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Background: the Pittsburgh Pirates just had probably their best draft in two decades. They managed to draft and sign two of the top 15 prospects available. They gave out the highest signing bonus of all time. They broke the previous record on draft spending by more than 40% ($17M v $12M). Pirates fans are pretty drat happy. But luckily, we have Bob Smizik to set us straight: you're not allowed to be happy about your team's future if it's bad right now. Also, past draft picks have busted so current draft picks aren't any good. quote:Draft: Why all the excitement? A sports reporter who hate he home team. A shameful reporter. e: A bonus! Here's Smizik before the signing deadline: quote:The scorecard is this: Mornacale fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Aug 18, 2011 |
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Aug 18, 2011 20:49
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Let me tell you about the greatest* baseball game I've ever seen. This is pretty much why I was skeptical of Grantland in the first place, there's some good material but the bad stuff is aggravating swizz fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Aug 19, 2011 |
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Aug 19, 2011 01:18
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I don't know anything about Dan Kois, but I think I'm finally convinced that his awful "Razzie Watch" column on Grantland is sincere and actually attempting to be clever despite having sectional titles such as "New This 'Weak'" and "On the 'Bore'izon" instead of an Onion-esque parody of a column mocking bad movies. There's some good stuff on Grantland, but it seems like they blew their load of good actual journalism (like the National oral history) and now are just shoveling out the same caliber of crappy blogger poo poo that's all over the rest of the internet.
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Aug 19, 2011 01:38
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swizz posted:This is pretty much why I was skeptical of Grantland in the first place, there's some good material but the bad stuff is aggravating to be fair their good to poo poo ratio seems better than average especially if you know who to avoid (mr. klosterman)
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Aug 19, 2011 01:43
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R.D. Mangles posted:I don't know anything about Dan Kois, but I think I'm finally convinced that his awful "Razzie Watch" column on Grantland is sincere and actually attempting to be clever despite having sectional titles such as "New This 'Weak'" and "On the 'Bore'izon" instead of an Onion-esque parody of a column mocking bad movies. There's some good stuff on Grantland, but it seems like they blew their load of good actual journalism (like the National oral history) and now are just shoveling out the same caliber of crappy blogger poo poo that's all over the rest of the internet. Pretty much all the pop culture stuff on there is terrible. I think the sports stuff I've read is mostly okay, although I admittedly skip over most of the blog posts and anything about soccer (which is pretty large percentage of it). Most of their very best stuff was definitely in that first week or two, but I suppose that's to be expected.
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Aug 19, 2011 01:50
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The LA Noire review on Grantland was really good.
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Aug 19, 2011 01:52
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[0:01-0:33] What, you mean you don't like it when Klosterman writes 2000 words about an instrumental 70s rock track and tries to straddle a line between being snarky and insightful? [0:34-1:01] Especially when it's centered around him breaking down a youtube video, second by second? Or filled with anecdotes about growing up in a small town? What if I told you it's also packed with references to 80s hair metal? [1:02-1:03] This is definitely the part of the song I like the least. [1:04-1:30] The way he structured that piece isn't an awful gimmick at all, it's a really cool way to appreciate a guy who today records music written by Ron Hubbard
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Aug 19, 2011 01:57
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Let me tell you about the greatest* baseball game I've ever seen. I want to read this article. 
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Aug 19, 2011 05:18
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barkingclam posted:[0:01-0:33] What, you mean you don't like it when Klosterman writes 2000 words about an instrumental 70s rock track and tries to straddle a line between being snarky and insightful?
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Aug 19, 2011 08:35
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Bill Barnwell is both a pretty good writer and entertaining. Jonah Keri is both a pretty good writer and entertaining. The soccer posts have been surprisingly accessible. Grantland isn't worthless, it's just that its worth is instead of going to two or three or four websites to read those guys' writing it's just one. I would have read those guys regardless of grantland's existence.
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Aug 19, 2011 13:33
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They actually wrote about tennis too 
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Aug 19, 2011 14:25
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morestuff posted:I think ESPN catches more flak than they sometimes deserve, but this is seriously goddamn ridiculous placement for what is probably the biggest sports story of the year: I know they don't wanna shine up their rivals and generate more hits for them, but goddamn. ESPN really does not give a gently caress about a sport or news item unless it's in their wheelhouse or published by them
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Aug 19, 2011 15:49
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This article could just as easily be titled "Why MVP voting is stupid"
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Aug 19, 2011 20:40
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ShaneB posted:This article could just as easily be titled "Why MVP voting is stupid"
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Aug 19, 2011 21:06
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Skip past the Mark Ames and Exile-standard slamming of appearance and ad hominem and get to the bottom and the gut of why Klosterman is horrible. Ames is always all shotgun and little concern for how he hits the target, but eventually the blasts just land. I know pimping your own poo poo here is usually bad form, but I thought initially that Grantland sucked poo poo, and I haven't had any reason to reconsider. Klosterman has a position for being insightful about sports precisely because the criteria for being insightful are set so low and established by someone with all the cash. Money talks and talks and talks and talks and talks. Now with footnotes. I can understand why people dislike Klosterman, but "criticism" like Ames is ridiculous. For example: quote:Klosterman and his type are one of the reasons why I went into exile (I’m writing this from Moscow). I wanted out of a paradigm in which his type dominated the narrative when in fact his type should be rotting in a death camp, begging for a clump of grass to suck on. I understood 10 years ago that fighting against the Klostermans in America is utterly pointless: Klosterman is the metaphor, the designated heir of everything horribly American, precisely because he’s stupid, shameless and hokey.  My guess would be that he's not being entirely truthful, but this is not an accurate shotgun blast, and more of a smug, rage-filled rant.I like Klosterman, although my enjoyment is only limited to his two books of essays, and a handful of his articles. Maybe my friends are terrible anecdotal evidence, but I have never seen Klosterman revered in the way Ames says, "It’s not just Klosterman. There’s the entire culture where this man is taken seriously and blown in journals that really should know better." Everyone I have talked to, including myself, think he writes some funny essays. Nothing more than that. However, this assessment is pretty accurate of Chucky K, "As you can see, if Sean Penn’s retarded character from I Am Sam had read Baudrillard, you’d get Chuck Klosterman." It is pretty extreme, but it's still funny.
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Aug 19, 2011 22:15
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That's kinda what the angle of guys like Ames is. Have you ever read any of his other stuff? If not him, then Taibbi? It's intentionally rage fueled. You don't have to like it but it's important to understand it's absolutely done that way on purpose.
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Aug 19, 2011 22:23
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No, I have never read Ames before, so I guess I didn't realize his schtick was intentionally rage fueled. Still, I stand by what I said. On purpose or not, it wasn't great criticism to me. But that may be because I don't think of Klosterman in the way Ames does, "But "low culture"? I didn’t know intellectuals, even Beigeist morons like Klosterman, could get away with using phrases like "high" and "low" culture anymore. Even ironically." Obviously, he doesn't think of Klosterman as an intellectual, but he is placing him in that category. To me, Klosterman is just a guy who wrote some funny essays once, and occasionally has an interesting article.
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Aug 19, 2011 22:49
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Grantland's good. but it's the Boardwalk Empire/New York Yankees of web sites; not really as good as it should be on paper from the sum of its parts.
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Aug 19, 2011 23:29
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A writer I like, Bethelhem Shoals, just got hired by Bleacher Report as their Lead NBA writer. He makes some reasonable points in his introductory article:quote:SEO, the punchline B/R is often reduced to, is part of the equation. However, I see it as a tactic, not a strategy. Bleacher Report wants to figure out a medium (and tech-enmeshed marketplace) that isn't getting any less crowded or tangled. There isn't going to be a mass extinction of social networks or web-capable devices. But all that kind of gets undercut when you look at RELATED ARTICLES:
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Aug 22, 2011 17:33
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Not going to post any specific thing but Deadspin has no less than three posts about Grantland today. Good lord
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Aug 23, 2011 06:07
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I really like Klosterman. That Mark Ames article is as mentioned all rage and attacks on the person with very little insight in to why he isn't "good." And having grown up in Minnesota and known a lot of those so called hicks from North dakota (and god knows there are a lot of them) Klosterman isn't bragging to get some low brow cred from the Midwest but rather reciting his own childhood of rural middle America which I've found very very spot on. And I think his incites that I've listened to on podcasts about how he watches sports are fascinating and have at times made me re-evaluate how I watch sports and how I'm consuming them. Obviously I don't agree with all his takes but the point of view he provides in a admittedly shallow discourse of pop culture and sports in general is a welcome and refreshing view. I'll stand by Klosterman any time because on the other hand you have guys like Rick Reilly spewing random crap day in and day out. He is always treading a line of self indulgence but anyone who is going to read his books or go to Grantland should be ready for this. You're not reading the economist, there isn't going to be an invisible but authoritative narrative, and the reason I like Klosterman is he wears who he is on his shoulders at all times. Ames anger is misguided. He may be a shotgun of anger but in my opinion he basically misses. It is baffling how much so many people hate Klosterman for what he writes about and how. soggybagel fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Aug 23, 2011 |
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Aug 23, 2011 07:07
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Before reading this thread, I honestly didn't know that people disliked Klosterman. I guess I can see why, though, I personally like him a lot.
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Aug 23, 2011 08:08
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The only thing I really dislike on Grantland is that guy from Hipster Runoff. Just awful, awful stuff.
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Aug 23, 2011 09:01
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I think Hipster Runoff can be really funny, but making him adhere to the AP Style Guide or whatever makes him lose a lot of his voice.
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Aug 23, 2011 13:54
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I agree, but I can also see Carles writing style confusing a lot of people who have no idea what Hipster Runoff is, too. He's an odd choice.
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Aug 23, 2011 17:18
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barkingclam posted:I agree, but I can also see Carles writing style confusing a lot of people who have no idea what Hipster Runoff is, too. He's an odd choice. I think it's a joke that wears thin pretty quickly anyway, but this definitely doesn't help in terms of public perception. You have all this normal writing and then...that, with no real explanation of what it is.
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Aug 23, 2011 18:12
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Yeah, that Carles guy makes absolutely no sense outside the context of his site and even less sense on a website populated by a man whose pop culture references seem frozen in flannel and a guy whose music criticism gimmick is based on naval-gazing sincerity. I'll always have a soft spot for Klosterman because I was introduced to him as a guest on Simmons's podcast that actually forced Simmons to attempt to reflect on his own career which made for a fairly interesting conversation.BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:know pimping your own poo poo here is usually bad form, but I thought initially that Grantland sucked poo poo, and I haven't had any reason to reconsider. This guy's blog is pretty awesome and has an interesting article on Deadspin and Grantland. R.D. Mangles fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Aug 23, 2011 |
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Aug 23, 2011 19:15
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Simmons is definitely a dickhead but I've always read him because he's one of the few writes about basketball a lot. I'd say though the young NBA writers are miles ahead of him. The Shoalses, Dwyers and The Basketball Joneses. I wonder why Simmons has never given them any props or a shout out or even a mention seeing as they're in a relatively small field of "internet NBA writers" and he's in a way privileged position.
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Aug 23, 2011 22:39
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jyrka posted:Simmons is definitely a dickhead but I've always read him because he's one of the few writes about basketball a lot. I'd say though the young NBA writers are miles ahead of him. The Shoalses, Dwyers and The Basketball Joneses. I wonder why Simmons has never given them any props or a shout out or even a mention seeing as they're in a relatively small field of "internet NBA writers" and he's in a way privileged position. He sort of did then changed his mind. Shoals was pretty unkind to The Book of Basketball in a few venues. Edit: Also, FD protege Eric Freeman has done some writing for Grantland. morestuff fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Aug 23, 2011 |
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Aug 23, 2011 22:43
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I'm going to balance some of this out by saying that Chuck Klosterman can, now and always, burn in hell, and he can take Carles with him We need to go back in time and stop David Foster Wallace from killing himself. Then also go back in time further and like, I dunno, make him like baseball.
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Aug 24, 2011 02:01
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Eschaton wouldn't have worked nearly as well with baseball so I cannot go along with that plan.
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Aug 24, 2011 02:42
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If there's one thing I'm confident in, it's that David Foster Wallace would have been able to come up with something to make it work Or he just would have written something else, possibly better
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Aug 24, 2011 02:43
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SI_PeterKing Peter King I guess Tim Tebow was Den's 4th-best QB when he led Broncs to 24-second-half pts and 24-23 win over Houston. I'm not sure if he's being serious or sarcastic, but who cares what Tebow does against guys who will be cut in the next two weeks?
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Aug 24, 2011 14:09
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Bigass Moth posted:SI_PeterKing Peter King He's talking about a game that actually counted last year (yes the Texans were shameful thanks for asking)
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Aug 24, 2011 17:39
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rebel1608 posted:He's talking about a game that actually counted last year (yes the Texans were shameful thanks for asking) Peter King and sample size, two concepts that don't go together. Using his idiotic metric you can make a lot of lovely QBs look really good.
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Aug 24, 2011 18:27
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Apparently Deadspin snuck Tommy Craggs into an ESPN State of the Union meeting and he was escorted from the premises by ESPN security.
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Aug 25, 2011 20:57
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Deadspin continues to put me in the strange position of rooting for ESPN.
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Aug 25, 2011 20:59
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LARGE THE HEAD posted:Apparently Deadspin snuck Tommy Craggs into an ESPN State of the Union meeting and he was escorted from the premises by ESPN security. Is the childish article about it up on Deadspin yet?
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Aug 25, 2011 21:23
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Groucho Marxist posted:Is the childish article about it up on Deadspin yet? Here are the INCREDIBLY COMPELLING results. Honestly, what were they expecting to glean from something so boring and corporate? Have they never been to a company-wide meeting before? Those things are abysmal.
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Aug 26, 2011 18:04
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morestuff posted:Here are the INCREDIBLY COMPELLING results. Dalerio basically made his career by looking over Stu Scott's shoulder while he sent a text (or more likely making a story about doing that up) so maybe they were going to steal Scott Van Pelt's cell phone or something. Or more likely just snicker about being in there and act like they had scored a dramatic victory in the ~War Against Traditional Media~
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Aug 26, 2011 18:54
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