I find Bill Simmons writing on sports excellent. He kind of disguises the quality of his writing with the references to crappy pop culture and the sophomoric behavior of him and his buddies. But in doing so I think he reveals a lot about who sports fans really are, not some idealized version. He often talks about whether or not he has wasted his life by devoting so much time and effort to following sports and making jokes about how pathetic his wife thinks he is for agonizing over his fantasy teams (she calls his fantasy league "The League of Dorks").

I find it hard to get into other sports writers now, partly because Simmons does such a good job skewering them. When they try to make sports into something epic or sacred, Simmons is quick to point out all the frailties of both the competitors and the poor saps who devote too much time to something that doesn't really mean all that much to their lives.

And then he dives right back into reveling in the joy of being passionate about something that is ultimately meaningless, capturing the essence of being a sports fan.

(I have no idea why I just wrote three paragraphs about this. Must be infected by whatever gets into Simmons when he does one of those day long live chats.)