Bill "The Sports Guy" Simmons:
Just two weeks ago, reports surfaced that the New York Times Company (which owns the Globe) was demanding $20 million in union concessions or it'd shut down the Globe completely. I grew up dreaming of writing a sports column for the Globe; now the paper might be gone before I turn 40. It's inconceivable. But this Garnett story, and how it was (and wasn't) covered, reminds me of "The Wire," which laid out a blueprint in Season 5 for the death of newspapers without us fully realizing it. The season revolved around the Baltimore Sun and its inability (because of budget cuts and an inexperienced staff) to cover the city's decaying infrastructure. The lesson was inherent: We need to start caring about the decline of newspapers, because, really, all hell is going to break loose if we don't have reporters breaking stories, sniffing out corruption, seeing through smoke and mirrors and everything else. That was how Season 5 played out, and that's why "Wire" creator David Simon is a genius. He saw everything coming before anyone else did.Uh, no. In completely unrelated sports news, Moe "Maureen" Tkacik is guest-editing Deadspin right now, which you should probably check out.
I'm guesting editing "Boys Life" next week. And, um, WWD. At the same time.
I need that first "ing" back. I have an Ing Deficiency.
Not only did David Simon not see this coming before everyone else did, his version of the Baltimore Sun is straight out of 1994--as far as you can tell in Season 5, the paper doesn't even have a Website
When Mr. Cock guest edited Deadspin he came up with one of my favorite Balk paragraphs ever:
"Okay, listen up, douchebags: I don't like you and you don't like me. But thanks to some of the sloppiest play we've seen in World Series baseball since the Marlins beat the Indians we're stuck with each other for the next twelve posts. My name is Balk, and I'm an editor over there at Gawker, a site focused on New York media and gossip. Which is to say that our gayness is fully open and acknowledged, in contrast to the deep-seated homosexual desires you all so clearly exhibit here. My entire preparation for this job was essentially scouring the web for naked pictures of Brady Quinn, because that's what I've been told the readers frequently request."
Surprisingly, they did not respond well to Alex telling them about their "homosexual desires" for Brady Quinn. It went downhill from there.