Sports Journalism Tumblr: A Black self-insert character called Jabaal Abdul-Simmons

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > Sports Journalism Tumblr: A Black self-insert character called Jabaal Abdul-Simmons

«‹›4 »

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

leokitty posted:

Where does he get this from? All the Dodger crazies are long gone

The ones that are still around post, depressingly enough, at the Baseball Fever forums in the Brooklyn Dodgers subforum.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2011 21:35

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 00:18

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

the last page of this has been pretty great

# ¿ Apr 29, 2011 02:38

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

morestuff posted:

But he JUST HAD TO GET IT OUT THERE, OUT OF DUTY

Also, this had one of the more-tortured metaphors I've seen recently (it's also a lovely article):

ahh, the lovely forced analogies of deadline writing

# ¿ Apr 29, 2011 06:15

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Paul Shirley was the guy that blamed Haitians for the earthquake, right?

# ¿ Apr 30, 2011 16:00

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

my favorite part is when he blames the citizens of Haiti for their government being corrupt.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2011 16:56

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

where are you seeing them? main site still has "coming soon."

# ¿ May 3, 2011 04:04

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Copernic posted:

Jay!

goddamn, dude needs to attend some al-anon meetings or something

BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:

At the end of the arraignment, the Judge assigned Marriotti negative points, slammed his gavel down and shouted, "NEXT CONVICT!"

hahaha

# ¿ May 12, 2011 05:20

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Graceful. And seamless.

# ¿ May 13, 2011 05:28

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

leokitty posted:

What in the gently caress is this cheerleading piece of poo poo?

http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/mlb/columns/story?columnist=edes_gordon&id=6567995

Being a Red Sox fan admittedly means being absorbed with our own issues, which these days tend to revolve around whether John Lackey is a complete bust, a basket case or a guy who has been pitching with a bad elbow, or whether Carl Crawford's contract contains a clause allowing him to take the first year off while reading the complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

what in the gently caress?

# ¿ May 22, 2011 02:29

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

this is it. this is the perfect time to defend fred wilpon.

# ¿ May 29, 2011 17:30

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Delicious Sci Fi posted:

What I find baffling about the closet one is that "Tressel's Closet" is written on the inside of the door. That doesn't seem very practical.

I wonder what he kept in that tin can.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 01:25

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

It woulda been funny if he wrote like a lovely 10,000-word Posnanskian rambling article about Grantland and in the middle of a generic sentence he added "loving delaurio"

# ¿ Jun 10, 2011 05:46

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

needs more similes and metaphors

# ¿ Jul 2, 2011 18:40

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

nobody's taking this metaphor thing to the next stage:

swimgus posted:

That simile is as bad as stepping on a stingray, but the rest of that article was as decent as my mom's apple pie. The purpose of that simile was as misused as a donkey with a spinning wheel. Is it that it was as bad of an idea to send Marge to sensitivity training as it would've been for the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor again? Because he could have done a lot better than that abortion of a sentence.

I guess Rick Reilly was as okay as Adlai Stephenson. Presently, though, he's as bad a columnist as a fish is at riding a bicycle.

Rick Reilly used to idolize Jim Murray. Murray was excellent at utilizing metaphors or similes to direct the reader to a point. He once famously said "why say a boxer got beat up when you can say 'he looked like six feet of lumps'?" He also wrote this great article on stars in sports focusing on the word "star;" how they aren't brief flashes of talent, but beacons of long-lasting brilliance; how the fans use those stars to navigate the playing eras; and so on. Wish I could find it.

Reilly likes to use metaphors and similes to make off-beat jokes. Whatever works, I guess.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 00:29

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

swimgus posted:

Thanks, you're good at that.

What's so bad about similes? He overuses them now and they're part of his schtick but in the pieces we linked to they're fine. I think you're getting too angry over nothing.

I think figurative language is just fine, so long as it's actually used to make some sort of point, but 99.9% of all of Reilly's billions of similes either don't make sense or are incredibly stupid or about teeth or all three. Usually all three.

Oh, I like(d) Reilly. I haven't read anything by him in a few years (for a reason), but he still came out with decent columns between the "it's no longer about the game" and the "this kid has persevered despite severe injury" columns.

There's nothing wrong with the occasional simile, and sometimes the overuse of simile--W.P. Kinsella wrote a great novel that overused similes to draw a point about symbolism in baseball. But you and I agree, using similes (the weaker of the two) to make a random joke undermines your point.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 01:31

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Reminder that TJ Simers wrote a hatchet job earlier this year on Marcus Thames, one of the best people in sports, that made fun of his name pronunciation, which is exactly like the river and not hard to pronounce at all.

e: Another reminder that TJ Simers once wrote a season's worth of articles calling Andruw Jones fat and coaxed Jones into standing on a scale in front of him.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 08:32

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Crazy Ted posted:

I don't know where else to put this but FOX has apparently bought the movie rights to Those Guys Have All the Fun.

So yes, they're going to make a movie about ESPN.

nice. A Sports Night movie with a lot of goddamn inappropriate work space behavior.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2011 03:30

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:

What are you talking about? They have footnotes and solipsism and everything!

who needs meticulous note taking when you can just ramble for 3000 words

# ¿ Aug 18, 2011 01:19

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Is there any content on Deadspin that's worthwhile anymore?

# ¿ Aug 27, 2011 01:32

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

seiferguy posted:

Well, at least it's better than Bleacher Report!

'The 50 Hottest WAGs of Summer"

"Football's 40 Hottest WAGs"

"The 50 Hottest WAGs of Major League Baseball"

e: I didn't mean to put down Deadspin, I just don't read it and all I hear is how terrible it's been lately.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2011 21:00

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

leokitty posted:

This is how Jeff Passan's most recent column ends

Here is another excerpt

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-passan_10_degrees_red_sox_choke_blame_091911

Sounds like someone hit the whiskey bottle while writing a column

# ¿ Sep 20, 2011 05:54

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Transfatuation posted:

There has GOT to be someone better than Denis Leary to associate with Boston. Even for Boston he's an insufferable rear end in a top hat

ben affleck?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2011 01:56

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

He is also the guy who goes back and corrects his articles and admits when he's wrong, and sportswriting could use some of those guys.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2011 00:21

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

it was an exsanguination piece with a very strong perspective that no one had written to that point, and it was worth writing (and reading).

# ¿ Oct 15, 2011 17:28

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Here's a Tub of poo poo written by ~~Murray Chase~~ Jeff Passan

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-passan_pujols_world_series_game_two_cardinals_102011

Pujols Displays Zero Leadership After Game 2 Loss

quote:

ST. LOUIS � The kids could handle the mess. Never mind that Albert Pujols(notes) created it. This is his clubhouse, where his rules apply and where the term leader is thrown around rather liberally considering real leaders, you know, lead. They own their mistakes, like a ninth-inning error in the World Series, and they drat sure don�t let the pups in the clubhouse, the ones in their first postseason, stand and answer questions they�re not equipped to answer.

And yet there it was, an empty locker flanked by an empty chair to match the emptiness in the air. The St. Louis Cardinals had blown Game 2 at home, and it hurt. Two sacrifice flies in the ninth inning proved enough for the Texas Rangers, who turned eight innings of despondence into one of triumph in a pulse-pounding 2-1 victory Thursday night. At the center of it was a cutoff throw on which Pujols whiffed. The ball slipped away, allowing what would be the winning run to advance into scoring position. Pujols mimicked the ball, showering, dressing and dashing before the clubhouse doors opened.

Part of stardom � perhaps the hardest part � is accountability. Pujols is not accountable to the media. This is not about that. Nor is it about his accountability to fans that may or may not want to know how he spit the bit in a crucial game. Pujols, more than anything, must be accountable to his teammates, those he ostensibly leads. He needs to stand up after losses so Jason Motte(notes) and Jon Jay(notes) and Allen Craig(notes) and David Freese(notes) don�t have to.

Motte, in his third full season, blew the save by giving up a bloop single to Ian Kinsler(notes) and the line-drive single to Elvis Andrus(notes) whose relay Pujols botched. Motte talked for nearly 30 minutes, tackling the same questions again and again, most of them about what this means to the Cardinals� hopes, something better addressed by someone who has won and lost a World Series and might know.

Across the way was Jay, in his second season. He made the throw to Pujols. It wasn�t a great one. Jay said he �pulled it a little bit.� He felt bad. He executed poorly. He also stood behind it. In fact, Jay said, he had talked about it on the bench with Pujols.

�We both said we should�ve probably did a little bit better,� Jay said.

There, too, were Craig and Freese, both kids themselves, going through the ringer. Combined, Motte, Jay, Craig and Freese have less experience in the major leagues than Pujols. Together, they make about 1/10th the money he does. Also absent were Yadier Molina(notes), Matt Holliday(notes) and Lance Berkman(notes), 28 seasons of major league service among them.

They could disappear because of the culture Pujols created, one the organization enables. St. Louis manager Tony La Russa empowers Pujols to do what he pleases, right or wrong, even if it�s the equivalent of ordering the lobster-stuffed filet and sticking the minimum-wage worker with the bill. He will face no discipline. He never does. That is life with Pujols, and the Cardinals� Omert� means nobody calls him on it.

[Related: Ian Kinsler steals bag and Game 2 for Rangers]

One Cardinals player, asked why Pujols left, shrugged his shoulders. Another question, about whether that bothered him, produced a smile. He didn�t know what to say. And if he did, he wouldn�t dare say it.

Here�s the thing: The Cardinals wouldn�t be here without Pujols. They would be a .500 team without him. On the field, he earns every bit of his $16 million and is worth twice as much. He is the most spectacular hitting talent of his generation. He might be the best right-handed hitter ever. His ability stupefies almost daily.

It is not his responsibility to be a spokesman for the Cardinals, either. Plenty of superlative players do not like engaging the media. Chase Utley(notes). Miguel Cabrera(notes). It�s understandable. Losses hurt. Talking about losses pours alcohol in that wound. The media can ask uncomfortable questions. It�s a weird give-and-take.

Until it�s not part of Pujols� job description � and with the media money that helps keep Major League Baseball afloat and Pujols� salary stratospheric, it is � it�s his responsibility to protect his teammates from having to swallow an excessive portion of that grief, especially when much of it is on him. Leaders do that.

[Related: Fan bets Cardinals to win World Series at ridiculous odds]

The word leader, frankly, is loaded. What is leadership? It�s not some ambiguous thing, like the Potter Stewart�s definition of pornography: �I know it when I see it.� No, it�s a set of responsibilities, the greatest of which might be doing something so others � particularly those without the proper knowledge of it � don�t have to.

As difficult as leadership is to quantify, it�s even tougher to value. The highest-paid player in baseball, Alex Rodriguez(notes), isn�t a leader. The second highest-paid, Derek Jeter(notes), is. No leader � not General Patton � could have rid the Boston Red Sox clubhouse of its toxicity in September. Leadership is left to individual moments, defining instances � explaining away, say, a curious play in the World Series.

At first, official scorers didn�t give Pujols an error. Kinsler took a wide turn at third base, even though coach Dave Anderson held a forceful stop sign, and the scorers figured Pujols let the ball sail to the catcher to prevent Kinsler from scoring. Replays showed Pujols� half-baked effort at squeezing the ball into his glove missed, and Andrus, who had stopped at first, continued on into scoring position and came home on Michael Young�s(notes) sacrifice fly.

�I didn�t have a real good shot at it,� La Russa said. �I heard Albert talking to Yadi about it later. I�m not sure exactly what happened.�

[Y! Sports Shop: Buy Rangers and Cardinals playoffs gear]

Tony La Russa, not sure exactly what happened? Sorry. Not buying it. He was protecting Pujols because that�s what the Cardinals have done for a decade, and that�s why he�d be best served re-signing this offseason and not going to a place where someone may dare call him out for an error. Here, they genuflect. They know no better.

Now the Cardinals head to Texas� bandbox without home-field advantage on an unhappy flight, their streak of 15 getaway victories gone. Pujols almost certainly will talk after Game 3, because the Cardinals will tell him how bush league it looks to biff the game and peace out. And he�ll do it because when he�s not mad at himself or mad at an outcome, Pujols is rational and understands his responsibility.

In fact, that�s the saddest part. If he had cut off that throw, and Andrus hadn�t scored, and the Cardinals had pulled off a victory in the bottom of the ninth or extra innings, Pujols would�ve taken his time to shower, dressed himself carefully and stood before the cameras and notepads to talk about what a good win it was. He might not say anything interesting or of import, but that isn�t the point.

A leader leads through good and bad. And if Albert Pujols truly wants to consider himself as one, and the Cardinals continue to empower him accordingly, perhaps next time he�ll think twice before he leaves the kids to mop up his mess.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2011 12:01

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

MorningView posted:

Yeah this is why I do it. I suspect that pretty much everyone who does it realizes that they are not actually on the team, so pointing that out is kind of pointless and boring.

Really? I hear this all the freaking time, almost always with casual fans that have become more serious fans over the years. What KYOON's talking about was an incident last week where Victorino tweeted something like "Go Brewers" and many fans reminded him "Why are you rooting for anybody, we should still be playing right now!!!!" And it's hard to not hear at least the entitlement felt in that kind of speech.

I mean, I trust the individuals here don't use "we" like that, but it's out there.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2011 18:02

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

it takes away a bit of the ring of entitlement for me and doesn't blur the line on our relationship with athletes. They do things on the field, we watch them, and I feel some people aren't as enlightened as you kind folks.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2011 18:27

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Deathlove posted:

Who wants to read a lovely MLB fanfic?

http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/7152611/st-louis-cardinals-mlb-champions-page-2-predicts-25-world-series-winners

mmm, Page 2. I remember when you launched! You had such promise.

you know it's a lovely article when this

quote:

2023: Los Angeles Angels of Santa Anaheim and South Orange County, including but not limited to Laguna Beach, Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano

is your best punchline.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2011 05:25

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

the talent deficit posted:

This has nothing to do with justice. Joe Paterno is not on trial. It's undeniable he was aware of the 2002 incident and likely the 1998 and 2000 incidents. His response was to take away Sandusky's locker room keys (but not his office or access to the team and other facilities) and to tell Sandusky to keep the kids away from campus. You don't need to prove criminal culpability to write an opinion piece about that complete failure of morals and human decency.

I might've missed something in the indictment, but that was Curley's reaction, not Paterno's. Curley took away Sandusky's keys after Sandusky was caught anally raping a 10-year-old boy by McQueary. Paterno merely reported what McQueary had told him.

this whole thing is hosed to high heaven.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2011 09:50

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

jeffersonlives posted:

The process that is due on the moral condemnation a powerful figure who admits to actively refusing to be the whistleblower on child molestation is, well, basically none. There's a Latin phrase called "res ipsa loquitur" which translates roughly to "the thing speaks for itself" which I find rather apt here. The facts as Paterno has himself laid out are more than enough to bring a pox on his house.

The legal principle of constitutional due process does not apply to all life.

you're gonna start needing a translator soon.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2011 02:56

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

and if it isn't the so-called Red Sox. What can I say about your team that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan: bombed out and depleted.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2011 06:40

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

A dodgers blog wrote this one and I have to share it, it's too good not to

quote:

Screw Hiroki Kuroda

I hope that Hiroki Kuroda signs with the Colorado Rockies, mostly because he is a worthless piece of crap who has the brains of a snail. Other than that, I think he�s a wonderful idiot! Hiroki loved the Dodgers so much that he refused a traded to a team (BoSox) where he might have won a World Series (and cost the Dodgers a really nice pick) because he only wanted to play major league baseball for his beloved Dodgers. Now, since the Dodgers have signed Chris Capuano, and he sees that he is not in the Dodgers plans (he said he wasn�t sure he wanted to play in America in 2012), he now wants to be a HO and sign with whoever pays him.

Screw you Hiroki, you worthless piece of crap. You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As they say in Texas, you couldn�t pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. You are a canker, an open wound. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you. You took your last vacation in the Islets of Langerhans.

You�re a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, and a weasel. I take that back; you are a festering pustule on a weasel�s rump. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. You are a technicolor yawn. And did I mention that you smell?

You are a squeaking rat, a mistake of nature and a heavy-metal bagpipe player. You were not born. You were hatched into an unwilling world that rejects the likes of you. You didn�t crawl out of a normal egg, either, but rather a mutant maggot egg rejected by an evil scientistas being below his low standards. Your alleged parents abandoned you at birth and then died of shame in recognition of what they had done to an unsuspecting world. They were a bit late, and we are weary of your ilk.

Hiroki, you could have accepted a trade and got the Dodgers a nice prospect, maybe won a World Series and then came back in 2012, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, you stupid moronic savage!

Oh, Good Luck. I hope to see you in Colorado where we can beat what few brains you have out!
But, I�m not bitter!

And, while we are talking about not being bitter, the Dodgers can sign a wife-beating, PED using, traveling secretary-beating, dumbass named Manny, who is back on the market�

This was written by a 40-year-old man.

A WALKING VOMIT

# ¿ Dec 4, 2011 23:55

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Dusseldorf posted:

Did I miss some news on this or is this guy just ing because the reserve clause doesn't exist anymore?

he feels Kuroda betrayed the Dodgers even though the dodgers basically can't afford him.

he started claiming it was a joke, but then it was clear if he wasn't serious, he at least meant some of the stuff in there.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2011 07:30

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Crion posted:

It turns out I'm joining Baseball Prospectus's writing staff next year, so I may start showing up here more (or less?)

grats, bud

# ¿ Dec 29, 2011 00:19

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Yahoo's Tim Brown, who's probably one of the best reporters in baseball right now, lost his brother this past week and he wrote this piece about it.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ti-brown_hardball_andy_brown_brother_lost_010212

Send condolences to him @TBrownYahoo

# ¿ Jan 3, 2012 07:18

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

jeffersonlives posted:

So Darren Rovell is melting down on Twitter calling the extremely not-ugly Jaime Edmondson ugly because she didn't take a good enough picture with him last night at the Playboy Super Bowl party. It's incredibly hilarious. The special cameos by Evan Longoria and Jon Heyman are fun too.

Jon Heyman quit being a troll for once to say how stupid Darren Rovell is. Time stopped for a moment

# ¿ Feb 5, 2012 08:02

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

I get the feeling that they couldn't get as much juicy gossip as they had anticipated, so they had to fill space with some seemingly endless business stuff that populates much of the early part of the book.

This is the exact same thing I'd say about Extra 2 Percent

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 02:55

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

Dan Shaughnessy once made a really good point that because baseball holds such a hard line on gambling, no one even considered that maybe Buckner threw the game. That was his one contribution to society. I honestly can't believe that guy is the same guy as the turds that get published every other day in Boston's paper.

Ya know, we're talking about, in this very thread, why the best and brightest minds in sports writing go elsewhere. The workload is difficult and it eventually makes you hate sports.

On top of that, we encourage horrible opinions because we read them. Think of all the times you've written a well-thought-out sports opinion. Now think about how few page views that got compared to the above Shaughnessy article.

Columnists eventually have to (pretend to) be outraged at every minor thing because that's what gets page views (that and WAG articles). Writing an opinion every other day is exhausting and good writers will take that opportunity to think about what they value in life and hammer those points home (Jeff Pearlman deeply, deeply values humanity in baseball players; Plaschke is all about "protecting the kids" in college sports). Others just spew whatever they're thinking and actually end up being that opinionated.

So already we're promoting bad ideas by forcing the fit.

The other problem is the current crop of professional baseball writers who are more focused on actually coverage and seem to be sensible, like Bastian and Castrovince, are the ones being phased out. We're getting to a point where there will be no need for daily sports coverage and opinions are the only thing in sports writing getting any page views. There'll still be a few hardline news coverers--your Bill Shaikins and your Ken Gurnicks--but let's be honest, they'll be the exception that proves the rule. We're at a point now where every tidbit that Shaikin gets is tweeted and then retweeted for free by anyone who has a twitter account. People are taking his work for free. And worse, it earns no money for his paper when he does that.

I mean, how often do you click on a link when they post it? I click on maybe one every month or so.

Kids are taking these jobs now, working for pennies, and rarely getting raises. They'll work their fingers to the bone, get burned out and quit when they realize they could start a blog, do as much writing for that without an editor, and work a job that pays with better hours. That's pretty much how it's always been, except now there's no room for promotion. Those who have jobs above them aren't quitting because there's no growth in the industry. Even if these kids stick, when they earn as much money as Shaikin or Gurnick earn now, they'll be fired.

Twitter is the future of journalism, but if that's true, then there's no future in journalism. All of the money is going to Twitter and that's not a very sound business model for any news source. It is, however, really good for people who do blogging for a hobby. People like Crashburn Alley or our own leokitty, who occasionally break a story, write good analysis and don't rely on their writing financially.

So what's the end game in this? Looks to me like we're gonna keep the horrible opinions and suffer in journalism.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2012 19:07

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

URL Weaver posted:

He's got an extremely violent, jerky delivery that by conventional wisdom should lead to injury problems but for some reason it hasn't, probably due to some combination of luck, good genes, and a very good training regimen. There's really no way to tell if a pitcher will break or not until he does.

One thing I've always wanted to know is that his velocity still isn't what it used to be, but he's still pretty drat effective, and that could be because he's controlling speed to prevent injury rather than rearing back and firing as hard as he possibly can until he gets injured (Brad Penny Disease). I don't think a lot of pitchers would--or could--do that, but if there's one that could, I'm guessing it'd be Lincecum. If only someone could ask him during an interview.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2012 00:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 00:18

The broken bones: Jan 3, 2008; Out beyond winning and losing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

leokitty posted:

Lincecum isn't hurt by not throwing as hard as often because of his completely ridiculous changeup, I think. He never relied on his fastball to get him outs and miss bats.

I didn't mean that he's been more effective BECAUSE of his decreased velocity or that it has anything to do with that (my point was convoluted). I'm more interested in whether or not he's not throwing his fastball as hard as he can so he can keep himself from getting injured.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2012 05:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > Sports Journalism Tumblr: A Black self-insert character called Jabaal Abdul-Simmons

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