Tag Archives: ESPN

Bill, I heard you got suspended

I just heard the news, that you got suspended from ESPN. Man, I’m really sorry that you’re in trouble, but I just want to let you know that I’m standing with you all the way. That’s right, I’m suspending myself from ESPN also. Because you were just saying what everyone else was already thinking, that, as an organization, the NFL is corrupt, and that the commissioner totally knew about that Ray Rice video.

Whatever, I’m not going to say anything here that hasn’t been said a million times already. I like watching football, but the NFL just sucks. They don’t want to pay anybody for getting thoroughly beat up on a weekly basis and then getting dementia not long after. The cheerleaders make less than minimum wage. Every time you watch a game, you have to sit through those ridiculous Faith Hill country intros.

Yeah, I’m with you Bill, after your suspension is over, I want you to tell ESPN to go take a hike. Maybe they should suspend themselves. But they’ll never do that. They don’t have the guts. They’re too beholden to the NFL, to Monday Night Football.

Bill, I hope you’re not going too hard on yourself. I know this isn’t your first suspension, but it’s still got to sting a little bit. I remember the first time I got suspended. I was waiting tables and this lady said to me, “I’m very allergic to citrus. I can’t stress enough, no citrus.” And I was like, “Yes, OK, I get it, no citrus.” And so she ordered a salad and I thought, that’s fine, nothing citrusy there. Except, as soon as she took a bite, she called me over and told me that she was having an allergic reaction. She’s fine, she survived, but it turned out that there was lemon or grapefruit in the salad dressing.

They suspended me. And I went through a whole range of emotions, anger, fatigue, more anger. I got over it eventually. In fact, after half a day or so of just kind of moping around, I actually felt really good. Because come on, I hate waiting tables. So to not have to go in for three weeks was, for me anyway, sort of like a gift. I’m not going to lie, after my suspension was over, I went back into that restaurant and, weeks later, I saw the same citrus lady. And I was just having such a bad night that I couldn’t help but to at least consider the possibility of giving her some key lime pie on the house, maybe get myself another three-week vacation.

But yeah, you probably love your job. I’d love your job too. I was on this kick where I was asking you for a job every week for a while, but I never heard from you. And so, from my point of view, it’s kind of like I’ve always been in a state of permanent suspension from ESPN and Grantland.

That’s not cool, making this about me. This has nothing to do with me. This is about you. Bill, with all of this free time in front of you, there’s so much to take advantage of, especially this time of year. You can go out to eastern Long Island and pick apples and take a hayride. A lot of places serve warm apple cider. You’ve got to go early in the day though, because all of the people from the city show up in swarms, parking their cars wherever they feel like it, asking the apple pie place dumb questions like, “Is this apple pie gluten free?”

Or you could do whatever. I’m sure it won’t be difficult finding cool stuff to do. Because three weeks Bill, that’s a lot, but it’ll go by fast. And then you’ll be back in the daily grind and there’s going to be some other NFL public relations disaster, and this time your boss is going to be like, “Simmons! Don’t even think about saying anything bad about the NFL!” And what are you going to do? No use worrying about that now. Just, take solace in the fact that you stood up for what you believed in, and now you don’t have to go to work for three weeks. And even if you got fired from ESPN, you’d still be ridiculously popular and you could start your own web site and the NFL would probably go bankrupt in no time. You’ve got them right where you want them, Bill. And I’ve totally got your back.

I’ve got your back, Bill

Dear Bill Simmons:

I see it all the time on the Internet lately, people talking about you, about the Sports Guy, and it’s always some variation of the same argument: “Bill Simmons bit off a little more than he can chew,” like you’ve somehow overextended yourself, like you can’t handle the mounting responsibilities of a twenty-first century multimedia renaissance man. I personally don’t get where this is coming from, but you can’t deny that it’s out there, a rising tide of anti-Bill Simmons propaganda, almost like someone has it out for you.

I just wanted to say that, Bill, I’ve still got your back. I don’t think you bit off more than you can chew. If anything, you should open your mouth even bigger, find some way to unhinge your jaw, like a snake, and see if you can forgo the biting and instead start swallowing whole everything you set your mind to.

Is this because of Magic Johnson? I don’t really know the specifics, and I hate to kind of just throw in my opinion to what so far has been a dated story from October of last year really that hasn’t been anything more than a flame war on the comments sections of Deadspin. But I’m kind of getting the feeling like this is all Magic’s fault. Just think about it, Magic turned his back on ESPN. If he wants to point the finger and blame it on you, go ahead and let him, he’s the one that walked away.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that if you walk away, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or you’re wrong, you just gave up, that’s a forfeit, you lose. It’s like, look at the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Were they necessarily in the right? Who knows? The Mensheviks left the table, and history didn’t look back. They got like a footnote in one of my history classes in college, and the rest was all Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, whatever, you get the point right? You walk away, you’re automatically the loser.

Also, and this is probably kind of a low blow here, but does anybody else remember The Magic Hour? Talk about biting off more than you can chew, Magic Johnson is the original overextender. A Magic Johnson cooking show probably would have been more successful than his failed attempt at a late-night talk show. Sure, this was way before the era when professional athletes could turn to reality TV as a viable second career, but just look at the history, if Magic hadn’t left ESPN by his own volition, it probably wouldn’t have been too much longer until his poor commentating landed him similarly off the air.

But yeah, Bill, I get it, this isn’t about Magic Johnson, it’s about you. And I can’t speak for anybody else, but I’ve got to say, where some people think you’re doing too much, I personally don’t think that you’re doing enough. Why limit yourself to columnist, podcast host, editor-in-chief, and on-air personality? There are so many more areas of popular culture that could use a side of Simmons.

Like music. Bill, you ever think about starting a band? I’d buy your album. I’d listen to it all the time. Do you sing? I’m sure you’ve got a great singing voice. I can just imagine what karaoke nights at the Grantland office must be like. Everybody hanging around waiting for Chuck Klosterman to finish butchering “Bohemian Rhapsody.” And then you take the mic, and it’s always like a total wildcard, like you pick “Heartbreaker,” by Pat Benetar, and you totally nail it.

Or a cooking show. I know I was just making fun of Magic Johson earlier, saying that even a cooking show would have been more popular than The Magic Hour, but I feel like you’d be able to make it work. It wouldn’t have to be a weekly thing, but right before big sporting events, like the Super Bowl, you could teach fans how to make great game-day snacks, like potato skins that look like little footballs, or white frosted cookies with red piping that resemble baseballs, you know, cool stuff like that.

Anyway, I’ve got your back Bill. Whatever you want to do in the future, I’m totally on board. Hopefully you’ll eventually let me write for Grantland, and my support will amount to more than me just shouting out kudos to you from my blog, but whatever, no rush. Just seriously, think about it, give me a call, I’ll be a total yes-man, like whatever you say sir, I’m behind you, one hundred percent. When everyone else on the Internet turns on you at the same time, you won’t have to defend yourself at all, because I’ll be doing all of your defending for you, getting in people’s faces, issuing nasty threats, all so you can maintain that professional distance, work on swallowing all of that work you’ve bitten off.

I believe in you Bill,

Rob G.

Hey Bill, I can shovel your sidewalk if you want

Dear Bill Simmons:

We just had a pretty big snowstorm here in New York. The night before it started coming down, the news was telling us to expect at least ten inches. And no, I didn’t get out and measure it or anything like that, but it looks like ten inches, I think. It’s a lot of snow, is what I’m getting at here. It’s a powdery type of snow though, not too dense, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to clean up.

Still, snow is snow, and I had to shovel. I actually got a ticket for not shoveling in front of my house the last time it snowed. Yeah, yeah, I know, I have like a million excuses, like I was working both the night of the last snowstorm and the night after. So it was like, I came home from work, I should have just shoveled right away, but I put it off for the next day. And of course I overslept, I was rushing to get ready for the following night at the restaurant. I told myself, tomorrow, definitely tomorrow. But the Department of Sanitation must have been thinking the same thing, tomorrow, we’re definitely giving that guy a ticket tomorrow.

This time around, I made sure, as soon as that last snowflake fell, I was outside with my shovel. As I was shoveling I thought, Bill, wouldn’t it be cool if we were next-door neighbors? I know you’re a busy guy, and so I’d totally get your walk if you were at work or something. I don’t know exactly where your job takes you these days, I mean, I don’t really know where you do your filming for ESPN. You write a lot about how you’re from Boston, but you don’t live there anymore do you?

Maybe if you moved to Queens, right next-door to me, it would be like a rude awakening, it would snow, you’d have to shovel. How long has it been since you’ve had to shovel a walk? Don’t worry about it too much though, I told you, I’d help out. And maybe you’d be walking home just as I was finishing up the path right to your front door. Would we have met yet? Like, maybe you’d have waved to me every now and then on your way out the door. But a conversation?

“Hey man, thanks a lot, I really appreciate the help. I’m Bill, by the way, I know we haven’t gotten a chance for any official introductions, but yeah, thanks again for the shoveling.”

I’d say, “Hey, Bill, no problem, any time man.” And then it would get tricky, because obviously I’d recognize you, you’re a pretty famous guy. But do I want to come across as too eager? Like, “Yeah, I know you, you’re Bill Simmons, you’re the Sports Guy, I read all of your stuff on Grantland, I actually have a blog where I write you a letter every week begging for a job as a full-time writer. Have you seen it? Have you read any of my letters? What do you think Bill, can I have a job?”

It might come off as a little too strong. Still, anything else, like if I pretended not to know who you are, “My name’s Rob. Nice to meet you … Bill? Did you say it was Bill? Or Phil?” and you’d have to reintroduce yourself, “Bill. Bill Simmons.” That’s cool, I mean, it would have the benefit of you thinking that you could let your guard down around me, you’d go to work in the morning, you’d be the Sports Guy, but you’d come home at night and you’d just be regular next-door neighbor Bill, hanging out with his new friend Rob, a nice guy who shoveled his sidewalk, plus the path leading to his door, all out of the goodness of his own heart, not looking for anything in return.

Which of course isn’t really true, which is why I’d hesitate to go down that route. What if we hit it off? What if we became good friends? You’d obviously start to ask me questions like, what do you do for a living Rob? And I’d have to be like, well Bill, since you asked, I’m an aspiring writer. What about you?

And you’d go into your whole, “Really? I’m a writer too. I’d love to look at your stuff.” Which, yeah, that would be great. Please, read my stuff Bill. But then you’d come across these letters, the whole Dear Bill Simmons column, and you’d see that not only did I know who you were all along, but maybe my generous acts of snow shoveling weren’t as selfless as they appeared.

You’d think, is anything that Rob’s said about himself true? I’d try to explain, that yes, I really am a nice guy, and also yes, I desperately want to write for Grantland. “You moving next-door to me, I couldn’t believe the luck, but I didn’t know how to handle the situation. So, I’m sorry Bill, I’m sorry for coming across as disingenuous, but I just really, really want to work for you. And I also really want to be great neighbors. And maybe friends. But we’ll take it slow. What do you say?”

I’m pretty confident that you’d see through to the real me. I’m a nice guy Bill. And although we’ll probably never be next-door neighbors, we could still be coworkers. You could totally be my boss. And while I won’t push the friendship thing, I won’t close the door on it completely. So maybe like after years of working for you, building up a professional relationship, one based on hard work and writing whatever you tell me to write, maybe we can think about being friends. But first things first. Offer me a job Bill. I’ll say yes. Ask me to shovel your walk. I’ll say no. You’ll say, “But I thought you’d do whatever I told you to do.” And I’ll say, “I can’t shovel your walk. Because I already did it.”

I’m for real Bill. Give me a shout. Give me a job. Please.

Love,

Rob G.