"I hope I die before I get old" (although not really)

**Update...now with video for those interested.

Last night I watched part of Bob Costas's special on media and sports on HBO (yeah...for some reason we get HBO in the Batcave--although I almost always forget about it). It was pretty engaging..from what I saw of it...but the segment that caught my attention was the one on sport blogs. They ran a small cover story about sport blogs (where they did highlight one of my favorite sport blogs--Fire Joe Morgan) and subsequently had a round table discussion afterwards featuring Will Leitch of Deadspin (supposable the most popular sports blog although I wasn't too familiar with it), Buzz Bissinger (author of "Friday Night Lights") and Braylon Edwards (yeah...I didn't quite get that either).

Needless to say Buzz Bissinger is a complete lunatic. I don't care if he's considered a top notch author I will never read one of his books. He made a complete ass out of himself. Of course his take is that sport blogs (and he lumped them altogether) is the equivalent of a shit sandwich. Actually he might have exactly said that because every other word out of his mouth was a expletive. I know the special was on HBO but that doesn't mean you have to act like a raving lunatic. Plus it ran counter to his argument that one reason he doesn't have much respect for sports blogs is that they are vulgar. I'm a little confused why a vulgar man would have a problem with a vulgar sports website.

It was just completely an over the top performance--although I guess it really wasn't a performance. He was just the typical crotchety...pissed off old fart...where nothing is as good as back in the old days. I just waned to punch him the face and the dude from Deadspin would have been (almost) justified in doing so.

I would tear into his argument but he really didn't have one. But he did have several illogical assumptions.

1. You cannot lump all sports blogs into one neat little category. Yes there are sports blogs that do stink...that have bad writing...that are low-brow crap...that are nothing but sensationalized garbage. But there are some that are very informative (Stampede Blue)...very funny (Fire Joe Morgan) and very insightful (Baseball Prospectus). It's just like every other medium...some of the stuff stinks...some of the stuff is great...and the rest is just in between those two points.

2. You also cannot confuse the merit of an actual blog article to the comment section. Costas even did this to a degree. That's like tying a sportwriter's column to every letter-to-the-editor that gets sent in about that column. Those are two separate entities. For the most part comment sections are ridiculous and I hardly ever read them on the various sports blogs that I read anyway.

3. I also didn't agree with his assumption that sport blogs are trying to eliminate traditional sports mediums--like newspaper reporting and newspaper columnists. The guy from Deadspin tried to make this point that sport blogs are a compliment to traditional sports sources. And that both of those notions can be appreciated...and I completely agree with that.

I'll concede that if somebody was only getting their sports news from blogs than they aren't getting a well rounded take on a sports story, team or person. That would be problematic. And I can also see why a successful author, who cares about the craft of writing, would be frustrated by people who aren't very good writers (in some cases) but getting their stuff published and having their stuff read.

But...one can't assume that just because one writes a blog that one isn't a good writer. I'm not a fan of espn.com's Bill Simmons but he's a good writer and he has built a strong audience.

Ultimately my anger from seeing last night's show is not so much about blogging..and sports blogging...but...seeing a 50-something year old man rant and rave about a subject that he knows nothing about. But more than that Ol' Buzz's ego won't allow him to accept a new medium simply because he (or his generation for the most part) doesn't have a strong voice with the phenomenon of a 21st century cyber-world. It's just complete bullheadedness (and I realize that I can be quite stubborn at times--but nothing like that) on his part.

Well I think I've lost track with what I was ranting about.

Now it is OK to rant as long as you don't make an ass out of yourself...and I hope I didn't in this case.