What a douche.

What a douche.

Yes. Pearlman sucks. That ####### should blow me.

Pearlman's younger than I am and he's already retreated to "WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND THINGS WERE GOOD" mode.

Depressing.

i'm turning 30 this summer and this column makes me feel like i'm turning 18. thank you jeff.

Really, I still love the games. But just as church has damned religion, corporate greed has damned sports.

Oy.

Do I hate Jeff Pearlman's columns?

YES

One great thing about the ESPN style of game commentary - and a thing that most local broadcasters (who I, in general, consider to be, smug, chummy and annoying) still haven't figured out - is that they don't tell you who won the game, they show it to you.

Your local doofus will say, "Hahaha, that's right Nancy. It was quite a game. And the Giants pulled it out! We pick it up in the 8th inning..."

The ESPN guy will not actually tell you who won until you see the highlight of the victory taking place. This creates a little tension, and a narrative.

I'm not sure why I'm bringing it up, I find the ESPN characters loathsome for the same reasons that Pearlman does, but local news guys are not an improvement for me.

7. ntr Jeff Pearlman Posted: July 03, 2009 at 02:50 AM (#3241219)

Do I hate sports? Very well, then, I hate sports. I am small, I contain simplitudes.

1. I thought Pearlman had already publicly admitted he hated sports. Maybe that was just baseball.

2. It's Sal Marchiano.

3. I loved the pre-e-mail era of column writing, when letters to the editor were reasoned and thought-out. I sincerely doubt this was ever true. In fact, I doubt he even believes it's true. He just wants to ##### about something.

Eat a dick.

4. I don't want to ever imagine Pearlman speaking through Whitman's mouth. or the other way around, whichever.

This guy is a douche, too.

...I loved the pre-e-mail era of column writing, when letters to the editor were reasoned and thought-out.I hate the modern, “Your column on the Yankees sucked!!! Blow me, #######!!” reaction to sportswriting

This is ludicrous. Those types of letters to the editor existed long before email -- long before sports pages for that matter.

Those types of letters to the editor existed long before email -- long before sports pages for that matter.

CAESAR CAN GO FVK A DVCK.

SINCERELY, BRVTVS

The ESPN guy will not actually tell you who won until you see the highlight of the victory taking place. This creates a little tension, and a narrative.

I feel the exact opposite. I don't turn on ESPN for tension and narrative. I turn it on to find out who won, the sooner I find out the better.

When I want tension and narrative, I watch the actual game.

Primey for #12. RDF.

(exits dugout, waves cap at adoring fans)

We pick it up in the 8th inning...

that is exactly how ESPN treats every ball club, not in a major market.

Nobody that truly hates Stuart Scott can be all bad.

"I feel the exact opposite. I don't turn on ESPN for tension and narrative. I turn it on to find out who won, the sooner I find out the better."

Why wouldn't you just use the internet? Who watches TV to learn?


Anyway, Pearlman is and will always be a piece of ####. He doesn't hate sports nearly as much as he hates athletes, and he doesn't hate athletes nearly as much as he hates fans for not hating all of the twelve million random athletes who have offended his delicate racist sensibilities.

This is ludicrous. Those types of letters to the editor existed long before email -- long before sports pages for that matter.

Yep. You know what the difference really is? They print them all now. I'm sure there's way more overall, but I'm also just as positive that the percentage of well-written and thought out missives is higher, too. But for some reason every newspaper that bemoans stupid people who make comments lets any halfwit ####### get printed on the website. (And then they let the public comment! hyuk hyuk)

I feel the exact opposite. I don't turn on ESPN for tension and narrative. I turn it on to find out who won, the sooner I find out the better.

That's what ESPNews is for. Sportscenter is a show.

That's what ESPNews is for. Sportscenter is a show.

Even ESPNews shows only 2-3 highlights per game. They need more time for the NBA.

Anyway, Pearlman is and will always be a piece of ####. He doesn't hate sports nearly as much as he hates athletes, and he doesn't hate athletes nearly as much as he hates fans for not hating all of the twelve million random athletes who have offended his delicate racist sensibilities.

Jeez, is Pearlman the fucking Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? What exactly did he write here to warrant that little bit of character assassination?

I believe Ben's thing is very personal. Cuban father/Pearlman denigrates Cubans, IIRC?

He may hate sports and hate athletes and be a racist, but I don't know that I really disagree with him all that much on this piece. It probably isn't anything more than I'm growing older and am less naive than I am now so I no longer have this few of sports and sports heroes as this larger than life, pure, beautiful thing. I must confess, I miss that as I miss many things from childhood. What I do have is a greater sense of history and some knowledge of what it takes to do a difficult thing well. My respect and admiration for athletes is still there, but it is of a different form than it was when I was 12. One's world view necessarily changes as one grows up. I think a lot of the curmudgeonly types simply can't deal with the loss of their childhood point of view. As I say, I sympathize. I would imagine that having the opportunity to go backstage at athletic events would exaggerate this change.

Funny how all his examples of "loving" sports don't have anything to do with any actual sport being played, and instead are about the "characters," or the TV commentary, or the reporting...

Does he even know what sports are?

Their need to be the story will never feel right with me. Never.

I think it is ironic that Swineman can't see himself at all in this sentence.

Can we ever get a Pearlman story without the personal attacks? At this stage it feels like piling on. Either ban anyone from posting a Pearlman thread or lets assume that most people here think poorly of him. At this stage I don't know if the story is bad or if posters here are just front running the Pearlman attacks.

Thumbs up for #7.

Can we ever get a Pearlman story without the personal attacks? At this stage it feels like piling on. Either ban anyone from posting a Pearlman thread or lets assume that most people here think poorly of him. At this stage I don't know if the story is bad or if posters here are just front running the Pearlman attacks.

That's cool, Jeff. I understand. But answer me this--has Swineman EVER written a story that did not contain personal attacks?

Funny how all his examples of "loving" sports don't have anything to do with any actual sport being played, and instead are about the "characters," or the TV commentary, or the reporting...

This was what struck me, too. There's no mention of any specific sport or anything about the actual playing of the games mentioned in the excerpt quoted here. One's opinions of Joe Charbonneau's parlor tricks don't actually tell us anything about one's opinion of baseball - hell, I'd guess that 75% of the people who read that sentence couldn't tell you what sport Joe Charbonneau even played.

Funny how all his examples of "loving" sports don't have anything to do with any actual sport being played, and instead are about the "characters," or the TV commentary, or the reporting...

Does he even know what sports are?

This is probably about the only Pearlman column I've ever read, so everything that's been said about him here may well be true. But I can totally see where he's coming from in this article, even if I disagree with a specific case or two or two that he cites. (I love interleague play, for example.)

The point is certainly not that he "hates sports," or that he doesn't "know what sports are." It's that "sports" consists---or should consist---of the game on the field, meaning the competition. That's certainly what I think of as "sports," and I'm not sure just why detesting Chris Berman, or players charging for their autographs, means that you "hate sports," any more than if you detest a particular politician it means that you "hate America."

It's perfectly possible to love sports and love many of the loudmouth braggarts who are part of the picture. I love plenty of them myself, at least as long as they know it's all bullshlt and don't take themselves too seriously. And I suppose it's even possible to love building stadiums with public money that include $5000 luxury boxes that are tax deductible. But it's also equally possible to love sports and detest the practice of using every last opportunity to promote yourself or squeeze another buck out of the fan. And it's also possible to love sports and go along with some of the extraneous bullshlt but not all of it, which is probably where most of us fall in.

Can we ever get a Pearlman story without the personal attacks? At this stage it feels like piling on. Either ban anyone from posting a Pearlman thread or lets assume that most people here think poorly of him. At this stage I don't know if the story is bad or if posters here are just front running the Pearlman attacks.

I think the people who do most of the work posting articles here have a system by which articles by, or about, certain known whipping boys are constantly posted, in the hopes that attracting a few dozen people to become angry at said whipping boys in a predictable way in the unreadable threads about Jeff Pearlman, Selena Roberts, Murray Chass, Jeff Francoeur, Tommy Lasorda, etc. will then lead to a critical mass of engaged and interested people who will then post on more interesting threads.

It seems to actually work pretty well, and it's hard to complain too much about the decisions made by the people who, after all, do most of the work posting articles at a site we like very much.

Is Joe Charboneau the guy who made money growing up by fighting hobos in box cars? I seem to remember reading something about that, but maybe it wasn't him (iirc, he was the original "Super Joe", before McEwing).

Is Joe Charboneau the guy who made money growing up by fighting hobos in box cars?

God, I hope so.

I think the people who do most of the work posting articles here have a system by which articles by, or about, certain known whipping boys are constantly posted, in the hopes that attracting a few dozen people to become angry at said whipping boys in a predictable way in the unreadable threads about Jeff Pearlman, Selena Roberts, Murray Chass, Jeff Francoeur, Tommy Lasorda, etc. will then lead to a critical mass of engaged and interested people who will then post on more interesting threads.

It seems to actually work pretty well, and it's hard to complain too much about the decisions made by the people who, after all, do most of the work posting articles at a site we like very much.

Like Boras and Fehr, it's what they do. Strictly business.

Is Joe Charboneau the guy who made money growing up by fighting hobos in box cars?

Moe: Okay, you're fighting a guy named Boxcar Bob.

Homer: Brawled his way up from the boxcars, did he?

Moe: Uh, no, not yet, he still lives at the trainyard. But he's a
hungry young fighter. In fact, he's actually fighting for a
sandwich.

I was completely unfamiliar with this guy Pearlman until this spate of links to his swill in the last few weeks--and, by a strange coincidence (or, as Michael Kay would say, "ironically") while I was driving up I95 last week, I heard him being interviewed on a local sports talk show in Richmond, and, as bad as his writing is, he's even worser in person, so to speak

a nasty, supercilious, arrogant asshat

Wasn't Pearlman the guy who broke the "John Rocker is a huge dick" story?

He wrote "The Bad Guys Won!" I liked that book despite its lack of rigorous statistical evidence for its claims.

Wasn't Pearlman the guy who broke the "John Rocker is a huge dick" story?

Yes. That's how he made a name for himself. And ever since, he has figured the way to keep himself a household name is to try to take down other athletes.

Well, in fairness, they often don't make his job too difficult.

I'm not sure just why detesting Chris Berman, or players charging for their autographs, means that you "hate sports," any more than if you detest a particular politician it means that you "hate America."

You missed an earlier thread in which Pearlman said something like, "I haven't enjoyed watching sports in 15 years."

Basically, the guy despises almost everything about the world he has chosen to operate in. He should either get a new job or STFU, but I think he legitimately gets a kick out of constantly btching and telling himself that he's above all of it.

He's similar to Rick Reilly in a way. They are both actively admit that they dislike the sports they cover and are only attracted to stories about characters or controversy or other non-playing field stuff. The difference is that Reilly has turned into a buffoonish caricature of a respected elder columnist, specializing in sanctimoniousness and human interest schlock, whereas Pearlman is himself basically just a professional version of the "Blow me, #######!!" troglodytes he is deriding.

OK, I get it. I guess my instincts in avoiding Pearlman (and Reilly) up to now were pretty good.

BTF: Now that you've been away from writing baseball - have your feelings changed about the game?

JP: Not really. I still love baseball as a sport, and there remain several players who I really liked during my days at SI. But the game is disappointing, from an ethical standpoint. The steroids issue is ridiculous.

BTF: The Internet, with sites like this one and other team-specific Weblogs, and the impact of the book Moneyball seem to have changed how some folks view the game. If you had to pick a side, where do you think you’d come down - old school or new school, scouts or numbers?

JP: I'm 100% old school. The A's haven't succeeded in the playoffs, and with good reason. They're built out of stats, not heart and clutch abilities. I loooove shooting the breeze with the scouts, hearing how they think and tick. Were I a GM, they're the guys I'd turn to. Not MITers.

From our 2004 Interview with Pearlman...

Stink...

If Swineman continues at his current pace, is there a chance he'll eventually have as much toxic bile collected in the pit of his stomach as Dick Young did? Young is a bit before my time, so I need some expert input from our more experienced posters.

He's similar to Rick Reilly in a way. They are both actively admit that they dislike the sports they cover and are only attracted to stories about characters or controversy or other non-playing field stuff.

Hence the Joe Charboneau stuff. Who really gives a crap whether he opened bottles with his eye socket? He was a bad baseball player, and that's all that matters. If I want personalities, I'll go to the bar down the street.

It's not just Reilly and Pearlman - I think most sportswriters today act more like celebrity gossip columnists than anything else.

The very best sportswriters understand that, whether or not they want it to be, what people really want to hear about is what happened, what is happening, or what is going to happen on the field. Listen to a sports talk radio show - the hosts might want to talk about who Alex Rodriguez is #######, but they get a lot more callers when they talk about what's going to happen with the Yankee bullpen. The fans really care about sports, not the personalities surrounding the sports. If you don't want to talk about the Yankee bullpen or the Nets backcourt or the Jets offensive line, find a different job.

Reilly does love golf, and seems to be semi-tolerable when talking about or writing about golf. Pearlman is just a douche on every subject with the same smarmy point of view. His inferiority complex to athletes is off the charts ridiculous.

the hosts might want to talk about who Alex Rodriguez is #######, but the shows that get the most callers are when they talk about what's going to happen with the Yankee bullpen. The fans really care about sports, not the personalities surrounding the sports.

I want to think that this is the truth but it's difficult to evaluate for me. It seems like the talk radio hosts that actually like to talk about sports are rare. And they know what motivates callers more than I do, so when they spend their 9,000th hour on T.O.'s contract dispute, they might know what they're doing.

The very best sportswriters understand that, whether or not they want it to be, what people really want to hear about is what happened, what is happening, or what is going to happen on the field. Listen to a sports talk radio show - the hosts might want to talk about who Alex Rodriguez is #######, but they get a lot more callers when they talk about what's going to happen with the Yankee bullpen. The fans really care about sports, not the personalities surrounding the sports. If you don't want to talk about the Yankee bullpen or the Nets backcourt or the Jets offensive line, find a different job.

The problem with this is that "sports" fans aren't really one cohesive group. The "real" sports fans of course fall into the category that you're talking about, but the problem is that there aren't enought "real" sports fans to fill the stadiums and / or pump up the ratings. Hence all the bullshlt that creeps into the woodwork along with the games, in order to attract the sacred "casual fan."

I want to think that this is the truth but it's difficult to evaluate for me. It seems like the talk radio hosts that actually like to talk about sports are rare. And they know what motivates callers more than I do, so when they spend their 9,000th hour on T.O.'s contract dispute, they might know what they're doing.

Case in point, Phil Wood, who knows more about baseball than practically any talk show host who ever lived, and yet can't buy a regular time slot on WTEM, as opposed to some chowderhead like Cowherd. That's just the way sports is these days. The true test would be if you could find someone like Bill James and teach him how to scream at the top of his lungs and be able to give his opinions on American Idol, like Kornheiser. I wonder how that sort of combination might work on PTI?

I think most sportswriters today act more like celebrity gossip columnists than anything else.

Totally agree. I am torn however on whether it's because they don't like the sports they cover or because they just don't know very much about them. Usually, as it relates to media, I assume ignorance is the culprit.

The true test would be if you could find someone like Bill James and teach him how to scream at the top of his lungs and be able to give his opinions on American Idol, like Kornheiser. I wonder how that sort of combination might work on PTI?

Say what you want about him, but Bill Simmons knows more about the NBA and is more curious and open-minded about it than almost anyone. However because of his Kornheiser/Cowherd-like talents, they employ him not as an NBA writer but as somebody who pontificates about things he knows nothing about just like them.

A lot of the ESPN talking-heads seem to really prefer one particular sport, but because TV prioritize the personality over the content, once TV hits upon a charismatic personality they make him a general-purpose pundit. I think it was Brian Kenny who went from SportsCenter to doing boxing full-time, partially because he was sick of talking about NASCAR and NFL.

"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."

What a whiner.
That sentence is the definitive whiner sentence.
AND it has CERTAINLY BEEN WRITTEN AD LIBITUM BY SOME SAP SINCE SPORTS 'JOURNALISM' WAS, YOU KNOW, INVENTED

"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."
- Joe Proser, Cincinatti Herald, 1869
"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."
- Ed Betsings, Chicago World, 1919
"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."
- Jeremy Bigott, Charleston Roundtable, 1947
"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."
- Ken Mantless, NY Bugle, 1961

The writer grew up, and that wonderful boyhood naive view got all ruined by adult awareness. Pity party.

The closest to a Platonic ideal combination of personality and knowledge I can think of is John Thompson, and it comes with the bonus that he's able to corral the sort of interviews that few other talk jocks can. But OTOH his serious knowledge is pretty much limited to basketball, and he'd never be able to perform on the clown level to the extent that the TV buffoons are required to do.

"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."

What a whiner.
That sentence is the definitive whiner sentence.

So IOW if you don't simply adore modern sports marketing and all the attendant bullshlt, you must hate sports? What exactly are you trying to say, beyond the fact that Pearlman himself is a d-bag?

"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."

What a whiner.
That sentence is the definitive whiner sentence.
AND it has CERTAINLY BEEN WRITTEN AD LIBITUM BY SOME SAP SINCE SPORTS 'JOURNALISM' WAS, YOU KNOW, INVENTED

Precisely. And the broader equivalent is: "Kids these days don't know how to behave."

hey Andy - Steve got the jist of it.

If a writer is going to take a swipe at the celebrity-ego culture of ESPN's hosts they might reconsider beginning 90% of their sentences with "I".

If a writer is going to take a swipe at the celebrity-ego culture of ESPN's hosts they might reconsider beginning 90% of their sentences with "I".

Seems you should take your own advice...

Why wouldn't you just use the internet?

Because I don't yet have a computer welded to my forehead.

That's what ESPNews is for.

Where it's carried.

Sportscenter is a show.

It has always been a show. Once upon a time, it was a useful show.

The closest to a Platonic ideal combination of personality and knowledge I can think of is John Thompson, and it comes with the bonus that he's able to corral the sort of interviews that few other talk jocks can.

The older, or the younger? If the younger, I don't know all that terribly much about him, but what little I've seen of him I like or don't mind. The older? I pretty much can't ####### stand that guy, and I know I'm not alone. Now perhaps his persona/personality while he was a coach (both while coaching and off the court) isn't the same as whatever it is now. I'll leave open that possibility, but damn that man got under my skin with just about every single thing he said that wasn't game related.

In Soviet Russia, sports hate Jeff Pearlman.

This suggests that life behind the Iron Curtain couldn't be all that unjust.

The closest to a Platonic ideal combination of personality and knowledge I can think of is John Thompson, and it comes with the bonus that he's able to corral the sort of interviews that few other talk jocks can.

The older, or the younger? If the younger, I don't know all that terribly much about him, but what little I've seen of him I like or don't mind. The older? I pretty much can't ####### stand that guy, and I know I'm not alone. Now perhaps his persona/personality while he was a coach (both while coaching and off the court) isn't the same as whatever it is now. I'll leave open that possibility, but damn that man got under my skin with just about every single thing he said that wasn't game related.

I'm definitely talking about the older one, the one whose respect among his peers is 100%, and for good reason. When he was a coach, like most coaches who played under Auerbach he was a pure tribalist, and protected his players like a mother bear for tactical and strategic purposes. Not liking him back then was fully understandable. But as a talk jockey he's informative, interesting, provocative and funny as can be. His respect level among athletes from all sports is such that he can get serious interviews with nearly any of them with one phone call, and yet I've also heard him devote many an hour talking to local public high school coaches. And the other thing about him is that unlike most of these clowns on the air, if he doesn't know something he admits it, and calls upon real experts to fill him in. When the station managers froze out Phil Wood, Thompson brought him back every week and gave him long and uninterrupted slots to talk about baseball, treating him and his knowledge with total respect---unlike the Kornheisers who love to drop "seamheads" into the conversation just to flaunt their ignorance when it comes to baseball.

If all you know about Thompson Sr. is the "Hoya Paranoia" phase, you should tune in his show for a few days. He's easily the best thing out there.

"I don’t hate sports. I love sports. I hate what sports have—in many ways—become."

What a whiner.
That sentence is the definitive whiner sentence.
AND it has CERTAINLY BEEN WRITTEN AD LIBITUM BY SOME SAP SINCE SPORTS 'JOURNALISM' WAS, YOU KNOW, INVENTED

Precisely. And the broader equivalent is: "Kids these days don't know how to behave."

hey Andy - Steve got the jist of it.

Well, I guess he's a lot smarter than I am, because the only logical conclusion to draw from what you wrote is that you either buy into the bullshlt that goes along with sports these days, or you "hate sports." And since I think that Chris Berman is an act that was old ten years ago, and that charging kids for autographs is smarmy, and that charging hundreds or thousands of dollars to watch a ballgame is obscene, I guess I must "hate sports," too.

But funny, I think that I probably still "love sports" every bit as much as you and Steve. And funny, I don't have any particular complaint about the behavior of kids. The problem is with so-called "adults" like Berman and the sports marketers, all of whom are over 21.

either buy into the bullshlt that goes along with sports these days, or you "hate sports."

Oh, come on, Andy. The issue is simple: how meaningfully different is the BS that goes along with sports "these days" from the BS that went along with sports in any other day? BS is BS, there never was a Golden Age, and it's always been all about the money. One can very easily recognize this reality, not "buy into it," and not "hate sports."

Good grief.

either buy into the bullshlt that goes along with sports these days, or you "hate sports."

Oh, come on, Andy. The issue is simple: how meaningfully different is the BS that goes along with sports "these days" from the BS that went along with sports in any other day? BS is BS, there never was a Golden Age, and it's always been all about the money. One can very easily recognize this reality, not "buy into it," and not "hate sports."

Good grief.

Oh, good grief yourself, Steve. There's bullshlt and there's ########, and as a matter of degree, the ######## of today goes so far and beyond the bullshlt of past generations that it's not even a contest.

It doesn't mean that human nature has changed, but it does mean that the stakes are higher, the incentives for bullshitting are greater, and the technology enables the bullshitters to be louder, more brazen, more ubiquitous, and far more in-your-face about it than they ever were before. What used to be a printed piece of wire story bullshlt about how Babe Ruth spends his spare time visiting crippled kids in hospitals is now a dozen ESPN hours devoted to how Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa "saved baseball," accompanied by the motherfucking Hollywood All-Violin Orchestra in the background and Roger Maris's family in tears. What used to be a five or ten dollar seat behind the plate is now the King of Siam's Royal Luxury box and costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars, even though the view is exactly the same as it ever was. Pearlman may be the scum of the Earth himself, and worthy of everything that people are saying about him, but that doesn't change reality.

And no, I don't hate sports. Sorry.

I believe Charlie Brown didn't hate Christmas itself, but that the whole thing had become too "commercial". What was that, in the Fifties?