Bill Simmons is a sports writer for ESPN and has been campaigning to be named General Manager of the Milwaukee Bucks. Being a journalist, he has no legitimate qualifications, but he makes a good case that being an obsessive fan for decades who's watched more NBA games than any current GM makes him a superior talent evaluator.
Plus there's this:
More important still, I'm a true fan. Know what that means, people of Milwaukee? No more JumboTron music blaring during games. Cheerleaders who are the perfect blend of "wholesome" and "possibly slutty after three drinks." One free kielbasa and Miller Lite at the next game every time we get blown out by double figures at home. A suggestion box to which you can e-mail trade ideas or ways to frame Gadzuric for a crime to get him off our cap. Exciting interviews in which I say things I should never say because I just can't help myself. Maybe even--wait for it -- an annual preseason game outdoors in Lambeau.
These kind of creative ideas would create a buzz in town, even for a team engaged in the years long, soul rendering slog of "rebuilding." I especially like the free kielbasa idea. Any time there is discount hot dog like produts, I'm there. But will this be enough for more normal fans to justify paying the absurdly high ticket prices for an NBA game which features at minimum one lousy team? I don't know. It seems worth a shot.
In order to help Simmons with his quest, I sent him an email letting him know a sportswriter as NBA GM is not unprecedented. The note appeared in his weekly links column. My name is Brian W. (No, I'm not ready to start the 12 steps quite yet, that's how he truncated my name).
Brian W. in Minnesota alerts us, "Not sure if you're aware of it, but a sports columnist being an NBA GM isn't unprecedented. Sid Hartman actually did it for the Minneapolis Lakers back in the late '40s-early '50s. Better yet, he never gave up his column in the Minneapolis Daily Times, he did both simultaneously! Better yet, he's still writing a column 50 years later, now for the Minneapolis Star Tribune."
In other Bill developments, Bill Tuomala is writer at the zine/blog Exiled on Mainstreet. (And a former contributor to Fraters Libertas, in its free thinking anarchist phase back in the early part of this millennium.)
In my normal routine of policing his weeks' old posts (a stipulation of his departure agreement), I noticed him slyly trying to blame the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax subsidy for the new Twins Stadium on the Republicans, specifically, Gov. Pawlenty. I've seen this claim on other lefty blogs and I cannot allow it to stand any longer. We mix it up in his comments section. (Prepare for the mindless Fraters-bots to flood the zone!)
Despite this wayward stance by the Feisty Finn, we still like him. If he ever campaigns to become student manager of the Minnesota Gophers Hockey team, he will have our full support.
The Elder Posts A Bill: Simmons' idea for a suggestion box where fans can e-mail trade ideas is not far from reality. A story in today's WSJ explains how Baseball Taps Wisdom of Fans:
Last month, the St. Louis Cardinals announced a novel contest: Fans are invited to submit scouting reports on promising college ballplayers. The "One for the Birds" contest is meant to help the team find talent at smaller, non-Division I colleges that don't get much attention from scouts. Fans file entries by going to the Cardinals' Web site and filling out a form, including the player's name, statistics and a summarized recommendation of up to 300 words and other information. When the submissions are in, the team plans to send its own scouts to evaluate a handful of the most interesting prospects and, in June, to possibly select one or more of them in baseball's amateur draft. The winning fan -- the one whose entry is judged most compelling, whether a player is drafted or not -- gets a trip to St. Louis to see a pair of ball games.
"We don't have a monopoly on baseball knowledge," says Sig Mejdal, the Cardinals' senior quantitative analyst who helped create the contest. "Just looking at the fan sites and posting boards, you see an amazing amount of energy. Why not harness it?"
Speaking of untapped energy waiting to be harnessed, reports indicate that Atomizer will be heading to Fort Meyers next week to do a little spring training scouting of his own. Look for his exclusive talent evaluations of Twins players and bartenders in the greater Fort Meyers metroplex here.
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