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As Our Boy Bill Simmons' book continues to sell like crazy — currently No. 19 on the hardcover nonfiction bestseller list — we turn our amused eye on a man named Brent Weber, author of The Sports Guy: Scorecard Scribblings from an Ordinary Journalist. The book was published in June 2002 by a company called Booklocker.com, a small press that also publishes books like, Is He Cheating on You? - 829 Telltale Signs and How To Build a Better Sand Castle. Weber — a TV talking head who "has worked in the smallest and largest markets (sic) television and radio" — tells stories of his career in his book, and helps younger wannabe sports journalists how to "make it" in the big time world of sports. More »
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All kinds of news involving Our Boy Bill Simmons, kicked off with a glowing pop culture icon validation from Slate's Bryan Curtis, who writes the "Middlebrow" column for the Web mag, which has featured luminaries like Michael Flatley, Demi Moore and Cirque du Soleil in the past. Curtis has big nice fat words for Simmons. More »
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Our Boy Bill Simmons gets a lot of gruff from old-school sports journalists for being too much of a "fan" and not enough of a "reporter," or, when he does do deign to do interviews, ends up crawling a little too high up the subject's nether regions. We've never really agreed with the former criticism — it smacks of jealousy (particularly now that Simmons is officially a best-selling author) and, mostly, misses the point of why Simmons is popular and such a compulsively readable writer — but those who fling the latter charge might be chuckling to themselves this morning, if you can find it possible to "chuckle" when you hear a story about a woman being punched in the face. More »
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Well, we covered the 3-2-1 Liftoff! of Our Boy Bill Simmons' Now I Can Die In Peace in our own goofy way, and now, for that whole "perspective" and "intelligent analysis" way, David Scott of Boston Sports Media Watch talks in length with Simmons about his place among the Boston media, his meteoric rise, his influence on sportswriting both online and off, what ESPN has to offer and a TON more. We're going to give you a bunch of highlights after the jump — though the piece itself is a must-read — but here's a teaser: More »
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Last night, at the Riviera Cafe in New York City, Our Boy Bill Simmons launched his worldwide tour to promote the release of his first book, Now I Can Die In Peace. And we — Deadspin editor Will Leitch and "photographer" Lockhart Steele — were there, because the bar serves alcohol and had some Arizona Cardinals highlights playing on a corner television. (Gawker special correspondent Noelle Hancock came to pick up some dudes only to find that, in her words, "Sox games are the biggest twat-blockers of all time.") More »
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Well, we know why Our Boy Bill Simmons was sans column all week; he was saving it for his new NFL column, which clocks in at a frighteningly healthy 3,200 words. It's the usual Simmons fare; we get guest appearances by The Godfather, Andrew McCarthy and MTV's "Cribs." More »
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We are about a week and a half away from the release of Bill Simmons' Now I Can Die In Peace — that's an appended title; Bill can't even resist a lengthy footnote in his book's name — and most of the big periodical reviews aren't out yet. (Our Nexis isn't working right, so we can't check the publishing trades, though we're told he received a starred review from Booklist, which is no small feat.) Since the "professional" reviews aren't out yet, we thought we'd dig around the Amazon Reader Reviews. More »
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Well, we are proud to report that our copy of Bill Simmons' Now I Can Die In Peace arrived at Deadspin World Headquarters last week, and, as tends to be the case with Simmons' writing, it went down smooth and quick. It took pretty much two days to read, and we read slow. More »
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Well, word is finally out: The Bill Simmons book is public knowledge, now that Our Boy Bill has announced it on his site. (At least Page 2 will let some external links go out.) More »
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