I'm starting to warm to the idea of doing these two at a time, especially when they're short. There's so goddamn many of them that I can easily afford to; and I've given up on numbering them, because it's a stupid gag.
1) Footnote, p494 - "[Kevin Garnett] keeps in shape by running on the beaches of Malibu every summer. The sheer comedy of a seven-foot black guy sprinting along the sands of the whitest, most uptight place on the planet can't be calculated. Some of his neighbors probably hadn't seen a black person in twenty years."
Is Malibu really more white and uptight than, say, any dry county in Utah? Moreso than Amish Country? How about, I don't know, Boston?
Leaving aside the white part, how about all of North Korea? I also doubt that people in Malibu haven't seen a black person in twenty years. I would happily take that bet.
2) From page 225 – “Given the racial climate of the fifties and the general resistance to the influx of black players, how could anyone have expected a fair vote when 85-90 percent of the players were white?”
which leads to...
Page 240 – In an MVP vote Simmons called “Fishy and Ultimately Not Okay”, Bill characterizes the selection of Bob Pettit this way: “…help me figure a coherent explanation for Pettit nearly tripling Russell in the ’59 voting that doesn’t involve a white hood.”
Wow. I guess the players put away their white hoods in 1958 when Russell won MVP and again in 1960 when Chamberlain won. And consider the implication: whites will never be fair to non-white players. So in another “Fishy and Ultimately Not Okay” vote (Bob McAdoo, 1975), when the players were presumably majority African-American, is it Bill’s opinion that black players were being racially biased against Rick Barry?
The more you look at Bill Simmons and the things he writes, the more you get the idea that you should just turn off your brain in order to read him. Malcolm Gladwell's books are supposed to be really good and thought-provoking; because he is friends with Bill Simmons, I declare Gladwell's work stupid by association and will not read any of his books. Take THAT, Gladwell!
Oh, I was supposed to do blurbs in this post. Sorry. That post is still coming.
Just recently read Simmons book, and did a little google search on it. Found your blog. Never been happier. Hope you keep writing.
ReplyDeleteMan, when you try to make a guy look fool just for the sake of it, the fool ends up being you. Ended up here by google, read a little bit and found your analysis very...stupid. So stupid that I could point some contradictions made by YOU just in a quick read. Well, this post is from February, so I'll assume you just got something better to do than hating Bill Simmons and his good book(not perfect, but not the shit that you try to make it look like), I really hope so.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you and Simmons have similar styles, and even your flaws are very similar to then.
Great blog. Just read the book and was going to do a similar take down. You need to add another - dumb accusation of racism about the 1963 MVP. (page 322). Simmons lists the MVP ballots by player - Total 1st place votes for Oscar, Wilt, and Russell = 89; total votes for West/Bob Pettit =5; Votes for 2 other white guys = 2.
ReplyDeleteSimmons Comment " The NBA should have replaced its League Logo with a KKK hood"! ! IOW, if 2 out of 96 NBA players in 1963 voted for 2 obscure white players that means RACISM. Maybe one of those votes was cast by Tommy Heinsohn while he was still drunk.