Now You Too Can Write Garbage Like ESPN’s Bill Simmons

I was online today and was wondering how many other people dislike ESPN’s The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, as much as I do. Now, before I get into where it led me, let me explain why I cannot stand this guy. First of all, he’s nonstop with the Boston sports, and that would be all well and good if he were writing for the Boston Red Sox website or covered Celtics games for the Globe, but he’s addressing a national audience. It’s overwhelmingly repetitive after several years of the same thing. We get it – you like Boston. He only makes it worse by trying to pepper in articles on other, non-Boston teams in an effort to seem well rounded, but take a look at any article he’s done where Boston isn’t referenced in some way and you can clearly see a difference in the enthusiasm and quality.

While the fact that he has every guy’s dream job and seems to get away with endless amount of Boston propaganda is quite annoying, it’s at least somewhat tolerable. And to be fair, in the beginning, when he burst onto the scene and many fans were sympathetic or at least empathetic because the Red Sox were still looking to break the curse and the Celtics were still far from being the powerhouse they are today, his stuff was actually at times original and entertaining. But then the sports gods smiled upon beantown, and apparently Simmons couldn’t handle the success of his sports teams and became extremely cocky and self-centered. And that is the real reason I had to stop reading Simmons’ articles – he is unbelievably egotistical. The guy can’t get enough of himself; just access any ESPN podcast with him and you’ll see. On top of all of this, he sounds like a complete tool. Not just because of the way he thinks he is so clever, but because he actually sounds like a tool, as in, he has a pipsqueak voice.

With that being said, one of the sites that popped up in my “Bill Simmons sucks” search was a Bill Simmons article generator. This is funny because it calls attention to how generic and unoriginal Simmons is, and how he basically writes the same article over and over, simply switching up movie and professional athlete references. After putting in the answers to 50 fields of mad-lib-type questions, here’s what got generated. Sports fans who are familiar with BS’ bs, I strongly recommend this exercise.

The Sports Guy Goes to an Auction
So I’m sitting there the other day watching ESPN2 and I see that Andy Pettite had a great game. There is nobody, with the possible exception of Grady Little, that I dislike more than Andy Pettite.

The phone rings. It’s my friend Bish. Angry! Bish is always willing to discuss our mutual distaste for Andy Pettite. Don’t get me wrong–we respect his abilities. But he’s the Newman of sports. Totally annoying, yet on TV all the time. Bish mentions that it would be nice if Andy Pettite caught a case of swine flu at the beginning of September, paving the way for the Red Sox to the playoffs like Leonard Weaver on HGH.

Bish points out that the chances that Andy Pettite will come down with swine flu in September are minimal, but that if we expanded the possibilities, there would be a greater chance for debilitating success. As usual, Bish is a crazy genius.
Here is what we came up with:

4. Andy Pettite receives a vicious pile driver from Wade Boggs in front of 40,000 fans jammed into Fenway.
(On a side note, has there ever been a greater moment in sports than when Hulk Hogan picks up Andre the Giant? I don’t even care if it was fake, that was bodacious. That rivals when Rudy gets the ball for ‘Most Inspiration Non-Real Sports Moment.’)

3. Andy Pettite is informed by his wife that their child was not fathered by him but rather by either Billy Wagner or Omar Minaya.

2. Andy Pettite hangs scrapbook-style clippings of Dylan McKay and Johnny from Karate Kid in his locker and is immediately put on the DL.

1. Andy Pettite meets Tanesha from Bad Girls Club, falls in love, and leaves team to begin filming ‘My Fair Yankee.’

After we finish with the conversation about Andy Pettite we turn ourselves to the real topic of conversation, the upcoming draft of the Erin Andrews is Sexy Memorial Baseball Association, a new fantasy league that Bish and I will be joining this year. Ordinarily, I’m never an advocate of partnering up to own a fantasy baseball team. That’s like getting picked up by Eva Longoria and going back to her place, only to find out that George Foreman is already there. If the best you get is to share, sometimes it’s not worth it at all, right?

However, this league only had one slot open, so Bish and I agreed to partner up, in the hope that one of us could switch over and manage the next vacancy. After much debate, and eliminating the excellent possibilities of ‘Naked checkers with doilies’ and ‘Refrigerator Perry’s Shiny Casinos’ as potential team names, we settle on ‘Don’tToyaWithPedroia.’

The thing that’s exciting about this league is that it’s an auction format league, which is totally different than a draft league. I mean, it seems as though it would be the same as a draft league, but it’s not. It’s like the difference between NHL 93 and NHL 94-you take out fighting and add one-timers, you’ve got a whole different game, even if they are both hockey. Any good sports fan knows that undefined but not everyone knows how to do an auction.

Pre-auction preparation is important. First, it is important to choose a date when the auction will take place. This is easy. Choose the date when the whipped guy does not have to buy tampons, and that’s your date. Finding the whipped-guy-can-make-it date is crucial for auction success. (Speaking of which, what is with all these girlfriends who think that ‘fantasy draft’ is code for ‘I’m going to have my buddies over to watch Bon Jovi perform songs by Bernie Williams while eating a banana’? Though that would be cool.)

Next, and more difficult, is the auction location selection. Many times people will choose to have their auction in a bar. This is a bad idea. Nothing good can come of this; no, the auction must be held in someone’s house-biggest furnished basement wins. The coolness of the wife/significant other can be a deciding factor if two people have similar options-say, if owner A has a Baseball Stars arcade game, but owner B has a case of PBR. Nothing will kill a fun evening faster than the host’s wife emasculating him with a ‘you’re sleeping on the couch.’ We have selected next Tuesday night, at 8 pm, at a guy’s house where his wife will be in darning socks, and therefore unable to disrupt the festivities.

I will not be sharing with you my player ratings for this coming season-after all, Tom Schneider doesn’t play poker with the hand face up-but I will give you some insight into my auction strategy. The thing is, an auction has so much more of an influence on your season than a draft does. In an auction, every player in the league is at your disposal. Everyone starts out equal.

It’s also like a marathon running. It requires endurance, it requires stamina, and it requires concentration and planning. Without further adieu, here is my ‘Sports Guy Auction Strategy Guide’:

Round One-Sting like a bee
Once the auction starts, timing and strategy are much more important than they are in a traditional draft. The first hour or so of the auction has to be spent feeling out your opponents. Are they particularly loyal to the Marlins? Do they have a tendency toward incessantly coughing? You are looking for weaknesses that you can exploit later on. Store these like money.

Here is a good place to test people by chucking out a few names of guys you’d never want on your team-aging, oft-injured players, like Chipper Jones, or over-hyped rookies that will never pan out like Todd Van Poppel. Everyone is going to get some good players at this point, so make sure you don’t overpay and find yourself begging for money like Turtle asking for Vinny Chase’s AMEX Black.

Round Two-Have a sense of history
In round two, there will be one moment that defines your draft. Things will be going along smoothly, and all of a sudden you’ll get involved in a bidding war on a player. It’s not unlike a big pot in a no-limit hold-em tournament-you’ll have your Lex Luther-Superman in Superman moment, and you need to decide what to do.

Oftentimes, this will come down to a single dollar, here or there-if you bid $15 for Darryl Strawberry, you know you’ll get him, but you’re facing a bid with the clock ticking. Are you going to be a hero, carried off the field like Albert Pujols? Or are you Kirk Ferentz, skulking off the field into the jeering history of your team’s fans, with only your family still willing to speak with you. Now is your moment. Set the tone.

Round Three-Moving day

Hour three of the draft is moving day, like the third day of The Masters. You need to shoot a 65. This is where you’ll fill out a lot of the players that, while less sexy, make up the core of your team. Do not discount the importance of moving day. If you wait until the next phase to build the core of your team, you’ll find yourself as lonely as Paris Hilton at a Catholic service.

Moving day is the time to make things happen for your team. This is where you are going to define the season that you have. If you end up moving day by taking an accurate mix of future stars, injury-risk players, and Dustin Pedroia, you’ll be okay.

Round Four-The game of Trivial Pursuit
By the end of the fantasy auction, the endeavor has become exhausting. The only thing it can be compared to is a game of Trivial Pursuit, played among friends. Something that, at the beginning of the endeavor, seemed like such fun, but by the end of it, is just a group of people banging their heads against the wall, adamantly trying to finish what they started, the joy of competing against your friends replaced with a desire to prove that you are the duke of All Trivia and that is that.

In this phase of the auction, you must be careful. This is the ‘how am funny? funny like a clown?’ moment of the draft. People will be exploding like water balloon, screaming incomprehensible things like Bobcat Goldthwait and threatening to scream if they do not get their way. Just bite your lip, set your jaw, and try and endure. It’s a long season coming forward.