Scoop Jackon And His BS

As the lone Pacer fan left in the state I've been banging my head against the wall with the many ways the Pacers keep losing. Bad decisions, bad trades and only a couple of decent draft selections. We suck, but the east is so bad that we are still only a couple of games out of making the playoffs, unlike the New York Knicks, who suck complete balls. Why bring up Knicks? Well Scoop Jackson decided to write his usual piece of shit article basically saying the white man is the reason Isiah Thomas is getting so much shit and Larry Bird is receiving no criticism. Since firejaymariotti.com was asleep at the post I'll break down his horrific excuse for journalism.

And if I said Larry Bird has done more collateral damage to the Indiana Pacers than Thomas has done to the Knicks, you'd probably stop reading.

I wish I did. You see Scoop, unlike Larry, Isiah is in New York City running the most storied franchises in the league. The Pacers are in the Midwest and they were formally an ABA team that pretty much became a doormat to any NBA team when they merged back in the day. The Knicks are in a city with a ton of media scrutinizing anything and are a stones throw from ESPN - resident Boston lovers. The Pacers have Bob Kravitz and are in the Midwest. Anything the Knicks do in said city is immediately fodder for the media, anything the Pacers do basically means nothing in the grand scheme of the mainstream media.

Now, it would be unfair to Bird to blame him for everything that has gone wrong with the Pacers.

You just wrote yourself out of your own argument.

He had no control over The Brawl, no control over injuries that have taken games away from Jermaine O'Neal and Jamaal Tinsley.

That would pretty much fuck over any franchise. Let's see, your two best players have been down with injuries and your team starts sucking, go figure. How do you think the Bulls would have done without Jordan and Pippen? Lakers without Koby and Shaq? The Spurs without Duncan and the little French dude? How about the Knicks losing...uh....do they even have two good players?

The Brawl? That was pretty much a once in a lifetime stupid-fest that was started by a player the Pacers had to take a chance on because as much as Artest was bat shit insane he was a good defender. It also gave Herr Stern the opportunity to fuck over a small franchise team. Do you think he would have handed down such lengthy suspensions to the Lakers or Pistons? Doubt it.

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?

They are called adults dipshit, Larry can't be hanging around them every fucking second of the day making sure they behave. Besides he's there to judge talent and he's trying (badly at the moment) to meld together a good team, not give them curfews and take their handguns away. If he did give them curfews you would probably write an article about a racist Midwest team profiling young black adults.

Yes, there's an $11.6 million sexual harassment lawsuit that found Thomas responsible and Madison Square Garden liable and unbelievable infighting that has reached "All My Children" levels, but that's not off par with the off-the-court incidents and activities that have plagued the Pacers.

Lets see, a sexual harassment lawsuit that found Thomas guilty and infighting where Thomas was the instigator, not the diffuser. I'm pretty sure Larry Bird was at home while Stephen Jackson was squeezing off rounds at a couple of morons and was probably off porking some high profile prostitute in the comforts of his French Lick home while Jamaal Tinsley was getting shot at downtown. Larry had nothing to do with these off court incidences, Thomas had a hand in a lot of them. So far your argument sucks.

Which makes it only fair to at some point ask whether we place some responsibility on Bird the same way we do on Thomas for harboring and manifesting a climate that has been counter-conducive to the well-being of a franchise that is in the business of winning.

Didn't you say earlier that you can't blame Bird for everything? So far you haven't defended your boy Isiah.

Thomas made questionable moves in taking risks on Eddy Curry, Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis and is blamed for the lack of production by Zach Randolph, among other things. What is the difference between that and the decisions that have been made with respect to Ron Artest, Jackson and Tinsley and the lack of production by Daniels (who, like Randolph, was supposed to be the prize catch that would begin a franchise turnaround)?

Lets see....

Eddy Curry - Questionable talent before coming to the Knicks
Stephon Marbury - Completely insane player that has wrecked every franchise he's been on.
Steve Francis - Stevy Franchise had like one or two decent years before becoming the overrated player that he is.
Zach Randolph - Complete racist who was part of the Jailblazers. Now completely out of shape, he was NEVER the prize catch.

Ron Artest - One of the best defenders in the league before he became insane.
Stephen Jackson - Sucked ass here but last I checked doing pretty well with the Warriors.
Jamal Tinsley - When he wants to be he actually is a decent point guard. Oh yeah, hasn't he basically been injured for the last two years? Didn't you just mention that Jamal was one of their best players that has been injured and Larry had no control over that? Are you saying Tinsley sucks or is good? Pick one.
Daniels - You got me there, but I'm pretty sure, let me check....yep, he was never a prize that would have turned around the Pacers franchise. Where did you get that bullshit?

What's the difference between Jamal Crawford and Mike Dunleavy? Is there a Thomas signee who is draining the Knicks' payroll the way Troy Murphy is draining the Pacers' payroll?

Between Crawford and Dunleavy? Not much except one is white and one is black and both are doing pretty well on shitty teams. As for Murphy, as much as his contract is bloated the guy actually does play hard every night. He's like the Rudy of the NBA, he sucks but he actually tries, unlike anyone on the Knicks.

The only difference, the only real difference, between these two teams that truly stands out is that during this period, the Pacers lost one of the greatest players in NBA history when Reggie Miller retired. That would affect any team. It was something neither Bird nor CEO Donnie Walsh had control over. But it was something for which they could have been better prepared.

Jesus tap dancing Christ, are you blaming Larry for the downfall of the Pacers or not? So far you haven't defended your boy and you've basically blamed Larry for being "unprepared" for Miller's retirement. Easy enough, Larry, Miller just retired could you go pick up another Reggie Miller? You mean you have to develop a hall of famer and even picking a once in a lifetime talent in today's NBA draft is a crap shoot? That's no excuse! You should have been better prepared!

Christ, Scoop. Do you think the Broncos were prepared for Elway's retirement? You think the Bulls were prepared for many of Jordan's retirements? You think the Packers are prepared for Favre's retirement? No, it's impossible to prepare for. It's like preparing for a category five tornado to hit your house, there's going to be damage, and it's going to take time to rebuild.


The Pacers' attendance is the worst in the NBA, according to The Indianapolis Star -- down from being one of the league's most consistent hometown draws. Their salary-cap situation, according to Bill Simmons, is the worst in the NBA and won't change until 2010.

Yes, attendance is down. That's because we suck, people don't like going to games where we know that their team will lose. Have you ever seen a team with a losing record outside of L.A., New York and Boston have record setting attendances when they are losing? Yeah, me neither.

According to Bill Simmons? Bill Fucking Boston Guy Simmons??!! I had no idea Bill was the expert on teams outside of Boston and their salary cap issues. It is well documented that Bill hates Indiana, Pacers and Colts. That's kind of like saying "according to Sean Penn, Bush is losing his grip on America." See? No objectivity. You dolt. I know Bill is the self described expert on the NBA, but that doesn't mean that he knows what the hell is going on in Indiana.

The Pacers have become the Cincinnati Bengals of the NBA. But again, you'd never know if you depended on the sports media tell you.

Comparing the Pacers to the Bengals? I think were better than that. Scoop, you are part of the mainstream sports media, no one from Indiana is, and you aren't the first one to write something like this.

Is racism or regionalism the reason one is vilified and the other isn't?

There it is, there it fucking is. The race card makes it's way into another one of Scoops articles. Scoop, please use the race card when racism actually exists. Weren't you one of the many sports journalist that were condemning the Duke lacrosse team when the person who accused the team of racism and rape was a coked up stripper with a sketchy past? Yeah, when you use the race card as many times as you and Jemele Hill do it really starts to ring hallow and pretty much screws the ones in the U.S. that actually are victims of racism. Just stop, as a matter of fact, I'll compare Larry Bird with Isiah Thomas.

Bird - Hall of famer for the Celtics
Thomas - Hall of famer for the Pistons

Bird - As a player won NBA Championships
Thomas - As a player won NBA Championships

Bird - Fired Isiah for doing a piss poor job as a coach of the Pacers. His replacement took basically the same team to the NBA Eastern Conference Championship THE NEXT YEAR where they were toppled by the eventual champions.

Thomas - Hired Lenny Wilkins, fired. Hired Larry Brown, fired. Hired himself as coach, is still coaching and is coaching himself and his team right into the ground.

Bird - As a coach actually took a team to the finals and nearly toppled MJ and the Bulls back in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals.

Thomas - As a coach never took a team out of the first round and has made a horrible team into a laughing stock.

Bird - Has made draft picks and trades that has blown up in his face.

Thomas - Has made draft picks and trades that has blown up in his face.

Bird - Has been criticized extensively for his many failures as an executive. Especially in his own hometown.

Thomas - Ditto.

Bird - Has had some success as an executive and as a coach.

Thomas - Has had no success whatsoever in anything he has done outside of playing.

There you go Scoop. And one more thing, where in the hell did you get the idea that Bird wasn't getting any criticism for his actions as GM? I'm pretty sure the owner of the Pacers just said in the paper that he's going to make changes and the only thing he knows for sure that will stay the same is that he will stay the owner. I'm pretty sure that's not a good indication for Larry Legend. All James Dolan of the Knicks has done is sit on his ass with both thumbs directly up them and has made no changes whatsoever, EVEN AFTER THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUIT!!! That would have fired anyone!

Choose all of the above, and you still will come up without an answer. Know, though, on this anniversary of Isiah Thomas' continued destruction of the Knicks, he will remain singled out as what not to look for in a president of basketball operations, while Larry Bird's plight will gather sympathy, and no one will notice the mirror images of the two.

Again, Thomas has had his hand in all of the Knicks troubles. As you said before, YOU CAN"T BLAME LARRY FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAS GONE WRONG WITH PACERS!!! Besides, sympathy from whom?! He's been criticized heavily for his actions. Again, New York - big time media, big time market, Indiana - small market, one newspaper. No one outside of Indiana cares about the Pacers. I'm pretty sure there are more fans of the Knicks outside of New York than there are Pacer fans outside of Indiana.

Those who decided to continue reading will ask whether I would have written this column had the roles been reversed -- if Bird was in New York ruining the Knicks and Thomas was in Indiana, silently and unnoticeably watching the Pacers disintegrate during his reign.

Anecdotal bullshit. What if? What if? What if? You don't know.

There you go, Scoop Jackson, one of the many reasons ESPN's Page 2 sucks complete ass now.

God I Hate Bill Simmons, Thankfully So Does Firejaymariotti.com and Roughly 90% of The Country

If your from Boston, or decided to become a bandwagon fan of Boston sports this year, I understand why you would like this guy, I really do. Jason, Mike and to some extent John I understand if you adore this guy's articles. I actually used to like him too, before Boston started winning everything. After that he became a raging asshole. With him being on ESPN.com the amount of Boston and ex-Boston sports writers is up to roughly 1,000, which makes this years Pats perfect season run seem all the more annoying, I mean your sister-in-law having bigger boobs than your wife annoying. Alright, that was bad. What makes Bill annoying is the fact that when Boston teams win not only does he prop up his team he kicks the other team team he hates (Colts, Yankees) when they are down. And when I mean kick, I mean shoot, piss on and light the body on fire down. The problem is you can't fire back because he, for some unknown (actually known) reason, he has left the little comment box in his articles out. How can this be? Even Jemile Hill, the worst writer in sports has that box. Anyways I read Bill's latest Boston is great the Colts suck article. I don't know why, this was probably the first article I've read from him in it's entirety since last year when he was soooo bitter that the Colts won the Super Bowl that I wouldn't have been surprised if his wife (you've heard about his wife haven't you? Did you know she was pregnant? Didn't you? Huh?) would have found him swinging on a shower curtain rod. Anyhoo, after reading this article I wish I had the time to break it all down and rant. Thankfully our boys from firejaymariotti.com did. God bless 'em. The link is below. Enjoy!

Lets Not Build This Up Too Much

Perfect Season or Perfect Douchebaggery?

I have been busier than a one legged cat trying to cover up it's own crap on a marble floor so I had to catch up with what everyone has been saying on the ol' blogs. John-O mentioned how the Pats are having a hell of a season and we should all just enjoy some good football. He took the high road, I'll be taking the lowest of low roads to explain why I seriously hate the Patriots and pretty much every team in Boston. If anyone has noticed, I'm pretty much in the third rung of sports hell right now, the Sawx won the series, The Celtics are winning at a record clip and the Pats are going to have a perfect season. It's as if I got down on my knees last year and prayed to god, Buddha, Allah and Elvis during halftime of the Colts Pats playoff game last year to let the Colts win. And they answered back "All right, but Boston will win every sports category next year and ESPN, Bill Simmons and Peter King will be especially annoying about it." Fine, whatever, just give the Colts their win. And here we are, butt chin Brady and the Pats are going to win it all. Here is why I'm not impressed with their unblemished streak or with the records they are breaking.

1) They're Douchebags (or just really bad sportsmen)

After securing a win against the Colts one of the Pats took the ball and spiked it on our logo. Surprisingly enough this isn't the first act of douchebaggery that they have performed, they also:

a) Ate popcorn on the way out of Cowboys stadium after their blow out win.
b) Mimicked Merriman's dance on the Chargers logo last year.
c) Mimic the Eagle flapping every time they faced and scored on the Eagles.
d) Run around like their asses are on fire after every win (or score) with Tom Brady looking like Arnie from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" slapping his head and screaming "We won football game Gilbert!!!!!" Thank Christ there's never a water tower in sight.
e) Taunt whenever possible.
f) Continuously get away with cheap shots (not so much this year).
g) Constantly complain to the officials after every play.

Plus the whole running up the score thing really bugs me, it also bugs me that every sports analyst see nothing wrong with it. I remember when the entire sporting world was all over Sam Wyche and his Bengals (when they were good) for purposely running up the score against Jerry Glanville and the Oilers. They called him a bad sport for having a grudge against Glanville. And now? Oh it's alright, it's the Patriots, it's cool. It's hard for me to get fired up with a team full of dicks, a head coach with a personality of a fence post who got caught cheating and a bunch of ban wagon a-holes sporting Brady jerseys even though they have never stepped in Boston city limits. I understand if your a kid and you identify with Brady but when your over 13, from another city, and are only rooting for the Pats because they are winning, well then you suck. Plus New England fans are irritating, even more so then Yankee and Ohio State fans put together.

2) The Tapes

The were caught cheating even after being warned. Many NFL pundits have stated other teams have done this and it's not a big deal. Ok, who? Tell me teams, don't just tell me everyone does it. Who else, other than the Pats, have been caught? No one. All sports analyst also say that it really doesn't help get an edge in the long run. Ok, then why did the Pats do it if it wasn't to get an edge? And if it isn't a big deal, why did the NFL make it illegal? The NFL confiscated and destroyed all the tapes without mentioning if there was any Super Bowl evidence on the tapes. Which, at least to me, makes me wonder if the Pats Super Bowl wins were legit. Plus the whole Bellicheck non-apology apology had shades of Nixon after Watergate.

3) They Play In a Weak Division

And I mean a WEAK division. The Dolphins are probably the worst team since the 1976 Buccaneers, plus their head coach couldn't even hack it with the Indiana Hoosiers football team. The Bills are better then last year, but not really. The Jets? Yeah, not good, 3-11 is not exactly what I would call impressive especially when it's headed by a Bellicheck disciple. Meanwhile the Colts are getting their heads bashed in by the Jags, Titans and a improved Texans team. If you stick the Pats in the Colts division do you think they would come out with a spotless record? Maybe, maybe not. One things for sure there would be injuries..which leads me to...

4) Rodney Harrison and HGH

Resident loud mouth and douchebag Curt Shilling said that Clemens should give back his Cy Young awards if he was on HGH when he accomplished these feats. This from a guy who refused to talk to Mitchell and is also old and mysteriously pitching well. But people forget that Rodney Harrison was suspended for the first four games this year for receiving a shipment of HGH. Sooo, are all the Pats on this or just Harrison? Is this why they aren't having many troubles on the injury front this year? Any body else notice that a very old linebacking core has had little to no injuries this year? I mean Teddy Bruschi can come back from a stroke yet Marvin Harrison can't come back from a knee bruise. Hey, if Bill Simmons can make wild accusations on a weekly basis, why can't I?

5) ESPN

It was founded in Springfield Massachusetts and has a host of ex Boston sports writers on their staff including one Bill Simmons that is prominently featured in the magazine and on their web site, so ESPN is basically one big sports page for the Boston Globe. Don't believe me? This is what was on ESPN.com and ESPN after the Sawx won the world series in 2004: Many articles written about busting the curse, many articles about Shilling's bloody sox, Peter Gammons article about how great it is for Boston to finally win it, many Bill Simmons blubber posts, Photos from charity events featuring Bronson Arroyo singing with Peter Gammons and Johnny Damon, article about the queer eye makeover with 3 Boston players, advertisements for Bill Simmons book "Now I can die in peace" that ran through the next year, an hour long special featuring Dennis Leary doing his best to bring back his accent before the ring ceremony game, the ring ceremony, the game after the ring ceremony where the Sawx played the Yankees, Johnny Damon honeymoon photos, Bronson Arroyo personal photos, many articles about Schilling sans bloody sox, David Ortiz clutchness articles, Manny being Manny articles, article by Stephen King, it goes on and on. I get it, the Red Sox haven't won in a while.

The next year the White Sox won it all. The first time since 1917 (?) plus the whole Black Sox scandal that lingered over the head of that organization like the Bambino curse. What did ESPN have to offer after their monumental series win? A still photo of the White Sox catcher getting his ring and a half assed article written by Chicago native Scoop Jackson. Whoopie.

Seriously ESPN pom poms for all Boston teams waaay too much. Right now I can turn on ESPN news and see a scroll that say Patriots, Pursuit to Perfection. Did they have this in 2004 when the Colts had their run? Nope.

6) The Way They Are Breaking The Records

Running up the score in an attempt to break all the records seems like a complete douchebag move considering how many bad teams the Pats faced this year. Tom Brady is about to break Peyton Manning's record for single season touchdowns. Yet seeing Brady in a shotgun formation with 1 minute left in a blowout game really doesn't make me all that impressed. When Manning broke the record in 2004 he regularly sat out the fourth quarter during blow outs. You know how many fourth quarters he sat out? Roughly two games worth. You know how many fourth quarter touchdowns Manning threw in 2004? 1. How many fourth quarter touchdowns has Brady thrown? Good question, I don't know, but it's a hell of a lot more than 1.

I know, I'm ranting. I'll stop