Can't Stop The Bleeding vs. Will Leitch: Ah, a favorite of mine. Gerald Cosloy (GC, the featured editor of CSTB for many, many years now) took exception to Deadspin from the first day it was born, about two years ago. We understood the reasoning for the initial beef with Deadspin; GC viewed it as Gawker Media's intentional takeover of the independent smaller sports blogs that had thrived on bringing it's readers the offbeat topics that ESPN and other big media sites wouldn't cover. Sound familiar?
Indeed, CSTB and sites like The Sports Frog were threatened by this incursion on their turf, and CSTB decided to take a stand. They posted the e-mail invitation to be "friends" with Deadspin (meaning be a commenter on the site) on their site, and bashed Gawker. We applauded them at the time, even if we did read Deadspin daily. But pretty quickly GC decided to take his stand by personal attacks on Leitch, instead of on the website. The Will Leitch Sucks tag become a daily feature on the site in 2005, and all through 2006. Some of the entries focused more on the writing, which we felt was totally fair game - again, this is a competitor for your niche. One example I was particular fond of, from 2005: Leitch posted an entry about the Boston Globe mentioning "something [Leitch] had never heard off before" - that Ted Williams was part Mexican. GC's response:
Indeed, the Splendid Splinter’s ethnic background is an interesting subject. Or at least it was last August when was raised by Newsday’s Les Payne, amongst others, if not more than 5 years ago when the Sacramento Bee’s Marcos Brenton proclaimed Teddy Ballgame “the greatest Latino player of all time”.
Coming soon in a future Leitch entry : Rickey Henderson sometimes speaks in
the third person.
"the youthful “Alex” Reimer-Leitch, who followed his recent appearance on Stephen A. Smith’s “Quite Frankly” by having little or nothing interesting to say on AOL’s “Sports Bloggers Live” podcast. The program’s several dozen listeners have described Leitch’s contributions as rather insubstantial, though I think some allowance should be made for the fact he’s just turned 13."
Well, whatever. We personally have enjoyed both sites over the years, even if we have criticized Deadspin in the past.
Scoring the Beef: It's obviously a one-side beef, as these tend to be. Leitch has never talked about GC as far as I know. If this was a political race, GC would be denounced for running a negative campaign. But this isn't a campaign, and honestly, even if 90% of the time GC comes off looking a bit trite... he still lands a solid shot every once in a while. Peep this CSTB entry, complete with a link to Leitch getting absolutely slammed by an NPR reporter. Most sports bloggers don't listen to NPR (note: Canadian DJM of this site definitely does), but wow... when a guy who speaks in a fluid, monotone voice meant to illicit calm and sereneness makes you stutter, that's a solid blow. Don't expect Deadspin to link to NPR anytime soon....
Big Daddy Drew vs. Bill Simmons: First off, a disclaimer: We like BDD, and think he's pretty damn funny.
Upon creating and turning KSK into one of the big sports blogs in the field, BDD emerged as a possible heir apparent to Bill Simmons as "the funniest sports blogger around". And soon afterwards he started with the first of several columns and shots at Bill Simmons. The origins of this beef starts with a Simmons mailbag question. Here's an excerpt of his profanity-laced rant against Bill Simmons in Sept 2006:
Given that Simmons has made fun of Jim Caple (fair enough) and Dan Shanoff (upcoming) on his site, that's fairly hypocritical. But you know what's really fucking hypocritical? Trying to categorize people who read other sports blogs as losers. Oh, I already know I'm a loser. No arguments here. But what fucking right do you have, you stupid Masshole fuck, to rip on the same kind of people that support your goddamn site and your original site, which most people would characterize as a blog? Are you fucking kidding me?
Millions of people, maybe more, check out blogs like Deadspin, MJD, and the Big Lead every day. Are these people more loserish than your audience? Oh, you keep on believing that.
You've written all the time about how you wish you could rip on other ESPN personalities. Now Whitlock does it and he's a dipshit for it? Let me write you a prescription from TO's pharmacist, you fucking asshat
Big Daddy Drew spits hot fire. He had a very good point, and defended to the various "defenders" emerged in the comments, including possibly Malcolm Gladwell himself (a noted Simmons fan).
And then, in a classy style, BDD revisited his rant, and wrote it up in a more eloquent style. Hey, that's exactly what I would do if I was getting visits from Gladwell and his ilk on my site... shoot, I wouldn't want them thinking I'm a guy who can only write in cusses, you know?
Um, well, the beef is still ongoing. As recently as a month ago KSK and Drew had a "bounty" (of $21) on Simmons head. And, once again, Big Daddy Drew rips Simmons for a poorly written column (this one was basically Simmons complaining about the Colts getting knocked out of the playoffs before the Patriots had a chance to beat them... Reason #149 to appreciate the beauty that is the Giants upset win). Of course, most of just ignore the douchier Boston-centric columns from Connecticut Prep School Bill, and concentrate on the good stuff, if there are any good columns. But BDD can't ignore the man.
Scoring the Beef: Again, a one-sided beef, with Simmons never directly addressing the beef. To use an overused Simmons analogy: It would be nice if someone would just agree to play the Notorious B.I.G. to some other blog's Tupac ("Hey, they're the only two rappers I know, okay? Oh, and Eminem and Dre, too!"). But as long as it's one-side, the question is does BDD land quality shots on Simmons? The answer: Yes, he certainly does.
Though this is still our personal favorite Connecticut Prep School Bill parody.
Captain Caveman vs. The Big Lead: Apparently following fellow blogmate BDD's lead, Caveman decided to start beef with a rival competitor, in this case The Big Lead. The first instance we can find of this was a comment on this TBL movie review post:
"TBL, you are comically retarded."
Defending it's home turf, TBL wrote back:
"Caveman, I look forward to the time you leave a comment where you actually have an opinion on a topic, as opposed to, you know, just having an opinion on somebody’s opinion"
Nothing too intense. Very civil beef on both sides, so far.
More recently, though, Caveman seems to have upped the beef. In this post on "Websites We'd Like To See Experience Permanent Tech Support Problems", guess which KSK member picked The Big Lead?
“What's to dislike most about The Big Lead? Is it the Jackie Harvey cluelessness? The ironic attempt at credibility while staying anonymous? His admission that he puts less effort than he used to into writing posts so that he can churn out more of them and increase his traffic? Nah, I'm gonna go with the final 'question' from his interview with Chuck Klosterman: 'Tell us something interesting'. That site is an insult to people who think.”
But Ufford, TBL isn’t a person. He’s actually a computer program named Rhonda that is programmed to watch all the shows Simmons and Norm Chad like!
Um, it sounds like someone left the witty humor at home, and went straight for the bottle of vitriol. (Damn that's a poorly written sentence on my part... you can tell I'm trying to wrap this post up quickly, can't you?)
Scoring the Beef: We can't say we've been too impressed by any of the punches thrown here yet. But this beef does have the best hope of becoming a real, two-sided fight. While TBL has yet to respond to the latest shot from Caveman, they seem the most likely to be goaded into an all out blog fight. If that happens, would Deadspin immediately declare war on TBL? Would CSTB join the scrum on TBL's side. If we could just get Blogslavia involved, and an ugly assassination, we might just yet get that Great Blog War I've been waiting for....
*Alternative title: "Just a poorly written throwaway post on this blog solely for the purpose of attracting some attention".
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That NPR dude got in Leitch's ass for real. He's a pansy. He wants to set himself up to be intellectually superior but doens't want responsibility.
That old dude needed to make him explain better what exactly makes somebody white or black besides their skin color because he obviously has a different standard.
You know, I have my fair share of sites that I absolutely dislike *cough, fanhouse, cough* and sometimes I'll go over there and read them and just.....feel bad for them.
It's ok to dislike a blog or make yourself feel better by making fun of them but taking it public, I just don't understand. I don't have a problem with it, I just don't 'get' how someone gets to the point where they say....'in this post I'm going to rip ____ blog'. People must get really bored at work, or highly offended.
Allen: Yes, he certainly did get in Leitch's ass. Surprising how little play that got - you know if that was Simmons getting ripped while promoting his "Now I Can Die In Peace" book, well.. it would have been discussed on every single sports blog.
That's it, I'm going to wear a aluminum foil cap so SML can't read my thoughts anymore. :-p I had been toying with the idea of a blog feud post for a while, but as SML pointed out, there haven't been that many good ones. Good work, SML.
At least Simmons isn't one of these loser columnists who used to be a (fill in team here) fan but now "roots for a good story". I hate those guys.
Bill Simmons has become increasingly annoying, and I've heard two great explanations as to why.
1. Once he became a "VIP", he lost the "everyday man" appeal that drew so many people to him.
2. He hit middle age (mid-30's) and started to do everything in his power to show that he's still "hip"
He's a major reason why 90% of America was rooting for the Giants in the Super Bowl. Because he's such an enormous douchebag, and his sore-loserish, backhanded compliments of the Giants following the game prove it.
He made several small notes implying that the Giants didnt win the game, the PAtriots handed it to them. Like the Asante Samuel near-INT at the end of the game. I have the game saved on my DVR, and I watched that play in slow-motion. Samuel was at the absolute apex of his leap, and the ball hits off the very uppermost tips of his fingers. Samuel "dropping" that ball wasnt a gift to the Giants...it would have been an incredible play if Samuel had made it.
Then, he made reference to there being a ton of bandwagon Giants fans coming out of the woodworks...WHAT??????
The Patriots are the absolute epitome of a bandwagon franchise. Until 2002, nobody gave a fuck about the Patriots. Meanwhile, I've been on the waiting list for Giants season tickets for 5 years, and I might be collecting Social Security before my name gets called. Two years ago, I met a guy who had just gotten his name called off the season ticketlist. He had been on the list since 1982!!!!! He was on the list for 25 years! But yet, we're the team with the bandwagon fans?
And dont even get me started on his "Mt. Rushmore of hip-hop"...
Tom: Both of those are definitely huge factors. Very big, in fact.
I could do a lengthy post on the topic, but it's a bit cliche for me as a blogger to bash Simmons. After all, I was reading him back in his pre-ESPN days, and I've always taken pride in saying I was among his first 1,000 fans, you know? And no doubt his influence reigns over me.
That having been said... let's vent!
Absolutely agree with you on the "Giants bandwagon" comment... I read that, and I was like "WTF?!? Completely clueless douchy Bostonian..."
And that's my biggest beef, I think. Well, let me back it up a bit... my initial beef was finding out Simmons background. Then I felt a bit like he was phony. Despite presenting himself like an "everyman" Boston middle class guy - you know, hanging with Sullys, former bartending, Holy Cross attendee, Sports Guy, father took him to The Boston Garden, his father is a clueless Irish guy (that's how he presents him in the old columns - "who's this O'Bannon kid?"), etc. - he's really not. He is a VIP - he's a rich Connecticut guy who went to the finest preps schools ($20K a year places), and was "bartending" because he could afford to that while pursuing his writing. He was in the good season ticket seats at The Boston Garden with his dad - I know how much Knick tickets cost in the 80's; I can only imagine how much they cost for the Bird Celtics. They weren't cheap. His dad probably isn't as clueless as Bill makes him seem.
Again, not a big deal, but so much of his appeal is from his "every guy" status, which he played up to for many years (before the Jimmy show). He never, ever, ever mentioned being from Connecticut, not even on the old site. Am I wrong?
And the new beef I have with him is (like Boston fans in general): they are okay to deal with when they are losing; you kinda feel bad for them, and there is something you can relate to there. We're all losers in sports for the most part - nobody wins all the time, right? Even Yankee fans can relate to the heartbreaking losses, the tough moments, the fade from former glory (the Celtics in the late 90's) that Boston fans like Simmons were going through in the 90's. And everyone else can relate to losing, and hoping that this will be the year. That was his real appeal. That was what added the humanity to his columns. Otherwise it would be a series of sports and pop culture jokes (like every other blog out there now - lacking humanity, just humor).
But then, starting with the Patriots and then Red Sox, Boston started winning. And I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg, but Simmons and Boston fans both became incredibly self-centered and douchy. This is exactly what Big Daddy Drew was addressing his the last attack on Simmons. The "world revolves around us" stuff has really gotten out of hand. He has no humanity in his columns anymore. And when he does - like the New Orleans column - it feels forced and a bit phony, or maybe a bit out of touch.
Combined with the other stuff you mentioned, and most of the time it's just not enjoyable to read Simmons anymore.
I must confess, I'm not familiar with the writing of this "Gerald Cosloy" fellow. Perhaps he's particularly wigged out over a "Gawker Media takeover". I'd rather sum it up with the same comments I made in response to some of yours at Cobra Brigade last month :
http://www.cobrabrigade.com/2008/01/will_leitch_deadspin_writes_a.php
'over time GC has just railed against Will Leitch as a person, and not railed some much against the website or Gawker Media. It seems, to me, a pretty lame way to take your beef out on the site, by picking on the guy.'
aside from occasionally defending Will against accusations of having a crap haircut (that's just dirty pool, folks) the overwhelming majority of posts concerning Will at CSTB have been directly related to his writing, ethics and most recently, confusing choices for halloween costumes.
There's no personal beef whatsoever. At least there wasn't until Will suggested in The Black Table that he'd slept with a former girlfriend of mine. I politely responded by linking to a photograph of his former fiancee and proposed a vile act New York's homeless population could perform with it.
I appreciate your deep thoughts on this matter, and I'm sure Mike Lupica would agree it's awfully mean to hold public figures accountable for their public actions."
Though I think it would be impossible for someone covering Deadspin's rise to prominence to ignore Gawker Media's role (there's a world of difference between the independent blogosphere that preceeded Will and the traditional journalism/new media social circles he's traveled in), none of that matters stacked up next to the content on offer. It ultimately doesn't matter if Will Leitch works for Nick Denton, Walt Disney or Bill Gates. He sucks either way.
As for Gawker Media itself, I have no quarrel. There are a couple of Denton properties that I read and link to regularly.
Given your distaste for personal attacks on Mr. Leitch, I do hope you're just as outspoken when the likes of Sean Salisbury, Chris Berman or Stephen A. Smith are ridiculed at Deadspin.
You ask if I'm inclined to "join the scrum" on behalf of TBL being blasted by Matt Ufford. Done and dusted :
http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=12558
GC
"They posted the e-mail invitation to be "friends" with Deadspin (meaning be a commenter on the site) on their site, and bashed Gawker."
I think a cursory glance at the entry in question will show
a) I was not invited to be a commenter,
b) nor did I reply to said message by bashing Gawker.
Gerard: I have no problems with personal attacks on sports bloggers; I have no problems with personal attacks on anyone who writes, period. It's free speech, buddy. I just think it's beneath a "real" writer with quality ethics and content to do so. I'm fine with attacking other writer's work. So in that regard, I've supported those types of "attacks". And I think I made that clear in my post - if I didn't, I apologize for the confusion. But I did say "we (I) thought it was totally fair game", right?
But I don't need to support making fun of Halloween costumes, or girlfriends, though. That's not someone's work. What's that got to with anything (and yeah, I don't get too worked up about Chris Berman oh my god, cussing, and I don't get too worked up about obscure college athletes paying hooker for ass... but that's just me)? Again, free speech, so do whatever ya'll want, but I still have to right to criticize, so let me do what I do, too. And if that's me writing a post in which I make a slight criticism about you attacking Will Leitch personally (when I think I was pretty objective overall, and possibly even leaning in the direction of supporting you and your work), then let me do that.
BTW, I definitely agree that Leitch is far from the "normal" independent blogger. I've stated that on many occasions.
Finally: I was looking for that post - your archives are tough to sort through, holmes. Had I been able to find the actual original post, I might have been able to do that "cursory glance". So in that regards, I'll suck it up and say "my bad". I apologize for mischaracterizing that post as an attack on Gawker. I was incorrect. Bad memory on my part. And, it should be noted I didn't read your response to my comment on Cobra Brigade a few weeks back. Again, that's my bad...
"But I don't need to support making fun of Halloween costumes, or girlfriends, though. That's not someone's work. What's that got to with anything (and yeah, I don't get too worked up about Chris Berman oh my god, cussing, and I don't get too worked up about obscure college athletes paying hooker for ass... but that's just me)? Again, free speech, so do whatever ya'll want, but I still have to right to criticize, so let me do what I do, too. And if that's me writing a post in which I make a slight criticism about you attacking Will Leitch personally (when I think I was pretty objective overall, and possibly even leaning in the direction of supporting you and your work), then let me do that."
Points entirely taken, and I don't think I'm preventing you from doing so. I am, however, gonna point out inaccuracies whether or not you're supportive of my work. Thanks for the support and all, but I think some things have been mischaracterized. The more they are repeated, the more likely it is they become "common knowledge".
At the risk of nitpicking things to death, "the Halloween costume" wasn't just brought up in a vaccum. If Deadspin is gonna highlight athletes in blackface, mascots in "gangsta" garb, etc., it seems only appropriate to note Will's only questionable choice of party-wear.
I will agree that (viciously) mocking Will's former fiancee was a rather crude (repeated) gesture. However, I will argue that it was Will who introduced the subject of girlfriends to the discussion, both in his turgid Men's Health account of learning his gf had once been in a threesome (http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=4658) and his "Having An Unknown Online Enemy" piece for The Black Table (http://www.blacktable.com/blacklist051109.htm).
What does any of this have to do with someone's work? Well, very often it's part and parcel of Will's work. And again, at the risk of beating the dead horse for the 30th time, we're talking about a public figure, one who usually shows little hesitation to make light of the personal problems of any number of sports/media personalities.
Admittedly, CSTB's archives are difficult to shift through. Sometimes it even takes me 3 or 4 extra minutes to find a post from 2005. But between Google and the site's search function, I figure it out sooner or later.
I don't expect you or anyone else to have a perfect memory of some shit I wrote 2 1/2 years ago --- that's crazy. At the same time, I also don't expect to be wildly misquoted when the actual text in question is a matter of public record. I'll accept this was done out of expediency rather than malice.
thanks
GC
SML, you did miss BigDaddyDrew vs. the Deadspin commenters--that one is becoming quite enjoyable on each post that BDD has written lately. For once, it's a two-sided feud.
As for GC and SML--you know, the coincidence of starting a new blog feud in the comment section of a post about blog feuds would be excellent. Make it happen! (just kidding, sounds like you all are finding your way to the same page).
@GC: You are right, these posts don't occur in a vacuum. I admit that I should have given more context to those posts in my comments and writing.
I guess it comes down to this - sometimes people fight fire with fire, right? So you treat Leitch the way he treats athletes/ESPN employees/mascots on his site. I'm not opposed to you treating him that way. I prefer to bash the work, but you sometimes fight fire with fire. Cool. But the reality is that in doing so you lose the "moral high ground", you know? And then, unfortunately, it becomes easier for things to get mischaracterized, misquoted, and misrepresented. And for those misrepresentations to become "common knowledge".
Again, I'm not criticizing... I've done the "fight fire with fire" thing myself too many times in my life, and I'm probably going to do it again. That's one way to fight a battle, you know? But I'm also aware that ceding the moral high ground can have these negative effects that you saw in my post... no one can really mischaracterize Leitch's stance here, because he refuses to take one, right? But it becomes harder for people to keep the origins behind your beef straight - the reasons for it, the facts behind it - when it starts getting messy.
Anyway, thank you for clarifying your position. I hope that people will read the entire post and the comments, and understand your viewpoint.
PS: I personally think it won't matter much longer - it's become very evident over the past few months that Deadspin is becoming more and more irrelevant....
hey,
I claim no moral high ground whatsoever. Whether I'm fighting fire with fire or I've routinely shown a bright light on Will's hypocrisy is for each person to decide for themselves. But I have no illusions that there's any moral imperative behind what I'm doing --- I'm just trying to kick the guy's tail (rhetorically, anyhow) and he's not the only one who has received similar treatment.
There seems to be a bigger outcry about the negative Will stuff (and not to be put words in your mouth -- I'm not quoting SML here) because his blogger status makes him some kinda surrogate pal to his readers. There's a massive double standard in the way he's treated compared to the MSM characters he covers. If, for example, a photo was in circulation of say, Bill Simmons or Scott Van Pelt in faux gangsta-wear, I'm pretty sure much of the sporting blogosphere would be all over it.
As far as Will's stance is concerned, I respectfully disagree. His personal feelings about me or CSTB aren't particularly relevant (though he's professed to having been a fan at one time or another --- and I don't doubt his sincerity) but for someone who professes to be apolitical, I think his work speaks for itself.
Seriously, I don't think it's super hard for readers to figure out what my problem with Will is. It's all there for anyone to read if they're bothered. If they'd rather go for a wiki-esque version of events (ie. blogger guy you don't know is angry and jealous, occasionally funny / blogger guy you do know has nice hair, is kind to animals and Rick Ankiel), they're welcome to do so (time being tight and all)
Now would be a great time for Alex Reimer to update us on his recent activities.
SML, this post and comments was a complete education for me....
interesting, BUT I would say to qualify for beef you must have TWO folks fighting... It's kind of like saying that ESPN and I got beef!
...Yeah, Will was stammering pretty hard after that Dungy question... if Will says that he "went too far" on the NPR show, then I think the right thing to do is a follow-up Deadspin post where he reflects on his book and what he would now consider altering if he had a do-over... ...in general, I think writers have to either stand by their words (humor included) or publically cop to their shit...
...haven't read his book yet, but plan to...
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while it's flattering to post that the sports frog is involved in beef with deadspin, i highly doubt anyone over there really takes any of this talk seriously.
but there is a possiblility they might get angry if you don't fix that link up there! it's www.sportsfrog.com. thanks.
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I thought Ufford mentioned that he wanted to out TBL, too. That'd be interesting.