Your Thoughts Exactly

So you know something about sports, but you want to know more. Maybe friends laughed at you when you picked Marshall Faulk in the second round of your fantasy draft. No wait that was me. Crap. Anyways, I am here to help. The Internet can be a great way to find out more. But there is so much crap out there, 95 percent of which is total garbage, and much of which is becoming only available through “Premium Services.” You need someone to guide you to the right places to get the inside info. Well that’s why I’m here. In the countless hours of wasted free time of my formative, I have filtered through that garbage, like Luke Skywalker, Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca in the bowels of the Death Star. I am R2D2 here to save you...(ignore those last two sentences.)

Must Reads:
General: Sports Guy, especially since he got his own page, although he’s been spending too much time talking about sports movies I haven’t seen and less time on the Red Sox. Sports Guy, of course, was previously known as the Boston Sports Guy, and had a website dedicated to Boston and national sports. The Boston angle, combined with the fact that he could be cruder and relentlessly mock many on-air personalities like Joe Morgan, Joe Theismann and Tim McCarver, made this site one of the greatest ever. This site on ESPN gives Simmons more visibility and resources, and remains a must-read for Sports aficionados, (even if he spends half his columns talking about things like Entourage. That’s my main complaint about Sports Guy now, he writes good pop culture columns, but he needs to talk more about sports damn it!) He is pretty good at predicting NFL games, but don’t take him as gospel.

Baseball: Peter Gammons, who’s been doing it the longest, and he can get under your skin some times as he has his favorites (Derek Jeter, Scott Rolen, Brad Ausmus, Darren Erstad, to name a few) and his enemies, (Dan Duquette, Steinbrenner.) But he gets the best info.

Basketball: David Aldridge, who I heard he was getting axed, but if he keeps writing columns, I find him to be the most balanced while coming through as a huge fan in his articles. I never question his love for the game, and more importantly, his love for the current version of the game. Many basketball writers, such as The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan still write good columns, and understand the game, but their hearts are in a different era.

Football: Dr. Z of Sports Illustrated, has the best understanding of football as a team game and the game itself, both in historical knowledge (going back to the 30s,) and the intricacies of the less talked about but important parts of the game like line play and coverages. His style can be grating at first, but it has grown on me.

Other Sports: For Hockey, focus on the chats of commentators like Darren Pang and Bill Clement on ESPN.com. For Tennis SI’s Jon Wertheim is the best non-major sports columnist on the web. Golf I don’t consider a sport so find your own damn coverage. Same with NASCAR. For Pro Wrestling, Dave Metzler’s Wrestling Observer site has the most dirt. Soccernet from ESPN is where I get my soccer coverage but there has to be something better out there. If someone knows post a comment. And of course, go to Fox Sports Australia for coverage of Australia’s loss in the ICC cricket match, the Rugby League semifinals, and of course the AFL Grand Final where Brisbane goes for their fourth straight title against Port Adelaide from the MCG.

Best Overall Coverage:

Baseball: This would have been Baseball Prospectus (which still has good stats pages), despite their annoying tendencies until the site became no longer free of charge, and I was going to give this award begrudgingly to ESPN.com. Then I realized, since Rob Neyer became an Insider (meaning you have to pay) column, ESPN only has Gammons, Jayson Stark, who is slightly above average, and a whole slew of idiots like Joe Morgan, John Kruk, Rob Dibble, and Tom Candiotti. So I am giving this to CNNSI by default.

Football: Tough one, as there is better writing on football then any other sport, including Pro Football Weekly, a few writers on CBS Sportsline, and a whole gaggle of fantasy related sites. This is a tough battle between CNNSI and ESPN; CNNSI has Dr. Z and Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback, which always contains good info although I think King is mediocre at analyzing the game, and talks too much about coffee and his daughter’s field hockey games. ESPN has more depth of coverage, including Scouts INC., Mel Kiper, and Chris Mortenson on Insider (damn ESPN making people pay,) and solid free coverage from Len Pasquarelli, John Clayton, and a whole bunch of ex-players who, unlike ESPN’s ex-baseball analysts, actually contribute worthwhile analysis rather than mindless drivel. I give it to ESPN.

Basketball: I’ve been trying to find alternative basketball sites; Hoops World isn’t bad. I think there is just generally less interest in the NBA then the NFL or baseball, which sucks for fans such as myself. ESPN wins this one as well; they have a solid stable of main analysts, Ric Bucher, Dr. Jack Ramsey, Mark Stein, and Aldridge. Throw in Sports Guy’s coverage and they are the clear winners. This is one area where I miss Ralph Wiley; I did write a column talking about how aggravating I could find him, but he did know his NBA. And he had interesting opinions, although I rarely agreed with him.

General: Even though it’s in the middle of a decline, ESPN.com is still the best place to go for overall coverage. There is more and more crap to weed through, and more and more of the good content is becoming “Insider.” ESPN.com right now is like The British Empire in the 1910s, The Beatles in 1968, or Wu-Tang Clan in 1997. They are too convinced of their own greatness, too concerned with conquering other realms other than sports to realize that they are moving away from what made them great in the first place. If CNNSI could get their act together, they could take them out, but they are another corporate monolith website that can’t seem to implement the necessary changes. Hopefully, some young, hungry website will build a following based around stats and analysis and kick ESPN’s butt.

5 websites/columnists to avoid at all costs (and I am not linking you to them):

ESPN’s Page 3: Ultimate confirmation of the downfall.
SI’s Rick Riley: No longer appears to like sports, yet keeps writing about them to gain his paycheck. Please, quit, for all of our sakes.
Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback: One of the mystery’s of life, how people can find this entertaining.
Charley Rosen’s NBA columns: Ok I’ll admit its fun to see who he is bashing, but the guy has such a clear agenda, and such an interest in protecting his buddy Phil Jackson, that he makes me sympathize with Shaq and Kobe, no easy task. He also comes across as the lamest kind of coach/columnist, the guy who just wasn’t good enough to make it as a professional player, is envious of all the players who are now millionaires, and takes it out on them by over-criticizing everyone’s flaws and calling players lazy. Charley needs to let go of his hate.
SI’s B. Duane Cross: I don’t know who this guy is, but he picked a Miami-Minnesota Super Bowl this year. Enough said.

So there you have it. Also I encourage contributions from the public, if you think I missed something or am horribly mistaken, post a comment!

# posted by Marmaniac @ 7:59 PM