Bill Simmons: A Revelation

Bill Simmons book, minus coffee stain

Yesterday I was walking through the Dollar Store when I spotted a curious find: a book section. It caught me by surprise, as in these havens of savings I’m usually relegated to dutifully following my wife through row after row of useless junk. Stuff you would only buy and take directly to a garage sale – where you could probably turn a nifty profit. These stores all have a claustrophobic, lit-a-little-too-brightly-by-fluorescent-light feeling. If you haven’t gathered it already, I hate them. Yet somehow, I had found an oasis of sanity stuffed between the plastic army men ($1), wrapping paper ($1), and ash trays (yep, $1.)

I ended up selecting Now I Can Die in Peace by Bill Simmons, although I felt a little ashamed paying just $1 for what is sure to be a delightful read. (Bill, I swear it was the coffee stain.) Simmons writes ESPN’s “Sports Guy” column that appears on Page 2 and The Magazine, and has a natural comic wit that earned him a place on Jimmy Kimmel’s writing staff. He also is a die-hard Red Sox fan – but then again the die-hard is almost implied for baseball’s most emotionally attached team. So far I’m only about 20 pages into his memoir of Boston overcoming The Curse, but already its provided a number of LOLs and a well-above average integer* of SAC.

In the first chapter, Simmons outlines his ‘rules for sports fans’ that he will implement when he is named Commissioner of Sports. Not sure the exact date of his future appointment, but it got me thinking about being a fan – and how much easier fanhood would be if everyone would follow these rules. Because let’s face it, there are far too many fair-weather, bandwagon-jumping fans than should be allowed in the US. Simmons compares them to child molesters in prison. I’m not that harsh, but just because your squad is losing now doesn’t mean you can put a ‘throwback’ on in a few years when they make their Super Bowl run. No one is saying this, but these bandwagon fans may be to blame for the economic downtown… or perhaps that was just everyone getting iPhones and forgetting that their bosses expected them to actually do something between 9-5.

Through Bill’s rules, I learned why I love the Seahawks (Rule #2, if your city has a team, you MUST support them) and why I like the Lakers (Rule #6, if your home town team moves away, aka Sonics, you are allowed to switch allegiance but only under certain circumstances – mine is rule 5b, when a friend signs with that team.) However, his first rule of fanhood exposed a major sin that I must confess:

RULE #1 – No sports bigamy – you have to select ONE TEAM in each sport. Or as he puts it, “you CANNOT unconditionally love two teams at the same time when there’s a remote chance that they might go head-to-head someday.” This one caught me red-handed, for since adapting the English Premier League as my soccer league of choice, I’ve rooted for both Manchester United and Chelsea. That’s like rooting for the Celtics AND Lakers in the 80s. Or the Yankees AND Red Sox (ever) – I gotta stop! From now on, it’s just the Blues (Chelsea) for me.

Franky Lampard has silenced all opposition: I'm a Chelsea guy now.

~ J. Twice