rolling "dave zirin sons a sports writer/figure and my commie ass self-righteously otms him"

cant believe ppl are defending bill simmons dumb comparison

Finding a comparison offensive before you even think about the merits is precisely that kind of 'this cannot be compared' nonsense IMO.

What sports events can we compare to Ali's comeback, max?

heres the thing! i thought about the merits! and it took me about 3 seconds!

i disagree completely w/his opinion, but i will defend w/my life his right to troll the internet

tbh i dunno if theres been anything quite as nationally impt in this country since that event? for a bunch of reasons obviously. but most athletes arent anywhere as to close to ali in terms of the willingness to take stands--its not a very common occurrence.

when they came for bill simmons I did not speak up

i'm not defending his comparison in that i'm not sure simmons or zirin or any of us have the information to actually make it. but it could be made.

in fact it was made

and it was dumb

the lakers/celtics finals was kind of like world war II guys

actually scratch that, it was more like star wars

would be sweet imo if tiger came back in total beast mode, just all ftw

lol what does beast mode look like, in golf

glowering, holes in one, menacing throat slashing gestures in phil mickelsons direction

ok, i'm sold

cool lets make this happen, ill phone in a death threat asap

imma go cut letters out of the newspaper so i can glue them to a postcard

right on

oh boy

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100303

lol awesom

because in terms of difficulty of comeback, simmons might be right. i don't know, i wasn't there for ali.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, March 2, 2010 10:28 AM (Yesterday)

dude i'm drawing a pretty clear distinction between being thrown in jail & receiving death threats and going to fake rehab & coming back to a legion of adoring/forgiving sportswriters and other old white ppl

yeah but that's not addressing the 'difficulty of coming back,' only the hardships of the falling out. again, reason for hurdle vs. height of hurdle

no i think it is, remind me again what the height of tiger's hurdle is? he's going to be embarassed for a few months, but he's NOT RECEIVING DEATH THREATS AND 90% OF SPORTSWRITERS ARE GOING TO BE SUCKING HIS DICK!

...

didn't mean to internet yell but please tell me what tiger's "hurdle" is here? his self-imposed exile? his unnecessary fake "apologies"?

simmons most compelling point is the argument about "72/7" media culture, which i think is definitely tiger's biggest "hurdle" that no one before him (in the sports world) has really had to face. i think you're overrating the importance of sportswriters -- in the 'real world' the omnipresence of tmz/US weekly/people + 'real news' stations like cnn are going to be setting public opinion more than bob ryan

also another thing that i think is important in this equation is the nature of golf, which simmons touches on. there's no "crowd noise to drain out thoughts" or anything like that. it's lots of SILENCE, within extreme proximity to a mob of people and lots of idle time just standing around thinking

yeah my initial reaction is that 'golf is a lot harder to excel in than boxing'

what is public opinion exactly? that he's a sleazeball? scary!

I mean a large part of tiger's appeal to me has been how utterly consistent in his dominance he's been, imo golf is one of the hardest games in the world to be consistently good in, and to have performed at tiger's level for the past 15 years or w/e is utterly unimaginable to me. golf is probably the toughest of the sports to maintain your mental composure

public opinion = his legacy

and if you don't think that athletes are influenced by public opinion, then you're crazy

his legacy = a lot of money

goddamn jordan you're such a sportswriter about tiger

lol iirc you and j0rdan actually share pretty similar opinions about tiger

udrc

are you trying to downplay the importance of tiger's legacy to tiger? i don't understand the idea that legacy is only important to old, fusty sportswriters

luv how simmons doubled down on this, anyone who spend enough time online will end up a troll

anything i've ever heard about him is how much he wants to over take nickalaus' record/be considered the greatest golfer ever

yeah I'm gonna remove my bookmark tbh before this ends up in the clusterfuck thread

maybe switch to the indie dancing in denver? thread

again what is this "hurdle" he has to clear? people don't like him as much (vvvvv debatable btw)? does anyone actually think he shouldn't be allowed to play golf anymore?

xp jordan so what other course of action is there to repair his legacy than to go back out and start winning again? and because he cheated on his wife, does that make him a worse golfer? do even people who read sports illustrated think this?

i mean to be real i don't think what simmons said is all that offensive, because as much as i love him he's a moron about a lot of things. but i can't believe we can't all just agree that what he said was wrong!

not "wrong" but RONG

ur forgetting something

fwiw I will be very surprised if tiger wins anything at all this year

the hearts of quasi whores everywhere

i don't nearly enough about muhammed ali to say whether i think simmons is right or not, i just think he makes really good points about the nature of paparazzi & the nature of golf wrt tiger

i think he is dumb but what else is new

kevin, your reaction appears rooted in one enormous mistake - that Simmons is comparing Ali 1967 to Tiger. He's not - he's comparing Ali 1970, who was making his comeback. Ali at that time was not "receiving death threats," and he had largely won his battle with the government. Ali's most difficult times as a fighter were years before his return (when he announced his membership in the NoI, renounced the name Cassius Clay and was widely despised) and years after (when his skills were in sharp decline).

Putting aside the social/turmoil issue, from a physical standpoint Ali was still in his boxing prime (28) and hadn't taken the physical punishment of boxing for over three years. Contrast to Tiger being on the way out of his golfing prime and coming back from a recent injury.

if they fought right now tiger would win, think abt it

"that Simmons is comparing Ali 1967 to Tiger. He's not - he's comparing Ali 1970,"

but isn't that unfair? isn't now (um) tiger's 1967? when ali was first barred from boxing, the road ahead probably looked far more difficult than tiger's does now.

But Ali wasn't making a comeback in 1967.

It's a tough example because of that difference in time frames, and I don't even know that I'd agree with Simmons on the relative difficulty. But kevin's (and Zirin's) outrage is only justified if you try to believe that Ali's situation didn't change between '67 and '70, and if you believe that Simmons is comparing the causes of their exiles. That latter, at least, is demonstrably untrue.