by GMoney, The Money Shot
The sporting world seems to be polluted with more bad press than usual this week. You've got Cedric Benson's heart-warming saga. The Lakers and Celtics trying to whine their way to another title. Roger Clemens snorting up all the boner-inducing dust that he can get his hands on. And we all have an opinion regarding Tim Donaghy's "fixed games" allegations. But there is a story that has flown under the radar this week. A story which, has already happened mind you, and gripped the country (kind of). It almost makes you wonder if, under the dark of night, Zeke was hired by this major company to destroy it from within.
NASCAR is being sued by a former employee for pretty much every allegation known to man.
From Yahoo!:
Mauricia Grant filed a $225 million suit against NASCAR on Tuesday, alleging racial discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliatory termination. Grant, who is black, worked as a technical inspector for NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series.
Whoa. That's a spicy meatball. I applaud NASCAR for hiring a black woman considering their stereotype of being run by old white men. But this doesn't look good at all. They can't actually fight this. They have to settle, don't they? I'm no Roger Cossack but I'm pretty sure that a league with the kind of squeaky clean image that NASCAR has formed does not want a bunch of dirty laundry coming out in the courts.
Unfortunately, typical people (myself included) are sitting around thinking that this is the norm. This is what people from the South do. They are ignorant. They don't know any better. The sport of racing isn't known as one that transcends to all races and socioeconomic backgrounds anyway. Either way, NASCAR needs to squash this story before it blows up in their faces...
That was not a Dick Trickle metaphor either.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
ISIAH THOMAS WORKS FOR NASCAR?
DEAR MR. DENTON
by Simon, SimonOnSports
Dear Mr. Denton,
I have recently come across the knowledge that your Senior Editor the well respected Will Leitch has decided to hand over the reigns of Deadspin the a new editor of your choice. I would like you to know that I am the man for the job.
Answer Some of These Questions for Yourself
1. Who has been the most chronicled sportsman during the time Deadspin has run?
2. Who is the Deadspin Audience constantly interested in?
3. Would You Rather have someone with Access or Without Access?
4. Do you want someone with first hand experience of how to deal with Sexual Harassment suits should they arise?
5. Do you want someone with premium tested management skills?
6. Do you want someone with an eye for talent?
7. Do you want someone who can optimize payroll?
8. Can You Find Someone Who Can Offer You Every One of these Questions?
Now Let Me Answer These Questions For You
1. Isiah Thomas.
2. Isiah Thomas, people are keenly interested in him.
3. Yes, stories about athletes having sex with their intern in a Hummer always sell copy.
4. Yes, it comes in handy.
5. Of Course. With a load of new writers for Deadspin you need someone who can lead and turn Deadspin from a winner to a champion.
6. Of Course. If you can't bring in talent you won't have good material.
7. Of Course, you don't want to spend more money than you have to.
8. Yes. That man is me, Isiah Thomas. I am the man for the job. People are interested in me. I have some access to professional athletes, but given my current situation being locked in a basement not to much access. I have proven experience as a manager of leagues and franchises. And I find talent. I brought Eddy Curry to New York, I brought Zach Randolph to New York. These guys have talent. I know how to work with payroll. That's why the Knicks are so set up for the Salary Cap over the next few years. And mostly I know how to turn things from Winners to Champions. Just look at the success of the CBA.
I'm your man. I am the perfect Deadspin Editor.
Future Pulitzer Prize Winning Blogger,
Isiah Thomas
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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?
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
ISIAH THOMAS AND THE FRESH PRINCE JINX
by Isaac, The World of Isaac
Because of the multitude of screw-ups he's had as a GM and frankly, as a human being, its hard to remember Isiah Thomas the player.
You know, the guy who willed his team to victory, a guy who left everything out on the court, a guy who was the best little-man of all-time.
So when did it go south for Isiah you ask?
Well, as a big Zeke fan as a kid, I like to refer to it as the "Fresh Prince" Jinx.....
After making an appearance on Fresh Prince in Nov of 1990, Isiah's career began a tumultuous downward spiral. Not too long after his cameo, Isiah broke his wrist and missed 48 games. He made a return for the '91 playoffs but wasn't the same Isiah.
Of course, what many people remember is the ending of that season as the Bad Boys walked off the court as time expired against the eventual champion Chicago Bulls.
One year later, Isiah was mysteriously left off the '92 Dream Team. Most people say it was because of Michael Jordan but I always thought it was because of the Fresh Prince Jinx
Years later, with Isiah standing on his last legs, he had a devastating Achilles injury which forced him to retire. After being told he was going to be part of the Pistons' front office, a last second deal was released to the media and owner Bill Davidson pulled it from the table.
Til this day, nobody knows who released that information.
His post-playing days are well-documented. His colossal screw up with the Raptors, the bankruptcy of the CBA, his coaching days with the Pacers and Knicks, and the sexual harassment suit
From the end of 1990 on, you could make an argument that Isiah had the "anti-midas" touch. Everything he touched was ruined.
Such a promising start to his life that ended all because of a single Fresh Prince Episode.....Damn you Will Smith, Damn You!!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
TOP 10 THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT ISIAH THOMAS
by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool
According to the Associated Press, Wednesday will finally be the day that Rasputin Thomas gets the axe in favor of Donnie Walsh. He might stay on for a few incredibly awkward weeks as head coach, but The Thousand Year Knick Reich is clearly on its last legs.
What will you miss most? For me, it'll be...
10. The Baghdad Bob-esque press conferences in which Isiah talks about championships when his team can't even get anywhere close to .500
9. The utterly adorable way in which the New York press would fall for Isiah's latest ill-conceived summer blockbuster trade or signing
8. The knowledge that he made New York beat writers incredibly sad, mad and frustrated
7. The fact that the Knicks were an auto-win for my Sixers, and that they'd make Billy King's contracts look sane
6. The utterly half-assed protests from all of those super-committed New York fans
5. The high-minded puling columns from people who tell you that for the NBA to be popular, the Knicks have to be relevant
4. The sight of watching a team just quit, year after year after year, and with ever-increasing speed
3. The mind-boggling amounts of luxury tax being paid for one of the absolute worst teams in the league
2. The knowledge that, no matter how badly I might perform my job, Isiah's sterling example showed that failing upward can get you to one of the biggest jobs in the game
1. That, rain or shine, in good times and in bad, I could count on him to give me a cheap bloghole fill
Thursday, March 20, 2008
THE AFTER PARTY
Top 5 All Time One Shining Moments. (Busted Coverage)
NCAA Babes of the Bottom Bracket. (CO-ED Magazine)
How to get away with doing nothing at work. (The Money Shot)
10 things to say when the boss catches you watching games. (WoI)
Day 1 NCAA Tourney live blog. (Rumors and Rants)
Mock Interview: Billy Packer. (Next Round)
Top Ten things Billy Packer and Yoda have in common. (PartMule)
How to survive the opening weekend of the tourney. (Cobra Brigade)
ESPN's Bracket Simulator sucks. (The Play in CA)
Kindergarten NCAA betting out of control. (eTrueSports)
Tennessee is officially jinxed. (Loser with Socks)
Olly Girls March Madness picks. (Mac G's World)
The next round of the SMJ Sports Radio Madness. (SMJ)
Want to have relations with Tony Parker's wife? (Deuce)
Matsuzaka with extra mayo. (Red Sox Monster)
Steve Trachsel is the cause of global warming. (Home Run Derby)
Floyd Landis's last stand. (Steroid Nation)
The "Where Isiah Happens" Series. (Brahsome)
Mike Vick released from prison. (BMDP)
Idiots and their cars on camera. (BBI)
Father & Son Douche Bag of the Week. (Tasty Booze)
New Jersey celebrates Bag Day! (Don Chavez)
The 50 Most Controversial Album Covers. (Attuworld)
Hometown Hotties: Vote Now! (Maxim)
Daniela Pane should become a household name. (HGOMS)
Friday, March 14, 2008
FROM THE GREAT WHITE NORTH: AN ANSWER FOR SCOOP JACKSON
by E. Spencer Kyte, Bugs and Cranks
Over at the World Wide Leader the other day, Scoop Jackson asserted that Larry Bird had done just as much damage to the Indiana Pacers Organization as Isiah Thomas has brought upon the inhabitants of the Basketball Mecca.
From where I'm sitting, far removed from both NYC and Hoosierville, USA this is Mike Tyson versus Michael Spinks with Isiah playing the role of the fan of facial tattoos.
Why is this a First Round KO for Isiah?
Because you can't start a discussion about the damage Larry Bird has done to Indiana by talking about the multi-million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit a former employee brought against him. Off-court Zeke clobbers Off-court Legend.
But since this is about two basketball franchises considered by Scoop to be in equal circumstances, we'll keep this on the court and on the roster. Actually, we'll take it into the stands at one point, but everyone in Indiana is still trying to forget about that.
Have the Pacers fallen off drastically since the 2003-04 season? Absolutely, as there stands a chance that they will put up less than half as many wins as that group did five years ago. That is a colossal drop off. Still, wouldn't you rather a team that has a drop off than one that just never wins?
Pointing out that attendance in Indiana has decreased significantly isn't a far argument. MSG would be sold out every single night if the Knicks were playing the Washington Senators. Catching a game at The Garden is an event, a chance to see and be seen. The joint was pack to the rafters nightly two years back when the Knicks only managed 23 wins.
It's not like that Indiana. People will pay to see a winner. Catching a Pacers game isn't going to make Page 6. Or Page 2. Or the back page for that matter. It's about the team, not "the experience" and if the team isn't performing, who cares about the experience?
The Pacers are in Salary Cap hell, but guess what? So are the Knicks. The only difference is that the Knicks get clear of their mess one year earlier than Indiana, dropping dead weight in 2009 instead of 2010 like the Pacers.
Scoop posed the question: "What's the difference between Jamaal Crawford and Mike Dunleavy?" The answer? Not that much. Crawford scores a little more (20.7 to 18.2) and they invert on boards and dimes while both making $7.5M range this season.
If every matchup on the rosters worked out that equally, Scoop's stance would have roots. But they don't and so, in my opinion, it doesn't.Scoop: "Is there a Thomas signee who is draining the Knicks' payroll the way Troy Murphy is draining the Pacers' payroll?"
Answer: I'll opt for the layup here and point to Jerome James.
There has never been a player in the history of the game who had a better stretch of games when it mattered the most than Jerome James. A couple playoffs ago, dude came out of nowhere and played some stellar ball for the Sonics heading into Free Agency. That solid stretch of ten or twelve games netted him $5M per from the Knicks over a handful of years.
Since arriving in NYC, Jerome James has played 684 minutes, combined. In three years. I agree that no one in their right mind should be paying Troy Murphy $8.2M per, but at least the Notre Dame alum gives you 12 & 8 a night with 36% from three. Jerome James gives someone a warm chair on the bench when they want to sit down during a timeout.
"Double J" isn't the only New Yorker in that boat though. Stevie Franchise got $15M last year for 11/3/4 before being bought out this summer. Isiah & Co. are paying Starbury $17M to stay home this season. And Scoop is ripping Troy Murphy?
Neither Head Honcho has been particularly gifted at making trades, but personally, I don't think Indiana minded one bit getting 75 cents on the dollar for Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson.
Now, it turns out they got a 3 cents and a pocket full of lint from GState in the "Captain Jack" deal, but no one could have predicted the impact and turnaround Jackson would exhibit with the Warriors.
As for Post-Palace Artest, you could have offered Greg Ostertag, some used athletic tape and a ham sandwich and Bird would have at least considered it in exchange for Ron Ron. That's how bad he wanted to get him out of town. And can you blame him?
Meanwhile, Isiah legitimately thought the additions of Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Eddy Curry and Zack Randolph - all acquired through trades - would make the Knicks better. At least Indiana has the excuse of trying to purge some disruptive and undesirable players from their roster. Isiah honestly thought that having a team with 7 shoot-first guards, 3 underachieving bigs, David Lee and Renaldo Balkman would do the trick. I feel bad for David Lee. As soon as he gets the chance, he needs to make like Snake Plissken.
And don't forget Jalen Rose!
Finally, here is where Scoop loses me and this argument entirely:Now, it would be unfair to Bird to blame him for everything that has gone wrong with the Pacers. He had no control over The Brawl, no control over injuries that have taken games away from Jermaine O'Neal and Jamaal Tinsley. But if bad things -- such as shootings at nightclubs (Stephen Jackson), charges stemming from a bar fight (Tinsley and Marquis Daniels), incidents involving handguns (Tinsley and Shawne Williams), failed drug tests (David Harrison), arrests at players' homes of a suspected rapist (an associate of Daniels) and a suspected murderer (an associate of Williams) -- continuously happen under your watch, when is it time to give misery (Thomas and the Knicks) some company?
If you're the CEO of a company and a couple of your employees go out and get in a bar fight, are you to blame?
If one of your employees tests positive for drugs, is that your fault?
If the people on your payroll hang out with criminals, do you have any control over that?
The answer to each of these is no and it's the same response that I offer to Scoop's sentiments about Bird and the Pacers.
It's not like Larry Bird is pleased with the people Marquis Daniels and Shawne Williams associate with or was happy to hear about the latest incident involving Jamaal Tinsley earlier in the year. But short of cutting them and sending his team further into the drain, what else is he supposed to do?
If he instituted a curfew or tried to put restrictions on his players of any kind, media types - perhaps including Scoop - would go nuts saying these are grown ass men and you can't tell them what to do. So how is this any different? You think Larry Bird doesn't want some of the guys on his team to smarten the hell up and get their acts together? Of course he does.
The "bad things" that keep happening to the Knicks all have one common thread: Isiah Thomas.
Bad trades? Isiah Thomas. Bad Contracts? Isiah Thomas. Bad Inter-office Behaviour? Isiah Thomas.
Bad news Scoop. These two stories aren't the same, no matter how much you want them to be.
Monday, January 7, 2008
THE BLOGBUDSMAN: HOW TO BECOME A "KNOWN" SPORTS BLOG
by BOHChris, Blog of Hilarity
The Blogbudsman is your weekly take on the blogosphere, written as objectively and honestly as possible. Questions, comments, and suggestions should go to roomtonecsATblogofhilarityDOTcom
After taking a couple of weeks off here on Epic Carnival to celebrate the birth of Santa Claus and the annual celebration of me passing out under a sofa to ring in the new year, I'm back with another bit of wisdom for you in The Blogbudsman. Rejoice.
This is an issue that others have addressed before in humor, but hey, I'm here to help you avoid the pratfalls of becoming a generic nuisance. There are literally millions upon millions of blogs out there. So how can you, a regular Joe with a dash of creativity and the desire to have your voice heard, make a wave within the blogosphere? While the sports blog world was once relatively up in the air, leaving people to fight for readers entirely on their own, there's now an infrastructure in place where you can go from a Blogspot blog with no readers to a decently trafficked Web site filled with sometimes thousands of your own readers.
Let's take a look at the various means to that end this week. After the jump, of course.
WELCOME TO THE BIG SHOW
More than anything, to become a known blogger with a dedicated audience you need two things: Patience and a willingness to stand out. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, you're going to need the basics.
Sports blogging is a world of niches. You have your NBA bloggers. You have your guys who cover the media side of things. You have your NFL guys. You have chicks who likes sports. Don't like to be overly classified and forced into doing a blog that solely covers white slot receivers? That doesn't necessarily preclude you from being a sports blogger or gaining an audience with the sports bloggers. Hell, I barely write about sports on my home site any more.
But you can draw from the well with interesting content, be it clever Photoshops, well-done parody, finding small news items that others missed, or figuring out a niche that others haven't. Maybe a sports-celebrity blog? The world is your oyster.
Next, you'll need a name. Maybe for your sports-celebrity blog, you can call yourself Walk of Shame. Or The Sportslut. Keep it simple.
But back to the original point: Uniqueness. Does that mean being contrarian for the sake of it? No, you're not looking to become an ESPN personality. But it means going in with the understanding that your opinion on why Roger Clemens is a douchebag won't exactly shake the very fibers of the blogosphere to its core. Understand this now: You're not a special little snowflake.
With hundreds of bloggers discussing the same issues every day, many of whom better known than you are at the start, you need to think outside the box. That may mean coming up with silly nicknames for athletes that catch on. It may mean actually, you know, doing research. But offer people something fresh that they can't get a million other places.
For example, look at a site like Lion in Oil. With a well-thought out or researched singular daily update, they've become a highly trafficked blog in their own right. Don't think that you need to cover every story right away. It's far more practical in the world of sports blogging to come up with one hidden gem rather than a hundred cliched stories.
So now that you've got your never-before-heard story that's timely and interesting, what do you do? Welcome to the seedy underworld of sports blogging: The tip email.
You know those ten or twenty sports blogs you check religiously each day? And you know how they have little emails like "tips@deadspin.com" or contact forms? Well now's your time to blast your little story out to all those folks. Collect those email addresses, put them in the "BCC" portion of your email (not CC, lest you be mocked by all of your hopefully new peers) and put together an interesting subject, quick sentence on what your post is about, link to the post, and maybe paste your post into the email to save your favorite bloggers from actually having to visit your site. Now they know what you wrote, know who you are, and, if you've done good work, may offer you a link in a link-dump post or even a news item on their site. Hoorah.
PROTIP: Many prominent sports bloggers write their linkdumps very early in the morning or very late at night. Try to get your tip emails in later in the evening. Good blogs to start with in your personal publicity campaign include The Big Lead, Awful Announcing, Deadspin, With Leather, AOL Fanhouse, SportsbyBROOKS, 100% Injury Rate, and of course, Epic Carnival.
PROTIP2: Don't bombard people with EVERY post you do. Just like you're not that special as a blogger, every individual post isn't worthy of attention. Save that for the special stuff so that it'll actually have some meaning when people see an email from you. And they won't curse your first born.
Oh but there are even more ways to publicize your site. Consider SI.com a "personal friend" of the blogosphere. By submitting your link to SI's Hot Clicks or Campus Clicks (contact forms at the bottom of the page), if used, you may be opening yourself up to thousands of new visitors who are just jonesing to see your post on how well-endowed Brandon Jacobs may or may not be.
Rounding out your promotional efforts are the Digg-like services, including the sports-focused Ballhype and Yardbarker sites. By submitting your story on those sites, readers can read your work and decide if they think it's worth also sharing with their friends. In the interest of full-disclosure from my personal experience and anecdotes from some of our peers, I don't think Ballhype is giving many people "traffic" per se (though Yardbarker seems to), but it's important from a visibility standpoint. You're a part of the "community" now. Congratulations. You'll be surprised to learn that you will receive no medals or accolades. Other than people commenting on your site and calling you a fag. So that's really its own reward.
Now, our second major theme: Patience. You really have to stick with this. Updating three times one day then not updating for a week alienates people who may have become regular readers of yours. You also need to understand it may take a couple of "special" posts before people realize you're someone worth visiting on their own. Don't get discouraged when, after a link from Deadspin, your hits go from 5000/day to 30/day. The key is using those links to build your own audience, rather than rely forever on suckling on someone else's teat.
There are many other important parts to becoming a "known" sports blogger, like advertising, audience participation, and cheap ways to get people to pay attention to your site [DON'TDOTHISPROTIP: Bloggers love reading about themselves], but you're using these powers for good, not evil.
I swear to God if I see anyone using this tutorial then running a contest about "Which blogger is the most LOL" I will end your fucking world.
OVERHYPED AND UNDERHYPED
Overhyped: Isiah Thomas thinks the Knicks will win the NBA title. Is it really a shock that he's delusional in addition to being incompetent? Isiah Thomas is, without question, the Britney Spears of the sports blogosphere...just make fun of him whenever there's nothing else to talk about.
Underhyped: USC is worthy of consideration for the National Championship of college football. I know everyone who's not an alum of the school (which I am, as many of you know) is sick of hearing of USC, hated the "greatest team of all time" hype leading up to the Rose Bowl defeat at the hands of Vince Young and Texas, and isn't convinced that USC would do to LSU what it did to Illinois. But civil unrest on behalf of a dominant USC team combined with a BCS title win for a 2-loss LSU squad is the only possible end to this Bowl Championship nonsense. You know it somewhere inside you.
WORD
Another week, another piece. I'm always appreciative of feedback over email or in the comments, so leave some there or email me at roomtonecsATblogofhilarityDOTcom with some feedback. Anything good gets published anonymously (or credited, if you prefer) next week.
See you then, sunshines.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
TOP 10 QUESTIONS FOR ISIAH THOMAS
by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool
Tonight, the 8-22 Knicks lost by 10 points, at home, to a 12-18 Kings team without Ron Artest, Mike Bibby and Kelvin Martin. They gave up 32 points, a career high, to John Salmons. They gave up 26 and 16 to Brad Miller, whose last display of this kind of production was, well, never.
It was their fifth loss in a row. It was their 15th loss by double digits this year, which leads the NBA. And before the game, their coach, GM, and unspeakable albatross Isiah Thomas actually said the following. (Warning: Buckle up. Some spectacular madness awaits.)
"I believe that one day we will win a championship here. And I believe a couple of these guys will be a part of that. And I believe I'll be a part of that... I don't necessarily just want to win a championship. I want to leave something that's going to stand for a long time. I want to leave a legacy, I want to leave tradition. I want to leave an imprint, a blueprint in terms of how people play, and how they coach and how they respond when they put on the Knick uniform. And I want to leave what I left in Detroit. Every person that walks through that door as a Piston, when they put on that uniform, there's a certain pride that they carry. And I want to put that here and I want to leave that here in New York. I want to leave a championship legacy."10. Are you getting enough oxygen?
9. Have you ever thought about killing the President, and could you talk about that at length?
8. Do you hear voices in your head, and did they tell you to sign Jerome James and Malik Rose?
7. Can you put your arms into a jacket from the front? Michael Jordan can do it. Can you?
6. When you talk about what you left in Detroit, you do realize that since then, you've been in Toronto, Indiana and the CBA, right?
5. Do the Knicks let you drive a car and cut your own meat?
4. It's said that insane people are always sure they are fine, and only the sane people are willing to admit they are crazy. How does that make you feel?
3. Do you think Britney Spears has gotten a bum rap?
2. Have you been sent here by aliens, and if so, were they white or black, and did they fondle you, or did you fondle them?
1. Is your entire four-year-plus reign an elaborate practical joke or the Knicks for making basketball unwatchable during the Pat Riley era?
Saturday, December 15, 2007
THE KNICKS THAT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD ARE NOT THE TRUE KNICKS
by DMtShooter, Five Tool Tool
You know, I think I've completely missed on what the true meaning of Isiah Thomas's regime has been to the Knicks. All this time, I thought it was just monumental incompetence, fueled by arrogance and utter, utter cluelessness... and the fact that the media kind of empowered all of this by actually getting excited when he brought in more big-name big-money no-defense players (it didn't work with Marbury... but now they've got Steve Francis! OK, that didn't work, but now they've got Zach Randolph!) was just part of the show.
But when I caught Monday's post-mortem, I'm not so sure. Check it out (NY Times excerpt).
Thomas apparently had heard enough. Late in the game, he could be seen debating some fans sitting near the court. One of those fans, Mara Altschuler, was so enraged by the discussion that she sought out reporters after the final buzzer.
“He said it’s the fans’ fault because they don’t have a good sixth man,” said Altschuler, who has season tickets near midcourt. Her family has had the seats for more than 40 years, since the old Garden, she said.
Thomas was evasive when asked about the argument.
“I was just trying to make sure that we kept the team together and we stayed focused on what we were doing, in trying to win a basketball game,” he said. “Our fans are great. They support us and they show up and we’re glad they’re here.”
Asked again if he had argued with the fans, Thomas gave an almost identical response. A team spokesman cut off his postgame interview after only five questions.
Maybe, just maybe, Isiah is actually a performance artist, and this whole thing is kind of an Andy Kaufman skit gone really, really long. Or a psychological experiment, kind of like a Milgram study, where the test isn't what's going on in the games, but the stands.
Because, um, I can't really tell why you'd think it was advisable to go get into it with the paying (and in NYC, very, very, very highly paying) customers. Especially considering how there probably aren't going to be very many of them relatively soon, and the ones that are there seem to be ready to light you on fire, because they just don't understand the scope of your genius.
Yeah, that's got to be it -- Isiah is actually a very brave, very avant-garde performance artist. The next time you see him, when he's wearing nothing but a beret and slapping himself with meat as part of a greater pastiche of criticism against the factory farm-like nature of the NBA Draft, remember that you read it first on this very blog. I, for one, will be nodding my head slowly, in the affirmative, glad for the opportunity to bear witness to this... this... well, I am but a humble sports blogger. I fear that I do not have the words.
As for yet another home loss, this one to a Mavs team that's just kinda there right now... I didn't quite get it, and will have to study more of the subtext over the weekend. But it is, no doubt, *brave* work. Pray continue, Isiah. Your fearlessness is an inspiration to us all.
(Originally published 12/11)
Thursday, December 13, 2007
BEST USE OF PHOTOSHOP AWARD FOR DECEMBER 13
Word to Hugging Harold Reynolds.
If you do or see some great photoshopping in the future, send it to us and you might win ...
... your name being taken off of the Mitchell Report.
Money can't buy that!
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT THE POWER
by Jordi Scrubbings, The Serious Tip
Yesterday on my site I wrote about my life as a Knicks Nation refugee. I've have not been a citizen of Knicks Nation for nearly 1,000 days thanks to the incompetent leadership of Isiah Thomas and James Dolan. For the sake of my own sanity, I packed my belongings and left.
Since I admitted my own refugee status, other Knicks fans from around the world have admitted they too are in exile. Although I knew I was not the only one, I never knew the sheer numbers of the Knicks diaspora. With the love of our team in mind, we have initiated communications with all Knicks Nation refugee camps in hopes of stimulating change in our beloved homeland. Taking a page from Che Guevara, we have devised five strategies fans can use to express themselves and hopefully liberate their organizations from tyrannical incompetent regimes. These techniques are not to be used irresponsibly, as they are a last line of expression and could result in serious consequences.
1) Boycott - This is the most simple revolutionary fan tactic and in single numbers, possibly the least effective. While easy to do, a boycotter must live with the knowledge that the Nation goes on without him or her. Fans who boycott their team are unfortunately only hurting themselves and denying themselves of the pleasure of fandom.
2) Sanctions - Sanctions is relatively new untested technique that draws on the social networking ability of fans. In order for a sanction to be effective, fans must convince fans of other cities not to attend games in which the targeted team is the visitor. This would cause the visiting team to have the worst road attendance in the league. Combined with a mass boycott, sanctions would mean no one would watch the product of an incompetent regime.
3) Blockade - Another rare, but hopefully effective technique, blockading requires numerous fans joining hands, arms, legs, etc, and forming a human wall in front of the parking areas of the organization's culpable front office personnel. Unfortunately, although those responsible for mismanagement are temporary prohibited from causing more damage, blockades often result in conflicts with regime-siding police-like authorities.
4) Silence - Another frequently discussed yet never implemented strategy, silence is perhaps the most awe-inspiring technique in the revolutionary repertoire. If a packed house in Madison Square Garden, for example, were to be completely silent for an entire game, it would send shockwaves through both the Knicks franchise and the NBA as a whole. No booing, no cheering, just silence.
5) Buyout - When all else fails, the buyout is the ultimate solution. Like the name implies, a buyout is an offer the organization cannot refuse. Although many fans cannot afford to contribute to the purchase their team, every fan plays an essential role in recruiting enough dollars and cents from those who can give to the cause. In the case of the nearly-billion dollar Knicks franchise, for example, perhaps help can come from the charitable hand of local billionaires.
Once again, I must preach caution in exercising these techniques. These techniques are powerful methods of fan revolt and are not for the untrained revolutionary. But for those willing to take the risk: Viva La Revolucion!
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