Simmons vs. Pierce?

Vodka macchiato?

 

Or put 3 beans in a shot of ouzo.

 

For Lono:




And for Charles:

 

Tough choice, there ... guess it depends on time of day.

 

I don't know if this means Simmons wanted to be like him, but here's him talking about DFW.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/081010

And, hey, a shoutout to Pierce.

 

Still wondering who two of my favorite writers are who signed on with the WWL.

Is that ever going to be answered? Clearly YankeeFan had someone in mind, but darn if I can pull the names.

 

I'm trying to think of writers who are universally liked by the majority of the board.

Gary Smith?
Wright Thompson?
Joe Posnanski?
Bill Plaschke?

Pierce is up there, and I know he's beloved by some, but definitely rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I've only met him once, and I really liked him, but a lot of the people I was with thought he was holding court and telling everybody how things should be, like he was the God of Sportswriting.

I liked his honestly and his candor, but I can definitely see why people thought what they did.

 

I do.

 

Somebody extend a tentative olive branch.

I'm sure Pierce is frustrated by the state of today's America... the idiocy... the short attention spans... the lack of regard for history... But Mr. Pierce, you know a guy could do worse than reading Simmons. I'll never forget coming into the newsroom one day and seeing a "colleague" of mine, we'll call him "Mr. Crackberry," chortling as his eyes were fixed to a single screen for an astounding 20 minutes. When he got up to pee, I simply had to sneak around to his computer to see what had grabbed him for longer than any amount of time since I'd known him. It was Simmons. If for no other reason, the length of Simmons' writing is stretching the collective attention span of the ... oh.. Under 45 set. A good thing, yes?

Then you have Bill's reverence for the great writers and his respect for history... maybe the intense knowledge isn't there, but give him 'respect' at least. Compare him to some others, and I guarantee you'd rather have Simmons.

And finally, give Simmons his props on 30 for 30, which is the deep end of the pool in the realms of filmmaking and television arts. Would you rather people spend their time on a very fine documentary, then think about it, analyze it, and talk about it... or watch Ice Road Truckers?

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The thing Pierce and Simmons have in common is wit money can't buy. How many funny people to you know? Now ask yourself if those people have the ability to translate that humor into the written word. Now, narrow that group even further by asking if those same folks can produce that wit under the pressure of deadline and getting paid for it. That's where so many Pierce and Simmons imitators fall short. Bill's humor is more "snort out loud," and Pierce's is more Dr. Samuel Johnson/Dorothy Parker, which I suspect is where the trouble began.

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So Pierce and Simmons (and let's not pretend you're both not reading this thread), if something happened to the other tomorrow, would you feel good about where things stand? ... Unless of course you are both enjoying the hell out of this flamewar, in which case the joke's on us.

But c'mon.

 

There are writers on ESPN.com who make Simmons look like Red Smith.

He just seems to draw the ire of many because of his popularity and success despite having a non-traditional journalism background.

 

ESPN's 2009 policy on social media, websites, blogs, message boards, etc:

I hope Bill didn't get in too much trouble.