"Hi, I'm sure you'll be inundated with this tonight, but Michael Kay was talking about the Yankees' writers at the start of the 7th inning of tonight's game, and they showed a wide shot of the various beat/newspaper/etc. writers. Of course, the one writer they focused on in particular for his own shot was your own Will Leitch. For what it's worth, here's a screengrab. Thanks." (Kevin L.)

"Apologies (especially if this isn't a tip or 'news'), here's a pic without my lamp in the background. Will sure does look surly, though. Thanks again." (Kevin L.)

"Top of the seventh in the Yanks/Rays game and the YES camera guys are doing the thousand monkeys shot of the press box. They pick the emeritus to represent the horde. I'm guessing this'll now get glanced over in the game coverage tomorrow morning and that you've received this picture about a dozen times. Just thought it was worth getting on the record." (Matthew L.)

"Michael kay and john flaherty discussing how writers have come a long way since typewriters and word processors and the camera panned to this lovely gentleman and his beautiful mac, thought it was worth a picture and a tip." (bigricks)

"They showed will when talking about 'real' sportwriters working the game. He has nice seats close to the exit I guess. I'm sure someone has a better shot but that's him." (Patrick)

"YES Network cameo." (Kevin B.)

"holy shit, they just showed will on the yankees game, writing on his macbook from the press box. it had to be him. 9:09 pm, start of the 7th. please make this front page." (Eric M., photo by knickedge123)

Welcome to the Deadspin Polygraph Test, where I choose a random person in the sports world and subject them to a series of embarrassing and deeply personal questions, almost all of which involve sex or poop. They can only answer yes or no. Now, I don’t posses an actual polygraph machine here. So I’m going to rely on the best bullshit detector of them all: our commenters. They answer, and you judge. Today, our subject is Will Leitch. Our Q&A is after the jump.

DREW: Have you ever masturbated in a public place?

LEITCH: No.

DREW: Have you ever had sexual thoughts about a man, unwanted in your head or not?

LEITCH: No.

DREW: Have you ever imagined yourself as Rick Ankiel during intercourse?

LEITCH: No.

DREW: Have you ever passed up intercourse in order to blog?

LEITCH: Yes.

DREW: Do you surf hardcore porn sites every day?

LEITCH: No.

DREW: Have you ever had sex while at work?

LEITCH: Yes.

DREW: Have you ever urinated, and then zipped up, only to realize there's still a little bit trickling out and it makes really big stain in your pants?

LEITCH: Yes.

DREW: Do you read your own published articles more than five times each?

LEITCH: Yes.

DREW: Have you ever hooked up with a Deadspin reader?

LEITCH: Yes.

DREW: Have you and Daulerio ever "shared" a woman?

LEITCH: I need the definition of "quotes" there. If you're asking if there are women that both Daulerio and I have had flings with, the answer is "yes." If you're asking if we've ever done the same woman at the same time, the answer is "no." Not for lack of trying.

But ever year there's a movie that one William F. Leitch falls madly in love with just based on a trailer or a concept alone, then if the movie turns out to be everything he'd hoped it be, he becomes obsessed with it. One year it was "Punch Drunk Love"; this year, it's "The Wrestler" directed by Darren "Ass to Ass" Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke as a Randy "Macho Man" Savage-like character. Even though it's an odd premise, the film is inexplicably getting all sorts of Oscar talk right now. And, Will, of course, has vowed to pound this drum until everyone listens to him and Mickey Rourke gets his statue. (If you don't agree with this notion he will most likely say something along the lines of "I'm surprised you're able to walk upright" or something.) Somehow he kept his composure and pulled together "Ten Things You Need To Know About 'The Wrestler'" for New York magazine's Vulture blog. I admit, regardless of how awful an experience it is listening to him yammer about movies, he makes a compelling case for this one:

Rourke’s Randy “the Ram” Robinson was a star wrestler in the eighties, which means the whole movie is soundtracked by glorious, awesome hair metal, his preferred genre. Haven’t heard Accept’s “Balls to the Wall” in a long time? You’re in luck: The Ram rocks out, HARD. One particularly amusing exchange between the Ram and Marisa Tomei’s stripper, Cassidy, features the line, “The eighties fuckin’ ruled, man, till that pussy Cobain came and fucked it all up.” Expect to hear the soundtrack played ironically at Christmas parties on the Lower East Side.

And there are nine more of these.

Ten Things You Need to Know About The Wrestler [Vulture]

He holds sports blogging's most heralded records for posts, pageviews, and consecutive days blogged. He also holds the dubious record for most HTML tags left open. Will Leitch stepped down as Deadspin editor last month. But now he's making headlines as he's hinting toward returning to the sports blog that once loved him. Here is his first public interview after his announcement.

Matthew Van Sussteren: After weeks of speculation, you finally decided you were going to retire from Deadspin. Why did you make that decision then?

Will Leitch: I didn't think that, you know, physically, I could come back for another year and do this. I mean, mentally, yeah I was there. But blogs are hard work, and I didn't want to do it if I couldn't be at 100 percent. And at the time, I didn't feel that was possible.

Van Sussteren: What has changed between today and when you stepped down?

Will Leitch: Well, I had a few weeks to clear my head. That might have been all I needed. And now I'm fucking bored as hell.

Van Sussteren: Do you think this is fair to new editor AJ Daulerio, who took a lot of time this summer to prepare to be lead editor?

Leitch: Well, I don't know if it's fair. He's certainly a big part of the site's success. I know he's been waiting a long time for this. And I know that Deadspin has prepared all summer for the transition, but you gotta understand that I felt pressured to make a decision to leave when we did. Shucks, I'm just a humble fella from America's heartland. I didn't mean to cause any frustration.

Van Sussteren: Have you spoken with the Gawker Media front office about this?

Leitch: Yes, I had one conversation with them. I told them I was thinking of coming back, and they said that they were very surprised that I felt this way, and that they already hired a new editor and he's been doing it for a couple of weeks now. It's kind of disheartening for them to say that to me.

Van Sussteren: You left Deadspin on a very good note. Now that you're bringing back old wounds, are you worried about your legacy being tarnished?

Leitch: Aw, I hope not. I like the readers at Deadspin and they're the greatest readers in the world. I can understand them coming to grips with me leaving, then having to put that aside to read me again five days a week, but I think deep down they knew I would be back.

Van Sussteren: Would you like to come back with another sports blog?

Leitch: I haven't asked for that, but if that's what it comes to, then I guess that's what I'll do.

Van Sussteren: Would you like to draw this out for a few more weeks?

Leitch: That sounds like a fine idea.

I've never been one for tearful goodbyes. When I leave Deadspin, I want to go out the same way I came in; crawling through the ductwork. I was going to rob the place, and ended up staying for three years. Anyway, how do you say goodbye to a guy who took you in and gave you the only other key to the site besides his, even though you were a practicing Branch Davidian? That took courage.

Why the Ned photo here? The way I look at it, we all have varying degrees of Nedness. Ned, of course, is a football player who -– despite being barely ambulatory -– hobbled into the maw of the fiercest college football melee of the decade, facing near-certain doom. It's hard to believe that he thought he could make a difference, or that he wouldn't get pummeled with his own crutches for his trouble. But damn it, he had to try. Will Leitch has a high degree of Nedness. What did he think he was doing that day in 2005, when he tugged at the bottom of Denton's suit jacket and timidly presented a worn spiral notebook crammed with ideas for a Gawker sports blog? A what? Who would read such a thing? But Will hurled himself into the fracas, and despite the odds, pretty much changed everything. That's so freakin' Ned.

I was fortunate enough to have a front row seat for it all. I got to read virtually every word Will has written since the beginning; the best part of my day has always been scrolling Deadspin to see what he's come up with. Just like you, I suspect. It hasn't really sunk in that he's actually leaving –- although writing this helps -– which means I'm still in the denial phase, I suppose. (I plan to skip the anger phase, and replace it with cinnamon Pop Tarts).

Anyway, thanks Will, for taking in a "mainstream" journalist and letting him occupy a small corner of this greatness. Thanks for putting up with my stupid ideas, for all the Love and Death quotes, for never letting me get discouraged, and for all those terms you invented which I stole and use in everyday conversation. You believed in me when few others did.

Good luck out there in the big non-Deadspin world, my friend. Leaving has to be a little bit scary, I'm sure. But, as Boris' mother said: "He will go, and I hope they put him on the front lines!"

"Thanks, mom. My mother, folks."

In early 2001, I was middling through a job at Thomson Financial Media as managing editor of "Health Care Finance" magazine. It was a quarterly publication, which meant plenty of downtime. It was during these extended lulls, reading MediaBistro, that I stumbled upon the ongoing unemployment saga of one William F. Leitch and his "Life As A Loser" series. MB did an item about one of Will's columns, "He Hate Me", where young William spoke of his time as a media news aggregator for Brill's All-Star Newspaper, a mindless, Romenesko rip-off site-job that had absurdly garnered him an anonymous email stalker named Grady Olivier, who would pepper Will's email box with brilliant daily reminders of Will's consistent awfulness:

....We'll begin today with your overreliance on the colon. Please provide a compelling rationale/rationalization for your need to use one every third sentence. Also, why did you hyphenate "front line" in the pull to the Ian Fisher piece? "A pair," as in the Levin bit, would properly take the third person singular. You misspelled "government" in the Pomfret lead, you melon-headed motherfucker. There's also the issue of your questionable comma usage in your intro to Mr. Hiaasen's piece of February 28...Please resign your tenure as early as possible, making sure to apologize to Mr. Brill for your gross stupidity when collecting your severance.

I was hooked. At that time, I think I was more drawn to Grady Olivier's well-crafted insults than the overwrought, meandering columns of this weirdo Midwestern rube who seemed to complain about everything -– mind you in a genuinely, folksy, likable manner -– but I came around. I began reading his column at Ironminds every week, then began to rely on them, and then became obsessed. I'd also, thanks to Will, started writing my own columns for Ironminds. But soon after my interest kicked in to high gear, Will up and quit Ironminds. (Will's successor at Ironminds was a fella named Rick Chandler.)

After Will left Ironminds, he dropped out from the writing world because, in his mind, it wasn't getting him anywhere, regardless of his hundreds of loyal fans who read him. He was broke, and he wanted to grow up. We had a mutual friend, Aileen Gallagher, and after about three months of not hearing about what Will was up to, she finally told me that he was now working at a doctor's office in midtown, answering phones, and "trying to be a human being again." That was the party line from Will that she was parroting for him.

"He's not writing at all? " I asked.

"No, he's taking a long break," she said.

This gave me an idea: Why not help Will get back into writing and offer him a freelance job for Health Care Finance magazine? I did, and after about a week of considering it, Will emailed me back and said he'd do it. He'd call me later that day to discuss the details of the story and he was grateful for the opportunity to make extra money anyway he could. We were off.

Now, up until then, I'd only had one 45-second conversation with Will at a mutual friend's birthday party, where I complimented him on his column, and he blew me off with the courteous disdain of a rock star being propositioned by an overweight groupie. So, when he called me at the office that day, I was taken aback by his freewheeling stammer and how overly polite he was to me on the phone.

"Mr. Dah-lorio, this is Will Leitch…." (Will has, to this day, still never once pronounced my name correctly. It's DAH-LAIR-I-O. Thanks for asking.)

From there we set deadlines for August - a month from then - a pay rate, and the expectations. Will assured me that even though the subject matter wasn't interesting, "he never missed deadlines." About a week after our initial conversation, I received another phone call from Will, who was, again, overly polite, and kept referring to me as "sir," but he got to his point rather quickly.

"What exactly am I writing about again?"

To be fair, the story about hospitals outsourcing some of their help to foreign workers via H1B visas was cumbersome, and it was more telling about how boring the job was than how irresponsible and disinterested he was. I explained to him exactly what he needed to do, who he needed to call, and forwarded him every article I found that wasn't loaded with municipal bond financial terms that even I had yet to fully grasp.

He said he understood, assured me that this would make it 10 times easier and once he finished all the research, "the writing would be the easy part."

I know, I thought. I trust you. You're Will Leitch, for God's sake.

Another couple of weeks went by and Will had finally turned in a draft. Writing-wise, it was fine. However, it was still written like one of his columns, the "Hey, I'm writing about something I know nothing about – so let's make this fun!" variety.

I enjoyed it. My editor did not. He would need to do a re-write. This is when the editor-writer relationship between Will and me became bizarre. Communicating with Will the day the second draft was due became complicated by the fact that, for some reason, his email account at the doctor's office was not working. I knew this because I began receiving strange emails from names I did not recognize -– MIchael-something -– was the most common one.

"Hey, it's Leitch… email is down. I'll be using this account for a while."

Somewhere along the line, the "Michael" email went down too. I found this out because I'd received an email from Will's girlfriend at the time, a woman I'd never met, much less communicated with, informing me that she would be giving me updates on the story's progress the rest of the day. She was also overly formal.

"Mr. Daulerio: I'm Will's girlfriend. Will wanted me to let you know that he's having email trouble but would get in a draft at the end of the day…"

Of course, this was odd, but it was humorous. I responded to her joking that she should reconsider the relationship since he can't seem to keep his crap together. I didn't expect a response, but I got one anyway - a 500-word, all-caps screed which said I was absolutely right to think she deserved better.

"HE'S A FUCKING LITTLE BOY, " she said and "IF HE JUST FINISHED HIS NOVEL, MAYBE HE COULD AFFORD TO BUY BEDSHEETS." She went on to say how pathetic his work ethic was and that she was tired of "PICKING UP THE SLACK."

"HE'S NEVER EVEN TAKEN ME OUT TO DINNER. NOT ONCE!"

I wanted to pull Will off of this story because it seemed this was more of a headache than it was worth. Fan or not, I had to keep my job. But Will called, sincerely apologized for the melodrama, and said he'd turn in a draft as soon as he could, once things settled down a bit. Weeks went by, again, and there was little or no progress on the story-front, but Will and I had become friends during the whole ordeal. So, at least that had worked out. Then, one gorgeous September morning, Will decided it was time to get serious about the H1B visa story. He'd been reinvigorated and was ready to tackle the reporting head-on and stop messing around. His timing for such a revelation could not have been more impeccable:

From: Will Leitch [mailto:williamfleitch@yahoo.com]

Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:05 AM

To: Daulerio, Albert

Subject:

Listen, you're going to have that story all polished up and ready for you first thing tomorrow morning. I apologize for the delay. Getting back on top of things now.

I'd like to say that after this incident, this is when Will woke up, got his shit together and proceeded to take off on a comet-like trajectory toward writing stardom. It was not. Most of his friends in New York have seen him, in his late 20s, live for weeks on pocket change and subsist on a steady diet of "free apples at work" and old pizza that would make even the most destitute of college freshmen pity him. He once went five years without purchasing a new pair of shoes. He insisted that, even though the soles of the ones he wore every single day could be peeled back to the heels, they were perfectly fine. (Some days, it would sound like he was wearing scuba flippers.) He has lived in basically every far-flung borough in New York City, chasing cheaper rent and still blissfully, ignorantly chasing a dream.

Do not for one minute think that Will's job at New York magazine was given to him because of his Deadspin success - he was hired in spite of it. He works tirelessly at his craft. He takes pride in every piece he does, regardless of pay rate or circulation size. And, of course, he never misses deadlines.

Oh and that ex-girlfriend? Yes, she was mercilessly cruel. She treated Will horribly and made him acutely aware of his shortcomings and imperfections. She made him him feel constantly paranoid about his place in the world. She made him feel like an ugly, loathsome human being.

But that still didn't stop me from drunkenly hooking up with her one night soon after they broke up. Sorry, dude. She was kinda hot.

See you Monday, everybody…

I met Will Leitch when he responded to my Roommate Wanted ad on craigslist. He showed up carrying a briefcase, curtsied, and called me ma’am. When considering all the possible candidates, my roommate and I decided to go with Will for one reason. He wasn’t hot like the other dude who wanted the room, so we knew we wouldn’t fight over him. We asked him to move in with us a few days before September 11, 2001.

After we offered him the room we found out that he was currently sharing an apartment with a known pornographer on the Upper East Side. He didn’t have a bedroom, but rather, a curtained-off section of the guy’s living room. This set off our pervert radar, but we decided to let it slide. What really creeped us out was that on move-in day he had the following items: a box of CDs, a box of books, one suitcase, a litter box, and his cat. (Ed. Note: He owned a cat? Jesus.) He had no furniture whatsoever, not even a bed. When we questioned him about it, he said that he didn’t need a bed. He was just a humble, unassuming Midwesterner who didn’t need fancy things like a mattress, or, say, a pillow. He was perfectly content sleeping on the hardwood floor with nothing more than a blanket and his cat. Suffice it to say, we FREAKED.

Over the course of our living together, Will got a bed and eventually we became friends. But one thing always grossed me out. For whatever horrendous reason, Will decided that it would least inconvenience everyone if he kept the cat’s litter box right at the foot of his bed. Due to the fact that he has no sense of smell thanks to some mysterious childhood illness, he would regularly fail to clean it for days on end. Not only did it smell downright atrocious, but his blanket would regularly hang off the bed into the litter box. I always wondered how he convinced girls to sleep in that bed, and I attribute the fact that he did so to his being Famous Blogger Will Leitch. For some reason (that I still don’t understand) that provided him with the magical ability to convince women to sleep in a bed that was literally dipped in shit. Go figure.

Anyway, when eventually we all decided to move out, I left a week before Will did. When I came back to the apartment one afternoon to pick up some mail and other odds and ends I had left behind, I used the bathroom. There, sitting next to the toilet, was my Victoria’s Secret catalog, crumpled and well-used. And you know what was even more disturbing than the revelation that my humble, unassuming Midwestern roommate had been masturbating with my Victoria’s Secret catalog in my absence? It was the fact that it wasn’t open to any of the pages of push up bras or skimpy lingerie, but rather, to the one-piece swimsuits in the back. The moral of this story? Girls, now you know: if you want to get into that shit-dipped bed of Will’s, forget the lacy bras and panties. The secret to Will’s heart is none other than a trashy one-piece bathing suit. Thank me later, ladies.

One of the most flattering compliments I've received in these, the blog days of my youth, has been from William F. Leitch regarding my live blogs, notably the Super Bowl XLII one. It's made me want to do more, but unfortunately all there is to lively blog these days is baseball, which can get rather redundant. To boot, he's leaving us for greener pastures, particularly one with ink and barcodes and inserts that if you just drop in the mailbox without filling it out the pasture still has to pay for the postage.

With an incumbent yet to be named to the site, I figured the best tribute to our outcumbent editor would be to (1) coin the word "outcumbent," and (2) live blog a typical Will Leitch day as he runs this here dread pirate ship of sports journalogging. Sure, my live blogs are meant for entertainment. But this one serves a bigger purpose. Hopefully once I whoever becomes lead editor will use this live blog as a rubric for future sports blogging success.

It wasn't difficult to figure out how to spy on the guy without him knowing, given that I snuck a hidden camera into his apartment over a year ago. So let's get right down to it:

6:55 a.m. — The radio alarm clock goes off. It's playing "I Got You Babe."

6:58 a.m. — He looks at the calendar. Every fourth day is circled in black and says "SHOWER." Today is one of those days.

7:04 a.m. — Well, he's finally showering, but... well, he's pumping something rather furiously. Can't quite make it out through the ESPN-logo shower curtain, but I'm guess he's using that face soap with the hand pump and the soap got all crusty and it's hard to get out.

7:39 a.m. — He's just kind of, well, looking at his computer, occasionally laughing.

8:04 a.m. — Still on his computer.

8:59 a.m. — Still on his computer.

9:38 a.m. — Still ... yep.

10:02 a.m. — All right, he stopped to take a piss. Funny, I didn't see him drink that much coffee, so I don't underst... oh, looks like he's trying to get more face soap! Wow, this time it's taking even longer to apply the soap to his hands!

10:03 a.m. — Damn, that boy really vocal about enjoying his soap. Must be that kind with the crushed up rocks in it.

10:07 a.m. — He's back to work. What a lucky guy. Being able to work from home, write about sports, and .. what looks to be DVRed episodes of America's Next Top Model.

11:19 a.m. — All right, this was unexpected. For the last 15 minutes he's been standing in front of a full-length mirror, completely nude and holding a whip, saying "Oui" to himself. Occasionally he'll say "Aye," then flog himself in the back. Could it be he's trying to condition himself to use French affirmations and deter from British retorts?

12:21 p.m. — And now it's lunchtime. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Good call! But, hmm .. there don't appear to be any onions in the soup. Then why's he crying?

1:13 p.m. — And he's back at it. You know, it would have been a little more entertaining had he positioned his computer screen to face toward the camera. Because now, I'm just wondering if he's just slacking off. How would one slack off at that job? Operate accounting software, and in case Denton drops by, he hits the Boss Button and a Cardinals blog screenshot pops up?

2:37 p.m. — Wow, he keeps hand soap under his desk, too? This guy needs to not only cut back on the stuff, but find a better brand with a more efficient dispenser.

4:19 p.m. — Alright, it's been three hours straight. The guy doesn't quit! I think it's been two hours straight he's sat there — occasionally laughing, sometimes sobbing uncontrollably, but always pecking away — and that's a testament to what he's done the three years of work he's done on the site. Which brings us to another:

Fun Fallible Fact about: WILL LEITCH'S AMPHETAMINE STASH!: If you lined up all the pills end to end, you could create a straight line from his coffee table to the thermostat!

5:00 p.m. — An egg timer just sounded. Looks like Will was mid-sentence when he leapt out of the chair, vaulted over the couch, sat down, and started watching Around The Horn.

5:29 p.m. — As soon as the show ended, his cell phone went off. (This was the first time it rang all day, by the way.) He's talking with his bookie. It looks like he just lost $600 because he bet on Tim Cowlishaw.

6:11 p.m. — And he's done. Laptop's off. I really don't know how the fellow does it day in and day out. He answers damn never every e-mail you send him, he's always polite (even if sometimes it's not warranted) and he's spawned a healthy, almost too healthy to the point where we might call it tumorous, community of sports fans. He's inspired dozens of lawyers and tech support representatives to moonlight as sports bloggers, and few others can say that.

But most of all, I sincerely have to thank you, Will, for founding this website and giving me the opportunity to sillily peck away at the keyboard once or twice a month and write about sports on the weekends (for money!), because without that I'd probably just be sitting in my apartment, fervently practicing my yet-to-be-published sockpuppet opera, I Only Have Googly Eyes For You. Never before have I had more fun writing. It will always be comforting to know that, up until this live blog, I could have gotten a glowing letter of recommendation from you for future career opportunities.

Balls Deep by Drew Magary will not be appearing this week. In its place, we bring you this very special presentation.

(puts on Friar’s Club jacket)

(pours scotch)

(lights Philly blunt)

(taps mike)

Oh, hello. And welcome, one and all, to the All-Star Blogebrity Roast Of William F. Leitch. We’re here today to pay tribute to Will Leitch: editor of this fair site. Daulerio and I love Leitch so much, we’ve decided to have Gawker disable his login account for the next few hours, so he can’t get in. (Don’t bother trying to fight it, Will. Nibbles The Fearsome employs a nearly unbreakable e-ballgag.)

While Leitch hyperventilates into a paper bag for the rest of the afternoon, AJ and I, Drew Magary, will be your Roastmasters, bringing you tributes from various luminaries in the sports blogoverse: bloggers, reporters, some choice Deadspin commenters, surprise guests, etc. We’ve got nearly as many roasters here today as Leitch has ex-fiancees.

Many of today’s roasters were hesitant to rip on Will after all he’s done for them. “He’s too polite to roast!” they said. And this is true. Will is so polite, he apologizes to himself while masturbating. But after pointing out many of Leitch’s deficient qualities, and after threatening them with a tire iron, most of them relented. Except for Jamie Mottram. He’s a pussy.

So kick back, settle in, and prepare for a long day of heartfelt tributes and Leitch-centered dick jokery. We’re wallowing in Deadspin self-reverence today and we don’t give a flying fuck. But first, of course, let’s all have a cocktail.

Much better.

As you know, Will’s leaving us after tomorrow to become a contributing editor at New York magazine, at last realizing his childhood dream of complete and utter marginalization. I know I’m gonna miss him. I’ll miss his good-natured Midwestern demeanor. I’ll miss his incredibly poor syntax. I’ll miss his crippling stutter. I’ll miss his fondness for Woody Allen films, Barbaro message board pranksters, and anyone else who tells the same fucking joke over and over again. I’ll miss his transparent desire to have Rick Ankiel tear apart his asshole with a fungo bat.

I’ll also miss his profoundly shoddy journalistic technique. How’d that Grimsley affadavit turn out, Leitch? I haven’t seen reporting that shitty since Tunison worked at the Post.

I’ll miss his Cardinals homerism. No, no wait. No, I won’t miss that at all. Jesus fucking Christ, no one cares about that team or its retard fans. Oh, look! They clap for the opposing team! What a bunch of fucking yokels. Enjoy swimming laps in your basement, you Missouri rednecks.

Most of all, I’ll miss the chance to make fun of Will for videos such as this one.

JESUS CHRIST! How many sofas from Jennifer Convertibles had to die to make that jacket? You look like a fucking Hefty bag. You’re uglier than a Weintraub essay. You’re fatter than Chandler’s ankles. I wouldn’t fuck you with Nick Denton’s vagina. KSK reader futuremrsankiel said you look like a British au pair.

I can’t even begin to understand the hair. You look like John Lennon’s bloated corpse. I didn’t even know you could grow bangs on the side of your fucking head. You must think the Bang Bus is some sort of mobile cosmotology unit. If Albom’s got something fucked up with his ears, yours must look like Marge Schott’s two vaginas. I haven’t seen a conversation that awkward since Sussman’s last IM chat with a girl.

Amazing how far you’ve come since this interview, Leitch. You lost weight, cut your hair, went on a book tour, and presumably lost your virginity to a hooker in the East Village. You’ve come a long way. You still have MILES to go. But still. Let’s bring out our first roaster to pay tribute to you: Will's girlfriend, the lovely Alexa Stevenson.

(NOTE: Some of these tributes are lengthy. If you’re the kind of commenter who likes to bitch about the length of posts, kindly go die in a boating accident. Or go read a fucking blank wall. No pesky words there for you, shithead!)

Alexa Stevenson:

Will loves writing for Deadspin so much; it's really going to be hard for him to give it up. Especially because it gives him the luxury of avoiding his least favorite thing: people. Working from home as a blogger has given Will the ability to avoid every possible human interaction. When he runs out of his beloved Nestle low fat chocolate milk he could go to the store, but he just logs on to Fresh Direct and they bring it on over for him. Better yet, they leave it outside, so he can crawl out of the apartment after the deliveryman has left. Honestly, I think it's fine if he isn't a fan of interaction, but I do think it's time we elevated our relationship to a step beyond instant messenger. But you know, he loved Paris! Our hotel room reminded me so much of his own room and there was free WiFi!

I'd also like to mention — do what you want with it — how Will prepared for the Costas show: he ate nothing but raisins for an entire week. I've attached a photo. I think this did him well, yes?

Stay tuned. More roasters on the way, including some VERY special guests. All day long, we encourage you to add your own Leitch jokes and tributes in the comments.

We'll start off today with a few housekeeping items: As flattering and jarring as it was to hear Bob Costas pronounce my name correctly on last night's "Costas Now", I cannot take credit for the piece he quoted and attributed to me. No, that Rick Reilly story Costas was grousing about was written by Big Daddy Drew — or, sorry "Big Daddy Balls." I was being scolded by proxy. Either way, I was honored to be associated with such a tremendous column, but he should be given all the credit.

Also, I'd feel like I was being remiss if I didn't point this out. Last week when Will found out that he would be appearing on the panel with Buzz Bissinger, it was obvious that any kind of "Town Hall" discussion last night's "Costas Now" intended to be was not going to exist. Obviously, Bissinger has an uncanny ability to be a mean-spirited dick when he's fired up about something. However, as we vividly saw last night, his mania tires out and succumbs to the inevitable comedown. It was during that comedown that Bissinger eerily changed from frothing lunatic to old, wistful writer, openly worried that Will Leitch, the floppy-haired kid sitting next to him, who is personally responsible for giving the world essays about Rich Garces' tits and photos of drunk athletes, would one day supplant anything he's ever done in his life. Bissinger is also a wonderful writer, who has the ability to channel all of that scatterbrained, passionate energy and transform it into something fantastic. That will never go away.

One more thing: Hopefully, last night's train wreck will finally put an end to this whole sports media/mainstream media battle against the sports blogging community. This has always been, in my opinion, a completely rudderless debate from both sides: These are two entirely seperate media. Bloggers are not putting newspaper columnists (or print media) out of business — bad newspapering is. These two worlds don't have to co-exist and were never intended to be that way. To me, blogging and internet writing, by and large, is rooted in comedy and opinion. That's it. One doesn't invalidate the other.

I originally turned to writing on the web almost 10 years ago because, as a struggling journalist desperately trying to break into mainstream media, I had no other outlet to develop a voice, a style, or an opinion on anything through my various jobs that my crappy Communications/English double-major from La Salle University afforded me. As much as I'd hoped that covering the local zoning board meetings or the municipal bond market would be pave the way for me to one day write for publications with a larger audience, it was not going to happen. I had to squash my own grapes, so to speak, and, thankfully, all of that hard, unpaid work done on my free time outside of those other jobs finally gave me some opportunities (and paychecks) I don't feel any guilt about whatsoever. And going this route certainly doesn't make me (or anyone else) unqualified to have an audience or earn a living this way.

Alright, enough — let's go do what we do best.

Yep, sorry, kids, but we're back, and jeez, we kind of missed a lot. The Buzzsaw fired their coach, Javon Walker is covered in blood in a story that we can't believe no one else has picked up on, Mike Tyson is all coked up, Bobby Knight's dancing on Dean Smith's aboveground grave and there appears to be an issue with some sort of cheerleader. Those are always fun.

We're still digging out from under a cavalcade of emails, so expect the site to be alternately repetitive and groggy the rest of the afternoon. We can't possibly thank The Mighty MJD, Michael David Smith, J.E. Skeets and A.J. Daulerio enough; the site has been kind of amazing the last week or so, and we just hope to keep up the level of quality of punnery.

We're so happy to be back; we missed you.

As you might have noticed — mainly because we kind of haven't shut up about it, much to our own detriment — our beloved little site turned one year old yesterday. When we personally turned one year old in 1976, we celebrated by drinking in extreme excess, so we thought we'd do the same thing last night.

All kinds of nice people showed up at our little soir e, which was impressive, considering it was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, an area of town your average Gawker Media employee tends to be rather frightened of. (We purposedly had the party in a sports bar far from the Lower East Side, just to make as many people as uncomfortable as possible. It worked!) But the longest commute of all had to belong to our father, who made a surprise visit all the way from Mattoon. We know he had a good time, because it's nearly 2 p.m., and he's still asleep next to us on the couch.

Anyway, it's tradition around these parts for famed blog photographer — this is an actual designation — Nikola Tamindzic to click away at events such as this one, so after the jump, take a ride in our magical mystery Dodge Stratus and relive events from about 16 hours ago. Warning: Entirely insular commentary and in-jokes to follow.

So we would like to give you some big setup, about how this party had overcome some overwhelming adversity, but, really, everyone just showed up and started drinking. Which is the only way we would have it. The captions to these photos, therefore, will have the same pithy, blurry feel of the evening. Except it's impossible to conveying "passing out" in HTML. Believe us, we've tried.

Gawker Media managing editor Lockhart Steele and Fishbowl NY editor (and Deadspin tennis correspondent) Dylan Stableford are the center and left guard, respectively, and former Gawker editor/current New York senior editor (online) Jesse Oxfeld is Matt Leinart, or Kordell Stewart, take your pick.

Former Black Table managing editor Aileen Gallagher and some guy named Matt — whose last name we always forget, which is kind of a jerk thing to do, considering we pretty much see him everywhere — discuss Matt's befuddling lack of a last name. (It's actually "Caldecutt," we're told.)

The Assimilated Negro, who also has a dubiously named sports blog, does his impersonation of Frank Solich, Bob Huggins and Paris Hilton while his friend tries to figure out why bands feel the need to abbreviate the word "and." In the background, Week In Craig virtuoso Amy Blair dreams of a Barber sandwich.

It would not be a Deadspin party without uncomfortable high fives. The guy in the middle is not Dana Carvey, by the way.

Fellow Black Tabler and current Maxim senior editor Eric Gillin puts an arm around Laura Davis, who wonders what he's doing with that other hand.

This woman is Kristine Blinn, and she reads Deadspin. (See! There are tons of female readers!) She's actually wearing a "You're With Me, Leather" T-shirt during the New York City mini-marathon next month, and that's about the best thing we've ever heard.

Seriously, Dad picked the worst possible time to tell us we were adopted.

Matt Dorfman designed the cover to Life As A Loser, and Kristen Pettit was the editor of Catch. So blame them.

Christ, took you two long enough.

The guy on the left is Eric Ortner, who we're told is a producer for "Good Morning America." The guy in the middle is David Goodwillie, who wrote a really good book and used to play minor league baseball. Whitney Pastorek is trying with limited success to convince them that Mario Williams was a totally awesome pick.

Matt Ufford and Erin Schulte see your camera and they LOVE IT.

This is Peter Schrager and John Bolster. One works for Fox Sports. The other works for Penthouse. See if you can guess which is which.

Lindsay Robertson and Ortner celebrate Anibal Sanchez's no-hitter. Naw, we're just shittin' ya.

The guy who did all those awesome Hall Of Fame plaques? Jim Cooke. That's him. He's a genius.

Look: Definitive proof that Nick Denton has been above 14th Street in Manhattan. We're as stunned as you.

We knew it was getting late when this guy was all, "Hey, I'm a stringray, and Mr. Leitch, you're Steve Irwin, and I'm all like RAWWWRRRRRRR!"

And then they made us give a speech, which we didn't know was coming. Within five minutes of the end of the speech ... everyone was gone. Hard to blame them, one supposes.

So yeah: This is why there were probably a lot of spelling errors this morning.

Vacations are always fun, until someone is mistaken for a wild pig and receives multiple spearings.

Anyway, my name is Rick Chandler, and I will be in command here at Fort Courage for today. A little about myself: I own several attractive ties. I am half English and half Irish, which causes few problems — except that on every April 18th I set off a small pipe bomb in my own pants. It was my real-life story that was the inspiration for the TV show Nanny and the Professor. My personal motto: "Meus pera est absentis" ("Hey! My wallet's missing!"). Favorite athlete: Whammy Douglas. That's about it. Oh, and it's only a half-day today here on Deadspin, due to President's Day. Yes, my parents finally gave me the keys to the family car, and said: "Have it back by noon."

And now, on with the show.