Category Archives: sports

Sex, please

Posted on by under Other Critics, sports, The Moronic Inferno

Did you know that The Weekly Standard has female writers?  I know, weird, right?  Anyway, one of them, Charlotte Allen, has just written an interesting, if belated, essay on the recent phenomenon of Pick-Up Artists viz the bigger question of what the (mostly heterosexual part of ) the dating/sex/love/relationship landscape looks like in 2010 America.  Preview: not so great.  Allen makes an extremely sensible point most feminist critics of people/phenomena like Tucker Max, Neil Strauss, and roissy in dc are loathe to bring up: these guys might be assholes, but goddamn are they popular with young men AND a lot of young women.  Something big and not necessarily pleasant is happening to American sexual culture, and just writing off these guys and their fellow travelers won’t explain or contest or stop anything.

In sum, while the piece is occasionally reductive, and I sometimes can’t tell whether the author is celebrating or bemoaning the present state of things (or both), it’s still punchy and entertaining and, for TWS, surprisingly reluctant to blame left-wing ideologies for everything.  A recommended read.

-TGR

Keep Trippin’

Posted on by under sports, Visual

It’s hard to pitch a baseball well.  It’s even harder to throw a no-hitter in the Major Leagues while tripping balls on acid, which is what the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Dock Ellis did on June 12, 1970.  Thanks to the Internets, you can get the animated story, narrated by the man himself.  Even if you’ve already seen this (I think it might have gotten mentioned in fuggin’ Time), I’ll bet you need to see it again, not least because Ellis is a good storyteller.  [Hat-tip to Dan Pecchenino for this.]

Spring training starts in a little over two months!

-TGR

Sports, sports, sports

Posted on by under Other Critics, sports

On Deadspin, the great sportswriter Charles Pierce (a man equally comfortable with Flann O’Brien and the Celtics) takes on The Sports Guy.  This is a critical piece, but CP shows some love, old-guy-to-younger-gun style.  A limpid, funny explanation of the charms and larger flaws of Bill Simmons’ writing.  Pierce is especially good on Simmons’ penchant for lame, sweeping pop-culture observation.

In related news, Pierce now has a very cool blog on Boston.com.  Note the quote from At Swim-Two-Birds at the top of the page.  Go read it, go bookmark it, keep reading.

-TGR