Short of Jackie Christie marrying Ted Nation, I’m not sure there could be bigger (or more insular) news this afternoon than an for-real-link from Deadspin acknowledging yesterday’s critique of Sportsline’s hapless Gregg Doyel (above). While the resulting observations from The McDonald’s Of Sports Sites’ loyal readers are as typically reasoned and challenging as you’d expect, though there are a handful of points I’d like to touch upon :

1) It’s totally awesome that I get so many props for my day job. Irrelevent, too, but in 10 years time when I’m either selling blood or time shares, at least I can look back fondly on the era in which persons I never met managed to drop a lot of band names. I’m nostalgic for it already, and the day isn’t over yet.

2) Mr. Spectator — at no time have I ever claimed that Will Leitch “ripped off” my (?) idea for a “snarky sports blog.” He might’ve copped something from these guys (amongst others), but if they don’t care, I don’t suppose I should, either. But the jumping-the-snark thing, you’ll have to fill me in on, ’cause I’m all about sincerity. I own the entire True Believers back catalog, as it turns out.

3) What does it say about the state of the universe that I referred to Deadspin’s commentators as “acolytes” and somebody comes back with a Ron Simmons reference? Other than, y’know, it’s time to reintroduce conscription.