Shut Up, Sports Guy
I really don't care about the Sports Guy.
I mean, I like his writing okay. He's relatively entertaining and I admit that I'm partial to the kind of pop-cultural writing that praises obscure background That Guy actors. Heck, I've even appeared in his column (as "Seattle reader Monty", which admittedly isn't like I was writing a guest column or anything). But this attempt to make him a beloved recurring character? Both boring and pointless.
Take a look at his home page, the "Sports Guy's World". Right there the name tells you that it's not just a collection of columns; it's an ethos they're trying to sell you. They have a Sports Guy Cartoon that I, frankly, have never bothered to look at. I realize that in his columns, he's built up this whole environment, but that stuff isn't particularly interesting to me. It's when he wanders out of his safety zone of sports and pop culture that he loses me. When he drops casual misogyny, I don't care for it (and that happens a lot, by the way -- he really doesn't seem to like women at all). When he talks about his constant gambling, I kind of zone out. His "world" isn't as fascinating as he or his editors think.
And then there's this "Intern" thing. After they gave Bill Simmons (that's who the Sports Guy is when he doesn't have a wacky tag) his own subsite, they claimed he was going to write a lot. But when the columns slowed down, they brought in this kid who, as far as I could tell, was just some guy doing all of Simmons's running jokes. Apparently he'd known Simmons at some point, but it didn't really ring true. Or, and this is the important part, funny. And eventually the guy stopped doing it and now, now there's a big "Sports Guy Intern Contest" where a bunch of people I don't care about all squabble in an attempt to fill a position I don't care about. And that counts as "Sports Guy Content" to the good people at ESPN2, completely missing the point that it's not, in fact, remotely interesting. Well, at least to me. I guess it's possible that there are people who are fascinated.
And you know, the more I think about Bill Simmons, the more I notice his flaws. In particular, it's amazing what a bad gambler he is. It's easy for me to say, but I would think that someone as compulsive as he is (seriously, anyone who's constantly aware of how much he can take out of the ATM so he can go lose a few hundred bucks at the blackjack table) would be better at it. He's got a huge list of NFL Playoff Rules that result in him basically going .500. He honestly believes in wildly irrational things like "if somebody bets on Don't Pass, that's bad luck for the table" and -- look, just take it from me: he's both a total gambling addict and completely unaware oif how bad at it he is.
And the misogyny isn't just occasional. I don't have time to dig up a lot of quotes, so here's a random one I remember from a recent column:
"Why aren't you watching this game with anyone?" the Sports Gal asked me.
"Nah, not this one. I'm watching this one alone."
She waited for an explanation ... and I waited for her to leave the room.
Classy! Yeah, that's true love right there: glaring at your wife until she exits your presence so as not to jinx the game. C'mon, his basic rule is "women ruin everything" for Pete's sake. More and more I think the problem is that his "comic persona" has "Guy" in the name. He's so desperate to act like he's on "The Man Show", he used to be a writer on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.
Frankly, what I'd like is a bit less Sports Guy, boiling off the parts I particularly dislike, rather than a whole mess of extraneous stuff like they have now. It's like they've decided they need five times as much "Guy" and about half as much "Sports".
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