Why I Love Bill Simmons

While on vacation I started reading a book by my favorite sportswriter, Bill Simmons. He is a 30 something diehard sports fan who hails from Boston. Simmons is the #1 writer for ESPN. He is first and foremost a basketball guy, which I like, and probably 80% of his columns have to do with the Boston sports scene. He has been in heaven in the 2000's. The Patriots are the most dominant NFL team of this decade, the Red Sox finally broke their curse in 2004 and the Celtics came out of nowhere last year to win the NBA Title. Bill Simmons introduced me to ESPN.com's NBA Trade Machine (it's so great), made me believe that Larry Bird is the greatest white athlete ever, and showed me how a fan should love it's hometown sports teams.

People routinely make fun of me for my "man crush" on Bill Simmons. But those same people like to hang out with me. Folks, I get my sports humor from Mr. Simmons. Here are 3 of my favorite things to do...all of which I picked up from Bill Simmons:

1. Point out look-a-likes. I have 2/3rds of The City Church choir casted if they ever want to make a movie. Seriously, stand next to me during worship and I'll point out Mr. Incredible, Wolverine from X-Men, Emmitt Smith, and the bird lady from Home Alone 2. You don't know me if you've never heard me utter, "Why is _____ _____ over there by the trash can?"

2. Come up with theories. I know some of you get annoyed and think I'm looney for my theories. Simmons calls himself the "Vice President of Common Sense". In high school, I filled out a NCAA Tournament bracket under the name of "The Voice of Reason"...somehow my principal (ironically the one running the pool) knew it was my bracket. I truly feel that I could run sports teams better than 50% of the guys out there. Why? Just use some sound reasoning. Anyways, back to my theories. Most, of course, are sports related. But others have centered around topics such as getting your parents to pay for stuff (example: not bringing up the topic of buying you a car when you're 16 until they realize that YOU could drive your sister to school everyday...worked like a charm).

3. Rich Man, Poor Man, Homeless Man. I can only use these with certain people. For you basketball fans, I call my friend Zach Zeis "A Poor Man's Carlos Boozer". This isn't a look alike...but there are similarities in some ways. In the "Zeis - Boozer" example: both are physical basketball players, both are guys you want on your team and both can grow massive amounts of facial hair. Obviously I can't share these comparisons with everyone because you need to know both parties well to see the correlation. Here are some examples that you may catch. Houston Hey is a poor mans Marty Sampson, Benny Perez is a poor mans George Lopez, Colby Jones is a poor mans Wes Dunn, the BlackBerry Bold is the poor mans iPhone, Tully's is the poor mans Starbucks, Woodinville is the poor mans Kirkland. You might be wondering...what about the "Homeless Man"? Well, that is when it's really a stretch. Such as: Taco Bell is a homeless man's Chipotle, Cuba Gooding Jr is a homeless man's Denzel Washington and Yakima is a homeless man's Palm Springs. Make sense now?

Bill Simmons has had quite the impact on me. I'm reading his book about the Red Sox. I don't even like the Red Sox...but his writing is just too goo. All of us have random people that impact us. One of mine is Bill Simmons. I know that 99% of you won't ever read any of his articles / books or listen to any of his podcasts. Thats fine. I plan on becoming a homeless man's Bill Simmons.