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Holy Diverticulitis posted:There's also the tremendous sexism of it, which was a huge turnoff to me, even though I think I have a lot of thick-headed male blindness to that sort of thing. I know what you mean, to me Simmons came off weirdly creepy in that book. I remember he kept making references to porn stars all throughout it and it wasn't something I expected. I didn't hate the book, but I haven't opened it since I finished it a few years ago, either.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 02:04 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 05:42 |
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barkingclam posted:I know what you mean, to me Simmons came off weirdly creepy in that book. I remember he kept making references to porn stars all throughout it and it wasn't something I expected. I didn't hate the book, but I haven't opened it since I finished it a few years ago, either. I never did more than flip through the book, but it's always been on the back of my mind as something I might want to read. That post has pretty much ensured it'll never happen now.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 02:13 |
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I might be alone in this, but I thought Free Darko's basketball book was a lot better. It's a little dated, but still a fun read.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 02:58 |
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Both Free Darko books are phenomenal pieces of art. The shuttering of that site was a great travesty, but then, its influence is spread out over so much of professional basketball journalism and writing that to continue would be to outlive its usefulness. Relatively off topic, but the Seattle Times is going behind a paywall. (It's going over like a lead balloon in the comments.) A great sports section with some good reporters, and one of the only national outlets that covers women's basketball (and covers it well).
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:26 |
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barkingclam posted:I might be alone in this, but I thought Free Darko's basketball book was a lot better. It's a little dated, but still a fun read. Both are pretty good. I remember talking with Shoals on Twitter at the time and he told me that a lot of the second book had to be retooled to avoid overlapping with Bill Simmons' Big Book of Basketball (Shoals excised a "What ifs" section among other things)
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:29 |
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Niwrad posted:Wouldn't someone like Stan Van Gundy be good on the show? I always think a coach would make a great addition as they see things in the game differently from everyone else. Phil would be unique too. Not NBA specifically, but I'd like to see more refs on pre-game shows in general. Kerry Fraser (retired NHL ref) writes a column for TSN every now and then and there's usually an interesting tidbit in them. Refs definitely see the game differently, and their expiernces would be cool to hear, I think.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:52 |
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The worst thing about The Book of Basketball is that if he stopped trying to force dated unfunny references into the book, he could've put together something very much worth reading. He is, without question, a giant douche at times, but the guy really knows basketball and if you look past the horrible jokes and him pushing his gimmicky poo poo at points, there's a lot of good stuff in there whether people want to admit it or not. I can't fault anyone for not wanting to read it because it really is a chore at times, but when it gets down to pure basketball talk, it's surprisingly good.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 16:08 |
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I really like The Atlantic (I've had a subscription for several years) but holy lord they should stay away from sports:quote:Is Danica Patrick About to Become the Most Important Athlete Ever? So she's the most important female athlete ever because she can compete with the boys, but she can only compete with them because she's involved in a sport where the car removes almost any gender advantage. quote:Jeff Gordon is one of NASCAR's greatest drivers, having won the Daytona 500 three times. For Sunday's race, he qualified second. He described himself as proud to start beside Patrick, and rightfully said her success can only grow the sport. But Gordon's own five-year-old daughter Ella might have given the most powerful illustration of what Patrick's accomplishments at Daytona can mean. Until Patrick won the pole, Ella told her dad, she didn't even know that girls could be racecar drivers too. I think that's more on Jeff Gordon for being a lovely dad and not telling her daughter she can do anything she wants. haljordan fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Feb 25, 2013 |
# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:02 |
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Holy Diverticulitis posted:There's also the tremendous sexism of it, which was a huge turnoff to me, even though I think I have a lot of thick-headed male blindness to that sort of thing.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:12 |
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LARGE THE HEAD posted:Relatively off topic, but the Seattle Times is going behind a paywall. (It's going over like a lead balloon in the comments.) A great sports section with some good reporters, and one of the only national outlets that covers women's basketball (and covers it well). The Seattle Times sports section got way better after Steve Kelley retired. I like most of their sportswriters, with the exception of Geoff Baker who repeats the same drat point over and over again while writing Victorian novels about it. Danny Kelly, Bob Condotta, and Larry Stone are superb though.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:26 |
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If enough of the principles would agree to interviews I would unironically read a Bill Simmons book about the Real World Road Rules Challenge
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:26 |
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LARGE THE HEAD posted:Both Free Darko books are phenomenal pieces of art. The shuttering of that site was a great travesty, but then, its influence is spread out over so much of professional basketball journalism and writing that to continue would be to outlive its usefulness. I can understand people getting pissed off in the comment section, but newspapers are dying quickly and traditional print ads can't raise nearly enough money anymore. I don't live anywhere near Seattle so I don't know about the quality of the paper, but what else can they do?
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:29 |
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ElwoodCuse posted:If enough of the principles would agree to interviews I would unironically read a Bill Simmons book about the Real World Road Rules Challenge the potential of an Oral History of Real World/Road Rules Challenge book is limitless because of how terrible all of those people are
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:30 |
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It would need to be an audiobook in true Studs Terkel fashion.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:32 |
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Crazy Ted posted:Man I hope you didn't have any footnotes in his book because if u do they are totes gettin' removed It was the bibliography that he threw Pierce (who I guess he's since made up with since he writes for Grantland now) out of, but that was so funny. He's such a weirdly spiteful and petty dude sometimes. Like how he's still angry at the Timberwolves for not taking his push to be GM (that at the time even he said was a joke) seriously.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:33 |
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ElwoodCuse posted:If enough of the principles would agree to interviews I would unironically read a Bill Simmons book about the Real World Road Rules Challenge One example: MTV decided to have a ladies' dance competition on their Panama Beach stage in about 1991-92 and completely unbeknownst to the producers all of the women were local strippers who got tipped off about it and showed up. Joey Lawrence spent the entire afternoon with his jaw somewhere in the sand on the beach.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:41 |
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MourningView posted:It was the bibliography that he threw Pierce (who I guess he's since made up with since he writes for Grantland now) out of, but that was so funny. He's such a weirdly spiteful and petty dude sometimes. Like how he's still angry at the Timberwolves for not taking his push to be GM (that at the time even he said was a joke) seriously. He also removed a reference to FreeDarko in one of the footnotes.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 17:44 |
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The whole Ali/Woods fiasco is one of the worst public meltdowns I've witnessed.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:01 |
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joepinetree posted:The whole Ali/Woods fiasco is one of the worst public meltdowns I've witnessed. Man, when did Keith Olbermann turn into such a huge flaming rear end in a top hat? He came off pretty much as badly as Simmons did in that whole argument.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:06 |
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haljordan posted:Man, when did Keith Olbermann turn into such a huge flaming rear end in a top hat? Uh, pretty much always.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:08 |
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haljordan posted:I really like The Atlantic (I've had a subscription for several years) but holy lord they should stay away from sports: This is some surprisingly awful poo poo. You kinda expect it when Rovell or Plaschke or someone similar puts out garbage, but not The Atlantic. This reads more like a somewhat subtle attempt to undermine the accomplishments of female athletes than anything else.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:16 |
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Anals of History posted:This is some surprisingly awful poo poo. You kinda expect it when Rovell or Plaschke or someone similar puts out garbage, but not The Atlantic. This reads more like a somewhat subtle attempt to undermine the accomplishments of female athletes than anything else. I was more stunned by the author claiming Danica Patrick could be the "most important athlete of all time" by winning the Daytona 500. You're telling me that puts her ahead of Jackie Robinson?
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:19 |
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haljordan posted:I was more stunned by the author claiming Danica Patrick could be the "most important athlete of all time" by winning the Daytona 500. You're telling me that puts her ahead of Jackie Robinson? I'm pretty sure he meant female athletes, not real athletes. And I'm only kidding with the "real athlete" comment, that's just the vibe I get from that article. It screams "a woman that can compete with men in ANY sport?! How amazing!!!" It's very derogatory.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:45 |
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s0meb0dy0 posted:I'm pretty sure he meant female athletes, not real athletes. edit: Didn't realize the tag was added by someone else. Article is still pretty crappy though. haljordan fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Feb 25, 2013 |
# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:47 |
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He's not the one writing the tagline, for what it's worth. That said, he's the same guy that advocated hosting the World Series in some nice warm city. Dude can write, but he's wrong about things an awful lot. I actually find myself disagreeing with a lot of our sports content.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 18:50 |
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Janet Guthrie just doesn't count I guess.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 19:01 |
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davecrazy posted:Janet Guthrie just doesn't count I guess. I had no idea she ran 33 races. I knew she placed 6th at Bristol once, but 33 races is some serious poo poo. She's in the Smithsonian, which is great, but you'd think NASCAR and the like would do more to recognize her legacy now
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 19:03 |
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The Prisoner posted:She is also probably the first aerospace engineer to compete as a professional race car driver, so double pioneer status is merited there. NASCAR has an exhibit for her right next to the Tim Richmond memorial
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 19:07 |
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Olbermann comes across as the biggest rear end in a top hat in the world in the ESPN book. I don't think anyone had a nice thing to say about him. Someone talked about how they threw a party when he quit.barkingclam posted:I might be alone in this, but I thought Free Darko's basketball book was a lot better. It's a little dated, but still a fun read. I liked it, but I like his writing style most of the time. I just find the love for him humorous because he does the exact same stuff Simmons does. He wrote a huge piece about "the look" and whether Lebron had it. He routinely writes pieces comparing players to
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 19:29 |
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Niwrad posted:I liked it, but I like his writing style most of the time. I just find the love for him humorous because he does the exact same stuff Simmons does. He wrote a huge piece about "the look" and whether Lebron had it. He routinely writes pieces comparing players to It's because he doesn't have the freedom to write about whatever he wants, and The Classical is kind of boring and GQ's sports section tends to flatten out writing voices.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 19:31 |
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Declan MacManus posted:It's because he doesn't have the freedom to write about whatever he wants, and The Classical is kind of boring and GQ's sports section tends to flatten out writing voices. And he's also stopped writing completely.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 19:38 |
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seiferguy posted:The Seattle Times sports section got way better after Steve Kelley retired. I like most of their sportswriters, with the exception of Geoff Baker who repeats the same drat point over and over again while writing Victorian novels about it. Danny Kelly, Bob Condotta, and Larry Stone are superb though. Agreed. Condotta in particular is superb. I really like Jayda Evans' writing, too. Bethlehem Shoals is still pretty active on Twitter and The Classical contributes to sportswriting more than it detracts.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 21:46 |
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morestuff posted:And he's also stopped writing completely. Yeah, Shoals works for Wieden+Kennedy now or something. I don't think he's writing much anywhere anymore.
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# ? Feb 26, 2013 04:06 |
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STOP THE PRESSES
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# ? Feb 26, 2013 23:49 |
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Rick Reilly got back on his high horse again. Just retire, Rick. Leave us with our memories.
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# ? Feb 26, 2013 23:55 |
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LARGE THE HEAD posted:Rick Reilly got back on his high horse again. It took him a whole hour to get up on that high horse, it was such a high horse to climb up on
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# ? Feb 27, 2013 00:03 |
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That column is painful to read, but I agree with the sentiment, gently caress the ncaa.
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# ? Feb 27, 2013 00:12 |
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Seeing a Reilly link is like seeing a FWD: email from your parents. You know whatever is on the other end isn't funny and has already been beaten into the core of the Earth.
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# ? Feb 27, 2013 00:27 |
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sportsgenius86 posted:Seeing a Reilly link is like seeing a FWD: email from your parents. You know whatever is on the other end isn't funny and has already been beaten into the core of the Earth. Apparently it hasn't been beaten into the Earth quite enough, since the NCAA, athletic departments and corporate sponsors continue to make money off the backs of players. I'm not seeing the issue with this article; do people disagree with the point, or just the tone?
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# ? Feb 27, 2013 00:36 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 05:42 |
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The Pussy Boss posted:Apparently it hasn't been beaten into the Earth quite enough, since the NCAA, athletic departments and corporate sponsors continue to make money off the backs of players. I'm not seeing the issue with this article; do people disagree with the point, or just the tone? The author.
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# ? Feb 27, 2013 00:45 |