The Rookies

A fence from ground-level. Taken by Bill Simmons.

Last week, Bill Simmons took a trip down to “Meh-hee-CO” to see the U.S. men’s national team take on El Tri at Estadio Azteca and wrote about it at great length, which got him hailed across the blogosphere as the greatest emissary for soccer America has ever seen. (I may be exaggerating.)

He’s not, of course, despite the epic nature of his column. Here’s why, in similarly long-winded fashion, wrapped around another edition of Columnisting.

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Smiling? Immodest.

Columnisting, which is defined by me as “the moronic convention of sports writers being force to shoehorn an angle and some opinion into a set word length,” is increasingly turning into a race to the most inoffensive conveyance of suburban smarm.

Rick Reilly’s so good at it that he’s almost shark-like: If he smells something even slightly deviant from the country club’s sensibilities, he snaps it up.

If this persists, we’re going to need a bigger blog.

Sore winners

These folks have won a lot. You’d think they’d be better at it.

The writing jokes write themselves! Read the rest of this entry →