Reader John H. alerted us to the columns. Let's compare:

2007: When I was a sophomore in college, working on the town newspaper, a professor took me aside and said, "You need to get out of sports. You're better than sports."

2009: When I was a college sophomore and just starting to write for the Boulder sports section, my journalism professor edged me aside, looked me in the eye and said, "You're better than sports."

2007: There's no back door in. If you're Aaron Spelling's daughter and you want to act, you get to act. If you're a Trump, you get to build. But nobody in sports makes it onto the field because he caught a lucky sperm. Jose and Ozzie Canseco were identical twins. Jose played 1,887 major league games. Ozzie played 24. And sports doesn't care how you did last month, either. If you're Derek Jeter and you stop hitting, it doesn't matter how many Visa commercials you've done, you're toast. And yet Flavor Flav still puts out CDs.

2009: Sports is real. It can't be faked. If you're Henry Fonda's son and you want to act, you get to act. If you're Chelsea Clinton and want to govern, you get to govern. But just because you're Nolan Ryan's son doesn't mean you get to pitch in the Show. Money, family, looks mean diddly in sports. If Tom Brady suddenly can't throw the 30-yard out, he's benched, dimple or no dimple.

2007: Sports is a way in. One of the best e-mails I ever got was from a 25-year-old: "Thanks for writing what you did about the Red Sox. It's the first time I've been able to talk to my dad in five years."

2009: Sports is Oprah for guys. I knew a Boston dad and son who hadn't spoken in five years. Some disagreement that just grew too big to see around. But when the Red Sox won it all in 2004, the son came home. They hugged and cried and laughed, and if you think it was about baseball, you don't know men.

2007: Sports isn't an escape from life-it's woven into the fabric of it.

2009: Sports is woven deeper into American life than you know.

2007: It's black and white, there's no gray area. Every night there's a winner and there's a loser and nothing in between. There's no waiting to see the third-quarter fiscal report. It's open to zero interpretation. I've never been to a game yet where, at the end, the ref announced, "O.K., Cleveland won 14—13, but the Cleveland coach was blocking his deep-seated childhood need for validation. So, actually, Buffalo is the winner." There's a score and it's fair and clean and easy to understand. Except for figure skating, of course.

2009: Sports has no gray areas. It's black or white, win or lose, hero or goat. Nobody has to form a committee to figure it out. Not true in dance or art. Who was better, head to head, Matisse or Monet? If it were sports, we'd know. (Matisse, 13-8.)

2007: So bite me, professor. Thirty years later, I still don't think I'm better than sports. In fact it's been the other way around the whole time.

2009: So here's to you, professor. I'm glad to know I'm not better than sports. But you did show me I'm better than one thing: advice from professors.

I'd point out here that Reilly was paid a "ridonkulous" amount of money to write a weekly column, and that he is that rare columnist who can write about whatever he wants, and that with so much freedom, it's absurd that he nonetheless chooses to repurpose some two-year-old piece of hackwork — I'd say all that except that, well, we'd just be plagiarizing ourselves.

Why I love my job [ESPN]
It Isn't Just A Game [Sports Illustrated]

Here's what Paige wrote:

I give my opinion, which is based on sound information, thoughtful research and observation, unlike some kid in Arizona who is a Broncos fan and writes a blog, without proper grammar or punctuation or understanding, from his mom's laundry room and think [hilariously, awesomely sic] he knows what he's talking about, and people actually pay attention.

Aside from the fact that Paige has graciously moved the locus of blogging from mom's basement to mom's laundry room (as is often the case with these jokes, the blogger sadly appears to live in a fatherless home), it's the same old gag. You know the one. Blogger, underwear, mother's house. What follows is a collection, by no means exhaustive, of the bonnest mots flung by mainstream sports media in the direction of the blogosphere over the years. Print these out. Savor them. Read them in your underwear while holding down some couch springs in your mother's basement. I thinks you'll like them.

The Loop, Pioneer Press: "The Washington Post fired reporter Michael Tunison after learning of his raunchy posts on the 'Kissing Suzy Kolber' sports blog. Tunison is expected to join the rest of the sports bloggers in their mothers' basements."

The Loop, Pioneer Press: "The NCAA reversed course and will allow bloggers in the press box to file live updates from tournament games. It's a huge victory for the bloggers, giving them yet another reason to get out of their mother's basement."

Bob Costas, NBC: "It's one thing if somebody just sets up a blog from their mother's basement in Albuquerque and they are who they are, and they're a pathetic get-a-life loser, but now that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column or Bernie Miklasz' column in St. Louis."

Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe, writing in the voice of a blogger: "I'm living at home, in the basement, rent free, and I've got cable and plasma TV. Domino's delivers. I guess you could say I'm living the dream."

Scott Bordow, East Valley Tribune: "[Jim] Calhoun will have his defenders, of course, Huskies' loyalists who believe the story was a media smear job; some might even take Calhoun's tack that he doesn't read blogs, as if one of the most popular Web sites in the country is run by some kid wearing pajamas and writing from his basement."

Greg Couch, Chicago Sun-Times: "Look, independent blogs are not reliable news sources. They're entertaining. I read them. Some have credibility, others might be some guy in his underwear in the basement. But we can't tell the difference."

Ed Hardin, Greensboro News & Record: "[Dustin] Long is the president of the National Motorsports Press Association, not some blogger in his parents' basement."

Geoff Baker, The Seattle Times: "And the ability to think about those things beforehand, truly, is what separates real journalists — serious ones, not Jason Blair types — from basement bloggers."

Mark Bechtel, Sports Illustrated: "Remember the good old days, when sports bloggers were potty-mouthed reprobates who fired off ill-informed rants from a couch in their parents' basement?"

David Wharton, Los Angeles Times: "Critics have portrayed [bloggers] differently: the rabid fan sitting at a computer in his parents' basement, in his pajamas, spewing opinion."

Frank Fitzpatrick, The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Assuming George Mitchell doesn't find any grounds to shut it down prematurely, the 2006 baseball season is just days away. That means that for the next six months baseball fans have a license to behave like bloggers — sitting around their dens in their underwear, staring blankly at a screen, pontificating on subjects they know nothing about."

Frank Fitzpatrick, The Philadelphia Inquirer: "An Eagles fan named Enrico Campitelli Jr. decided to do a live blog while watching the Eagles-Texans season opener on Sunday. Not sure what Campitelli's credentials are — not that blogging requires anything more than a computer and a pair of pajamas."

Phil Reisman, The Journal News: "It may be time for Minaya to go, but not for any racist reasons put forth by mouth breathers who live in their parents' basements."

Jason Lieser, Palm Beach Post: "Mike Florio defies almost every stereotype affixed to bloggers. No braces. No pimples. No sitting in his underwear tapping away in his parents' basement."

Glenn Reeves, San Mateo County Times : "Leitch rarely loses sight. After all, he has a 10-second commute every day to where he works, making up jokes and typing in his underwear."

Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times: "Web sites peek around corners like sewer rats, operated by weirdos who live in their parents' basements, pretend to be experts and break 'stories' that gullible people actually believe."

Rick Morrissey, Chicago Tribune: "I'll give Mariotti this: Whether he realizes it or not, he might have been the nation's first blogger, without actually writing one. He has led the way by not leading the way to the locker room or the clubhouse. He writes what he wants without ever talking to a soul. The only difference is he travels often to events, unlike bloggers, many of whom sit in their underwear all day and update, update, update."

Tony Kornheiser, The Tony Kornheiser Show: "In fact, in fact, if a huge dumpster landed on their mother's house (cackling), and got all the way into the basement and crushed them (more cackling), nobody would care. Nobody would miss them."

Sam Smith, Chicago Tribune: "How is it I can work for decades developing contacts around the NBA and traveling regularly around the NBA and talking with the decision makers and some guy in his basement in his underwear is writing something that has credibility?"

Pat Forde, ESPN: "Everyone wants to be Bill Simmons, but to my knowledge there's only one him. Two hundred thousand bloggers cracking wise from their living room in their underwear all want to be the next Simmons, but how many of them are being paid (handsomely) to do it?"

Rick Reilly, ESPN: "I've been doing this 31 years, for a living, I feel like I go out there, I'm in the locker rooms, I'm in the clubhouses, I'm meeting these guys, I'm hearing what they are saying, whatever. It seems to me a guy like that has a little more valued opinion than some schmo who, as I say, is holding down couch springs on his mom's basement."

Rick Reilly, ESPN: "There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on there from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement that have never been in a lockerroom but are pining on this and that. And this gives them cache [sic], and then they're being quoted? What? This guy is in his underwear."

Rick Reilly, ESPN: "I don't really care what people holding down couch springs do or say."

Illustration by Rob Zammarchi, via The Boston Phoenix

Reilly writes (with additional reporting from a mysterious Philip Fisher):

Moniz, who is also raising a child, couldn't afford to give up the pizza job, so now he's going to school, starting at QB, and raising a family, all in 30 minutes or less. He's the pizza guy with everything on him.

[...]

Unfortunately, Moniz is 0-4 as a starter. And you just know that sometime Moniz will be standing there after being paid, his hand out, asking for a tip, when the lady will go, "Yeah, stop throwing off your back foot" and close the door.

To which the people over at Tipthepizzaguy.com's discussion board have responded with both snark and lolcats.

A user named "Serephim," quoting the "30 minutes or less" line, writes:

There is that knife in your backs again...

The moderator replies:

At least the article mentions we are tipped. It also says a pizza driver supports a family. I found the article more positive than negative. If our society would get rid of the "30 minutes or less" monkey around our necks implanted by Domino's who discontinued their policy 16 years ago, we'd have fewer headaches.

Meanwhile, "LoneStar" takes particular issue with the idea that Moniz might have "his hand out, asking for a tip," as Reilly writes. "LoneStar" apparently rejects the image of pizza-guy servility, and "LoneStar" is not pleased. "LoneStar" posts, in quick succession, a "wtf?" lolcat, a photo of Uncle Sam pointing and calling you (presumably Reilly) a "bag of douche," and a photo of a baby in an infantry helmet. J'accuse!

The wonder, at least for me, isn't that Reilly (and the mysterious Philip Fisher) managed to annoy readers with 200 phoned-in words on Reilly's blog. The wonder is that those 200 phoned-in words required the efforts of two journalists. To borrow from "LoneStar":

Freak Celebrity Sighting [ESPN]
Topic: Pizza Guy/D1 QB [Tipthepizzaguy.com]

Hot object: Rachel Glandorf, Colt McCoy's girlfriend
Object of lesser hotness: shrimp vindaloo
Quote: "It's not the perfect crib for a guy who has a girlfriend hotter than shrimp vindaloo, Rachel Glandorf."

Hot object: Paris Hilton
Object of lesser hotness: flapjack skillet
Quote: "You, Mr. Perfect Stubble, USC Star, First-Round-Pick Quarterback, just checked into the Paris Hilton. Miss Millionheiress Man-eater Paris Hilton, that is. You're dating her. Guess she graded out well on film, huh? You're going there even though you know this girl is hotter than a flapjack skillet but twice as shallow."

Hot object: anonymous basketball shooter
Object of lesser hotness: $3 pistol
Quote: "One shooter was 'hotter than a $3 pistol!'"

Hot object: imaginary college basketball player
Object of lesser hotness: $3 pistol
Quote: "Why say, 'I really was shooting well today' when you could say, 'I was hotter than a three-dollar pistol.'"

Hot object: Rick Reilly
Object of lesser hotness: $3 pistol
Quote: "Heyyyyyy," [Jack] Nicholson says [to Reilly] in his renowned street-corner drawl. "Babe, you're hotter than a three-dollar pistol."

Hot object: Rick Reilly, via fictional narrator
Object of lesser hotness: $6 pistol
Quote: "I was hotter than a $6 pistol."

Hot object: Tiger Woods
Object of lesser hotness: $6 pistol
Quote: "No, the coolest thing about the Tiger Woods streak was that when he was hotter than a six-dollar pistol, in a publicity boiler, he kept a promise he'd made to a junior high school buddy three months before and let him caddie in San Diego."

Hot object: Joe Montana
Object of lesser hotness: Tampa asphalt
Quote: "[Steve DeBerg] came out flat, and Montana came out hotter than Tampa asphalt."

Hot object: Vlade Divac's remote control
Object of lesser hotness: skillet
Quote: "Everybody else on the Kings has long been out cold, but Divac's remote control is hotter than a skillet, hungry for any news from his native Serbia."

Hot object: full-length wool coat
Object of lesser hotness: Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
Quote: "I'm sitting in the pressbox of a fake Chicago stadium that's really in Greenville, SC, which is why 480 extras are sweating their spleens out wearing full-length wool coats when it's 85 degrees out. And I can relate, because I'm in the same hotter-than-Chernobyl get-up myself."

Hot object: Ian Baker-Finch's putter
Object of lesser hotness: charcoal starter
Quote: "The man they call the Sparrow (Finch, get it?) left himself a 13-foot putt for birdie on the 2nd hole on Sunday. He made it. Ten feet on the 3rd hole. Made it. Seven feet on the 4th. Made it. Six feet on the 6th. Made it. Fifteen feet on the 7th. Made it. His putter was hotter than a charcoal starter."

Hot object: Barcelona
Object of lesser hotness: summer car seats
Quote: "Then I left to watch archery, which is like sitting in the Superdome watching two guys in the middle of the field play cribbage. You can't see the arrows. Even the archers look through a telescope to see how they've done. Plus, it was hotter than summer car seats. Skip this one."

Hot object: Fred Couples
Object of lesser hotness: Naugahyde seats in a Bonneville convertible parked too long at the Texas State Fair
Quote: "O.K., O.K., so Couples had been hotter than Naugahyde seats in a Bonneville convertible parked too long at the Texas State Fair."

Hot object: girl at pancake place
Object of equal hotness: lava
Quote: "Now if TiVo could just bring this technology to real life. Roommate giving you long-winded recap of his Liza Minnelli dream? Fast-forward. Pop quiz in trig? Pause. Lava-hot girl just licked her lips at you at the pancake place? Save and replay at 2 a.m."

Yes, as I type this, "rachel glandorf" is the top trend on Google, ahead of "strange cloud hangs over city" (No. 3), "john wooden" (No. 9), "my calorie number" (No. 15), "lillian gish" (No. 21) and "brady quinn house for sale" (No. 22). Behold, the power of a single columnist and his hornball food metaphor. Google now thinks her hotness has exceeded that of any Goan curry; she is, as the search engine reports, "Volcanic."

UPDATE: Rachel wasn't so thrilled about her last brush with Internet fame:

Hey AJ,

This is Rachel Glandorf and one of my friends sent me a link to the latest picture that was posted with my friend in our bathing suits. I understand the nature of your website and that your job is to find exciting content. I don't care about all the other pictures, but is there any way you could take off the picture in our bathing suits. That picture was taken just to show our matching suits and was never supposed to go on Facebook. Between my school, my team and my boyfriend, I really don't want to misrepresent anyone.

Again, I understand it is your job to find content that no one else has, but I would really appreciate it if you could take that one picture off. Thank you AJ! Hope you're having a great week!

Blessings!
Rachel

AJ politely declined her request, citing Deadspin policy. To which Rachel replied, even more politely:

Hey AJ,

Thank you very much for your response, I really do appreciate it. At this point it's not the biggest deal since apparently the picture is on quite a few other sites now. I learned a lesson in all of this so please know that I'm not blaming you at all for the picture...I just thought it wouldn't hurt to ask :).

Colt and I don't watch or read anything that is said so I really don't know what else is out there. We know that that kind of stuff doesn't define us so he especially doesn't listen to anything positive or negative that is said. So thank you for the opportunity, but I won't need to go on the record. We just plan to continue living a faith based life and being good examples in everything we do especially since lately there is so much more attention.

Again, thank you AJ for your time and consideration. You didn't have to respond so please know I really appreciate it! Hope you have a great week!

Blessings!
Rachel

The eyes of Texas are upon him [ESPN]
Google Trends: rachel glandorf, Oct 14, 2009 [Google]

First, you should know that the only time Reilly ventures an actual opinion beyond the standard "Gee, sports sure are wacky" bit is when his subject is the Broncos. Usually, that opinion is "Gee, John Elway sure was great," but then the Broncos went and fired Shanahan and Reilly's mood turned darker. This wasn't a surprise. Reilly has never made any secret of his friendship with the former coach. He once did a roast for Shanahan in which he made the following funny:

From the moon, there are three things on Earth you can see: The Great Wall of China, the Houston Astrodome and Mike's teeth. Peggy [Shanahan's wife] says if the room is dark and you're snoring with your mouth open, she can read.

That, for the record, is a tooth joke.

So here's Reilly on April 3:

And none of it would've happened without McDaniels' ham-handed style and his Macy's-balloon ego. I have a buddy who honestly believes McDaniels thinks this is fantasy football; that Pat Bowlen gave him a whole team to play with and screw over in his own image and what the hell, if his moves don't work out, his league has a special "mulligan" rule and he can start over. Only there's no "oops" rule in the NFL. Years from now, the Cutler Catastrophe will go down as the dumbest thing in Boy Blunder's very short coaching career. By then, perhaps he will be your waiter at Olive Garden.

Reilly, April 29:

To repeat: Boy Blunder used a [first-round pick] to take a second. And if the Broncos are going to be as lame as I think they're going to be-4-12 perhaps-that first-round pick will be very high. McDaniels is the worst combination of things: Terribly naïve and doubly confident. Bronco fans, you're screwed.

Reilly, Sept. 9:

You can't just bolt your team because you think it's going to suck. (Which the Broncos are. There is no debating that. They are going to lose more than France. Just because you worked under Bill Belichick and you wear your sweatshirt like Bill Belichick does not mean you are Bill Belichick.)

The Broncos are 5-0. They do not suck. They have won one more game in five weeks than Rick Reilly thought they would in 16. They have not lost more than France. They have what looks to be one of the finest defenses in the league. What they don't have, however, is a coach on whose behalf a well-compensated national columnist will happily indulge in some shameless logrolling. ESPN readers, you're screwed.

Via Denver's Westword comes news that Rick Reilly®, having declared in April that he would "tongue-bathe the Capitol dome" if the Rockies made the playoffs, will make good on his pledge. Harf harf. But haven't we heard this before?

Indeed we have. In fact, I count seven times that Reilly has evoked the notion of "tongue-bathing" a person or an object should some outrageous event occur. A list:

Date: April 10, 2009
Tongue-bather: Rick Reilly
Object to be tongue-bathed: The dome of the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver
Unlikely event upon whose completion tongue-bath would commence: Rockies make the playoffs.
Outcome: Rockies make the playoffs.

Date: Aug. 09, 1999
Tongue-bather: Rick Reilly
Object to be tongue-bathed: The Superdome
Unlikely event upon whose completion tongue-bath would commence: Saints running back and recent signee Ricky Williams meets his outlandish contract incentives and "receives a drachma of that Terrell Davis money."
Outcome: Williams does not receive a drachma of that Terrell Davis money.

Date: Oct. 2, 2000
Tongue-bather: Rick Reilly
Object to be tongue-bathed: The bat at Yankee Stadium
Unlikely event upon whose completion tongue-bath would commence: Yankees win the World Series.
Outcome: Yankees win the World Series.

Date: Sept. 17, 2008
Tongue-bather: Rick Reilly
Object to be tongue-bathed: Windsor Castle (initially, the Queen Mother)
Unlikely event upon whose completion tongue-bath would commence: U.S. team does not win the Ryder Cup.
Outcome: U.S. team wins the Ryder Cup.

Date: May 4, 2004
Tongue-bather: Longtime caddy Mike Carrick
Object to be tongue-bathed: Osama bin Laden
Unlikely event to which tongue-bath would be preferable: Carrick gives up caddying.
Outcome: Carrick does not give up caddying.

Date: May 23, 1994
Tongue-bather: Rick Reilly
Object to be tongue-bathed: Reader's cat
Unlikely event upon whose completion tongue-bath would commence: Reader manages to "sit down and watch a baseball game start to finish without zapping [channels]."
Outcome: Unknown.

Date: May 8, 2007
Tongue-bather: Raymond "Stick" Hart, narrator of Shanks for Nothing
Object to be tongue-bathed: Cat belonging to golf course owner Froghair
Unlikely event upon whose completion tongue-bath would commence: Froghair reconsiders selling golf course to nearby blue-blood country club.
Outcome: Froghair does not sell golf course to nearby blue-blood country club.

Sports From Hell hits the country's remainder bins in May of next year. Here's what Random House has to say about the book:

What is the stupidest sport in the world? Not content to pontificate from the sidelines, Rick Reilly set out on a global journey-with stops in Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, England, and even a maximum security prison at Angola, Louisiana-to discover the answer to this enduring question.

From the physically and mentally taxing sport of chess boxing to the psychological battlefield that is the rock-paper-scissors championship, to the underground world of illegal jart throwing, to several competitions that involve nudity, Reilly, in his valiant quest, subjected himself to both bodily danger and abject humiliation (or, in the case of ferret legging, both).

These fringe sports offer their participants a chance to earn a few bucks and achieve the eternal glory that is winning-even when the victory in question might strike some as pointless, like the ability to sit in an oven-hot sauna for the longest time. It's debatable whether these sports push the body or just human idiocy to the outermost limits, but one thing is for sure: Sports in Hell is laugh-out-loud hilarious and will deliver plenty of unabashed fun.

LOLs and unabashed fun and crotch ferrets. Rick Reilly's journalism is now basically a nutpunch and a few cathode rays removed from an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos.

* * * * * *

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin and stunt author chats. I hope you all enjoyed today's visit from shit-pissing prose stylist Buzz Bissinger. The man unwrapped himself from the mantle of W.C. Heinz long enough to yell at you in the comments. Be grateful. Petchesky's here later.

His appearance had all the hallmarks of a Classic Reilly® column. Bad puns, awkward analogies, a dated Halle Berry reference, hero worship, and of course, an uplifting story about dead children. The man does it all. He even found time to work in some comedic acting, breaking out the tried-and-true, "Good thing we're not live!" bit. That gets me every time!

Best of all, we got like a month's worth of "Catchphrase-O-Meter" columns out of just one Royals-Tigers highlight package. The man just gives and gives and gives.

"Nothing turns the sports media green with envy quicker than a date with Big O," writes Whitlock, who is apparently taking a break from his ongoing dissertation on the subject of Strange Tang. He goes on to speculate how other sports media types might draw Oprah's eye (as Whitlock himself once did).

Mike Lupica: His Parting Shot on the next episode of "The Sports Reporters" will touch on the emotional scars he carries from paying his way through Boston College as a human bowling ball in the American Dwarf Bowling Association.

Hank Goldberg: Is quietly circulating audio tapes of voice messages left for Linda Cohn that graphically explain how he got the nickname Hammerin' Hank.

Christine Brennan: Unveils a full-body column mug in USA Today showing off her newly purchased 38 DDs, tummy tuck and blonde hair. Her initial column is titled: "If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em."

Jemele Hill: Disappointed by her previous efforts - such as comparing the Celtics to Hitler, urging Packers fans to stone Brett Favre with batteries, blogging about oral sex - Hill claims she was an original member of Milli Vanilli.

Rick Reilly: In a cliche and pointless 800-word column that will be read by tens of hundreds of readers who find it while looking for Bill Simmons' column, Reilly will reveal how his agent hoodwinked ESPN into a $3-million-a-year contract.

Damn. It's almost as if the man doesn't want to get invited to the ESPYs.

Erin Andrews video scandal: It's all about the O [FoxSports]
Have I Ever Mentioned How Much I Like Jason Whitlock? [Sportress of Blogitude]

At one point, though, you'd think that ESPN editors (or Reilly®) would make sure his recycled bag of sports zaniness hasn't already been written by a.) The Artist Formerly Known As Rick Reilly or b.) Bill Simmons, if only to quiet those readers who enjoy stoking the imaginary rivalry between the two of them.

Here's Reilly's 10 reasons why you can abandon your team:

1. You actually play for that new team. In this case, you must still wear the cup of your old team during games.

2. You purchased that new team. However, you must have had a damn good reason for purchasing a rival. Michael Jordan can buy a piece of the Charlotte Bobcats because the Charlotte Bobcats can't win if locked in a gym with three pygmies. But if Jordan bought the Detroit Pistons? Bonfires of Air Jordans everywhere.

3. Your team hired male cheerleaders.

4. Your town's law enforcement permanently banned you from coming within 500 feet of your team's players, staff or stadium. Sure, sure, we know it was all a big misunderstanding. You were parked outside Peyton Manning's house with a telescope and three months of detailed charts because you are his personal astrologist.

5. Your spouse cheated on you with somebody from your team. With a starter, not some backup, coach or crappy PR intern. And you had to find out by some stomach-turning means, such as skywriting.

6. Your team is approaching its 50th year of one-family ownership and still hasn't won diddly. This is known as The Darwin Rule and allows you to escape, free of charge. Good example: The Fords of Detroit. No wonder 10 of the 22 declared NFL fan free agents at Fan-Free-Agency.com are ex-Lions fans.

Rule 6b. Your owner still wears Members Only jackets. His initials are Al Davis.

7. Your team's home games are no longer televised. You are free to go, Jags fans.

8. Your team folded or left town. In this case, you are automatically an unrestricted fan free agent and can immediately put yourself up for bid. A writer named Scott Soshnick did this recently with every big-four franchise. Only nine wrote back. But one — the Golden State Warriors — had 28 employees send him we-want-you e-mails, mailed him a jersey with his name on it, sent a DVD with rookies wearing that jersey, signed him to a $1 lifetime contract and wrote a mock press release announcing a new fan acquisition.

9. Your team changed its uniforms to teal.

10. Your team is the Cubs. Seriously. Go already.

And here's Simmons' version, circa 2002.

19. Once you choose a team, you're stuck with that team for the rest of your life ... unless one of the following conditions applies:

# Your team moves to another city. All bets are off when that happens. In fact, if you decided to turn off that sport entirely, nobody would blame you.

# You grew up in a city that didn't field a team for a specific sport — so you picked a random team — and then either a.) your city landed a team, or b.) you moved to a city that fielded a team for that specific sport. For instance, one of my Connecticut buddies rooted for the Sixers during the Doctor J Era, then happened to be living in Orlando when the Magic came to town. Now he's a Magic fan. That's acceptable.

# One of your immediate family members either plays professionally or takes a relevant management/coaching/front office position with a pro team.

# You follow your favorite college star (and this has to be a once-in-a-generation favorite college star) to the pros and root for his team du jour ... like if you were a UNC fan for the past 20 years, and you rooted for the Bulls (because of MJ) and then the Raptors (because of Vince). Only works if there isn't a pro team in your area.

# The owner of your favorite team treated his fans so egregiously over the years that you couldn't take it anymore — you would rather not follow them at all then support a franchise with this owner in charge. Just for the record, I reached this point with the Boston Bruins about six years ago. When it happens, you have two options: You can either renounce that team and pick someone else, or you can pretend they're dead, like you're a grieving widow. That's what I do. I'm an NHL widow. I don't even want to date another team.

# If you're between the ages of 20-40, you're a fan of the Yankees, Cowboys, Braves, Raiders, Steelers, Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Canadiens and/or Oilers, and you're not actually from those one of those cities ... well, you better have a reason that goes beyond "When I was picking a favorite team as a kid, they were the best team, so I picked them."

Young New York fans
If you live in New York, you can't root for both the Yankees and Mets. Pick a side!

At least give me a reason like "Reggie Jackson was my favorite player growing up," or "I always liked the red Bulls uniforms," or even "Everyone in my gang wore Raiders colors." Do you really want to be known as a bona fide Bandwagon Jumper?

Minor similarities, if only in subject matter, but you can see how the one writer who penned the idea seven years ago might be a little annoyed that the other writer used a similar approach, given that they ride the same waves sometimes. In fact, one could say that a person who would do such a thing is lower than a crawlspace under a flounder's basement, even.

Only abandon your team with good reason [ESPN]

Gone is any mention of Josh Levin's groundbreaking research into Rick Reilly's taste for dental yuks, and, as everyone knows, Rick Reilly without the dental yuks is like Gallagher without the melons. Nonetheless, one helpful but censorious Wikipedian saw fit to scrub the reference. Hmmm. Is someone protecting Rick Reilly, 11-time sportswriter of the year, from the barbs of the Internet?

First, here's how the entry read as of Monday:



And here's how it reads now:

As you can see here, the user responsible for this edit, as well as a series of innocuous changes, is someone called "Zim924," who, to judge by past contributions, takes a keen interest in Hoda Kotb, an assortment of sports personalities and the film work of Marlon Wayans. The latter, Zim924 helpfully informs us, "is currently in 'G.I. Joe.'"

Who might this helpful but censorious Zim924 be? Could it be the same Zim924 as the Zim924 on Twitter, a fellow by the name of Mark Zimmerman? Why, yes. Yes, it could be:

And could this helpful but censorious Mark Zimmerman be the same Mark Zimmerman who works at Headline Media Management, a "talent representation firm"? Why, yes. Yes, it could be.

This afternoon, we called up Mark Zimmerman, aka Zim924, a very kind man who assured us several times that he enjoyed our web site and who confirmed that Reilly is indeed a client of Headline Media Management (and has been since before Zimmerman joined the firm in 2007). "Nicest man you'll ever meet," Zimmerman said of Reilly.

We asked if he had made certain edits to Reilly's Wikipedia profile. He didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir," he said. "I just added that he's newly married and updated his book stuff."

We pointed out that a revision comparison clearly indicates his handiwork in the dental reference's removal. He denied it.

"No, sir," Zimmerman said. "Hand to God. I never saw that reference."

We e-mailed him the comparisons. He soon phoned us back and reiterated his denial. "I personally did not delete it," he said (italics ours, just to be pricks about it).

"Seems pretty innocent to me," Zimmerman added. "I can put it back if anyone is upset about it."

Rick Reilly [Wikipedia]

The column is about Neuheisel's campaign to annoy the bejesus out of Pete Carroll, which would be a lot more amusing if it weren't another in a long line of allegedly fun-loving stunts designed to momentarily distract fans from Neuheisel's general scumminess. (The coach was lucky to get fired from Washington for participating in a betting pool; it made him look like a martyr to the NCAA's narc rigidity, when in fact he deserved to get canned for any number of legitimate reasons, many of which were detailed here.)

Reilly, unsurprisingly, was taken in by Neuheisel's rosy-cheeked charm:

Neuheisel, 48, is as optimistic as a little girl opening a pony-shaped present. He's the Monty Python knight who'll bite your legs off if you'll only get close enough. He's Lane Kiffin Lite.

And to illustrate Neuheisel's relentless optimism, he shares this little anecdote:

And just for the record: QB Neuheisel and a severely underdog 1983 Bruins team whipped USC his senior year and went on to win the Rose Bowl. "I've seen it happen here before!"

This is an important anecdote because it puts Neuheisel right in Reilly's wheelhouse. Neuheisel is a plucky-underdog story now, and if Reilly knows anything, it's plucky-underdog stories. He writes this column once a month, only instead of a kid with stumps for legs, we get a coach with UCLA for a football team. The anecdote says, Hey, crazy as it sounds, this could happen; the guy's done it before, just for the record.

So it matters just a little that the anecdote is demonstrably false. USC went 4-6-1 that year. UCLA went 7-4-1, ending the season with a thumping Rose Bowl victory that made Illinois look like the Washington Generals in shoulder pads. Going into the USC game, the Bruins had won five of six; they were 5-1-1 in the Pac-10. On its face, "severely underdog" is a stretch. And, sure enough, a quick spin through the archives turns up a preview, by UPI's Rich Tosches, in which he writes:

UCLA, 5-1-1 in the Pacific-10 and 5-4-1 overall, needs a win or a tie to keep its hopes alive for a repeat appearance in the Rose Bowl game. That's likely. The Bruins are 3-point favorites.

Just for the record.

Big enough for two? [ESPN]

Also? "I hated that hat for the same reason I hate those hideous championship T-shirts and caps that teams don the instant the final buzzer sounds."

Why does Reilly hate all these things? The reason has something to do with the terrible immodesty that's only recently swept across the sports landscape, a "hideous new trend," Reilly calls it, of which Phil Jackson's X hat is the latest example.

Start with Phil Jackson. When he and his Lakers fricasseed the Magic to win another title, it was Jackson's 10th NBA coaching championship, a new record. Jackson had become the king of coaches. Everyone knew he was going for 10 — it's not like it was a secret — and there was the appropriate applause, huzzahs and standing on chairs.

But that wasn't good enough for him. He decided to paint a mustache on his Mona Lisa by quickly grabbing a hat with a big X on it — for 10 — and plunking it on his head.

Hey, look what I did, everybody!

How were the Magic supposed to react to his new look? It was as if Jackson were saying, "Sorry to wear this in front of you so soon, but, c'mon, we knew where this was going, right?"

Strip away all the bad jokes in a Reilly column now and all you're left with is some cranky bleating about sportsmanship and a John Elway quote. Last month, he wrote about a mean old community college softball coach in Minnesota, elevating someone no one had heard of into a symbol of everything dark in the human soul. Last week, he tsk-tsked over Tiger Woods' temper, which is maybe the last trace of Tiger's humanity that hasn't yet been covered by a Swoosh. Now he's manufacturing some outrage over commemorative wardrobe, because it's boastful and "unbecoming." Here he is, still yammering on about the X hat:

Tacky. Shrill. Brash. For a Zenmaster, it was very un-Zen. Here was the all-time preacher of team hoops, with his team all around him — still sweaty from all that teamwork — and Jackson suddenly went 100 percent "me." That hat said, Aren't I amazing! Doesn't this hat prove it? Don't you wish you had one?

What the hat also says is, Here's $25 for the American Indian College fund, which means that Jackson is at least something less than 100 percent "me." But that's no matter. For Reilly, it's far more important that the sports world conform to his narrow conception of what it should be, which is something with all the moral complexity of a Matt Christopher book.

Sore winners [ESPN]

Onto the ass-probing in question. This is a portion from Reilly's® latest column where he goes deep inside the cancer-fighting machine that is Lance Armstrong:

He was already the oldest winner in 57 years when he claimed his seventh in 2005. Then he took nearly four years off, went through about 17 girlfriends, had a child in June (Max), raised God knows how much hope and money to fight cancer, and then decided, "You know what? I'm not done."

Armstrong is pushing himself so hard on this Tour that if you want to see him, you have to see all of him, butt naked, on the massage table. And so it was to this famous rump I asked: What would be sweeter, the first one, after surviving 14 tumors, or this one?

Rub. Knead. Pound.

"This one," he finally said, "because, even to me, it seems impossible. Even in the eyes of the experts, this is absolutely crazy. You can't get away from the facts: I'm an old guy. But, damn, I've worked hard. If I win, I'll have worked harder for this one than any of the other seven."

Rub. Knead. Pound beers. Anyway, who wants to go home? You? Excelsior.

PHOTO: Photo Lady Twitter
****

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Oh sweet death.

Maybe this is an ungenerous reading. But it's hard not to see the commercial as another expression of Armstrong's galactic persecution complex, one that completes the process whereby the cyclist has wrapped himself so completely in his own worthy cause that anyone who questions the one is necessarily questioning the other. Slate.com's Bill Gifford is exactly right to argue this is a move cribbed from the playbook of resentment politics ("Sarah Palin in spandex?" the headline asks). Gifford writes of the commercial:

Over somber piano music, we see black-and-white scenes of doctors at an operating table, cancer patients in hospital gowns, a bald man hooked up to a respirator, a man with one leg on a treadmill. All of this is intercut with scenes of Armstrong riding his bike. "The critics say I'm arrogant," Armstrong says. "A doper. Washed up. A fraud. That I couldn't let it go." Pause. "They can say whatever they want. I'm not back on my bike for them."

It's jarring, dramatic, and memorable-and not in a good way. While it's curious that a multinational company chooses to sell athletic wear in this fashion, the ad is even more interesting for what it tells us about Armstrong's psyche. On its surface, it reinforces the idea that Lance is standing behind the victims of a disease that nearly claimed his life. That is indisputable. It also, however, pushes the idea that Armstrong is some kind of savior. His Shepard Fairey-designed bikes are emblazoned with two numbers. The first, 1,274, is the number of days between his last race and his comeback. The second, 27.2, represents the number of people, in millions, who died from the disease during that time. Is Armstrong suggesting that there's some kind of causal link between him not riding his bike and people dying from cancer?

The ad also implies, disturbingly, that the cyclist's "critics"-and that includes everyone who thinks he's arrogant-are equivalent to cancer. It is apparently not enough for him to ride his bike and lead a positive campaign. He can't help but go after his detractors at the same time. And you thought Sarah Palin was divisive.

Armstrong's petulance is understandable, at least to a point: He's been held up as the face of doping in a sport that owes its very existence to doping. Its earliest practitioners were, as author John Hoberman has written, "continuing the work of of experimental physiologists interested in learning how much abuse animals or humans could take" and who, to weather the stress, spiked their coffee with cocaine and strychnine and took nitroglycerin to aid their breathing. If he has been persecuted, it has been for the sins of his own sport.

The result, however, is that he has curdled into the joyless, scowling Nixon-on-a-bike we see today, one who snarks at his critics from his Twitter account and who needs useful idiots like Rick Reilly to lighten up his image. (Seriously, read Reilly's latest. He talks to Armstrong's bare ass.) This may render him largely insufferable to a segment of the public, but it makes him a perfect pitchman for a shoe company that sells a certain spirit of sporty resentment, and sells it hard. The Nike commercial is the latest step in Armstrong's personal evolution. He has critic-proofed himself. In his mind, he is beyond any questions of guilt and innocence now. He is the Messiah of the infirm.

JerkStrong [Slate.com]