the greatest NFL coach ever - depending on where you put Lombardi, Tom Landry, and Belichick's mentor - Bill Parcells. 

I certainly wouldn't put Bill Parcells in there with Lombardi, Belichick and Landry. Of course, Parcells coached the Patriots, the Giants, and Cowboys, so he's going to automatically be thrown in the conversation as one of the greatest coaches ever simply because of that.

The task for the Red Sox is no longer securing, or maintaining their spot, as Boston's Most Popular Team. That is gone forever.

Oh yeah, forever. Sure, I believe that. This isn't just a knee-jerk reaction to the Patriots winning the Super Bowl. Boston is now a football town even though Boston doesn't even really have a professional football team. If the Red Sox win another World Series I am supposed to believe that they won't be the most popular team in Boston again? Please. The Red Sox won't be the most popular team in Boston from now on? What a lie.

I don't even really think of Boston when I think of the Patriots. When I think of Boston, I think of the Celtics and the Red Sox. I simply don't believe that Boston's most popular team isn't the Red Sox just because the Patriots won another Super Bowl title.

Demographics and time cannot be denied. The Patriots fan base is getting younger and the Red Sox fan base is getting older.

As soon as Tom Brady retires and the Patriots' dynasty is over, the Red Sox aren't going to be the most popular team in Boston again? I don't believe this for a second. I can't argue the demographics, but I find it hard to believe Boston isn't still a baseball town and won't be a baseball town once again in the very near future.

David Ortiz is the lone threat the Red Sox have in terms of increasing their popularity, aside from not finishing in last place. His rise in Boston has coincided with that of Brady's. They are inexorably linked in the minds of millions of fans. But Ortiz is a DH and Brady's a quarterback.

This guy seems to have been suckling at the teat of Bill Simmons for quite a while. I bet Bill Speros is Boston.com's answer to Bill Simmons. They seem to write very similarly by getting success and popularity confused, making proclamations that involve reading the minds of large amounts of people, and trying to find a link between two Boston-area athletes because no other major sports teams exist in the same realm as Boston-area sports teams exist.

Ortiz spoke for the city in the wake of the Marathon Bombing. His place in Boston's Sports Pantheon is secured.

"The Boston Sports Pantheon." He writes so much like Bill Simmons it's kind of weird. Get your own writing style. All that's missing are more pop culture references and a few dozen YouTube clips embedded in this column.

Brady is sharing his family with the world on social media, and has put down his multi-million dollar roots in Brookline. He's embraced his public persona.

I remember just a few short years ago how the question was whether Tom Brady spent enough time in Boston and there were complaints that he shouldn't train in California during the offseason. One move to Brookline and a Super Bowl win later and these complaints are all forgotten. 

Ortiz lives in Weston [something I had to look up] and makes public appearances for his various charities, but otherwise enjoys his privacy. 

Just a few short years ago Ortiz was the guy even the FCC couldn't censor who was standing up for Boston Strong. After a last place season he's a hermit who isn't even a real citizen of Boston because he only shows up to support his stupid, last place charities. 

Even with Big Papi, the Red Sox are facing a fourth-and-long when it comes to achieving sports supremacy in Boston again. Two last-place finishes around a World Series title haven't helped.

Because Red Sox fans expect a World Series every year or else they are just going to lose interest. It's not that they are spoiled, it's just the high expectations. How dare the Red Sox have two last place finishes with a World Series title in between these last place finishes. How do they expect to take back the city of Boston from the Patriots with a performance like that? 

But interested in the Red Sox heading into 2015 seems surprisingly high.

Probably because they are still a very popular team and Boston is still a baseball town. 

That's impressive considering last year's disastrous campaign, and the fact that Clay Buchholz continues to loom like the Blizzard of 2015 on the WBZ radar map as the Opening Day starter. 

Bill Speros out of one side of his mouth: "Boston is now a football town because nobody likes baseball anymore and the Red Sox haven't had the sustained success the Patriots have had. Red Sox fans are going to have declining interest in supporting a team that are losers. They are forever the second most popular team in Boston." 

Bill Speros out of the other side of his mouth: "There is a lot of interest in the Red Sox even though they came in last place last year. Even if the Red Sox aren't very good, the fans seem to want to see them play."

Younger viewers get restless and/or bored watching baseball. They don't watching football. Fantasy football, and the ever-streaming second screen, cure whatever downtime exists. Folks over 40 like me have been conditioned by decades of watching baseball to understand and appreciate the nuances between each play, and the anticipation before each pitch. 

My son, not so much. 

Another Bill Simmons staple. What his friends and family like is the perfect representation of what everyone else likes as well. Therefore, if Bill's friends don't like something then the public as a whole doesn't like it. In this case, Speros' son doesn't like baseball, so obviously this means the Patriots have taken over Boston and it's no longer a baseball town. 

The Red Sox get this, and so does Ortiz. All they have to do is check this website, either local newspaper, Twitter, tune into WEEI or The Sports Hub, or turn on ESPN and the NFL Network, to see or hear how much energy the Patriots absorb before, during, and after the season. 

The NFL is the most popular sport in the United States. This is true for nearly every city that has an NFL team. Again, it's not just specific to the New England area. This also doesn't mean that Boston isn't a baseball town. The Patriots just won the Super Bowl and took up a lot of air time prior to winning the Super Bowl due to the accusations they deflated footballs against the Colts. The Red Sox will get a lot of coverage once something controversial happens with them or even if they have success on the field. 

Rightly or wrongly, the success of the Patriots will now become the burden of both the Red Sox, and Bruins as they approach the postseason.

The Celtics may be the big winners here. The euphoria of watching endless highlights of Sunday's Super Bowl will help temper the frustration and malaise gripping the "Green Teamers." 

So the Celtics are allowed to be terrible and nobody in New England cares because they are focused on the Patriots? But the Red Sox are not allowed to be terrible or else this proves that baseball is dying in Boston? So baseball in Boston is dying because the Red Sox have only won the World Series once since 2007? But the Celtics haven't won a title since 2008 and they are not a very good team, but they are big winners because everyone in the Boston area will be focused on how great the Patriots are? Mediocrity helps the Celtics, but only goes to prove how Boston is not a baseball town anymore when the Red Sox are mediocre. So perhaps the big concern for the Red Sox being mediocre goes to show how many fans in Boston really care about the team? Maybe this means Boston is still a baseball town? 

Most Red Sox home spring training games are sold out, or close to it.

You are ruining your own point right now. By stating that the Patriots are now the team Boston fans care about the most, then talking about how popular the Red Sox are, even coming off a last place finish, it's just proof that the Red Sox still have juice in Boston despite being a bad team. It seems like there is a lot of interest in a sport that has declining popularity in the Boston area. 

Their eyes will be focused on the Red Sox for as long as the rotation of No. 3 starters, and the newly re-loaded lineup, remain competitive. 

So, as I said previously, when the Red Sox are a good team again then they will once again be the most popular team in Boston. Thereby proving that Boston is still a baseball town. It sounds silly to write, "Oh, the Patriots won another Super Bowl and no one is talking about the Red Sox right now so this obviously means the Patriots are the most popular team in Boston." It's so reactionary when written in February off a Patriots Super Bowl victory. 

Last summer, baseball season in Boston was finished by July 4. 

I'm surprised Speros didn't say that date was Red Sox fans' day of independence from watching terrible baseball.

This year, the Red Sox might not even get that much time. 

Like every other team that isn't very good, fan interest tends to decrease. Measuring the peak of excitement about the Patriots versus the excitement for the Red Sox when coming off a last place season where they traded some of their best players and drawing a hard-and-fast conclusion about baseball's popularity is ridiculous. In fact, it's pretty obnoxious. So I guess Bill Speros can consider his mission to be successful. 

7 comments When Is Changing Your Favorite Team Acceptable?

The Grantland Staff had an article up recently about whether Knicks fans should be able to switch to the Brooklyn Nets as their favorite NBA team. This conversation was prompted (forced upon the Grantland staff because Bill Simmons thought it was a great idea since it was based on something he had Tweeted) by a Bill Simmons Tweet on this subject. Each staff member of Grantland gave their opinion, some of which were valuable and others were not so valuable. Chuck Klosterman gave his opinion on this subject (or by giving his opinion did he really not give an opinion at all, and what does this mean outside the realm of sports?), which is always (not) fun to read. Of the things that Grantland does well, I do sometimes enjoy these "Dumb Office Arguments" a lot. They give each writer on the site a way to give their point of view. Of course it also gives the writers a chance to navel-gaze, which some of them truly indeed love doing.

I don't know if it is an important question or not, but when is it acceptable to change sports teams like this? Are Knicks fans able to change teams to the Brooklyn Nets or are they stuck with the Knicks? Personally, I don't see a diehard Knicks fan changing over to becoming a Nets fan, nor do I see the draw of cheering for the Brooklyn Nets. Still, I'm sure it is tempting for some Knicks fans to cheer for the Nets now they are in Brooklyn.

Over the weekend, news broke that the New York Knicks were dragging their feet in matching the Houston Rockets' $25 million contract offer to point guard Jeremy Lin.

Apparently this was the last straw for Knicks fans everywhere. Sure, the team has tried to put a quality team on the floor and made the playoffs this year by spending millions of dollars on an injury-prone power forward and a small forward who wants to shoot the ball 25 times per game and doesn't seem to make his teammates better. The team has struggled in some ways for a decade now, but not re-signing Jeremy Lin was the last straw. It feels kind of dumb to me for Knicks fans to bail now, but maybe the draw of seeing another team in the area is enticing enough for allegiances to be switched.

Bill Simmons, posed the question: If the Knicks, following the apparent financial advice of Carmelo Anthony, turn their backs on the most exciting, well-liked player to rock blue and orange since [insert beloved Knicks player Sprewell, Starks, Ewing ... Renaldo Balkman], would New York fans be wise to turn their backs on the team and become fans of the other New York franchise, the Brooklyn Nets? Simmons certainly thought so.

Of course Bill Simmons would think so. I think we have learned over the decade of reading Bill's columns that he seems to desperately want to be a front-runner. He gave up on the Boston Bruins because they had bad ownership, only to come back to them now that they have become successful again. Even still, you get the feeling he could easily become an LA Kings fan. If the Celtics ever start to field a bad team on the court (or have "bad ownership," which basically means not putting an NBA Title worthy team on the court) Bill already has the Clippers lined up as his backup NBA team. Bill completely ignores the Red Sox now when writing his weekly column, simply because they aren't fielding a good enough team to merit a mention. It's because Bill has such high expectations, not because he is slowly becoming a front-runner, that merely contending for a playoff spot isn't enough anymore. So for a guy who likes all Boston-area teams (which are the teams he has liked for his entire life), he seems to have a wandering eye when it comes to being fans of these teams.

Another issue I have with Bill, and his insistence on saying Knicks fans should switch to being Brooklyn Nets fans, is at what point is Bill going to stop making every franchise tortured in some fashion? I was kidding in a previous post when I wrote Bill is going to have every NBA team as tortured in some fashion 20 years from now, but it feels like it will come true. At a certain point in the future Bill is going to make it seem like 50% of NBA franchises' fan base are tortured in some fashion. Few people like the Dolans, but every fan base has hard times or periods during a team's history he/she doesn't like. I'm not saying Knicks fans shouldn't bail for the Nets, but jumping ship simply because times are tough (The Knicks made the playoffs last year by the way) seems like the definition of a fair weather fan.

We asked several members of the Grantland family, some of whom count themselves as Knicks supporters, for a verdict.

They also asked Chuck Klosterman. Why? It doesn't matter really. His response to the question posed was very impressive though. Just ask him, he'll tell you.

Mark Lisanti

Under what should heretofore be referred to as the Lin-Dolan Clause of Desperate Fandom, a team switch should be allowed under extraordinary circumstances.

I'm pretty strict about whether a person can switch favorite teams or not. Generally, my answer is "no," that a person has to stick with a team. If I am going to make up some fake rule like Lisanti and Bill Simmons seem to do, I would say I have two (maybe three) rules for when a person can change favorite teams. I think it can happen when:

1. A team that competes with your current favorite team moves within your geographic area. For example, if I had switched to the Charlotte Hornets as my favorite NBA team (which I very nearly did, mostly because I was so young and impressionable at the time, but I managed to stay a Celtics fan) from the Boston Celtics then it could be understood. You can't switch back though and have to stay with that new team you have chosen. There shall be no dual fandom.

2. Your favorite team proves over a decade-long span they don't deserve your support. By this, I mean your favorite team hasn't either made the playoffs or has such bad ownership you choose to no longer support the team. By "bad ownership" I don't mean "your team isn't winning titles anymore, but is merely making the playoffs." Ownership has to clearly be screwing the team over to the point the team can't be competitive.

3. This one is a maybe. If your favorite team moves out of town. I live in North Carolina. If the Carolina Panthers moved to Los Angeles, then it could be understood why I am choosing a new team. To be honest, this idea is so unfathomable to me that I would switch I can't even imagine I wouldn't still be a fan of the new Los Angeles Panthers. This is a tough call because simply moving out of town in an age when a person can choose to see every game their favorite team plays on television doesn't seem entirely defensible. I guess it depends on how the team left town.

For example, if a Charlotte Hornets fan chooses not to be a New Orleans Hornets fan then I completely understand. George Shinn sucked and was a terrible owner. He left Charlotte and no one was said to see him go, though it would have been nice if he had not taken the Hornets with him. I would hope this hypothetical Hornets fan would eventually became a Bobcats fan though. Also, Sonics fans don't have to cheer for the Thunder. I'm torn, but I think in most situations if a team leaves town then the fans have a right to abandon that team.

Here, we have two: (1) a backbreaking, morale-obliterating move by an utterly incompetent owner who has zero regard for his fan constituency,

This is too vague. One bad move doesn't make it necessary for a person to choose a new favorite team. If one morale-obliterating move is all it takes for a fan to abandon a team, then he probably wasn't a serious fan in the first place.

(2) the arrival of another team within not only the immediate region, but the city borders.

I think the immediate region would suffice. Not many teams get another shot at a professional sports team after one has left. I can handle immediate region as being the criteria.

(And also, as long as we're on the subject, [3] the incompetent, suggestible owner is seemingly still under Rasputin-like sway of ousted managerial war criminal Isiah Thomas, who, we'll soon discover, has been adding ground glass to Dolan's smoothies as he tries to convince his mesmerized buddy to give him a controlling chunk of the team in the "statistically unlikely" event of "death by slow stomach bleeding.")

I can see why Mark Lisanti was hired by Bill Simmons. It seems Mark Lisanti wants to write exactly like Bill and the idea of having someone who wants to be him appealed to Bill so much he had to hire Lisanti...at least that's my takeaway from this passage.

Joe House

This is America.

It's Bill's buddy "House." He has a firm grasp on writing the obvious it seems.

For most sports fans in this great land, the question of what teams to root for — and where to spend fan dollars — is easy: Who are the locals?

Right for "most" sports fans it is easy. "Most" sports fans have professional teams in every sport right in that very state. This is so true, except for the fact it isn't true at all. So who do fans in Nebraska cheer for? How about the state of Tennessee? How easy is it to pick out your favorite baseball team if you live in Tennessee? What about Alabama, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico or Arkansas? How is it easy to pick out your favorite team when there isn't a local team? I completely disagree that "most" sports fans can just cheer for the local team.

You have to love the weird East Coast Bias of "House" who seems to believe every state of this great nation has professional sports teams in all four major sports readily available to them. "Most" people can't choose their favorite team in all four major sports just by seeing which teams are in the local area.

David Jacoby

Regardless of what some people believe (read: Bill), there are no rules for being a sports fan. You can be a fan of whatever team you want, whenever you want. The team you root for is a completely subjective concept, and there isn't some committee (read: Bill) that sets guidelines and allows you a window to make a switch. That is some bullshit.

Ok, well you are no fun. As much as I mock Bill Simmons for creating rules for everything, there are rules to being a sports fan. A person can't adopt the New York Giants prior to the 2008 season after dumping the Cincinnati Bengals as his/her favorite team and then start talking shit to a fan of the New York about Eli Manning having two rings. Waking up one day and deciding, "I don't like the look of this year's Saints team. I think I'm more of a Lions fan now because I like Calvin Johnson" is being a fair weather fan. These people are pieces of shit and should be stopped immediately. I hate the rules (in general) that Bill Simmons creates but few things are more annoying than team-jumping and fair weather fans.

If you're a Knicks fan and you want to root for the Nets, go right ahead. Who cares? That is what I will be doing.

Fine, switch. You will be considered a piece of shit and no one should take you seriously if Brook Lopez tears his ACL and Joe Johnson starts struggling and the Nets go 30-52 next year, while the Knicks happen to make the playoffs, and you jump right back on the Knicks' bandwagon.

Sean Fennessey

Imagine a man living in Oklahoma City.

I'm imagining him. He is tall, owns a farm and listens to country music, just like every other resident of Oklahoma does.

It's 2007. He is a lifelong Dallas Mavericks fan, a team that resides little more than 200 miles due south. He attends every home game, driving three and a half hours both ways to watch Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard. The season is over. His team has just been eliminated from the NBA playoffs, a no. 1 seed humiliated by the exhilarating underdog Golden State Warriors.

Then this lifelong Dallas Mavericks fan can't jump back on the bandwagon after the Mavericks win the 2011 NBA Title. That much is clear. Also, if a lifelong fan of a team even thinks about switching teams because his favorite team had a disappointing playoff series then he isn't enough of a lifelong fan.

Seven weeks later, the Seattle SuperSonics draft a Texas Longhorn forward named Kevin Durant — the same Sonics that have been threatening to leave their native city. Oklahoma City is the rumored destination. The man starts to dream. His imagination wanders. One day, maybe I'll root for Kevin Durant. Soon, a team will be just minutes away. Season tickets will be cheaper. A fan base will be energized.

I would have no problem with this person switching, though I can't see why/how a lifelong Dallas Mavericks fan would do this. I don't take sports too seriously, but I couldn't switch from the Braves even if North Carolina got a professional baseball team. I just couldn't do it. So if this hypothetical Oklahoma City resident is a big Texas Longhorns fan, then I can see this move more. I think when a new team moves to a person's hometown, he/she has to make a decision which team to cheer for before the new season begins. He/she can't wait until after he/she sees how great Durant is to switch to the Thunder. Here I go making rules, but few things annoy me than me sticking by my teams through tough times and having to argue sports with a front-runner.

My point, and I agree with Bill Simmons on this, is New York Knicks fans should switch now and not wait until the beginning of the season. This is a tough switch to make. I'm not a Knicks fan, but seeing as how Bill has always been pro-if the owner doesn't put a great team on the court then a fan can switch teams, I see how he is in favor of this. Bill isn't all about sticking it through the tough years with his team, especially in the case of having a bad owner. Detroit Lions fans aren't impressed with Bill's stance.

Chuck Klosterman

I should link a picture of a man pleasuring himself since that seems to be most of what Chuck Klosterman's writing seems like it is to me, but this isn't that kind of blog, and I choose not to search for a picture of a man pleasuring himself. Let it be known though, that's what I think Chuck Klosterman's feels about his own writing.

At the professional level, you should always focus on whatever a team represents in the present tense: You should be motivated by the current roster, the current coaching staff, the current ownership, the uniforms they're presently wearing, the facility where the team plays, geography, and whatever bizarre interior drive dictates your self-created relationship with the franchise.

You should also be motivated by the food that is being served at the facility, what the parking situation at the venue is like, how many beers are on tap, whether halftime entertainment is worth watching or not, and whatever odd weird shit you enjoy about sports that Chuck Klosterman is too detached and clinical to understand which is why he gets paid to write for a site that features many articles about sports...because sports and the people who enjoy them are dumb, of course. Now let's leave Chuck alone so he can inspect whatever bizarre interior drive that dictates his self-created relationship with whatever band he has fallen in love with this week.


Honestly, if you truly love sports, you should fight the urge to root for anyone, ever. You should just appreciate the game itself.

Even more honestly, this is stupid. If you truly love sports then you do appreciate the game, but you would also naturally have a favorite team in that sport. I appreciate art. Is it weird that I have a favorite artist? I appreciate architecture. Would it be weird if I had a favorite architectural structure? Of course not. If you enjoy watching movies, wouldn't it be natural you have a favorite movie? The same principle applies here. Chuck Klosterman is too busy overthinking the issue to actually think about this. If you truly love a sport, it would make sense to have a favorite team. If I love watching the Olympics, it would make perfect sense if I had a very Olympian. You appreciate the game, but you also have a favorite athlete. It makes sense.


There are certain teams I always root for (and probably always will), and I will always feel stupid about it. It's a real weakness.

It's a true weakness. How dare a person cheer for a specific team in a sport he/she enjoys? It's madness to do this.


The word "fan" derives from the word "fanaticism," which is a bad thing.

This is why intellectuals should not be able to watch sports. Sports is an escape, while intellectuals, or pseudo-intellectuals as I would call Chuck Klosterman, aren't capable of seeing sports as an escape. They have to dissect it to search for some sort of hidden meaning or cause that probably isn't there in an effort to prove just how fucking smart they are and how dumb and irrational you are for liking sports. Sometimes I just want to scream really loudly for a player to run fast or tackle another player hard. I don't see it as a bad thing, even if the derivation of the word "fan" does seem like a bad thing to Klosterman.

Vaya con dios, in this case dios being Jay-Z. But there's no way I could do it myself. It's barely even crossed my mind. Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe it's just that I'm no longer living in Brooklyn, where the walking distance to the Barclays Center would be tantalizingly short and the lure intoxicatingly strong. Maybe I'm stubborn, or stupid, or both. But I'm sticking around. I'm going down with the ship, playing "Go New York, Go New York, Go" on a waterlogged and out-of-tune violin. I may be a bitter old biddy by the time the Knicks finally win a post-‘70s title; more likely, I'll be dead. But I just truly don't think I could ever imagine it any other way.

There we go. Great attitude. If she didn't write mostly about weddings, I would read something else Katie Baker has written.


Brian Phillips

I hate to make it sound like sports isn't the most important thing in the world or something,

You write for a sports site, it's okay to make it seem like sports are the most important thing in the world once or twice a month.


but ... do you like the Nets more than the Knicks? Would you maybe rather be a Nets fan than a Knicks fan? Then be a Nets fan.

That's what I don't get about this whole "Nets or Knicks?" discussion. Bill Simmons looks at it from the point of view of someone who wants to watch a winning team (which again, isn't shocking, since he seems to be a front-runner at heart), but if a person all of a sudden likes the Nets more than the Knicks then just be a Nets fan. If you still like the Knicks more, sit through the tough times and hope for good times ahead or just pay only slight attention to the Knicks if it is too painful to watch them play. If you are a fan (there's that terrible word again!) of the Knicks more than the Nets, then don't magically become a Nets fan because you are tired of cheering for the Knicks. How would it be possible for a Knicks fan to switch to cheering for the Nets if that Knicks fan doesn't like the Nets as much as he/she likes the Knicks?


Shane Ryan

Ditto the Giants — as wonderful as this year was, it will never compare to 2008. Duke's titles have been separated by about a decade each except for the ‘92 run, which was easily the least spectacular of the four.

Other than that being one of the best NCAA teams of all-time and it just so happened the '92 team played one of the best NCAA Tournament games of all-time against Kentucky...sure, the '92 team was the least spectacular. There were no non-spectacular Duke titles to me. I think it is crazy to say the '92 team was the least spectacular since it was the last time an NCAA men's basketball team won back-to-back NCAA titles (as commenter Steve pointed out, Florida won back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. I claim to be a college basketball fan and I missed this. Embarrassing. I will say I am not a fan of those two Florida teams so there is a chance I was blocking them out of my memory) and that was a loaded and dominant team. I loved watching that team.


So stick with it, fellow Knicks fans. Jeremy Lin is a passing fad, and that title is somewhere on the horizon, waiting for us in the fog. When it comes, you don't want to be the guy cheering for Brooklyn because you felt sorry for yourself.

Outside of completely annoying me by calling the '92 Duke team's run "easily" the least spectacular, which to me shows Shane Ryan needs his head examined, I agree. I wouldn't have a problem with Knicks fans becoming Nets fans, but to do so simply because the Knicks didn't sign Jeremy Lin and they don't like James Dolan right now seems a bit weak to me. It was just a year ago that Knicks fans had dreams of getting Chris Paul to play in New York and they were loving the day when they could try to get their own "Big Three" together.

Fine, choose to cheer for the Nets, but don't go back to the Knicks once the Nets start stinking again. That's mostly what I would request. The Nets have all five starters making at least $10 million. I didn't realize having Joe Johnson/Gerald Wallace/Brook Lopez on the same team made for such an attractive team.

Carles

If you are a Knicks fan who hasn't turned on your team already, you might as well wait until the third year of Jeremy Lin's contract to find out if he is a star or an oft-injured salary cap albatross who never matched his first-year production. Linsanity could end up being a cultural reference that is on the same level as Crystal Pepsi, pogs, or the Bash Brothers.

Exactly. This is my favorite take on this topic. What brought this issue up originally was a reaction to Jeremy Lin signing with the Rockets and the Knicks not matching the contract, then signing Raymond Felton. It's typical New York media-type overreaction to get all depressed because a guy who hasn't even played a full season in a Knicks uniform and doesn't even fit in with the current team (meaning Carmelo Anthony as the leader and top dog of this Knicks team) isn't being re-signed. Take a step away from the ledge. I think re-signing Lin would have been a good move, but don't get mad at the Dolans for not re-signing him, get mad at the Dolans for trading for Carmelo Anthony in an attempt to appease the Knicks' fans want for a superstar player on the roster, and then allowing Anthony to help chase Lin off. You wanted a superstar player, you got one.


The Brooklyn Nets are just as annoying as the Knicks when it comes to operating as a wannabe superstar destination that doesn't have enough flexibility to build a complete team, so Knicks fans might as well stay put and hope Amar'e finally has the career-ending injury that fulfills his destiny as the Most Injury-Prone Man Alive and wipes his contract off the books.

This needs to be a completely different question. Why are the Brooklyn Nets such an attractive team for Knicks fans? Other than the fact they are now located in New York state of course. The Nets have an owner who isn't exactly making astute trades (I can't believe the Nets took on Joe Johnson's contract) and I don't see re-signing Gerald Wallace and Brook Lopez as a huge step up. This Nets team seems like a 5th or 6th seed in the East at-best, at least to me. This is the team Knicks fans should want to switch to?


Brian Koppelman

The Dolans, even more than other owners, do not care about the fans, the legacy, the history, or anything, really, at all. James Dolan seems to me to be like "Wormtongue" from Lord of the Rings, and his father is Theoden, under a spell and powerless to even see what’s going on. But we, the fans, are not powerless. We can decide to recognize that the throne is, for all intents and purposes, empty. We can decide to recognize that the team we loved does not exist anymore. That it can never exist as long as the Dolans own it. We can decide to see the Knicks for what they actually are, not what we wish them to be, like the husband who realizes, finally, after everyone else has told him, that his wife is not only cheating, but poisoning his mac and cheese. I am done eating poisoned mac and cheese. And I am done with the New York Knicks. Let’s go, Brooklyn!

We will remember this in 2017 when the Knicks win an NBA Title and Brian Koppelman is writing a column about how great it felt to stick in there with the Knicks all these years. You can't undo a passage written like this.

Rafe Bartholomew

But basketball is different nowadays — it's so spread-out, the talent comes from all over. So I'm from the city that once produced the best basketball players on the planet, and the Knicks, whether they're a lottery team or NBA champions, aren't changing that.

Well, haven't you given yourself the false illusion of self-importance while living in the past. The fact the city of New York used to produce great talent seems to give Bartholomew a reason to get up in the morning. Chuck Klosterman would frown through his beard when he hears this type of statement.


I don't see why a person would choose to be a Nets fan unless he/she was really upset with the Dolan's ownership of the Knicks franchise and just can't stand it anymore. You have the next few months to switch to the Nets as your favorite team, but the grass isn't always greener, and don't come crawling back to the Knicks pretending you never left if the ship ever gets righted.

8 comments Bill Simmons is So Tortured by His Favorite Sports Teams: Part 194

Bill Simmons is the only person to have ever been disappointed by his favorite team. This is a little known fact that isn't exactly fact. Bill Simmons just believes he is the only person to have been disappointed by his favorite team. so that belief makes it so. Now Bill is dragging his daughter into this pit of disappointment. We are all aware that Bill has whined on behalf of other people prior to this, but now he is dragging his family into the constant, "Woe is me. I can't believe we are so cursed to care for this team and all they repay us with is disappointment. Let me write 10000 words about this as if I am the only person in the world to have ever experienced disappointment" sports discussion.

Because I have a strict "no-mocking a writer's family" policy, which Bill is testing the strictness of by constantly talking about his family, I won't mock his poor daughter who gets dragged into this column and the pervasive "woe is me" whining it reflects. I feel bad for her because children lack the appropriate amount of perspective on sporting events. Of course, Bill is a grown man and he lacks this perspective. I will mock Bill for what he writes. Some writers turn a mirror on society to show our true nature, while Bill Simmons prefers to turn a mirror on himself so he can look in his own eyes when talking about how truly bad he has it to be a fan of his favorite sports teams. He calls this column "The Consequences of Caring" which is so pathetic and whiny I'm surprised it isn't the title of a Lifetime Movie or a Coldplay album.

I read on Twitter several people said this was one of Bill Simmons' best column. Not sure I see it that way. There is nothing special about this column. His daughter asks a ton of questions while lacking the ability to have perspective, which is what every child does, and Bill whines a little bit about how tortured he is when the Celtics lost to the Heat in Game 6, while also telling us how special and remarkable this Celtics team was. It's pretty much a typical Bill Simmons column. What's most frustrating, is yet again, this column really has nothing to do with sports. It is a continuation of Bill truly believing people read his columns because they are interested in him personally. Only the Simmonites are interested in him as a person. I'm guessing, the rest of us, are we interested? Not really.

My daughter was crying. We were waiting for a green light on Olympic Boulevard, returning home from a Stanley Cup celebration that never happened.

It is clear Bill has passed on his penchant for blowing a loss out of proportion on to his poor daughter. His daughter probably didn't understand the idea the Kings may not have swept the Devils, but they are still in control of the series. While I can excuse her for this, since she is magical and can singlehandedly cause the Kings to win the Stanley Cup, I would think she would have faith in the Kings ability to eventually close out the series.

Nothing sucks more than a visiting fan crashing your section and cheering obnoxiously for his team. That's what every Clippers game is like. I didn't want to be That Guy. I hate That Guy. We all hate That Guy.

Well, Bill was That Guy. He is That Guy who isn't really a fan of the Clippers or Kings, but buys tickets to the Clippers game because he can afford to do so and purchased the Kings tickets with his Grantland spending account. So in a way, Bill was That Guy who isn't really a fan of the team, but shows up and cheers for that team anyway. I would submit that's almost as bad as cheering for the other team. There is a lot of fakeness in doing this. I sit in seats Panthers games right behind a guy who is a Packers fan. He admits he is a big Packers fan and wore an Aaron Rodgers jersey to the Packers-Panthers game. Every other game he showed up in a Panthers jersey. I hate That Guy. He isn't a real fan of the Panthers, yet he has the balls to show up and cheer for them, and that annoys me as much as it would if he were a fan of the opposing team. That Guy is Bill Simmons when he is at Clippers/Kings games.

And even though I prepared her before that Bruins game — Look, this is Daddy's team, just like the Kings are your team, and if I ever teach you anything in life other than "stay off the pole," "don't date a Lakers fan" and "don't text naked pictures of yourself under any circumstances ever," it's that you only have one team for every sport — she couldn't handle it when it happened. She felt betrayed

She probably felt betrayed because she sees her dad claim to be a Celtics/Bruins fan, but he shows up and cheers at Clippers/Kings games. I'm not saying Bill is attempting to have duel fanship, I'm saying for a five year old this is very confusing and Bill actions wouldn't make much sense.

On the way home, I discreetly snapped an iPhone picture of her post-cry for a keepsake — you know, "Here's the first time sports ever made my daughter cry" —

No, Bill doesn't suffer from malignant narcissism and egocentrism at all. He's a perfectly healthy parent by seeming to take some sense of joy in his daughter's pain.

only she caught me taking it, flipped out like a Real World roommate and scratched my right arm so hard that it bled.

This is shit Bill really needs to write down and either keep to himself or talk to his therapist about.

She didn't talk to me for two hours. And that's when I knew my daughter liked sports.

Again, some traces of Bill's egocentrism where her reaction to the loss ultimately reinforced that she liked sports and this reflected well on Bill and his intentions that she does like sports. There are traces of egocntrism in Bill's behavior. He doesn't seem concerned about her violence towards him, he simply cares what this violence ultimately led him to conclude and how it reflected on his intentions for her to end up being a sports fan. I'm an amateur psychiatrist you know.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't there are traces of malignant narcissism in these interactions with his daughter? Not only did he (seemingly) gleefully mention other fans on the road saw his daughter crying, that wasn't enough for him. He wanted to take a picture of her being upset in order to keep this memory as some sort of keepsake. He was joyful about how cruel the loss by the Kings seemed to his daughter. This also helps to explain why Bill seems to take such joy in watching his teams lose and is able to write so well about the pain it causes. In some weird way, he enjoys the pain, and his success based on his late 1990's and early 2000's whining about the Red Sox reinforced the idea enjoying the pain was a good thing. Again, I'm an amateur psychiatrist, but I think I'm right.

Of course, right now Simmonites are about to write a comment to me explaining I am a moron and Bill Simmons is quite possibly the coolest guy in the world and they hope their children love sports and ask a lot of questions. All of this criticism will be anonymous of course.

I never, ever could have predicted this. That's parenthood. You roll with the whims of your kids.

Thanks for telling us this. If this were an article about parenting, I would give a shit. This is about sports. So talk about sports. Because you are raising two children doesn't mean you are suddenly Dr. Spock and your readers want to hear some navel-gazing about raising children.

Starting last October, the Kings became my daughter's first favorite team. Hockey moves at a different, more frenetic pace than other live sports — it's tailor-made for the ADD Generation,

Which is why the Stanley Cup ratings have been so stellar and all. Of course it also helps to realize your enjoyment of hockey when you stop becoming a hockey widow conveniently at the exact same time your favorite hockey team starts competing for a Stanley Cup title.

You always hear that hockey players are the best interviews, but you rarely hear anyone say hockey fans are the best live event fans. They are. Of the four major sports, only hockey is significantly better in person.

They are significantly better? And here I heard they were only slightly marginally better. It's a good thing Bill has the authority to rule on this issue since it is a completely subjective issue and all.

(She won't attend Lakers games because "the Lakers fans are there." Let's just say the brainwashing worked.) Imagine my surprise when she fell for the Kings within minutes of her first game, even asking the lady next to us, "Who's the best player?"

Apparently Bill's brainwashing attempts to teach her how to be a frontrunner worked as well. I'm kidding. I know kids tend to latch on to the best players for a team.

We spent the next six months attending Kings games. She learned about hockey on the fly,

She learned about hockey on the fly. Is there another way to learn about sport while that sport is in-season? I guess this is as opposed to petitioning the NHL to stop the current season until Bill's daughter can understand and follow the rules of the game?

As April approached, I started prepping her for

therapy?

the playoffs.

Oh, I was close. Bill's acting as if a loss in the playoffs was equivalent to the death of a family member would have eventually led her to therapy.

She didn't get it. There were more than a few dumb questions like, "So if they beat the first team four times, THAT'S when they win the Cup?"

These are dumb questions because a five year old should immediately grasp the concept of a seven game series.

My daughter attended all but one of their home playoff games.

And the staff members of Grantland who are lifetime L.A. Kings fans and wanted to attend the games with the company tickets do thank her for that.

Just as a note, a search for "Bill Simmons daughter" reveals 17,900,000 hits. Looking his daughter's name up with the term "Bill Simmons" reveals 1,490,000 hits. For a private guy, Bill sure is talking about his daughter a lot lately. As a private person myself, in order to stay that way, I would probably stop writing about my family. Of course that's just me.

The Kings scored four times, Quick notched another spectacular shutout, my daughter broke her unofficial record for "Most attempts to start a 'Let's Go Kings!' chant,"

I'll get the Guinness Book of World Records on the phone immediately.

So Wednesday's game … man.

I tried to warn her. I tried to prepare her: "Look, this is sports, you never know, you can't just assume they're going to win." She wouldn't hear it. She kept saying, "Dad, stop it, just stop. They're going to win."

Bill's daughter is the first child to ever have unrealistic expectations of an event. I really believe he thinks this.

And I just watched the whole thing happen, unable to stop it, knowing the entire time, "Oh God, tonight's probably the night … her first stomach-punch loss."

Again, Bill seems to enjoy some part of this because it reinforces thoughts and theories he already had. If his daughter experiences a stomach-punch loss then that means Bill's theories about stomach-punch losses are in fact true. Even his daughter's pain when the Kings lose is in some way about Bill Simmons because it reinforces his own literary theories as true. In Bill's mind, events that have nothing to do with him, at some point eventually become about him.

I felt that way about all their fans, actually. The Kings have been kicking around for 44 seasons, with those years ranging mostly from "unhappy" to "forgettable."

The Kings are very much unlike the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics, yet Bill still finds a way to pretend like he has been tortured in some way by these teams. I can only imagine the articles Bill would write if he were a fan of a sports team that had not won a title in their respective sport over the last decade.

Remember that scene when Forrest Gump finds out about his son, digests the news, then worries that the boy is just as stupid as he is? For two terrible seconds, he's thinking to himself, Oh, no, I hope I didn't ruin this kid. That's how I felt when I watched my daughter sobbing. Why did I do this to her? Why would I pull her into this fan vortex where you're probably going to end up unhappy more than happy?

Though Bill was sort of happy his daughter could not engage in useless "what-if" scenarios with him now and seemed excited she experienced a stomach-punch loss. Bill took a picture of his daughter while she was crying because he was so worried about her state of mind of course...not because he thrives on misery and pain. Of course not. Everyone loves having a picture taken of them when they are at their most upset so they can fondly recall a bad moment in his/her life. Well actually, the only people who enjoy recalling pain through pictures are those who attempt to make a living off creating, talking and whining about sports-related pain like Bill Simmons has done.

Then I remembered something. Sports is a metaphor for life. Everything is black and white on the surface. You win, you lose, you laugh, you cry, you cheer, you boo, and most of all, you care.

Sports are life! Bill is the first person to ever think of this metaphor. Check the time and date so I can tell my great-grandchildren about this moment.

It's about two strangers watching you cry at a stoplight. It's black and white, but it's not.

Now, we will commence with Bill's whining about the Celtics Game 6 loss to the Heat. After all, the Celtics haven't won an NBA Title since 2008, how long can one fan base stayed tortured like this?

Only 12 hours later, I flew cross-country to watch the Celtics play Miami in Boston. My wife couldn't believe it. We were committed to a party in Los Angeles the following night.

Has a more douche-like group of sentences ever been written on the Internet? Bill is a daredevil people! He is committed to a party in Los Angeles on Friday night, yet he is taking the chance of going to Game 6 in Boston to see the Heat and Celtics play. Don't try this at home, these rich white people problems should only be attempted by experts. Commitments to parties are apparently a really, really serious thing in Los Angeles.

If anyone wonders how far from 2001 Bill Simmons the current 2012 version of Bill Simmons is, please refer to these three sentences above. I'd like to think 2001 Bill Simmons would have mocked someone for writing the sentence "We were committed to a party in Los Angeles the following night." 2012 Bill Simmons is nothing at all like 2001 Bill Simmons, outside of him using the same pop culture references and bad analogies in his writing.

It was a party and Bill was committed to going. Jimmy Kimmel was there. You can't just not show up. What's astounding is Bill's wife and her astonishment at this. Can you do this? Can you fly cross-country in 24 hours? What would Charles Lindburgh do? Check yourself! You don't want to end up like Amelia Earhart!

"I don't understand," she said. "Why can't you just watch it from home?"

Because watching the game from home won't produce a very good column and since Bill is out of ideas at this point, he needs a column idea from somewhere, anywhere. Bill was hoping to write a "I went home to my roots in Boston to celebrate the Celtics making the NBA Finals and here is a shitload of navel gazing about my favorite team that people love to read about for some reason."

Because we spent five years watching Rondo, Pierce, Allen, Garnett and Doc fighting to maintain something that mattered to them — and to us — even as teammates kept changing, bad breaks kept happening, trade rumors kept swirling and there were multiple reasons for any one of them to pack it in.

This is the part where Bill makes every non-Celtics fan hate the team more by pretending they are more special than your favorite team. We've seen some version of this story quite a few times in Bill's columns over the past few months. This is a once in a lifetime team, they all know each other, Big Four...and so it goes.

Three months later, Derrick Rose was rehabbing his knee, Miami was imploding and the creaky Celtics needed one more victory for the most improbable Finals trip in franchise history. They were so banged up, even their coach was battling a herniated disk. An injured coach???

Has this every happened before in any other major sport? Without him looking it up, and you don't look it up either, Bill Simmons says, "No, this has never happened before." One more reason the Celtics are special in a good way.

It's about the familiarity of those moments more than anything, and how they intersect with the franchise's history as a whole. This isn't a great team, it's a great Celtics team — one that Red would have loved — and over everything else, that's why we will always remember the 2012 Celtics.

"We" will always remember the 2012 Celtics. Apparently Bill has a squirrel in his pocket or something.

And that's why I flew back.

Despite the fact Bill FULLY KNEW he was committed to a party the very next night. These are rich white people problems for sure. What happens if Bill gets in town late? Would the city of Los Angeles implode and what about Bill's relationship with his wife? Would it survive or would she simply go to the party without him? Some things are too horrendous to imagine.

And that's why I flew back...Was this like a Dwight Howard thing? Like, "I'm here to do my job, and I'm going to try hard, just know that I'm here because I have to be?" Had the pressure finally broken him? Was he feuding with Wade? What was his agenda?

Apparently LeBron's agenda was to play the best game of his career and not give the Celtics a chance to win the game so the series would go back to Miami for a Game 7. It certainly seemed that way. There wasn't much more than that involved. I know Bill is more interested in the story behind why LeBron James played well, mostly because he doesn't enjoy the sporting events he attends as much as he enjoys the soap opera aspects of sports, but I think LeBron just wanted to kick some ass. That's pretty much it.

Maybe Worldwide Wes gave him an awesome pregame speech along the lines of the chef from Vision Quest.

A Vision Quest reference. Timely.

I don't know what happened. I just know the shots wouldn't stop going in. After about the fifth dagger in a row (he made 10 straight), the crowd started groaning on every make — shades of Philly's Andrew Toney ripping our hearts out 30 years ago.

For those of you counting, that was 30 years ago the last time an opposing player came into Boston Garden/TDWhateverthefuckitiscallednow and lit up the Celtics. 30 years since this last happened on the scale LeBron did this in Game 6. I'd say if a team has gone 30 years without this happening on their home court, that is a pretty fortunate team. Of course, Bill Simmons doesn't see it this way and I'm just surprised he didn't create a corollary or theory to mark this occasion of when Boston fans were tortured by their Celtics team that devastatingly failed to make the NBA Finals for the third time in the past five years.

You can't imagine what this was like to witness in person.

No one can imagine. Even though there were thousands of people at the game and millions of people watching the game on television, YOU DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE! Only Bill Simmons understands this...well, him and his magic daughter.

As a Celtics fan, I was devastated. As a basketball fan, I appreciated the performance for what it was.

I have to say, this is exactly how I felt. Bill Simmons and I had the same emotions. Bill Simmons is speaking directly to me and how I feel right now! I want to learn more about him as a person! Give me more information about the zany antics of your children, Bill! What do your friends think about the NBA Finals matchup? I need to hear a Jimmy Kimmel or Adam Carolla reference.

Needless to say, the Celtics couldn't match him — especially Pierce, who's worn down from four weeks of battling Andre Iguodala, Shane Battier and LeBron on one leg and appears to be running on fumes of his fumes' fumes at this point.

Otherwise if he wasn't worn down, Pierce could have easily guarded James during this game. Naturally.

The fans were so shell-shocked that many (including me and my father) filed out with three minutes remaining, not because we were lousy fans, not to beat the traffic, but because we didn't want to be there anymore.

And you wanted to beat traffic. Don't lie. Also, Bill had a party he was committed to back in Los Angeles. You can't just ignore these type of things and the clock was ticking "24" style. Could Bill make it back for the party? I'm on the edge of my sea---wait, I just fell on the floor I was so far on the edge of my seat.

If I were 9 years old, I would have been crying just as hard as I did after the '78 Sox-Yankees playoff game. I stopped crying about sports a long time ago.

Which is nice because Bill Simmons is 40 years old and probably shouldn't be crying over sports very often. But I do give him credit for not crying over sports. It's almost like he's a grownup.

We both agreed that LeBron couldn't possibly play that well again, and that Pierce couldn't possibly play that poorly.

I am sure if Paul Pierce had played that poorly, the Celtics won the series and Pierce was named MVP Bill have taken back all the comments he made about Kobe going 6-for-24 in the deciding game of the 2010 NBA Finals. Sure he would have.

After coming apart at that stoplight, my daughter only cried for another minute, finally redirecting her anger toward me. You know, because that's what daughters do.

Most often daughters do this when their asshole father takes a picture of them crying and want to use it as a keepsake.

"You don't even care about the Kings," she hissed. "You only care about your stupid Boston teams."

"That's not true," I said.

"I'll jump on any successful team's bandwagon, honey. There isn't a bandwagon I'm afraid of jumping on in order to talk about how tortured that team is or to experience the good times that team has. I'm a special kind of bandwagon fan in that I am not a fan of a team that is experiencing success, but I will pretend to know exactly what the fan base is thinking at all times and want to absorb some of the success in order to put it in my writing. What if I became a Oklahoma City Thunder fan starting this week? I will and Oklahoma City fans would love it. Who says 'no' to this?"

"But you don't REALLY care, you're not a Kings fan."

"That's true."

"Then you don't understand," she decided. "You don't understand what it's like. You have NO idea."

At least Bill's daughter is taking my complaint that Bill tries to claim he understands each team's fan base better than anyone else right to Bill. Of course, Bill denies this because he is a sports fan. As if being a fan of sports means he understands what every fan base has gone through in their respective team's history. He knows how Cavs fans feel about LeBron James playing in Miami, because LeBron James lit up his Celtics in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, or claims he understands how Sonics fans feel to have lost their entire franchise. Bill understands because in his mind the Celtics making three Eastern Conference Finals in five years and losing in one of these Eastern Conference Finals due to an epic performance by the NBA's best player is the same thing as losing that player to Miami in free agency. Bill also believes losing the Celtics losing to the Heat is the same thing as having an entire franchise move out of the city. He understands your pain Sonics-fans. Bill's sports-related pain is always equal to or greater than any other sports fan's sports-related pain. Bill wants to have a monopoly on pain caused by his favorite sports teams. It has to be this way or else it seems he will lose his identity as a long-suffering fan, even though the times he's truly suffered with his teams over the last 10 years are few and far between.

But that's the thing about sports … I do.

You can be a fan of sports and still not understand another sports fan's pain. Stop whining and just enjoy your favorite team.

6 comments Bill Simmons Is Now Whining about the Red Sox Before the MLB Season Even Begins

Bill Simmons experienced his most success (in terms of readers when liked him and didn't find him to be an egotistical maniac who only focuses on Boston sports, yet has has the gall to call himself "The Sports Guy") prior to the Red Sox winning a World Series title in 2004. Since that time he has tended to be an insufferable and has caused much consternation among fans of Boston sports due to this. Yet he still manages to have a dedicated fan base I call SimmonsClones. These are people who aspire to nothing in life other than to be just like Bill Simmons. They will be the ones writing negative comments about what I am about to post. Look for them and taste the tears they will cry about me ripping their hero. Their tears are delicious and taste like chocolate, by the way. And yes, there will be tears because Bill talks with Michael Schur, who actually knows what he is talking about when discussing the Red Sox, so Bill's comments tend to come off as silly.

Bill has no inclination to write anymore. This frustrates me. He wants to do podcasts and email famous people, then share those email exchanges he had with famous people with his readers to show us he knows famous people. DID YOU KNOW MICHAEL RAPAPORT LIVES ON BILL'S STREET? BILL KNOWS JIMMY KIMMEL AND LET HIM PROVE IT BY RELAYING SOMETHING HILARIOUSLY UNFUNNY THAT JIMMY KIMMEL SAID!

So Bill doesn't write very much anymore and when he does write about his favorite teams, he tends to whine and complain as if the his Boston teams have committed the terrible crime of not winning the championship every single year and because of this he is so tortured...then he inserts a pop culture reference in to describe how he feels. Now Bill is complaining about the Red Sox before the season even begins. Maybe not exactly complaining or whining, but he sees pending doom and is trying to talk himself into being excited for the Red Sox season. Rather than write a column, Bill wanted to remind his readers he does indeed know famous people and have an email exchange (though it is really weird if this was an email exchange because the exchanges are short, so I don't believe this was done over email) with Michael Schur. Michael Schur is Regis Philbin's son-in-law and co-creator of "Parks and Recreation," a really funny and great show. He also had a blog a long time ago...something to do with Firing Joe Morgan. Why he is participating in an email exchange with Bill Simmons, I'll never know. This makes me lose 5% respect for him, not that anyone cares.

When the Boston Globe's Chris Gasper wrote about a potential Bobby Valentine–Ben Cherington rift last weekend, it broke new ground even for Red Sox fans. Our new coach and GM quarreling before our first regular-season game?

A writer wrote one column about controversy among the Red Sox ranks. Let's overreact and whine about the Red Sox season that hasn't even occurred yet with each other over 10,000 words.

They couldn't have held off until Patriots' Day? Die-hard Sox fans Michael Schur and Bill Simmons decided to ease the pain by trading e-mails about the 2012 season.

The only way Bill Simmons can be classified as a "diehard" Red Sox fan is because when he sees the Red Sox hopes for making the playoffs are going to "die," he decides it will be "hard" to watch any of their games since he only writes about the Red Sox once a year, or possibly more, but only if they are successful and make the playoffs. Other than that, I find it hard to believe he is a diehard fan.

Simmons: Let's recap everything that happened since Game 161 in late September. The first body blow: We totally choked away Game 162 (and a playoff spot), completed the biggest September collapse in baseball history, turned Robert Andino into the modern-day Bucky Bleeping Dent, spawned bitter pieces from both you and me and made me ask myself things like, "Why does it feel like we won that last World Series 40 years ago?"

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

The Red Sox didn't make the playoffs and are the first major league team to have ever blown a large lead in September as long as you don't count the other major league teams that have done this but Bill doesn't count these teams because he believes everything does and should revolve around the Red Sox.

Simmons: You can't back out now! You promised! Second, stories/rumors/e-mails/message board posts quickly started circulating that there was more clubhouse dissension than anyone realized.

There is no more reliable source of information than emails/rumors/message boards!

And trust me, the team already felt very clubhouse dissensiony.

From the perspective of an outsider who lives in California and hasn't actually been in the Red Sox clubhouse this year...that Red Sox clubhouse feels very dissesiony.

Schur: Maybe I'm naive, but I didn't have any idea about the clubhouse stuff until it blew up after the season was over.

Oh really? Bill Simmons had knowledge of the clubhouse dissension, he just didn't mention it at the time because he forgot to mention it. But he knew of the dissension. He knew! He was going to bring it up prior to the dissension being made public, but he just didn't get a chance what with only writing one column a week and all. So AFTER the dissension is made public, Bill tells us he knew of the dissension beforehand.

Simmons: Really? I remember watching other teams happily standing on the top step of the dugout, then seeing our guys grimly sitting next to each other, and thinking, All right, something feels wrong here.

What was "wrong" is the team wasn't pitching well and they were blowing the Wild Card lead by losing games. Bill may remember players looking grim, but he also didn't remember to bring this up at the time so I question whether he is being truthful. Though in Bill's defense, we all know if the Red Sox aren't World Series-bound he tends to ignore them completely...when he isn't busy saying baseball is dying simply because the Red Sox weren't competitive at the time. So it is possible Bill didn't get a chance to mention the Red Sox looked grim because he was too busy ignoring their existence.

The players could have also looked grim because the Red Sox team was playing poorly. That's highly possible.

Schur: You're like The Mentalist.

No, he's full of shit.

Schur: It definitely didn't look like a happy bunch of guys last September, but I attributed that to going 7-20.

How illogical to believe a team's mood depends on their performance on the field! This would never happen in Bill's opinion because a team that likes each other will always be successful. A baseball season completely depends on how the players get along.

Also, Bill is claiming dissension during the same season starting pitchers were eating fried chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse. Apparently a few people on the team liked each other enough to eat chicken and drink beer together.

Simmons: You're right, that 2001 team was openly unbearable. It was like one of those families that fight in restaurants in public. The 2011 team was more like one of those creepy, Ordinary People families that seem fine on the surface … but they're not.

And yet, no one reported on this at the time. All the reporting on the Red Sox's dysfunction comes AFTER the collapse. Funny how hindsight works like that, right?

Schur: Yeah, "Fried Chicken and Beer" is never going away. Ever. We'll be talking about Fried Chicken and Beer in 30 years. Which is silly, because I would set the over/under on "MLB clubhouses regularly stocked with fried chicken and/or beer" at 14.5, and take the over. When it leaked that Kevin Millar had the team taking Jack Daniel's shots before playoff games in 2004, people were happy about it, because they won. It's fascinating, but completely understandable, that the same exact behavior reads completely differently when a team loses.

Exactly. I have said the same thing. Clearly, great minds think alike. On that note, isn't there someone smarter for Michael Schur to correspond with? This is like watching Nerlens Noel compete against high school players.

This is the first indication that Michael Schur will reject Bill's comments and try to focus Bill away from inane theories and ground him more in reality.

Simmons: The offseason hits kept coming when Chicago hired Theo Epstein (the guy who built our two title teams) AND Jed Hoyer (the guy we always assumed would come back to replace Theo when Theo finally left).

Schur: Theo leaving burns pretty badly, though the fact that his last few free-agent acquisitions were so stunningly terrible makes it a little easier to swallow.

Clearly, Theo Epstein is washed up. He'll never sign another free agent that plays well.

Simmons: Yeah, it's hard to believe that the same guy who was once so obsessed with finding value, building around under-29 elite players, throwing gobs of money into his farm system and avoiding the old Red Sox mistake of splurging on free agents hitting their 30s was suddenly so willing to overpay the Crawfords and Lackeys.

I am sure this had nothing to do with a fan base and ownership that wants to compete with the Yankees on the free agent market for the "best" players available. I'm sure Epstein's sudden willingness to throw gobs of money at players had nothing to do with ownership and some fans (like Peter King) who expect the Red Sox to spend money or else they will be called cheap. Then Epstein would be accused of not putting a great product on the field simply because the players at each position aren't household names.

Simmons: Part of me wonders if, when you have that money available, you eventually can't resist the urge to say "Fuck it" and start spending it over sticking to what got you there.

That's exactly what happened to the Red Sox in some ways, Bill. This has happened with many other large market teams as well over the years. Thanks for catching up with the rest of us.

Schur: I think that any organization that has a ton of cash runs the risk of recklessly spending the cash, especially when there are very high expectations for the organization's performance. Partly because they know that they can cover their mistakes with more cash, and partly because, well, it's exciting to spend money, and less exciting not to spend it. In this case, I believe the Sox front office looked at an aging Yankees franchise, with multiple bad long-term contracts at key positions, and thought: "If we can get Adrian Gonzalez, John Lackey, and Carl Crawford, we can step on their throats and drum them into third place in the division for five years." They went 1-for-3.

Really? No one better for Michael Schur to exchange emails with?

This is exactly correct, yet again. While Bill is touches on the issue like only a helicopter fan can (I call someone who is a helicopter fan a person that is a true fan of the team, but only is a fan in general of the team and doesn't try or care to understand the in-depth knowledge of the team. It isn't necessarily an insult as long as the person doesn't try to pretend to know more than he/she does), Michael Schur points out WHY the Red Sox spent like they did.

Simmons: Also, they panicked because of what was happening in Boston that winter — the Pats were on a roll, the Celts had the NBA's best record, the Bruins were coming on (and headed for a title), and meanwhile, we were coming off a fairly boring Red Sox season and the whole "Look how nice Fenway is now!" dynamic had been played out.

No, Bill. Not at all. The Red Sox spent that money for baseball-related reasons, not for some soap opera reason in order to keep up with the rest of the Boston sports teams.

Has anyone ever discussed your favorite sports team with someone who clearly isn't on your level or is more of a helicopter fan of a team? I know it sounds egotistical to ask that, but we've probably all been there. I have a friend who can't even discuss his own team without sounding like an idiot and getting the names of the players on the team wrong (he calls NCAA official Karl Hess "Craig Hess"). That's how this exchange between Simmons and Schur feels. Michael Schur says something intelligent and Bill Simmons does his shtick that got old a few seasons ago. It doesn't feel like a conversation between two diehard Red Sox fans.

Getting Gonzalez made sense, but Crawford always felt like one of those, "Look at us! We made a big move! HEY, LOOK AT US!!!!" Steinbrennerian luxury purchases that big-budget teams make for headlines.

Bill Simmons is a genius when it comes to hindsight. Give him a few years, he can tell you everything a team did wrong. Expect him to say what is right or wrong at the time? Eh, he can't do that.

Schur: Maybe, maybe not. The previous year Crawford hit .307/.356/.495, and he was 28/29. He seemed for all the world like a guy who was finally realizing his potential, and they had every expectation that he'd be an elite player for at least three to four years.

Lawyered.

This isn't even a fair discussion. Michael Schur has actual evidence to refute Bill's claims that are based completely on hindsight.

Simmons: I'm going to print that last paragraph out and tape it next to my television, then read it every time he swings at a two-strike ball in the dirt when it's second and third with two outs this season.

This is the difference in a sports fan (Michael Schur) and a fan of sports (Bill Simmons). Bill Simmons likes sports, but he only likes them in the realm of how he can compare them to other things and he isn't really interested in the factual part of sports, but how the sports make him feel. Michael Schur clearly enjoys sports. Michael Schur has evidence for why Crawford's signing made sense and Bill Simmons has hyperbolic proof based on a fictional situation.

(Though I give Bill credit when it comes to the NBA. He does appear to care more in-depth about the NBA.)

Seriously, this conversation is exposing Bill Simmons. His legion of dedicated SimmonsClones, please take note. This is your hero getting exposed by a knowledgeable sports fan who won't readily accept Bill's bizarre comparisons and proclamations of what the Red Sox should have done after the fact.

Schur: You're going to read that paragraph out loud 200 times?! That seems excessive. And for the record, I didn't really care about Theo's compensation from the Cubs. What did we think we were going to get for him? Some fans were holding out for Garza or something, but realistically, no one important was ever coming back to Boston. I also think it was annoying and petty to draw it out so long — but in this case, I blame Bud Selig.

Simmons: I'm always for blaming Bud Selig.

Does it sound like Bill is keeping up? Michael Schur brings up a good point about no one of importance coming back to the Red Sox from the Cubs and Bill latches on to his last sentence and says he is always for blaming Bud Selig. Bill has no response to Schur's refutation that the Red Sox could have gotten something of value in return for Theo Epstein. Bill just makes a silly comment about Bud Selig always being to blame. This is why Simmons doesn't allow comments on his articles. His ego can't stand that he isn't allowed to spout nonsense and it be refuted in a public setting.

Simmons: Good segue to another offseason "thing" that happened: We spent nearly two months looking for a manager while everyone predicted, "This is a charade, they're going to hire Bobby V.," only Cherington was clearly thinking, Whatever I do, I don't want to hire Bobby V. and interviewing everyone short of Darrell Johnson's embalmed corpse. What happened? You guessed it … we ended up hiring Bobby V.

So Bill doesn't seem to like the Bobby Valentine signing.

Schur: Here's the glass-half-full view of this: Boston has a ton of great players, and baseball managing isn't about constant moment-to-moment decisions the way basketball or football managing is. Really — and this goes doubly for Boston, or New York, or Philly — it's about keeping the team together and focused over an absurdly long season, and dealing with the constant crush of media types who work 18 hours a day trying to slake the thirst of idiots like us who care very deeply about whether starting Lars Anderson at DH against the Blue Jays in May would give the team a 2 percent better chance to win. I think Valentine is a good choice, given that.

(Bill thinking...backtrack, backtrack, backtrack)

Simmons: I can't decide where I fall on the Bobby V. thing yet.

Bill will let us know how he feels about Valentine after Valentine has won a World Series with the Red Sox or has gotten fired by the Red Sox. Bill should have an opinion after this all plays out on whether Valentine was a good choice as manager or not. I'm sure he'll also have an analogy to compare Valentine's time as Red Sox manager to.

It worries me that so many baseball people ridiculed it, but on the other hand, it's not like he failed miserably at his other two stops.

Other than never having managed a team that has won their division and now he is managing in the toughest division in baseball.

Simmons: We traded our shortstop (Marco Scutaro, the team's most reliable hitter down the stretch) to create cap space to sign Roy Oswalt even though baseball doesn't have a salary cap.

Just a few moments ago Bill was lamenting the excessive spending for luxury players the Red Sox exhibited which led to the signing of Carl Crawford. Now he is mad the Red Sox didn't spend more money to sign an aging pitcher coming off an injury-shortened season.

Simmons: Man, I hope you're right. Having a crappy shortstop is like having a crappy goalie, point guard, field goal kicker or closer. It just haunts you day after day after day.

Of course it does Bill. Here, have a cookie and let Michael Schur speak.

Schur: Well, remember, Pokey Reese played 96 games in 2004, sported a 46 OPS+, and the team won the World Series.

Again, lawyered. Don't bring that "I just thought of this and will throw it out there as a fact even though it isn't" shit in here. Michael Schur will swat it away every time.

Scutaro was a solid player, but he's 36. Baseball Prospectus has him as being worth about a win and a half next year, and there's a decent chance Aviles/Iglesias can match that.

Simmons: Believe me, I'm fine with Iglesias hitting .205 and being a vacuum at short.

Which perfectly explains why Bill was just concerned the Red Sox would start Iglesias or Aviles and have a crappy shortstop...because Bill is so comfortable with Iglesias starting at shortstop.

Simmons: And Crawford had 50 of the 125 worst at-bats I've ever seen a Red Sox player have last year.

This is just stupid and brings nothing to the discussion.

Simmons: Here's the part I don't get — every other team seems to have these live young arms falling out left and right. We spend $175 million a year — where are Boston's versions of Vinnie Pestano, Greg Holland, Addison Reed or whoever? Why don't we ever get lucky with those wacky Grant Balfour/Joel Peralta types?

Because the Red Sox generally don't focus on looking for relievers who have no history of pitching well in the majors, but have exhibited talent and will pitch for cheap. The Red Sox look for Billy Jenks and Scott Schoeneweis. There's nothing wrong with that either, but the Red Sox don't look for unproven relievers who have bounced around a bit like Grant Balfour.

Also, Bill is complaining the Red Sox don't have arms falling right and left, yet the Red Sox have produced Bard, Lester, Buchholz, and Papelbon over the past couple of years. They also have traded some of their best pitchers in the farm system to get guys like Adrian Gonzalez, so you have to factor that in as well. If you are trading for Adrian Gonzalez then it can negatively affect the quality of arms in the farm system. I wouldn't expect Bill to be able to think of things like this though. He wants to trade for Adrian Gonzalez and still have a stocked farm system.

Schur: But as to your other point, the minors have produced Lester, Buchholz, Papelbon, and Bard in recent years, which ain't bad.

Michael Schur made this point...so now Bill has to backtrack quickly.

Simmons: True, but those were high-end blue chippers — I was thinking more about those random 45th-round picks who were former outfielders, get converted to the bullpen and suddenly start throwing 98,

This happens mostly in Bill's mind and doesn't happen very often in real life. Way to create a hyper-specific scenario to make it sound like you knew what you were talking about when confronted with the fact you don't have a point.

(Bill Simmons) "Why don't the Red Sox ever find competent catchers?"

(Michael Schur) "Jason Varitek caught for the Red Sox for years and Victor Martinez was here a few seasons ago."

(Bill Simmons) "True, but those are guys who look like catchers. Why can't the Red Sox find a competent catcher drafted in the 30th round who is 6'4" 200 pounds and hits 30 home runs per year, but also steals 30 bases? Why can't we find those guys?"

(Michael Schur speechless) "Because catchers who meet that hyper-specific scenario are incredibly rare?"

For instance, remember when El Guapo gloriously fell out of the sky in the late '90s? (And caused a 5.5 earthquake when he landed?) We've had bad luck finding those guys. And it seems like it's 100 percent luck. As Boone Logan would tell you.

Boone Logan was drafted in the 20th round and has always been a pitcher. Bill's complaint that the Red Sox don't find 45th round picks, guys who are former outfielders and get converted to the bullpen...well it just hurts my head he is complaining about this.

Simmons: For me, it narrowly edged J.D. Drew's contract officially expiring and Kevin Youkilis proposing to Tom Brady's sister as my favorite highlight of this offseason. It's been a rough winter.

Schur: But I disagree on Drew: He was a good player for the Red Sox. 2011 was kind of a wash, I don't wish that he were back, and he was at times frustrating to watch, but from 2007 to 2010 he was worth the money he was paid, while playing what might be the most difficult RF in baseball.

Challenge him, Bill! Do it!

Simmons: I've heard this argument before. I get it: Statistically, for what he brought to the table offensively and defensively, J.D. Drew was fairly compensated from 2007 to 2010

Sure, statistically J.D. Drew was a good signing, but this one time Bill saw Drew strike out on a called third strike and he didn't like the look on Drew's face so this meant J.D. Drew was a bad signing. So that's Bill's proof that Drew was a bad signing.

as long as you overlooked the part where you needed a quality fourth outfielder to bat against lefties for him, and also as long as you weren't expecting him to be fun to watch on a daily basis.

So as long as you were expecting a good baseball performance from Drew he was a good signing for the Red Sox, but if you watch sports not to watch sports, but as a form of entertainment much like MTV reality shows, J.D. Drew was a disappointment. This says a lot about how Bill Simmons views sports.

Schur: The point is, Drew was not a gigantic mistake. Lackey is (in all likelihood) a different story.

From a sports perspective. But J.D. Drew never smiled, was not fun to watch and there was that one time where he struck out looking. Bill just can't get past that.

Simmons: What do you think of my theory that you should never acquire a player if the fans on his current team are going to make fun of your fans after you get him?

It's stupid.

I really feel like I'm onto something here.

You aren't.

Schur: It's a little like saying you know it's going to rain because your bones ache — but I get the point.

The point Michael Schur gets? That Michael Schur has finally realized he can't discuss sports in a reasonable fashion with a person who is more interested in his half-assed theories being true than actually having an honest discussion.

Simmons: I'm excited for those three weeks before Dice-K's comeback start when I totally talk myself into the whole "He's going to turn it around because Bobby V. speaks Japanese!" thing.

Schur: That seems like tenuous causality at best, but I'm with you.

Again, this is why Bill Simmons doesn't allow comments on his columns. Michael Schur is a television producer/screenwriter and he is wiping the floor with Bill's theories, attempts at finding causality, and making Bill backtrack on dumb statements he has made. Bill is talking about his favorite baseball team. The same baseball team he wrote book on and this book made him a ton of money. This shouldn't be a foreign topic for Bill, but it appears people don't call him on his bullshit quite often. I don't know how he does podcasts with intelligent guests.

Simmons: I'm excited that my expectations aren't ludicrously sky-high like they were last year. ("Ludicrously sky-high" is never a good thing.) I'm excited to watch Red Sox games on my new iPad in various settings — the living room, dinner, the movies, school plays, you name it — without my wife or kids totally realizing it.

(In a Ron Burgundy voice) "I'm not sure if you heard me or not, but I've got an iPad. Yeah, I am pretty up to date on technology and can use that bad boy pretty much anywhere. It's one of those things that are expensive, but I can afford them. As you can see from the oil paintings on the wall and the signed poster of Adam Carola, people know me. If you want, you can touch my iPad, but careful...you will probably want to keep it."

Simmons: You're right. Most of all, I'm excited for us to get smeared in the Boston Globe by the Red Sox owners if they don't like this column.

Schur: You didn't hear it from me, but rumor is, you have a prescription-pill problem.

How are those hockey tickets working out for you, Bill? (checks NHL standings) Oh, the Kings are only on the cusp of making the playoffs? No wonder you haven't written about them very much. No star to hitch that wagon to.

So this was Bill Simmons whining about the Red Sox season before it even began and reminding us all how full of shit he sounds like when getting feedback on his statements from an intelligent Red Sox fan.