Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - now confirmed by NYT

Just reconfirms my decision a month ago to not renew my SI. It's going down the toilet, and fast.

 

Riiiiiiiiiight, b/c Reilly's irreplaceable.

 

Jesus wept.
What is he, 12?

 

SP, like it or not, he's a huge draw for that mag. even his fluff pieces at least are better writing than 90 percent of the writers out there.

 

Congrats. You win the award for Stupid Post of The Day. Please see Moddy for your box of Rice-A-Roni and your version of SportsJournalists.com, the Remedial Home Edition.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

 

A proposal for Mr. Reilly's replacement:

http://www.danshanoff.com/2007/10/si-hire-deadspins-leitch-to-replace.html

Discuss.

 

when snark is no longer hip, what then?
and if he tries to play it straight, like he does in his occasional nytimes blog post, will all the cool kids still like him?

and joe williams, you are on the fast track for middle management at a lean dean paper.

 

Everyone's replaceable.

 

lmao. no, SI is running itself into the ground in many facets.

 

Leitch would be okay up front in Scorecard, but the hallowed back-page slot? No thanks.

And if SI moves into the "Deadspin Era", as that blog suggests they do, I won't be going with them.

 

I usually can't make it through an entire Shanoff paragraph, much less a whole piece, but I did with this one. As usual, it's so over-the-top that any decent points he might make are completely lost. And there aren't many decent points. First, this sentence:

"He launched and writes the most influential proposition in sports, a blog that not only is the center of gravity for the entire sports blogosphere, but drives a healthy portion of sports newspaper, radio and TV conversation, too."

What's an "influential proposition"? What's that even mean? And while I enjoy many of Will's posts on deadspin, how can Shanoff say it drives a "healthy portion" of sports newspaper, radio and TV conversation. Isn't deadspin the one that's driven by what newspapers, tv and radio report? Talk about getting everything backward.

I'm looking forward to that book of Will's, but I see it's also going to be about the pain/joy of loving one team, the torture of being a fan, I assume. Ugh. I agree with Klosterman's take (hey, about Chuck for SI?): writing from the fan's perspective is boring and old. Speaking of which, while I know they're buddies, I also saw an old Simmons piece where Klosterman also mentioned this idea about how ridiculous it is reading from the fans' perspective and ridiculed Simmons for it. Simmons' retort: You don't know what it's like because you grew up in North Dakota.

I think Will's great for deadspin, not nfor SI. And, unfortunately for Dan, I guess this means he won't be in the running for replacing him on deadspin (and he makes that sound like it's going to be harder than being the first coach to follow John Wooden or Bear Bryant).

Don't. Agree. With. This. Idea.