Idiots Write About Sports

Another day, another Tom Verducci screed about what a bad guy Barry Bonds is.

We get it, Tom. We get it. Every chance you get you tell us how much you hate Barry Bonds and all he stands for. It’s been on the Web. It’s been on the cover of SI — two weeks ago, Sports Illustrated published a cover story that was essentially a three-page-long blog post by Tom Verducci about how bad Barry Bonds was. A cover story. Nothing new, nothing in depth, just a cheap way to sell copies on the newsstand and not deliver anything inside that you couldn’t read about on any random blog you out there.

It’s time to give it a rest, Tom. You’re becoming a parody of yourself. Or would you prefer it if, instead of being known as a baseball writer, you were known as the star of Verducci on Bonds? Ahab had his whale. You’ve got Barry Bonds.

As for Sports Illustrated, I don’t know what to say. I’ve been a subscriber since I was in high school. And this week I am probably going to phone up Time Warner and ask for my money back. Because SI has largely abandoned the excellent reporting they used to be known for, and replaced it with knee-jerk blog crap. I used to read SI cover to cover. Now I thumb through it and generally leave disappointed.

I like blogs. I write them and publish them. But I don’t buy news magazines in order to read angry blog posts formed into cover stories.

I don't get the problem: clearly another one of Bonds's baldfaced lies.

I get the problem. There's nothing new to say about Bonds. He's an ass. We all know that. Let's move on and cover something we DON'T know.

There's lots of interesting stuff going on in the world of sports, including baseball. Bonds is NOT interesting. Hatred of Bonds is commonplace and tiresome. I don't like the guy, but I don't need to read about why everyone else hates him 40 times a day. I got that a long time ago. It's like listening to a Jim Rome show: the same point made over and over until you want to scream.

Wow, Bob Costa, I'd almost agree with those statements except

a) I'm not Tom Verducci

b) I have, after nearly 20 years as a subscriber, cancelled SI, partially for the reasons detailed above.

Posted by Jason at September 20, 2006 01:26 PM

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