Bill Simmons, don't even pretend you understand sports suffering

I am hardly the first, or the last, blogger out there that will point out the obvious fact that Bill Simmons is nothing more than an insufferable, self-absorbed clown on ESPN.com these days. That being said, his ridiculous post-Celtics championship piece in ESPN the Magazine demanded a response. The article can be read in its entirety here.

Short story long, Mr. Simmons is feeling the dreaded "My teams have won (or cheated their way to, or bought, whichever word you prefer use here) six championships since January of 2002, and I don't know if I can ever really care about sports again" blues. That in itself is moronic and illustrates just how out of touch he's gotten with the majority of his readers and the sporting public, but fine, whatever.

The problem begins when ol' Billy decides to make this statement:

Look, I have an astounding amount of empathy for fans from Philly, Cleveland, Buffalo and every other tormented sports city. Remember, I'm a Sawx fan. I know what it's like to be tortured by your team. I know how it feels to spend hours and hours wondering, Why does God hate me so much? and, If I just stop following sports, will I be happier? So as the fates of my beloved Boston teams turned, I never for a second stopped appreciating it. You have to believe me.


Are you serious? Are you freakin' kidding me? Your stupid baseball team doesn't win a World Series for the first 25 years of your fanhood and you're actually going to suggest that you know what it's like to be a fan of Cleveland or Buffalo sports teams? Bill Simmons has written a lot of stupid crap over the last six years, but this is without a doubt the most mind-numbingly idiotic sports related comment of them all.

On those off days when he slips and acknowledges that he's a Bruins bandwagon jumper, Bill will remind us of how he suffered through the heartbreak of the B's 1979 conference final loss to the Canadiens. So, without knowing anything else about our champion we know that he was following sports by the age of 10.

So, how long did Bill have to wait to ease the pain with a championship? Why, all the way until 1981 when the Celtics won!!! Oh, the humanity. Assuming Bill knew nothing of sports until 1979, he had to wait an entire TWO YEARS before one of his teams won something! Can you imagine? Waiting until you're 12 before attending your first championship parade? The horror.

Indeed, though the Red Sox, Patriots, and Bruins would not win a championship in the 1980s, each of them would make an appearance in their respective sports final game or series during that decade. So, all told, by the time Billy was 20, he had seen his teams win 3 world championships, and play in 8 league finals. My goodness! Why even keep watching sports when you're rewarded with that little success???? It's a question I certainly cannot answer.

Oh, and lest I forget, of course I must address the issue of Game Six of the 1986 World Series. You know, "That Game" (TM, 2008, Bill Simmons is an ignorant schmuck enterprises, LLC). Where 17 year old Bill watched in horror as for the only time in the history of sports, a team came close to winning a championship and then failed to in spectacular fashion. I mean, a World Series crown that's lost in part due to an error in the late innings? Clearly that could only happen to the Red Sox and their more devoted than any other fanbase ever in the universe supporters.

Having been devastated by that loss, and having only the 1986 NBA championship the Celtics won that June to comfort himself with, Bill then had to wait an unbelievable 15 years before another one of his teams won a championship!!! The man's loyalty is something we should all aspire to as we head out to the ballpark to watch a team that is nowhere near as important or historically significant as the Red Sox.

And speaking of the Sox, we all know that in 2004 Bill and the rest of New England was rewarded with that World Series that they richly deserved. Having had to survive off of only 2 Super Bowl victories in the past three years prior to that October, I know that I, like all of America, rejoiced alongside Bill and Red Sox Nation as they finally slayed the dragon that was the Yankees with homegrown talent like Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Keith Foulke, Tim Wakefield, and Curt Schilling. Yes, score one for the little guys at last. And, thankfully, Bill has been able to see the Patriots, Red Sox, and Celtics win again since that October so that he need not "give up on sports" so he might be "happier." And likewise, it seems clear that abandoning the Bruins unless they're doing good has also helped Bill to recognize that God doesn't "hate him", even though in almost 30 years of following pro sports, Bill has only seen his teams win a paltry 9 world championships. Poor thing.

All that said, obviously all of the above is dripping with sarcasm and I am incredibly annoyed that Simmons would even pretend to understand sports suffering. Try being born in Cleveland and see how that works out for you, jackass.

Like Bill, my first sporting memory was a bummer for the hometown team. For me, it was Red Right 88, where the Browns lost the 1980 AFC Divisional playoffs to the Raiders on Brian Sipe's interception in the final minute. But unlike Bill, I didn't wash that bad taste out of my mouth with a championship twenty-four months later. It took me another---hmm, how long did I have to wait? Oh, that's right, no Cleveland team has a won a championship in my lifetime! Oh, but you understand what that's like, Bill. Of course you do. After all, you had to wait a whole seven years before you even saw the Red Sox in the World Series!

My annoyance with Simmons' idiotic statement grows as I write this column. I mean, as most of you know, the Browns have never even reached the Super Bowl. In 1986, a long awaited championship that Clevelanders thought was finally theirs was ripped away from us by John Elway and the Drive. A year later, Ernest Byner fumbled 2 yards from the tying score in the AFC Championship Game rematch. 20 plus years later, the Browns are only now even beginning to get back to that level of competitiveness. But Bill had to sing along to "New England, the Patriots, and We!" back in 1985!!! Yeah, that's the same.

Also, it's exactly what you think it is.

And then of course we have the Indians. I think most everyone recognizes how pathetic the Tribe was from 1960-1993. You should, they made a movie about it called Major League, people. But can't complain about it too much now, because after all, after a 41 year drought, the Indians finally made the World Series in 1995. Of course they didn't win, but like Bill, we Clevelanders could just console ourselves with what else was happening in Cleveland sports that year.

Hmm, what was happening in Cleveland sports that year?

Oh yeah. THE BROWNS WERE STOLEN FROM US AND MOVED TO BALTIMORE.

So frankly, I don't even need to get into the Cavs, and the Shot, and the fact that we finally have the best player in a given sport and all the media can do is whine about how he should leave Cleveland and go to garbage franchises like the Knicks and the Nets.

No, I'm just going to stick with the fact that we lost a World Series and then lost the most beloved game in town within the span of a month, as well as the fact that no one born since 1965 has had a Cleveland sports team win a championship in their lifetime. Yes, suffice it to say, it is not possible for Bill Simmons to empathize with the sports fans of Cleveland. If he put up with the junk we have, I have no doubt he would have stopped watching sports twenty years ago. I also doubt it's possible for him to empathize with the fans of Buffalo, either, but I'm not going to pretend I know their full range of emotions on their Super Bowl defeats and the like as he claims to be able to do. Hopefully a Buffalo fan will write about how stupid his column was in the near future.

So, in closing, I'll just ask that as Mr. Simmons prepares for his upcoming columns on the 2008 NFL season, that he try to stick to what he knows and understands. Tell us all about the Patriots "juggernaut". Tell us all about how the Colts are ducking a team that hasn't won anything in four years. Tell us about how a team without a running game, a mediocre secondary, and lousy linebackers is the most perfect team of all-time.

But whatever you do, don't tell us that you understand what it's like to root for three teams that have accounted for three finals appearances total since 1966. Don't tell us you understand what's it like to have the equivalent of your beloved Red Sox moved to Washington D.C. even as you supported them to the last. Don't tell us that your '86 choke is somehow unique and more painful than our '97 choke. In short, Bill Simmons, don't even pretend you understand sports suffering.