Remember yesterday when we linked to what I called one of the most obnoxious posts in all the internet? Well, Todd Zolecki, who was discussed in the post, wrote about it yesterday and took the high road in defending his position. I called the author names on Twitter (and on the show).
(Note: I have been up since 2:45am and spent TWO HOURS trying to get a baby to sleep. Note2: That does not sway my opinion on this matter one bit, but may, in fact, add to my cantakerousness. I’m okay with that).
Here’s the link again and please read it while you listen or before you listen or after you listen. Bill Baer wrote it, and he could be the nicest guy on the planet. I may love him and want to drink 1,000 beers with him. But he sure writes like a pompous twit. There’s not a brush broad enough to compare to this tripe. What’s glaringly obvious to everyone (except perhaps the author) is that in writing such a missive toward those who don’t agree with your stance on any topic – be it Sabermetrics or whether or not the Earth is round or flat – he is doing exactly what he admonished those same people for doing to him! Was that on purpose? Was the entire post a work just to rile up people like me? I can’t believe it’s not somewhat tongue in cheek, right?
Maybe it’s just bad writing and he doesn’t realize how entirely pompous, disrespectful and flat-out wrong he sounds. It has to be. And look, I’m friends with people on all sides of this big media landscape and see the lines graying between MSM and new media every single day. But I’ll be the first to admit I still have a bit of an MSM chip on my shoulder. I really try to protect the blogs from my ire, focusing more on those who we feel have gotten too big for their media britches. But blogger or not, this is as MSM-elitist as a post can get.
It’s not, however, as terrible as this post (the original has since been taken down) by Paul Ladewski of the Pirate Report who ripped the Penguins for not being…good?
Now that the Penguins have gone belly-up in the playoffs for the fourth time in five years in the Sidney Crosby era, maybe we’ll hear less about how their ownership will turn around the Pirates in no time if given the chance.
It’s amazing, and Ladewski has been getting crushed all over the place for this ridiculous post, with some in Pittsburgh media going so far as to question his journalistic integrity. Yikes.
Look, in both cases I understand that writers can play to their audiences and some sites are for more narrow groups of readers – be they snobby elite statheads, Pirates fans or anyone in between. And this show isn’t some rant about how I think I’m some great shakes as a writer. Everyone should have confidence when they write. Everyone should, in theory, think what they are writing is in some way adding to the greater discourse. Just know, when you do that, sometimes other people are reading it too. And sometimes, your words are going to make you look like a putz.
There’s more in the show than just this. We mention Angel Pagan’s night and talk a bit about Floyd Landis where I somehow pontificate about Hitler getting voted into a World War II Hall of Fame and compare that to Pete Rose. I think it works, if you listen.
I need a nap. Thanks for listening, as always.
This is a textbook example of “should have listened to the show before making a comment.” I think what I got more out of listening instead of just reading the post is that your concern wasn’t so much the content of the argument as it was that the writer was a giant asshat. If that was the intended premise, then I couldn’t agree more.
Ranting is good every now and then and usually is funny. I say keep it up.
Extremely fair point. Mine was not to say he’s intimating the earth is flat, it was in reference to previous conversations — and some on this show — where my point was that some figured out the Earth was round because they got in a boat and figured it out. There are many ways to prove things. Math is one of them.
You’re right that the author of the post is painting with a broad brush and I’d be surprised if anything about that article was tongue in cheek, but I do think you’re missing part of the point here. If you are arguing that the Earth is flat by admonishing those who think it is round, then you’re a dumbass on two fronts. First, you’re a hypocrite and second, your premise is wrong. While the author of the post certainly fills out the hypocrite qualification quite nicely, the fact remains that he isn’t exactly wrong. Sabermetrics is increasingly proving to be an effective way to analyze baseball and it does seem that there is a percentage of those who write about the game who stubbornly refuse to accept any kind of positive movement forward with the way the game is viewed. Although I’m not sure that I like the way he went about it, he isn’t exactly making an “earth is flat” kind of argument here.
I meant “been building in his garage”
Fuck the auto-correct
You’re a man! You’re forty! You can swear!
Besides, by the time your kids are old enough to understand what you are saying the internet will be obsolete and replaced by Tim Tebow, JE Skeets, and the robot Jay Mariotti has be building in his garage.