Dan Shaughnessy Watch has the blow-by-blow in which Bill Simmons irritated the pearl that is Dan Shaughnessy, and all without mentioning him specifically.
Bill Simmons
Cameron Martin tells the Sports Guy what he can do with his maudlin back-from-the-future piece about how he has to explain to his kid that everybody on the 2004 Sox juiced up:
Grow a pair, Greenwich boy, and stop acting like a dumb, naive homer.
Dan Kennedy, meanwhile, tries to pinpoint exactly when Manny started shooting steroids taking fertility treatments. He narrows it down to the end of the 2007 season, not sure of the month and day yet.
Rob refutes Bill Simmons on the issue of Manny Ramirez:
... Just to put a few facts out there: Manny Ramirez is a grown man. He's a goofy bastard, but he's no child. He hired Scott Boras, not the other way around. And as much influence as Boras may have wielded, it was still Manny who gave the green light in the end. It was still Manny who took three strikes in Yankee Stadium. It was still Manny who shoved a Red Sox employee to the ground, slapped Kevin Youkilis in public, demanded a trade, and faked injury in the middle of a pennant race. ...
He adds:
... The most irritating part of Simmons' rant is that he tries to come off as the voice of all Sox fans. He thinks himself Tribunus Plebis (tribune of the people) of Red Sox Nation. But it's difficult to have the pulse of a New England fanbase from Los Angeles. ...
I know, I know, that's territory best left for the CHB, but Pax Arcana gets annoyed at the way Ryan keeps ripping into Bill Simmons on his blog without actually mentioning his name, let alone linking to whatever it is Simmons wrote online that got Ryan all riled up.
... It seems that Ryan is falling into the trap of playing by print rules on Web turf. I don't advocate using the Web as a platform for slander or ad hominem attacks on other writers - I'm arguing that where print venues once conferred upon columnists the ability to call down the thunder from on high with thinly veiled insults, the Internet requires greater frankness. If you hadn't read Simmons' column already, you may have no idea who Ryan is talking about. Even if you could guess who he was referencing, you'd still have to click multiple times to find it - only to be disappointed that you waded all the way over there for what amounts to a minor schoolyard dust-up. ...
Here is what got Ryan's knickers in a bunch.
David Scott has the deets on the sportsy cat fight, which so far actually seems limited to Ryan howling about Bill Simmons and Simmons just sitting there, not saying a thing (Media Farm wonders if it's all just a ploy by Ryan to make himself relevant again - hmm, isn't that Shaughnessy's thing, you know, pick a fight for no particular reason?).
The Sports Guy getting just a bit too predictable? Use the Sports Guy column generator to build your very own Bill Simmons screed.
Carl grows increasingly reluctant to give the Sports Guy a hometown discount:
... Essentially, Bill Simmons lives in an insular world in which is "cutting edge"-ness is actually tempered by his employers. He provides a few interesting ideas every three months, but ultimately his schtick is just that: contrived, expected and used way-too-much. ...