For years, the Sports Guy has been my favorite sportswriter. That's not to say that he is necessarily the best sportswriter, or the most knowledgeable, or the most connected to the athletes. He is just my favorite journalist to read and to listen to. His columns really are written from the fan's perspective, so he doesn't pull punches and he throws in pop culture references that usually make you laugh. And besides, where would we be without such Simmons staples as the Levels of Losing, the Tyson Zone, the Ewing/Tiki Theory, the Peyton/Eli Manning Face, and of course his omnipresent mailbags (which, in my opinion, were the foundation for Deadspin's funbags)??
That's not to say Bill Simmons is perfect. Far from it. His obsession with basketball has become so dominant (especially in light of his NY Times bestselling magnum opus "Book of Basketball") that he has strayed from his MLB and NFL coverage that made him so popular in the first place. He has abused pop culture references from Rocky, the Shawshank Redemption, Hoosiers, and Beverly Hills 90210 so much that he is left with The Bachelor, The Hills, and Battlestar Galactica -- which fly far over the heads of the majority of his audience. And lately, he has relied so heavily on his podcast that he writes barely one column per week on ESPN.com -- way below his previous output. In fact, his work on 30-for-30 and the podcasts and Twitter makes you question if he is primarily a writer anymore.
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