We mentioned this briefly a couple of days ago, but we felt obliged to bring it back up: The bizarre lovers spat between Hartford Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs and Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun. In his column Tuesday, Jacobs essentially complained about how Calhoun doesn't like him for 1,700 words. Money quotes include:
• "Calhoun, as is his wont, used a perceived slight to first become a victim, then a bully. He threatened a guy who had just undergone quadruple bypass surgery. Nice. See, I can be a victim, too."
• "Winning apparently entitles the man to treat others badly."
• "Shame on me for allowing myself to be pushed around like the kid who has to give the bully a quarter every day at school."
Whether or not any of this is true is kind of besides the point (though we have a feeling Jacobs was the kind of guy who always took his ball and went home when he was a kid); there isn't much less interesting that a columnist complaining about their job. A point Bill Simmons made in his More Cowbell column yesterday. Wait. What? You don't see it? We totally remember it being there.
Oh. It appears they took it out. We've never understood ESPN's insistance that its writers not criticize other media members — explain to us how it's fair that you can call Terrell Owens "gutless" but you can't mention that Tim McCarver occasionally displays the verbal dexterity of a tree — but we have to say, it drives us nuts when something is posted on a site and then just vanishes without explanation. Are we supposed to pretend we never saw it? If ESPN erases it, did it ever exist?
From Now On, Jim, I Give No Quarter [Hartford Courant]
ESPN SportsGuys Weighs In On Jacobs Vs. Calhoun [The BoneYard]
(UPDATE: From Simmons' ESPN Chat today:
BILL SIMMONS: Soryr for the delay, I just found out that the ESPN copy desk removed the funniest paragraph from today's column for no good reason. I want to commit a homicide. Why do I work for this company again?
Hmmm.)
(SECOND UPDATE: We've gotten a hold of the offending paragraph.
There's a third reason for the collective indifference: A nagging sense that Pittsburgh and Seattle aren't worthy/interesting/dynamic Super Bowl teams. For instance, Page 2's own Skip Bayless has been killing Seattle for the past few weeks. Either he's messing with the city as a gimmick, he has some deep-seated animosity toward former Page 2 editor (and Seahawks fan) Kevin "KJ" Jackson, or this whole saga is leading to a Seahawks victory and a distraught Skip wandering into a Seattle Starbucks and reenacting an episode of "24." It's one of the three. Obviously, I'm rooting for the Starbucks scenario, if only because it will probably lead to Skip's being talked off a ledge, followed by a brief jail stint and an exclusive ESPN.com interview with Graham Bensinger 18 months later. But for the life of me, I can't understand why Skip has declared war on such a harmless city. What's next, a feud with Switzerland's Winter Olympics contingent?
There you go.)
(FINAL UPDATE: The offending paragraph is now back in the story. Do not taunt Bill Simmons.)
