Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - now confirmed by NYT

Read a real interview w/Reilly, the one where he says he has "flat-out handed (ESPN) five or six Emmys":

http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/bane_of_cheerleaders_champion_of_the_little_guys.php

 

His post has mysteriously disappeared, DD.

 

It disappeared rather quickly after it was time-stamped, too.

C'est la vie.

 

Viva la quote function!

 

Sorry, I already vomited when I read the SI managing editor calling Dan Patrick "a sports genius."

 

TBL does not need to answer this question. It's stupid. Given Reilly's departure, no one cares about what happened in the LSU press box. TBL sends out e-mails asking questions. The blog is not a newspaper. You're trying to force a toughness on him that 95 percent of sports writers don't live up to..... TBL got Reilly to comment on his departure, and a bunch of hypocritical, anonymous message-board posters want to hammer a blogger for not e-mailing Reilly a question that probably would've guaranteed that Reilly answered no questions... Pat TBL on the back for the information and keep moving. This board trumpets whatever softball interview SMG puts up and then tries to blast a blogger who got Reilly to comment on a major move. Grow up.

 

When did you become TBL's shill, Jason?

And if no one cares about what happened in the LSU press box, why was the item posted in the first place?

I told people it was a shame when you stopped posting. But if all you're going to do is attack anyone and everyone who doesn't post under their real name, please take another sabbatical.

 

Frank--In hopes that this will not deteriorate into 'Jets Fans Who Read the Times' I would suggest that the issue isn't really the intelligence level of the readership, but SI's unique ability to reach multiple generations of readership, and maybe that's the problem. Kids read it in their teens, and their grandfathers read it as well. Hard to please everyone....and maybe in trying to serve all masters, they're serving almost none.

As for RR's age factor, I think he writes very young--sometimes too young, as some have pointed out here. I doubt many of his younger fans would know his age.

 

I was an SI subscriber from age 10 till about three years ago, when I noticed it was changing, and not for the better.

Is there a way to look up SI's paid subscription totals over the years? Has it suffered a precipitous drop in the last 10 or 15 years? If there has been a decrease, has it been sharp enough to change the direction and philosophy of the magazine? What are the reasons for the changes? Can anyone provide some insight?

 

I agrere. I give TBL major judos for scoring the interview with R-squared. And what motivation does he have to come and answer questions, considering he's been verbally eviscerated by the masses here. Granted, I'm not a fan of posting unconfirmed rumors, but that's the purpose of his blog, to give us a 360-degree view of sports and sports media. It's his playground, so I think he can play by his rules.

 

Seeing as how The Big Lead contributed mightily to the circulation of this rumor without any attempt to confirm it, anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that the logical thing to do would be to ask Reilly about it in the interview. You don't have to be a journalist to recognize that, you just have to have a functioning brain. Anybody who cares enough to read Reilly commenting on his move certainly would be interested to know whether he was really making out with a bimbo in a press box. Sometimes Whitlock's thought process is just astonishing.

My guess is that TBL either didn't have the balls to ask Reilly about it, or he's embarrassed about running it in the first place and just wants the whole thing to go away. Either way, very lame.