Bill Simmons: Now I Can Die In Peace (And Start Rooting For The Yankees)

(How many Red Sox fans gagged reading that headline, I wonder? Hee hee. Teasing rabid sports fans is FUN.)

We’ve never clumsily pretended to know something about sports, but even we’ve heard of Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy. Highly accessible to non-stats-spouting sports fans and filled with pop-culture references that the non-sportsfan can understand, Simmons came highly recommended to me last summer by a boy who left me with the twin gifts of Simmons and San Loco, both of which I have enjoyed on many occassions. So when we were very kindly gifted with an advance copy of the book last week, we were excited to see how it was.

Fortunately we don’t even have to read it for that: Deadspin‘s Will Leitch has already whipped through it and has a detailed review that any Simmons fan will enjoy (especially because he is one). Upshot: He liked it. Yes, it is a collection of his old columns (but with new introductions) but the most notable feature of the book are the footnotes, which fill the margins on practically every page with all sorts of Sox/Simmons minutiae in exquisite 8-point detail (wear your glasses!). The footnotes probably constintue a whole other book (there are 501 of them — Will counted) so you will definitely be getting your money’s worth.

Will crunches the numbers (i.e. “References to Gabe Kaplan: 5; References to Gabe Kapler: 3″) and he does so very ably; we have little to add save for the following, from the first 11 pages and a random flip-through:

• Bill Simmons’ mom has fashion sensibilities after our own heart

• Bill Simmons once owned, and we assume proudly wore, a white linen Miami Vice blazer.
• At age six, Bill Simmons tried to change his name to Jabaal-Abdul Simmons, which got him in trouble with his teacher.
• Thanks to Bill, we finally learned exactly how the Curse of the Bambino came about (Babe Ruth used to play for the Red Sox? Who knew?)
• We also learned that Ted Williams left professional baseball to serve in World War II, returning three seasons later (sighs Simmons: “These things only happen to the Red Sox”)
• We’ve never been maniacal about sports, but reading a bit about the beleagured and plucky Red Sox, the most hopeful team in baseball for 86 years, we kind of get it.
• No wonder, then, that the Red Sox is the most devout team in baseball today. Talk about faith. (Also, talk about blog synchronicity: that factoid has come up twice today!)

We don’t care what anybody says, though, one thing we’ll never understand is why the heck they didn’t take out Pedro.

p.s. Yes, we know Bill Simmons is based in LA, but ESPN books is based in NYC, as is the book’s editor Michael Solomon, and Deadspin and Will Leitch, and the Yankees who Simmons famously despises and who lots of you probably like. So read this post in indignation, grrr! Or snicker at the thought of him going apoplectic at the headline above. In other news, tacos are delicious.

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