The Comedian Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Every fanbase does that when one of the big-time guys retire. This is really something that's unique to baseball I think. Take, for example, Nicklas Lidstrom in the NHL. Lidstrom is vastly superior to Jeter as a player - as in so much better that Jeter can't even sniff Lidstrom's rarefied air - and more than his equal in class and dignity as a person. "The Perfect Human" is a pretty great nickname to have, dontcha think? What did he get from the Red Wings fanbase or any other? Nothing. After he retired, they had a ceremony to retire his jersey. That's it. No year-long schmaltz-fest. Dr. J got a retirement tour. Then so did Kareem. Bird and Magic probably would've gotten them too but their abrupt retirements killed that, and the concept kinda went out of vogue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Which podcast was it and is it still available? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 I can blame them. ESPN going back and fixing "errors" on the huge OTL story that broke, easing up on things as the days go by from the Goodell presser...just a litttttle bit too shady for my tastes. For protecting Goodell, you can certainly blame them. For suspending an employee that publicly dared them to do so? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremebve Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 I honestly don't think he would have been suspended if he didn't dare them to do it. Goodell is lying and Simmons isn't the first person from ESPN to say it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nice Guy Eddie Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Every fanbase does that when one of the big-time guys retire.This is really something that's unique to baseball I think. Take, for example, Nicklas Lidstrom in the NHL. Lidstrom is vastly superior to Jeter as a player - as in so much better that Jeter can't even sniff Lidstrom's rarefied air - and more than his equal in class and dignity as a person. "The Perfect Human" is a pretty great nickname to have, dontcha think? What did he get from the Red Wings fanbase or any other? Nothing. After he retired, they had a ceremony to retire his jersey. That's it. No year-long schmaltz-fest.How are you going to compare two athletes from different sports when saying Lidstrom is vastly superior to Jeter? At least pick somebody from the same sport. Lidstrom didn't get anything from the Red Wings or other NHL clubs? That's their choice. Teams chose to give Jeter gifts, and more importantly make donations to the Turn 2 Foundation, it wasn't mandatory. Nobody forced you to have watched any of the celebrations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Three week vacation for Simbo before NBA starts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muhammedboehm Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 So he gets three and SAS got 1? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggulator Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Simmons didn't get suspended when Grantland outed a transexual in a story that may have contributed to her suicide. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Which podcast was it and is it still available? The rant is here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Comedian Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Whether Goodell is a liar or not, my problem is that I don't buy for a second that Simmons cares about anything other than his ridiculous "I want the NBA to bigger than the NFL someday so I can be the #1 media expert for the #1 sport" pipe dream. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggulator Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Thoughts:1) Suspending Simmons for not having journalistic standards is really hilarious since he doesn't have journalistic standards to start with.On the low end of the scale, I guess some people think his homerism is charming, but EVERY basketball podcast (about all I listen to that he's involved with) has some sort of Celtics point-of-view.On the mid-range game: The "Friends Of Bill" stuff is really revolting and the synchophants on the Grantland team are really gross. I mean, they have a sidebar called "The Triangle," as if the outfield wall at Fenway is this touchstone of Americana. There's not a lot of journalistic integrity in any of that. He has a lot of editorial power and uses that in some weird ego trip in so many ways. (Case in point: Grantland articles using the "I" pronoun to some insipid degree.)Long-range: He's the editor-in-chief of a website that published an article that may have contributed to a suicide. He was suspended ZERO days for that.2) Simmons was gifted a ridiculously large platform for someone who relies on essentially the same jokes and columns repeatedly. He has a martyr/self-importance complex of the highest magnitude. Also, his rant about The Commish really wasn't anything too different from what other people had said/written. I don't know what was said on the nonsense talking head shows they have.3) ESPN published the OTL piece. I don't know what they "scrubbed" or not (I didn't catch wind) but they still really exposed a lot of the NFL scum stuff.4) They essentially just acted in a petty manner because they wanted to humble one of their talents. That's a pretty dumb thing to do. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Mann Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Simmons got what he wanted: Martyrdom for calling out Goodell and showing up the NFL for getting a longer suspension than Rice initially got. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Bill created Grantland and 30/30 so in my view he's contributed more to the world of sports and entertainment than 95% of anyone at ESPN. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Comedian Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 In regards to Simmons homerism, one of the things that annoys me the most about him is this: I know several Bostonians, and they're all very low-key and humble about their teams' successes in the 21st century. Simmons however has practically single-handedly created the notion that Boston fans are obnoxious entitled douchebags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Prob self-loathing on his part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Simmons didn't get suspended when Grantland outed a transexual in a story that may have contributed to her suicide. Worth clarifying since the way you phrased that could be confusing for someone unfamiliar with the story. The story was published after Dr V committed suicide, not that the story was published, outed Dr V and led to his suicide. The specter of the story possibly outing Dr. V may have contributed to his suicide. Simmons's error (he came in after this point) was not shelving the story, which is still bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 A cynic would suggest he wanted to be suspended so he could have a vacation before he got ready for the new NBA season. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 A cynic would suggest he wanted to be suspended so he could have a vacation before he got ready for the new NBA season. . . One did one the previous page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 A cynic would suggest he wanted to be suspended so he could have a vacation before he got ready for the new NBA season. . . One did one the previous page. Oops. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabe Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 This is a stupid side discussion but... How do I know Lidstrom was vastly superior to Jeter? Easy. Lidstrom was the best player at his positron in the last 40 years - maybe #2 if you favor Ray Bourque. Jeter wasn't even the best on his own team. Lidstrom was an elite player his entire career. Jeter had multiple years where he sucked. Lidstrom was elite offensively and defensively. Jeter was terrible defensively. That's how I know. This is probably where I should mention that I LIKE Jeter. I mean, heck, I might very well have had him as a student when he was in high school... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonzo Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 In regards to Simmons homerism, one of the things that annoys me the most about him is this: I know several Bostonians, and they're all very low-key and humble about their teams' successes in the 21st century. Simmons however has practically single-handedly created the notion that Boston fans are obnoxious entitled douchebags. That's the way Simmons was before Boston sports teams started winning everything. Then he became an insufferable douche. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jrag Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 That Gregg hates Simmons so much is hysterical to me for some reason. It's like Shia and The Natural. Speaking of, I haven't seen that dude around here in a while. Back on topic... #FREESIMMONS 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggulator Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 That Gregg hates Simmons so much is hysterical to me for some reason. It's like Shia and The Natural. Speaking of, I haven't seen that dude around here in a while. Back on topic... #FREESIMMONS I was personally mocked on Grantland! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jrag Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 I'm gonna need the details. Edit: Now that I think about it, I feel like you talked about this before? Anyways, I smoke too much. I'm gonna need the details again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdA Posted September 25, 2014 Share Posted September 25, 2014 Simmons didn't get suspended when Grantland outed a transexual in a story that may have contributed to her suicide. Worth clarifying since the way you phrased that could be confusing for someone unfamiliar with the story. The story was published after Dr V committed suicide, not that the story was published, outed Dr V and led to his suicide. The specter of the story possibly outing Dr. V may have contributed to his suicide. Simmons's error (he came in after this point) was not shelving the story, which is still bad. This is a pretty good recap. Actually, the error was that the Grantland writer made the transgender angle a part of the story - and it wasn't. The fact that Dr V was a transgender had no bearing on whether or not she was a con artist. When the writer confronted Dr. V about the transgender issue, the writer was asked to omit that information as she felt revealing the info would be harmful to her. The article still rolled with the transgender info - AND hamfisted uses of pronouns. Prior to the article coming out, Dr. V committed suicide. How much weight the Grantland story had on this is up for debate. Only Dr. V can answer that and she is dead. Grantland STILL went ahead and ran the article. Once the article was ran, Grantland was called out because people outside of the Grantland world knew she was dead. Simmons responded to the stink with an apology piece, claiming that he was no journalist and didn't have the knowledge to understand how to cover LBGTQ issues - THEN essentially threw the writer under the bus since the writer was a mere freelancer. Grantland/ESPN/Disney decided to keep the piece up at Grantland - HERE - as a lesson to future generations of journalists on how to report on LBGTQ issues and only the freelancer took a fall. So the issues really are - 1) Simmons has blood on his hands with that piece but wiggled out of it by claiming ignorance AND NOW wants to play ethicist on the Rice issue 2) ESPN/Disney further looks like idiots for laying the smack down on Simmons for calling Goodell a liar and daring ESPN to suspend him 3) There are no heroes here but Simmons looks less stinky that most of the other principles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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