It’s been one heck of a past 48 hours in the world of people looking-to-make-a-name for themselves, and even Jason Whitlock would be taken aback at the levels of mutual masturbation back scratching taking place in public.
1) To commemorate Will Leitch’s invasion of my adopted hometown in less than two weeks, the Spicy Crunchwrap Supreme Eating M.F. is introduced by the Austin Chronicle’s Shawn Badgely as “Brooklyn’s Answer To Bristol”
AC: Have you gotten a sense of any resentment on the part of the traditional sports media?
WL: It basically depends on whether people have a sense of humor about themselves. I find it amazing that anyone could possibly get offended by anything that anyone writes on the Web about them. It’s the Web. If you Google “Will Leitch” right now, the first thing that comes up is “Will Leitch Sucks.” You’re going to get ripped on.
While I do find it sad that such an innovative, hardworking young man would inspire so much petty jealousy, can the prominent placement of “Will Leitch Sucks” on Google really be blamed on the traditional media?
Though I do hope Will enjoys his stay in Austin, I do think it is worth noting that New Jersey’s suddenly MIA expert on race relations / cock sizes had previously threatened a visit to the Texas capitol this very month. Given the latter’s sudden disappearance and his deep, unrequited love for Mr. Leitch, I think SXSW security ought to be on red alert. I fear we’ve got a potential Mark David Chapman on our hands.
2) ” What are you doing next Wednesday evening? If you’re a sports blog geek in New York, you really should be at the Happy Ending Lounge,” insists True Hoop’s Henry Abbott.
Funnily enough, I’ll be in New York next Wednesday evening. And at the risk of pissing on someone else’s good times, as impressed as some of you might be that the guy from With Leather knows how to read, the prospect of watching him “read from his work” doesn’t exactly get the blood pumping. In short, if you take a date to this event, if might be your last one.
3) Dan Shanoff and Jamie Motramm have selected their “Top Most Influential Sports Bloggers”. Though I must admit I’m a little surprised Will Leitch wasn’t named numbers 1 through 20, many of the selections seem legit enough (save for that Sp-rts By Br–ks fuckwad, who is neither interesting as a writer nor as a budding pornographer). However, when 6 of the 20 are either AOL Fanhouse comrades of Motramm’s or employees of Gawker Media (and none of ’em have vaginas!), I think it is fair to say the jury needs to broaden their range a tad.
Though I’d like to sincerely thank whoever protested to Shanoff and Mottram that I was excluded from this elite list, it does sort of suck they couldn’t bother to remember my full name. But really, Mom, Dad, that’s what Google and Wikipedia are for.
Dan Shanoff:
“The depth of quality in sports blogging is phenomenal. The leap that has been made even in the last 18 months – or even the last year – has effectively allowed sports blogs, as a whole, to become as much of a fundamental part of fan consumption as ESPN or their local newspaper coverage. And of all sports-media outlets, blogs have, by far, the most exciting growth prospects.”
The massive pile of bullshit that this guy is slinging has me stunned.
shanoff and motramm…isn’t that the pill procedure for easing the soreness from constant mastrubation?
I don’t know your full name and figured “GC” was good enough for our list as it’s good enough for your site. If you provide us with your full name we’d be happy to include it.
As for broadening our range, well, that’s easy to say without offering ideas for inclusion. Who would you have added?
Regardless, thanks for picking this up. We had fun taking a break from “constant mastrubation [sic]” to put it together.
Sorry, I’m late to the party. I am curious as to why you despise Will, Matt, and Brooks so much. I enjoy reading all of your sites. Thanks.
Dear Jamie,
my full name’s all over the place here. I thank you for your dilligence in wanting to get things right, but I don’t honestly expect you to amend anything.
As far as broadening your range is concerned, granted, neither you or Dan sought to hide the inner-circle jerk nature of this list, and everything’s arbitrary. Someone whom I consider to be talented and/or influential might not be on your radar or perhaps you think their stuff sucks. My own list would’ve included Sports Frog, Sidearm Delivery, Uni Watch, The Corridor, No Mas, Rebuilding Year, PFT and The Feed (admittedly, a new one) long before I’d have considered a Wicked Weasel site masquerading as a sports blog, but hey, we’re all into something different. Nobody’s stopping me from making my own chart.
Scraps,
the Will stuff has been documented a little too often all ready, though I think despise is a rather inappropriate word. Other than his open speculating about having slept with an ex gf of mine (and as I’ve said before, that would only make me sympathetic), I don’t think there’s anything personal about it. If Will wants to get some tex-mex and do a few shots during his stay in Austin, that would be great. I mean, I won’t be going with him, but I’m sure someone would like to.
If by Matt you mean the With Leather dude, hey, to each his own. I’m sure it’s a very popular blog.
best wishes
Gerard
Thanks. I was just curious. I’ll do some searching on your site for more insight. The way I look at it, they’re all in business first and foremost, writing second, whether they like it or not. I enjoy many sites for various reasons and appreciate your candor on this one.
I like Dan Shanoff — I like his blog, and he’s always been cool to me as far as links and emails on my twice-yearly regular media publications — and while I also disagree with a lot of stuff on his list, I think he’s not wrong about how important sports blogs have become. It might sound to some like a pat on the back/privates, but I’m not sure that makes it wrong.
This might be a case of me reading my circle of friends as representative of the nation at large — by that standard, for instance, John Kerry would’ve won the presidency going away — but I do think blogs really have gone a long way towards replacing traditional sports media, at least for a certain segment of the population. One which, I’d imagine, is probably pretty valuable to print media advertisers (still your best value?), too, I’d guess. I don’t read many of the blogs on Dan and Jamie’s list — although Sports by Brooks sounds hilarious — but I do read some of them, and I read them daily. I think for basketball stuff in particular, I’d go to Henry Abbott and B. Shoals and Wizznutzz (and Chauncey Billups, RIP), even if they’re not doing much original reporting, before I’d go to Chad Ford or whoever writes about the stuff for SI. Any list that puts Deadspin number one is probably just on a different wavelength than me (I don’t have any anti-Will animus, but I don’t like the site’s corny, fratty dittohead vibe), but I don’t think, overall, that it’s that bad at all.
Jon Polito (circa 1990) would not have appreciated “JM’s” high hat.
I suppose the lack of traditional and overplayed snarkitude, no drunk athlete photo swapping, and no cock really does make a great site like Bat-Girl non-influential. The non-mainstreamy mainstream never seemed so mainstream. Or something like that. Pats on the back all around I guess.
^ David Roth: “I think he’s not wrong about how important sports blogs have become… I do think blogs really have gone a long way towards replacing traditional sports media, at least for a certain segment of the population.”
You’re suprising me with this comment, Dave, since it was you who wrote what I think is one of the great summations of the current sports blogger environment:
“Something like this reminds you how many lame blogs of this sort are out there, and how many hyper-sarcastic 23 year olds with puddle-deep opinions on everything and a great love for their own comedy stylings know how to use Blogger.”
just to play devilsh advocate for a minute, I recognize that Dan and Jamie’s list is meant to recognize who they consider to be “influential” rather than “the best”. Personal taste aside, I’d have to be living under a big boulder if I couldn’t acknowledge that Will wields some influence — the plethora of copy-kitty-litter blogs that have sprung up in Deadspin’s wake is certainly testament.
And on a similar tip, though I make fun of him far too much, David Pinto would crack my influential top Whatever simply because his dilligent work at Baseball Musings had an awful lot to do with my giving this sports bloggery thing a try.
re : back patting. David, I’m more troubled by the numbers. 6 out of 20 are either Gawker employees or Fanhouse connected. 1/5th are providing content to AOL. Full credit to Jamie for the full disclosure, but when a guy from AOL (a key player in the Fanhouse endeavor — which by the way, i think has been mostly successful from an artistic, if not a commercial standpoint) tells us that 20% of the most influential sports bloggers just happen to be his colleagues…well, I dunno. I have no reason to believe his intent is anything but noble. But you and I each know that NOBODY has a 100% comprehensive blogroll. When the likes of Jeff Kallman, Jeff Johnson and Tom Benjamin are so damn good on a regular basis, it’s hard for me to take a comment like MJD is “pound-for-pound the most talented writer among sports bloggers,” seriously. I think their scale’s busted. But opinions are like microbes — everybody’s got some.
GC: Obviously, can’t argue with that. I was making a more general point, but yeah that’s obviously pretty corny. The thing that’s lame about the list is what’s lame about the sort of top-tier clique of sports bloggers in general: they’re all more or less the same guy, with slightly different hairstyles and more or less the same prose style.
Brushback: Oh, I stand by that earlier comment. Well, both of them: I read more blogs than I do sports magazines, mostly because good bloggers sound fresher and have more interesting voices (and because they link back to the guys who actually do the hard work of researching stuff). Half the dudes on the Shanoff/Mottram list are straight-up unreadable, MJD high among them. And the slavish leaching off Leitch’s offhand snark is a bummer not just because the resulting work is so lame, but because it’s so unfailingly, dishearteningly similar; I hate that shit, and I can’t imagine ever coming around to it — if Deadspin is, say, a Gin Blossoms cassette, most of those guys are ever-worse dubs of said crappy tape. But some of the bloggers I like — say, Shoals or Wizznutzz, from my earlier list of favorite hoops guys — are really doing distinctive writing (academic and freeform, respectively), and there’s other good, urgent prose being written on blogs. Just, for the most part, not on their top 20. My top 20 — if I even read that many — I think is different.
Gerard a.k.a. GC,
We did consider PFT, Uni Watch and No Mas but, obviously, none of them made our highly subjective list for various reasons. We remain fans of all three sites. The other blogs you mentioned were not a part of our initial conversation, but I respect that they’re a part of this one.
As for the point that you (and we) made about 1/4th of the list being comprised of FanHouse contributors, that’s no coincidence. As I recruit talent for FanHouse, I contact the best of the best (my opinion). So it only makes sense that there would be crossover between that roster and this list. For the record, all five were on Dan’s independent list that he put together before we decided to collaborate on this.
Best,
Jamie
No Yard Work, no credibility
Jamie,
” As I recruit talent for FanHouse, I contact the best of the best (my opinion). So it only makes sense that there would be crossover between that roster and this list.”
Fair enough, but it also renders the exercise less than credible if your list of the “20 Most Influential Sports Bloggers” also happens to serve as a defacto plug for a business enterprise you and 4 of the persons listed are involved in. I’m not saying the gentlemen in question aren’t talented or without influence. But the list also serves as a rather convenient, congratulatory summation of your recruiting efforts.
Would the cause of truth and justice been helped one iota by your excusing yourself from such a poll? Probably not. But I’ll still maintain there’s more to this than merely “two guys’ opinions” — the Fanhouse connection is not only not a coincidence, but genuinely unfortunate in this instance.
I can totally believe that all 5 were on Dan’s list. Unless and until he’s involved with AOL, the word “independent” is just as important as I’m making it out to be.
John, Yard Work would certainly make a short list of the best blogs/sites. But until the site’s mysterious handlers start providing the public with a weekly dose of jpgs of women Tom Brady may or may not have impregnated, I can’t imagine how Yard Work could possibly be considered “influential”.
The real issue here is Taco Bell. And since you dumb mo-fo’s are obviously oblivious, the Taco Bell on 6th Ave. and 3rd St. in NYC (the Village, to be exact) was recently bombarded by huge giant rats. It was all over the news. I ate there a whole 12 hours there before the rats were caught on tape by NY1 and, like, 10 other news stations. Be happy, sports enthusiasts, because at least you don’t have the plague, and shit.
in the interests of fairness, I should point out that AOL.com was running Taco Bell rat video footage DAYS AGO, long before little ol’ CSTB caught on to this massive story.
That particular Taco Bell/KFC that Rog admits to dining in used to house a Burger King some years ago. How badly run must a Burger King be to close up shop in a high traffic location like 6TH AVE. & 3RD ST.?
Meanwhile, we hear nothing about health code violations at the McDonalds next door to what used to be Folk City. I just don’t know who to believe any more!
Although, to be fair, Folk City had many health code violations thru-out the years..most of it centering around the dated grub gnarled into Dave Van Ronk’s beard.
The greater concern would in my eyes be what happens when Greg Ginn moves to your adopted hometown.
I think we’re unlikely to start a band or a basketball team, if thats what you mean.