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Forgive the analogy, but it occurred to us that a Peter Vecsey column is a lot like going hunting with Dick Cheney. If you're loud and obnoxious enough to scare the little critters out of hiding and keep loudly blasting away, you're bound to hit something eventually. And those innocent people who get in the way and take a little bird shot to the face? Collateral damage. Unfortunate, but that's journalism — at least at the New York Post, anyway. More after the vital statistics. More »
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We think we've found the ultimate critique of Sid Hartman — within, of all places, a review of Neil Young's album Prairie Wind, in the comments section of City Pages. To wit: More »
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We have very few requirements when reading our favorite sports columnists. One is that the article should be in English. Another is that there be no popup ads for the latest Rob Schneider comedy film (we're adamant about that one). Lastly, we must be able to stay awake throughout the entire column. Not sharp and focused, mind you — just conscious, with the absence of our heading smacking painfully against the surface of our desk. We don't think it's asking a lot. But sadly, some writers are not hitting the mark on all three. Scott Fowler is one of these writers. More after the vital statistics: More »
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It was Joe Biddle who once said: "Not everyone is going to like you. If you want that, go be a greeter at Wal-Mart." Well, we knew a greeter at Wal-Mart once, and he was a real bastard. His first words to us upon entering the store were: "Keep it moving, Jose." Our name is not Jose. Then, and we're not totally sure about this, but we think he flipped us off. So yeah, Joe: strike one. Let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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The way we hear it, it's only a matter of time before citizens of the greater Boston area seize up torches and pitchforks and march en masse on the Globe building, demanding the head and/or various other stubby, dwarfish body parts of Ron Borges. If there is a sportswriter more despised in his own local area we know not who he is; there has not been this much indignation here since the Stamp Act of 1765. And even then there were a few who sided with the British. Let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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Yes, he once wrote that "if Tom Brady were a politician, he'd be JFK." OK, he once, on assignment at the 2001 Super Bowl, wrote an entire column off of radio quotes. OK, sure, he's at times jingoistic, hackneyed and wishy-washy. Yeah, yeah, it's true that Jets' quarterback Richard Todd once smacked him and heaved him into a locker. But aside from all that, we kind of like Steve Serby. His writing style ... um, that is to say, his witty prose ... aw, we just can't do it. We're trying to be nice, but Steve Serby stinks. On to the vital statistics: More »
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Out on the plains of Texas, the setting for John Ford westerns and Cindy Sheehan protest vigils, there once lived a writer who had a lot of promise. He was the kind of a man who would look you square in the eye and tell you want he thought, and be damned entertaining about it in the process. But somehow, somewhere, he lost his way. Seduced by his own celebrity, beaten down by the requirements of the job or just plain driven loco by the sun, Randy Galloway has become a parody of himself. They have that saying in Texas, "Big hat, no cattle." But what do you say about a guy who doesn't even have the hat? While we wait for the coffee to brew over the campfire, let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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"Steve Kelley looked at his column. More »
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We've never met Dan Le Batard, but this is how we picture him: green makeup, pointy hat, always carries a broom. He's looking into a crystal ball, wherein a typical Miami Herald reader is stuck, motioning helplessly, calling: "Dorothy? Where are you?" Le Batard cackles, and flying monkeys then fill the skies. And the next morning, his column appears on newsstands. Or something like that. The most common complaint about Le Batard is that he's so aggressively pro-athlete that even his most plaid columns feel like they should come with pom-poms. But let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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OK, it's just time to say it: Roger Brown makes stuff up. That's the word on the street anyway. When a veteran Northeast Ohio sportswriter such as Hal Lebovitz (and when we say "veteran," we mean "was the last person to interview Custer") levels the charge, we tend to give it weight. Said the late Lebovitz of Brown (to Clevescene.com): "I can't compete with fiction." Many other area writers tend to agree, as well as fans, and of course the many athletes he's crossed. In fact, the only Brown less in favor these days would seem to be former FEMA director Michael Brown, who at least had one supporter ("You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie."). More »
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We've been doing this feature for a while now, but this is the first time we've dressed in a tux to write it. Featuring Skip Bayless on Why Your Hometown Columnist Sucks is like having a play open on Broadway. Which play? Springtime For Hitler comes to mind — a subject so rancid, it can't help but bomb. And yet people flock to see it. You are repulsed, yet you cannot look away; like Nazis in a chorus line, or the New York Jets. More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=142809&view=rss&microfeed=true We've received a lot of feedback about our selection of The Boston Globe's Bob Ryan as today's bad hometown columnist, which can be broken down into the following percentages: More »
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By all accounts, Bob Ryan was once a good writer. But then something happened. The molten lava, burning his features. The painful reconstruction. The cryptic words: "Rise, Lord Vader." Yes, Bob Ryan's journey to the dark side is now complete. With his ubiquitous presence on Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption, he has become what he once despised — a sports celebrity. A talking head of the stripe that makes Max Headroom seem like Noam Chomsky. And a really lazy writer. Let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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It was the best of times. More »
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And now it's time for a new category: columnists who left sports to write for the living section but still manage to write about sports most of the time. Frankly, we're not sure why C.W. Nevius left the sports pages of the San Francisco Chronicle to begin with, but one day we looked there and he was gone. Busted down to East Bay Living, writing about Renaissance Fairs and gardening. And about every other column, sports. So why didn't he just stay in the sports section to begin with? The answers are shrouded in mystery. Here's the vital statistics. More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=138817&view=rss&microfeed=true We're not even going to get into his show on ESPN, which we've well-documented elsewhere. We are here to discuss the many sins of Stephen A. Smith the writer, the columnist. The man absolutely refuses to back up any of his written assertions with sources or facts. A guy who routinely sends in columns between TV appearances via a BlackBerry. Yeah, that's the new journalism, we suppose. More on that after the vital statistics: More »
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OK, we surrender. The white flag you see waving above the rubble means that we're coming out peacefully, kicking several weeks worth of Jim Souhan columns ahead of us. That's it, you've taken all the fight out of us. We have freaking had it with writing like Souhan's — the tortured prose; the sloppy research; the wrong-headed conclusions. And the damnable one-sentence paragraphs. We are at the point now where we can no longer travel by air, because we are ripe for jumping. Ah, let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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OK, our problem with Bob Kravitz isn't that he's a terrible writer. (He isn't.) It's that too often he phones it in. No, check that — he often doesn't even bother to phone, instead stuffing his column into the backpack of a mental patient, who then wanders in the general direction of the Indianapolis Star. Yes, Bob can be a very lazy writer. But before we detail the crimes and misdemeanors, let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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There must be a school out there, some sort of Hogwarts-inspired academy where columnists go to learn the art of lousy column writing. It can't just be a coincidence that our worst sports columnists, people such as Woody Paige, Jay Mariotti and this week's featured guest, Bud Poliquin, are all seemingly cut from the same cloth — overly negative in approach, painfully flowery in execution. Ten words where two will do. It takes them seemingly forever to get to the point, going on and on when the paragraph should have been ended sentences ago, droning on about ... dang! Now we're doing it! On to the vital statistics. More »
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We have seen Bill Plaschke's desk. Well, to be more precise, we haven''t actually seen the surface of the desk — just the refuse piled on top. We doubt that anyone working at the Los Angeles Times since the early 1990s has seen what's underneath. To best describe it, think Dennis Nedry's work station in the film Jurassic Park. More »
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It's not so much that American newspaper editors want to employ mean-spirited sports columnists such as Bill Conlin; we're pretty sure it's the law. How else would one explain it? Every large paper seems to have its resident sports bastard, and Conlin fills that role at the Philadelphia Daily News, providing a steady dose of grouchy, rambling and often incomprehensible offerings since 1966. Let's go to the vital statistics: More »
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"Never dull and always armed with an opinion ..." Beware those eight little words. When you read them, it can only mean: A) Ann Coulter has escaped her zoo enclosure and has written another book; or B) Your paper is promoting its circus freak show sports columnist. Jay Mariotti is one of these. Here are the vital statistics: More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=128983&view=rss&microfeed=true We hate to frontload this feature with such an apt subject — it's only our second one — and after Woody Paige there's really no place else to go, is there? After spending the last hour reading his old Denver Post columns, we're really kicking ourselves: We could have saved a lot of time and effort by just hiring a guy to scream at us for 15 minutes while chasing us around the yard with a rake. More »
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Even though we wrote about it recently, we still can't stop thinking about that time Mitch Albom made up a bunch of stuff and turned it in as a column. Like, we're still supposed to read him after that. More »
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To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, your local sports columnist is like Larry of the Three Stooges: You don't really need him, but it wouldn't be the same without him. We always vow to use our powers for good, so we part the newsprint curtain each Tuesday and examines a different lousy local columnist. Who knows — next we could be coming to your town. So for God's sake tidy up a little. More »
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