Buzz Bissinger vs. Balls Deep

For anyone who regularly watches Costas Now, the title of this blog is fairly self-explanatory. For anyone else, it is a reference to an hour and a half show that was taped on April 29th of this year. Numerous topics were covered during the course of the show, often with hilarious results.

During one of the segments, the advant of internet blogs was discussed. If you are not offended by strong language, the portion of the show can be seen here. Among other things, Bissinger attacks Leitch & his Deadspin blog for being glib, gossipy, profane, and poorly written. Unfortunately Bissinger's profane accusation falls on deaf ears due to his own choice of language. In light of everything Bissinger said, though, throwing the baby out with the bath water would be a huge disservice to the actual issue.

I quit listening to sports talk radio more than 10 years ago, and rarely converse with fans online due to its profane and negative nature. At the risk of sounding holier than thou, my simple reason for doing this is that it holds no appeal for me. Among other things, I have a very difficult time separating engaging in something like that from living it out in my personal life, so I simply try to avoid it.

In terms of Bissinger's concerns about online blogs slowly taking over the sports media, I honestly do not see that happening anytime soon. To start with, a majority of online information that I read links the "old media" as their primary source. In other words, no "old media" means no online media. Anyone who has ever read any of my blogs can tell that most, if not all, of the information that I communicate comes through media outlets that have direct access to the people or teams that I am writing about. My only complaint is that the links that I provide normally do not tell enough of the story they are reporting, or they fail to ask some of the tough questions that need to be addressed. I'm not exactly sure what the reasons behind this are.

With high school football I suspect most of the prep beat writers are not only spread out pretty thin with the amount of sports they cover, they some of them also may lack enthusiasm about the sport themselves (perhaps they're waiting for the beat writer for the mariners to retire). I don't know what the reason is behind the sport of boxing. The only thing I can think of is that some of the writers are institutionalized. Whatever the reason is, there can be little doubt that the access, professionalism, and quality of writing allows them to surpass anything that I do. If any professional writer decided that they wanted to tackle the issues I do, this blog would gladly cease to exhist.

I touched on it earlier, but I want to reemphasize how valuable it is for the media to have access to the people. Part of what made Mary Lou Retton's gold medal in 1984 so memorable was Rick Reilly being savvy enough to sneak in and rub elbows with Bela Karolyi while he was encouraging the young gymnast. I think it goes without saying that cystic fibrosis research wouldn't be where it is today if not for Gary Smith's phenomenal article on the Esiason family. Personally I cannot express any passion about the intricacies that have taken place on the field of play without first tipping my cap to people like Frank Deford and Bud Greenspan who romanticized it in the first place.

If the next generation of sports fans chooses to get their their news from Balls Deep's of the world, then the sports world will lose me as a fan. I deserve better, and so do the athletes.