We'll Take It Over Bayless On TV, Anyday

Well, Bill Simmons made his appearance on "The Colbert Report," and, as you'd probably expect, those who can stay up that late are talking about it today. Some are pointing out that he finally confirmed that Red Sox fans are happier when they're miserable, a viewpoint he had disparaged for years; some liked his plan for 18-year-olds to play for USA Basketball, even though we thought that sounded suspiciously — no, exactly — like the plan espoused in Chuck Klosterman's column last week; and some, former ESPN employees, were actually live blogging the thing. And we've got the video. Sheesh. We are starting to feel vaguely overselling.

Anyway, we thought Simmons was fine: "The Colbert Report" seems like an incredibly difficult show to be a guest on, since your main job is to be straight man to the host, the exact opposite of the typical talk show. We think it's probably most telling that Simmons was never sold as an "Internet" writer; where he did his writing just never came up, because it didn't matter. That seems like a good thing to us.