TOP 13 SUSPECTS IN THE MURDER OF MY SPORTS BLOG

by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool

For the past 48+ hours, without a word of warning or explanation, Blogger/Google has removed my 16-month old sports site, Five Tool Tool. (No link, because, um, It Doesn't Freaking Work.)

We didn't even use curse words. We rarely showed titty. Hell, we barely even had commenters, though we did have advertisers. But like all little-read sports blogs, we had enemies -- cold-blooded murdering enemies that would kill a blog just to keep us silent. (Will we stay dead? I have no idea. Google/Blogspot's customer service has been positively Isiah-esque so far.)

So who killed us? The list of suspects is after the jump. Plus hey, lots of NSFW videos and NSFBlogger Opinions!

13) Don Nelson.

Our final visitor was from Oakland. They accessed the site for 35 minutes, went through a bunch of pages, then moved on. Soon after that, the site went down.

Could the Warriors head coach have pulled strings with local Googlians to silence a critic who has (a) posted an image of Nellie looking all fat and bloated on wine, (b) pointed out that Nellieball, while entertaining, almost never goes deep in the playoffs?

Clues: He's got nothing else to do, so he's got the means. He also brought back Chris Webber this year, so we've already proven insanity as a pre-existing condition.

Alibis: Old people don't know how to use the Internets. Besides, he's probably too busy threatening to retire, or crank-calling Baron Davis.

Odds: 50 (wins) to 1 against.

12) Isiah Thomas.

Our "Isiah Thomas Is Comedy Gold" tag was one of the most used in the site's history, and there has been many days when Zeke's wacky Baghdad Bob-esque shenanigans filled our wordhole. Now that he's employed by the Knicks to, as far as we can tell, do nothing and have no contact with his players, he's clearly got the free time to wreak a terrible vengeance on his enemies.

Clues: Given the delusional nature of Zeke's pressers this year, there's a good chance that he's not tethered to reality, and might think our blog was the cause of all his problems. Madison Square Garden and the Dolans also seem to like employing thugs.

Alibis: We're pretty sure he doesn't, you know, read. Or use the Internets. Or give a damn about anything.

Odds: 30-1.

11) Bill Belichick.

What, you don't think he's evil enough? I'd say more here, but saying his name out loud just caused the lights to flicker and a chill wind to blow.

Clues: Given that FTT was solely responsible for the Patriots' loss by actively rooting for them during their quest for Perfectriotection, the BeliHate could be all-consuming.

Alibis: Too busy running his draft at the time. Plus, when Bill goes for Evil, it's not a small thing. Unless this is a first stage before a blogosphere-wide purge, it's just not his style.

Odds: 18-1. But it's a big 1.

10) Mark Cuban.

The NBA's leader megalomaniac is well known for his hate of any blog that isn't his. FTT, like all right-thinking Americans, enjoy watching him lose basketball games, dance contests, and his hair.

Clues: The last post at FTT before the site went dark covered the Hornets taking a 3-1 lead on Cuban's Mavericks. As a matter of fact, the last line we published was "Karma's a bitch, Cubes." That had to be too much to resist.

Alibis: No one who isn't being paid by Cuban ever does anything for him. Has spent the last two weeks determining the most humiliating way to fire Avery Johnson.

Odds: 13-1.






9) Epic Carnival's Editor, Scrap.

The Epic Carnival editor is desperate to have all of our link-generating listy goodness. Plus, with FTT out of the picture, EC's traffic will groundrocket. (Skyrocket being, well, kind of an overpromise.)

Clues: Way too casual reaction to the news that FTT was down.

Alibis: We don't write about titty enough for him to care. Plus, um, he doesn't actually know who we are. (To be fair, he's got what, 600 writers on this frickin' site?)

Odds: 12-1 against.








8) Bill Simmons.

The world's leading Masshole was routinely referred on FTT as the Bad Tooth, in that we just couldn't stop checking his column to see how painful it is to read now. Alone among all sports bloggers, we criticized him. (You can congratulate us on our originality and bravery now.)

Clues: If you listen to his podcasts backward, you can clearly hear Simmy Boy say, "I direct my unholy army of mouth-breathing Boston apologists to take Five Tool Tool down."

Alibis: The podcast could also just be a pre-pubescent girl touching herself. I get my files mixed up sometimes, and Simmy's voice is in the same register.

Odds: 10-1 against.

7) Kobe Bryant.

We keep refusing to support Kobe's MVP campaign, by steadfastly refusing to see (a) how any team could need LeBron James more than the Cavs do, and (b) beyond the fact that Kobe's an (alleged) anal rapist and part-time loon who threw his entire team and organization under the bus in the off-season. Obey Your Thirst, Mamba. Obey Your Thirst.

Clues: He totally knows that Allen Iverson is one of our favorite players, and keeps being really, really mean to his teams in the playoffs.

Alibis: He's been occupied for minutes at a time with sweeping the Nugs. Has probably been preoccupied with laughing at Shaq missing enough free throws to get eliminated.

Odds: 8-1.



6) Dick Cheney.

While FTT is a sports blog, one of our last posts before the blog went down showed Big Daddy Dick in his leathers and feathers, as part of a strained analogy to what it's like to watch the Pistons in their inevitable / inexorable playoff run. Besides, you can't ever count the Daddy out, given that he likes to shoot his friends in the face.

Clues: There are many, but they've all been marked classified.

Alibis: Dick Cheney has no need for alibis. He is what he is.

Odds: 8-1 against.

5) Roger Clemens.

The Rocket continues his week of living fabulously with a roid and meth-fueled takedown of a sports blog that's been calling him a fraud since before Suzyn Waldman had a hot flash over his appearance in the Steinbrenner box.



Clues: Sure, instigating a conspiracy against some pissant sports blogger would be a hopeless lapse in judgment. But isn't that his MO now?

Alibis: His choice of attorney shows that competence is not a plus outside of the baseball diamond. Besides, he'd have been better off taking down EC. Damn, I probably just gave him an idea.

Odds: 5 to 1.

4) Barry Bonds.

The Home Roid King can't have liked what we've written about him. Once again, as in the Simmons candidacy, this makes us unique. (It was such a good blog. I miss it terribly.) He also can't have liked being compared to low-rent Japanese monster movies, when he was thinking of going to Japan for the '08 season, since we didn't even give him the full Godzilla treatment. But it does show a very similar body transformation and head enlargement.



Clues: Vengeful, spiteful, bitter, with tons of free time on his hands. (Hey, why doesn't Barry have a blog?)

Alibis: FTT frequently covered non-Bonds subjects, and as his entire existence shows, Barry can't be bothered with non-Bonds subjects.

Odds: 5-2.

3) Blog-On-Blog Violence

You don't write lists every day without generating a lot of hate from other bloggers. We're talkin' Tupac v. Biggie levels, dammit. (Video's lyrics are NSFW.)



Clues: It's nothin' but hate in the sports blogosphere. Thug Blog 'Til We Die!

Alibis: The opposite of hate isn't love. It's indifference. Also, we're old.

Odds: 2 to 1.

2) Anonymous.

All of those mean, hurtful comments. The constant sniping. The fact-checking on our howling mistakes and factual errors. We say it doesn't hurt, but you know what? It does. But our stoic endurance of your slings and arrows has driven you mad, hasn't it? So mad you had to have your revenge. You bastard.

Clues: The fact that no one else on this here blog, or any other, gets slagged by anonymous commenters.

Alibis: Taking down a blog would be the biggest accomplishment of your life, wouldn't it? Hmm.

Odds: 3 to 2.

1) Google.

Not to sound too ungrateful here, but this no warning, no explanation, no response experience? I've had better customer service while getting divorced.

Clues: The, um, site shutdown with no warning, explanation, or response.

Alibis: By writing this, I might make them mad... and then they'd shut down my freaking blog without warning, explanation or response. Don't Be Evil, my ass.

Hey, Sonics fans, I think I'm finally starting to fully understand your situation!

Odds: Damn near certain.

So, um... (NSFW lyrics)



Can you stop, you know, doing this? Please?