Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - now confirmed by NYT

Whitlock, read my post, please. I credited him with the scoop, but I also wondered why a 5,000-lb. elephant was not addressed.

 

I thought she was supposed to be hot?

 

I'm repeating myself here, but it goes back to TBL wanting to have it both ways, and I sent him a note saying such. If you want to traffic in gossip, then that's your business. But then if you want to turn around and be legit and get an interview with someone, it's going to make it difficult to ask honest questions. It's the same reason why A-Rod will talk to the New York Times and not the New York Post.

Jason, what if the interview as done in person and not over email? Change your opinion at all? You wrote an entire column about how Jenni Carlson screwed up by writing about rumors and rumblings about Bobby Reid. You called her use of whispers and message board gossip "atrocious." You were right, in my opinion. Why then choose to selectively defend The Big Lead for not asking about a rumor he helped spread? Because he helped you make your bones as a swashbucking badass who speaks truth to power?

 

I always thought rolled up sleeves and tights was a curious fashion choice for Jason, but perhaps there is more to this "working my corners" than even episodes of The Wire can explain.

 

Reilly gets a lot of credit for the "first thing people read in the magazine," and appropriately so. It's a quick read and its usually something interesting. But when you think about the top 10 most discussed sports columns in the past year, does Reilly have any of them? I'm not hating on the guy, but if you have that pulpit (and I'm not dismissing his fine work with Nothing but Nets, organ donation and the like) you'd think it would generate something close to the Okie State, Whitlock/Rutgers type of heat.

 

Enough already about the "scoop." A sportswriter, who makes his living by communicating with people, decided to answer someone's e-mail and talk about himself. Big. Frickin'. Deal.

Woodward and Bernstein got scoops. Let's not water down the term, OK? "Getting" RR to type some comments about his job change? Oooooh, what amazing journalism.

Let me state, for the record, that I was the first to get my ass talking about a hole in the ground. I was first, I was first, I was first!

 

Dan,
The Okie State column got heat for all the wrong reasons. It was poorly written and the coach made an ass out of himself. I don't think Reilly or anyone else should aspire to that.

 

TBL didn't ask Reilly the question because he wants the same loyalty and repeat service from Reilly that he's getting out of Whitlock.

It's amazing how many people are willing to be interviewed when you're known for asking softball questions.

 

I never said it was great - I said it was discussed. It was provocative. I think SI would be wise to add a writer who didn't just stir things up ala Marriotti, but one who is capable of writing columns that stoke debate. I'm trying to think of the last SI article (non-swimsuit issue) that prompted subscribers to cancel their subscriptions or at least became a topic on sports talk radio.

 

I saw that tonight, and holy crap. I would be deeply offended if I were Reilly. Not that Simmons doesn't have his place, but that's comparing a phenomenal apple with a mediocre orange.

Relly, Hoenig looked at the ESPN universe and the best thing he could come up with was that Reilly would be making a dynamic duo with the fucking sports guy? That says a lot about the universe.

 

It says more about the leveling out of Reilly's talent/desire than it does about the Sports Guy.

Reilly's always going to be the pissant who demanded in the locker room that Sammy Sosa take a piss test. Sosa should have thrown him through a wall.