I thought he was just going to stop writing and talking about baseball entirely, except for random smears here and there, but now he's really going all out in the war against baseball in general. He's basically a TV critic who goes on occasional junkets to the sets of major TV productions (e.g. the NBA Finals), and baseball is getting worse as a TV show, so that's his point I guess.

I love figuring things out that can’t be fully figured out!

Ummm, Bill, that's not what you are doing here. You are making sh!t up.

This kind of Mickey Mouse ######## is why I have no time for his little turd.

To each his own I guess. Personally I don't know how players like Jon Lester, Adrian Beltre and Kevin Youkilis aren't compelling. Lester has the great personal interest story of bouncing back from cancer, Beltre is the "bargain" veteran with quirks and Youk is the red ass. I mean, if you're looking for Manny/Pedro types well...inner circle Hall of Famers with personality to beat the band are pretty rare.

Ultimately all of these sorts of articles don't exist if the Sox play in a division that doesn't feature two other teams on pace to win over 100 games.

But Clemenza, without that kind of go-getter attitude and commitment to finding patterns where there are no patterns, we would never have learned so many important facts of life. The way the body is governed by the four humors, the way they mirror the four elements of nature, the importance of infantile oedipal and anal urges in molding all aspects of adult psychology, and of course the ability to deduce behavioral traits, intelligence and propensity for various criminal acts with head shape and posture. Not to mention the myriad of eternal truths derived with the strictest scientific rigor through numerology.

"We"...Simmons STFU. You write 1-2 Baseball articles a year. *I* could write a Simmons Baseball article using a random 90120/WWE/Ref his wife-Dad-dead dog generator.

To each his own I guess. Personally I don't know how players like Jon Lester, Adrian Beltre and Kevin Youkilis aren't compelling.

He's been saying that the Sox don't have interesting players every year since he moved to LA. I remember even during the season in 2004(!) he complained that the team didn't have personality - and this was a team that had Manny being Manny, Johnny Damon in peak longhair form, Pedro inexplicably returning to jheri curls after about 9 years without them etc. etc.

The only thing in the world I have to thank Bill Simmons for is that he introduced me to Baseball Primer back when he was writing for Digital Cities Boston. But ever since he complained about the Pats drafting Richard Seymour, I don't read what he writes.

In just the past decade, five franchises lost life-or-death status. Boston in 2004. The White Sox in 2005. St. Louis in 2006. Philly in 2008. And really, the Yankees in 2009

??

St. Louis has the 2cnd most championships in HISTORY. What? Is the life expectancy in St. Louis some 32 years that entire generations have come and gone since 1982? I know East St. Louis is a rough town ,but man..

""We"...Simmons STFU. You write 1-2 Baseball articles a year."

IIRC, his last baseball article was in the spring and it was regarding the statistical revolution; a good article for him. I then mistakingly hoped he would continue to write more GOOD articles throughout the season. But this article serves as a reminder that The Sports Guy has become just another cranky, veteran writer who complains and whines about most stuff.

He's too busy with wife, kids, life, etc., as he says, to WATCH SPORTS!? It's his ####### job! If I were THE SPORTS GUY and had that awesome man cave that he has, and I was paid a ton of money to write about sports, I'd have all the baseball packages (DirectTV, MLB.tv, etc.) and watch as many games each night that I could, flipping back and forth between them. That would especially remedy the "boring" part of baseball and help alleviate the long duration of the games.

And, as THE SPORTS GUY, perhaps he could -- like he has with basketball and the Clippers and, well, most teams -- enjoy following other baseball teams besides the Red Sox. The Cardinals and Reds are in a battle in the NL Central; Twins and White Sox in the AL Central. The Padres, not far from his home, are leading the NL West. But I do remember a previous article where THE SPORTS GUY stated he could not keep up with all the major sports -- he's full coverage with football and basketball (with, of course, extra attention on the Pats and Celtics), but he's JUST the Red Sox when it comes to baseball. BUT THAT'S ######## -- given all the time he spends on fantasy baseball. He likely knows and follows a multitude of players around the league. So write about specific players instead of teams, if you cannot follow teams.

Perhaps ESPN could hire a SPORTS GUY #2 to cover baseball and hockey. Yes, there are dozens of writers already covering these sports, but I mean someone similar in attitude (at least before he had a family and #### YOU money) and style that Simmons has.

I also find it amusing that a guy who writes lengthy columns is ######## about lengthy games. Also, I expect to see a similar article with regards to football -- those are lengthy games as well AND there is less action. But I suppose the dozen replays after each play helps pass the time.

Yes, I realize I'm complaining about complaining. But I like reading The Sports Guy (most if it), and I want him to write enjoyable baseball articles similar to his football and basketball columns.

So I ##### because I care.

I now see his most recent podcast was an interview with Buzz Bissinger. That sounds like a real festival of positivity.

Having RTFA, I come to admit I was somewhat hard on Simmons. But can you blame me given the headline and the first 10%? The last 75% is a good assessment (with some occasional bonehead statements)* of why NESN ratings are down. I particularly like the attention to game lengths.

*I mean c'mon...you really want to ditch the DH to make the game more exciting? Nothing screams excitement like pitching around the 8-hole or even giving him an IBB to get to the pitcher.

I too found the length and boring nature of this column (which I gave up on mid-way thru) to be quite ironic considering for how much of it he is complaining about the length and boring nature of MLB games.

I keep saying this, but if you dont think the 2010 Red Sox are interesting and compelling, than you havent been paying attention and I have no use for you. You dont like baseball, dont pretend you do. Go watch a game show.

And I like Simmons, generally.

I think, however, that most would be better writers/workers/performers/etc. when they're single, striving to excel and to "make it" in their profession than when they're married, have two kids, live in a big house that likely requires attention and care (or, at least, one finding and hiring others to attend and care for the house), and perhaps become bored with the day-to-day work and research required to maintain one's excellence that propelled them into their current position.

The man does podcasts now, has a Twitter account, attends more events live in person, and produced the "30 for 30" documentaries. His columns, while his bread and butter, appear to be an afterthought these days relative to everything else in his life.

I don't think I've ever said this before...but I agree with Diapers.

I think, however, that most would be better writers/workers/performers/etc. when they're single, striving to excel and to "make it" in their profession than when they're married, have two kids, live in a big house that likely requires attention and care (or, at least, one finding and hiring others to attend and care for the house), and perhaps become bored with the day-to-day work and research required to maintain one's excellence that propelled them into their current position.

What research was Simmons doing besides playing video games and watching reruns of 90210 and Karate Kid?

He's not a baseball fan, or at least not to the level where we should expect him to write anything worth reading about the sport. He can try to pretend it every once in a while, like when he decides how he's finally gotten into statistical analysis (after declaring it one of the reasons he was losing interest in the sport). But he's not.

I'm usually on here defending Simmons, but I cannot defend him for this. This is garbage.

I have hammered on Simmons incessantly, but I don't see this column as being all that bad. Red Sox TV ratings are down; Simmons is speculating about the reasons for it. Also, he attributed "55%" to games being too long, which, is something that has been discussed here as nauseum.

Certainly, he is projecting here, but I don't see this as an awful column.

The man does podcasts now, has a Twitter account, attends more events live in person, and produced the "30 for 30" documentaries. His columns, while his bread and butter, appear to be an afterthought these days relative to everything else in his life.

Correct. Also, recall that he just published an 700-page bestseller on the NBA that took him three years to write.

He's not a baseball fan, or at least not to the level where we should expect him to write anything worth reading about the sport. He can try to pretend it every once in a while, like when he decides how he's finally gotten into statistical analysis (after declaring it one of the reasons he was losing interest in the sport). But he's not.

Most of the die-hard core people who frequent this web site would rather discuss just about anything other than baseball, so why would we expect him to be any different? The sport is obviously just not all that interesting on a day-to-day basis to the average person.

This was garbage, and I'm usually a fan of Simmons. I only made it about half way through, it was just too much. If Boston didn't have all the injuries, then there would be no problem with the pitching/defense based team and no reason to write this nonsense.

If none of Kevin Youkilis, Adrian Beltre, David Ortiz, Daniel Nava, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, or Clay Buchholz fit your definition of "compelling," than what the hell are you compelled by, dillweed?

But Clemenza, without that kind of go-getter attitude and commitment to finding patterns where there are no patterns, we would never have learned so many important facts of life. The way the body is governed by the four humors, the way they mirror the four elements of nature, the importance of infantile oedipal and anal urges in molding all aspects of adult psychology, and of course the ability to deduce behavioral traits, intelligence and propensity for various criminal acts with head shape and posture. Not to mention the myriad of eternal truths derived with the strictest scientific rigor through numerology.

Please tell me you're not suggesting that disproven scientific hypotheses are wastes of time.

Exactly, Hokineer. You have to assume some emotional detachment when half the team's on the DL. Who the hell wants to devote 3 hours to watching McD, Patterson, Hermida, Hall, Cash and Cameron's hernia pretend to be ballplayers? But anyone who believes Beckett, Lester, Youkilis, Ellsbury, Pedroia, Papelbon and Beltre are not compelling players is being disingenuous; they're just whining about the team's misfortunes.

Bill clearly doesn't know a ton about baseball. He doesn't seem to particularly like baseball a lot. What I DO think he likes, or used to like, was the culture of Red Sox fandom. The die hard devotion and suffering of people like his Dad and probably most New England sports fans from the time he was growing up (I'm not old enough to know for sure, but it seems to me that, with the extensive marketing and television exposure of today, the "casual fan" is kind of a recent phenomenon, especially for a sports-heavy market like Boston).

That's gone now, and if that was your reason for being fascinated with the Red Sox in the first place, then I can absolutely see why you'd find them boring. I still like the guy's basketball writing.

"Correct. Also, recall that he just published an 700-page bestseller on the NBA that took him three years to write."

Yes, yes! I knew I was forgetting something. But again, his columns are now apparently last on the priority list. I did really enjoy his past two books and look forward to future ones. But perhaps he should resign himself (if he has not already done so) to one weekly Friday column -- football from August through January, then basketball from February through June. He can then deride baseball in July.

It's too bad he abandoned his Sports Guy's World blog and the sports movie reviews. His Twitter effort is no match to the former, and several good sports flicks were untouched with the latter.

I am always amazed at the break-down of comments in a Bill Simmons/Sports Guy thread:

I never read him, ever and I would swear to that on a stack on Historical Abstracts;
I read him once and stopped halfway through;
I only read him occasionally;
His shtick is old (but I still read him - that's unspoken);
He knows basketball and football but hates baseball;
I read him in the Digital Cities day but once he became popular I went off to find a new obscure author/columnist to keep my street cred;
I read him, but my expectations are low - it's a good way to waste a lunch hour;

Is this a requirement in a Simmons thread? Is this akin to me having to avow my unadulterated love of Yo La Tengo on music sites lest they tar and feather me (and yes, I do lie about that, but being a Felt fan doesn't go as far)?

RE: game lengths

I think the more appropriate and realistic way to shorten games is in the culture of the players- specifically the pitchers. Cuddyer Mak'er mentioned upthread that games used to be faster under the same rules, and it's a good point. The Twins average game length is 2:46, which is about 20 minutes faster than the Red Sox. If the league averaged about 2:46, I think a lot of the complaints would go away.

What do the Twins do differently? They are still patient hitters- Mauer, Morneau, Span, Thome, Hudson and Punto all see their fair share of pitches and offset the more aggressive minority of Young, Hardy, Cuddyer. As far as I can tell, they spend as much time out of the batters box and fastening their batting gloves as the average team. I think the biggest difference is that they throw strikes.

Games have slowed down at least in part because teams (namely pitchers, catchers, managers, and pitching coaches) seem to believe that there is a competitive advantage in "nibbling." As homeruns became more common than ever, pitchers had more of an incentive to avoid the plate. Walks went up and games got longer. Homeruns have regressed in the last few years and the Twins are one of the teams most prone to attacking the strike zone (fewest walks in the league). They seem to believe that the increased likelihood of a HR on a pitch left over the plate is offset by the decreased likelihood of a walk, and they have had some success with that theory. If other teams come to embrace the idea that throwing strikes is more of a competitive advantage than nibbling, I think it would speed up games enough to make this issue quiet down substantially, if not disappear altogether.

Incidentally, it's interesting that this column comes from a Red Sox fan who watches the team that probably nibbles the most of any in the league.

"Bill clearly doesn't know a ton about baseball. He doesn't seem to particularly like baseball a lot."

I disagree. I think he knows plenty AND likes/liked/loves/loved baseball. Perhaps not as much as football and basketball, though.

Is this a requirement in a Simmons thread? Is this akin to me having to avow my unadulterated love of Yo La Tengo on music sites lest they tar and feather me (and yes, I do lie about that, but being a Felt fan doesn't

Never heard em. No, really.

@ 28 -- That's a pretty good breakdown. Personally I enjoy his basketball columns but his baseball stuff is mostly ####. Nothing says entitled assholery like complaining about the Red Sawx being boring. You have had two championships, Manny Ramirez, Pedro, Youk, etc in the past 10 years. You have perhaps the best GM in the game. Yea it's too bad you're in the toughest division in major sports, but tough titties you're a Boston sports fan -- suck it up, you guys have had a very good ####### decade.

Also, Bill, if on the odd chance you're reading this: don't put so much stock into single year UZR scores.

Lighten up, Francises. To death and taxes among the certainties in life, we can add the sneering reaction of the BTF community to the outrage of being forced (forced, mind you) to read a Simmons piece about baseball.

Double post.

??

St. Louis has the 2cnd most championships in HISTORY. What? Is the life expectancy in St. Louis some 32 years that entire generations have come and gone since 1982? I know East St. Louis is a rough town ,but man..

Pretty much the same thing for Philly (there's not THAT much of a difference between waiting 24 years between titles and waiting 28 years between titles).

I think we dissect Simmons so thoroughly whenever he pops up is because a) he is a very, very good writer, clearly intelligent, and funny and engaging while b) also using some mindblowingly ridiculous reasoning to back his arguments sometimes.

Especially since most of those mindblowingly ridiculous arguments come from his baseball columns.

Aw, a Yo La Tengo reference! I love Yo La Tengo. I actually had a theory for a while that Repoz was secretly Ira Kaplan. (I was inevitably disappointed.)

Baseball & DVR
I've had a DVR for about two years and here is my observation. I am absolutely in love with watching NFL on the DVR because of the 40-second play clock. My DVR has a 30-second skip ahead button. After each NFL play, I skip ahead 30 seconds and almost always the teams are back at the line of scrimmage and the next play is about to commence. This allows me to watch every second of NFL action in about 45 minutes to an hour, including pausing occasionally to study formations or take a bathroom break.

Unfortunately, this same technique doesn't work at all with baseball. Pitchers take what? 15-25 seconds between pitches, so when I skip ahead I miss the next pitch. Traditional fast-forwarding is too tricky. It really doesn't work at all.

As I go more ADD along with the rest of the developed world, due to electronic distractions ad naeseum, I find it harder and harder to watch a baseball game. That's my 2 cents. I understand I'm about as casual of a baseball fan as you find on BTF, but I'm just observing that I watch less baseball than I did 3 years ago.

I guess after reading my own comment on #38, what I'm saying is Bud Selig should petition DVR manufacturers for a 15 second skip ahead button.

"Bill clearly doesn't know a ton about baseball. He doesn't seem to particularly like baseball a lot."

I disagree. I think he knows plenty AND likes/liked/loves/loved baseball. Perhaps not as much as football and basketball, though.

Duly noted, but I think this part,

"It's been the elephant in the room for three years. Do I care as much as I did? I think about this question constantly. The short answer? No. It can't mean as much. It will never mean as much. Before 2004, rooting for the Red Sox wasn't about just sports. It was about mortality. It was about a ticking clock that only we could hear. It was about exchanges like this:

"Jimmy's dad died last weekend."
"That's terrible! How old was he?"
"Sixty-five."

... and how you'd immediately add 1918 plus 65 and realize, "Crap." "

kind of confirms what I was saying. I think he was always more interested in Red Sox fans and the culture of New England sports fans (literally) living and dying with the Sox than he ever was with baseball itself (and, by extension, actual Red Sox baseball games).

Also, people sit around on Sundays with their friends drinking beer and eating junk food while watching football games. If it became a cultural norm to revolve leisure time around a Sunday baseball game, we might have more positive associations with the game watching generally and the length in particular.

I guess after reading my own comment on #38, what I'm saying is Bud Selig should petition DVR manufacturers for a 15 second skip ahead button.

My Verizon FiOS allows me to change the setting to a 10 second skip ahead button. You may want to see if you already have that option.

As I go more ADD along with the rest of the developed world, due to electronic distractions ad naeseum, I find it harder and harder to watch a baseball game. That's my 2 cents. I understand I'm about as casual of a baseball fan as you find on BTF, but I'm just observing that I watch less baseball than I did 3 years ago.

If the general pace of the games continues to slow down the way it has in the last few years, I think the next commissioner is going to have no choice but to address this issue somehow. Either umpires are going to have to be pressured not to grant timeouts, or some new rules are going to have to be passed to address the various slowdowns. Today's generation of youth just isn't going to sit around for games that routinely last four hours.

Yes, I realize I'm complaining about complaining.

So can I complain about everybody else complaining about Bill's complaining?

As I go more ADD along with the rest of the developed world, due to electronic distractions ad naeseum, I find it harder and harder to watch a baseball game.

I must admit when watching a game on the computer, between *pitchs* even, I'm checking my fantasy team, talking in a game thread on Survivinggrady, looking at FB...etc...

I still don't get bored at a game though and wouldn't think of bringing a phone with me.

"So can I complain about everybody else complaining about Bill's complaining?"

If you're campaigning to complain about complaining about complaining, I'll plainly maintain the bane of my BTF brain is the disdain that remains amid the sane comments instead of waning away. But I'll gladly accept some cheese with my Champagne as I ride this complain train and hope my comments are not in vain.

Or something like that.

It’s the first Red Sox team without a truly compelling player since 1993—when we went 80-82—and even then, we had a young Mo Vaughn (29 homers, .915 OPS) and Roger Clemens launching his loathsome “I just got paid, I’m gonna start puttin’ on weight, I haven’t been introduced to performance-enhancing drugs yet and this will all culminate with me pitchin’ hard for three months three years from now, signin’ with Toronto, ‘roided up (allegedly) and winnin’ two straight Cy Youngs, then joinin’ the Yankees so I can win myself some cheap rings” stretch in which he was realizing himself as a selfish (word I can’t print), only nobody wanted to admit it yet.

That reads as if it were written by the rolling boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Only not as good.

"I must admit when watching a game on the computer, between *pitchs* even, I'm checking my fantasy team, talking in a game thread on Survivinggrady, looking at FB...etc...

I still don't get bored at a game though and wouldn't think of bringing a phone with me."

Concur. Rarely bored in person at a game, and for a regular season game on TV, I'll always be doing something else -- baseball games seem to be the perfect background distraction/entertainment. I can still listen, follow along, like I'm listening to the radio, but then attend to the visual action when needed. Playoff games are especially enjoyable when I can also be chatting on IRC with other Primates.

Pretty much the same thing for Philly (there's not THAT much of a difference between waiting 24 years between titles and waiting 28 years between titles).

As a Philly fan, I can tell you the difference is that the 2008 WS victory wasn't so much about the Phillies as it was about pro sports in Philly in general. It had been 25 years since *any* title had been won in Philly. So for many of us, it had felt like generations since any title had been won. At the time the Phillies won the WS, no city with a team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB had gone longer without a championship.

Much as Repoz agreed with diapers, I agree with the talking moose.

2008 was after a long period in which both the Eagles and Sixers came very close to a champsionship year after year and never made it.

I have hammered on Simmons incessantly, but I don't see this column as being all that bad. Red Sox TV ratings are down; Simmons is speculating about the reasons for it. Also, he attributed "55%" to games being too long, which, is something that has been discussed here as nauseum.

Certainly, he is projecting here, but I don't see this as an awful column.

This. Simmons is 40ish, focuses most of his baseball time on the local nine, and thinks games are too long. There's ... what, ten million? ... guys just like him.

I disagree. I think he knows plenty AND likes/liked/loves/loved baseball. Perhaps not as much as football and basketball, though.

If you like football and basketball better, you're just not a real baseball fan, certainly not in the context of all of us here.

You also have poor judgement in Sports (especially in re NBA Basketball, jeesh, what an abortion of a sport), but of course that's just my opinion.

If you like football and basketball better, you're just not a real baseball fan, certainly not in the context of all of us here.

Football and basketball have always been more national sports than baseball and never as much as now when, as postseason TV ratings make clear, millions upon millions of baseball fans tune out once their team's season ends and discrepancies in local interest are the primary driver of the game's economics. The idea that Simmons isn't a "baseball fan" because he's "only a Red Sox fan" doesn't ring true at all.

TUQUE!!!!!! Posted: July 30, 2010 at 12:13 PM (#3603624)

If none of Kevin Youkilis, Adrian Beltre, David Ortiz, Daniel Nava, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, or Clay Buchholz fit your definition of "compelling," than what the hell are you compelled by, dillweed?

- i bet youse guys would be compelled if all the baseball players looked like jenny finch and beyonce

baseball games drag MUCH more on tv than at the ballpark - mostly because the tv games spend a ridiculous amount of time on people in the stands, watching manager X picxk his nose, player x scratch his whatever

I don't understand how people are bored during a regular season game where their team is playing. I feel like I'm on pins and needles all the time during a close Rangers game, regardless of opponent. Hell, I feel kind of like that while watching divisional rivals that we're battling with in the standings.

Other games, I suppose I can see the attitude.

Football and basketball have always been more national sports than baseball and never as much as now when, as postseason TV ratings make clear, millions upon millions of baseball fans tune out once their team's season ends and discrepancies in local interest are the primary driver of the game's economics. The idea that Simmons isn't a "baseball fan" because he's "only a Red Sox fan" doesn't ring true at all.

That's may be true, but I'd rather watch the Yankees play Cleveland on a Wednesday in July on TV than go to the NBA Finals, in person, with Spike Lee seats.

If he was a Red Sox fan like I'm a Yankee fan, he'd follow the sport, and wouldn't be bored by it.

The die hard devotion and suffering of people like his Dad and probably most New England sports fans from the time he was growing up (I'm not old enough to know for sure, but it seems to me that, with the extensive marketing and television exposure of today, the "casual fan" is kind of a recent phenomenon, especially for a sports-heavy market like Boston).

That's gone now, and if that was your reason for being fascinated with the Red Sox in the first place, then I can absolutely see why you'd find them boring. I still like the guy's basketball writing.

__

I think this is a lot of it--he even talks about "the hangover" in the column. I did not become familiar with his work until some Celtics fans I work with sent me his post-NBA Finals columns in 2008 and 2009. I went back and read some stuff, and then bought The Book of Basketball. Simmons has some talent as a writer, and is capable of being analytical when he wants to be. But one thing about him that jumps out: his main subject is, in a way, always himself. He is intensely self-reflexive, so I think zoooook nails it up there in #26. The "special" part of being a Boston Red Sox fan is mostly gone now. For the kinds of Boston fans that come here, that stuff doesn't matter. What matters is baseball and the Red Sox winning games. For Simmons, the "special" stuff DID matter.

Also, I agree with Damon Rutherford and would add that Simmons is a careerist who looks ahead. He was one of the first sportswriters to see the commercial potential of the net, and now he is seeing the new angles--TV production, PodCasts etc. Columns are so 2003.

6-1 game top of the 8th and it has taken 3 interminable hours to get this far. Watching Red Sox games has become a chore.