2668 replies to this topic

[E5 Yaz]

mmqbte:

I LIKE THIS GUY'S NAME. From Phred of South Burlington, Vermont:

http://sportsillustr...lbag/index.html

sounds like peter is about to "discover" phish

[drleather2001]

Peter King might be the worst Fantasy Sports player ever.

Also, way to throw David Carr under the bus, fat man. Jesus, maybe ONE reference to his awful O-Line would have been appropriate?

He basically says "Carr sucks, and he's a pussy", but not before saying "Good for Kubiak for not kissing [Carr's] butt. Smooches aren't what he needs."

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Yeah, I noticed that too. When King turns on someone, he really turns on someone.

And his fantasy picks were god-awful.

[E5 Yaz]

more gems from today:

Peter discovers why Johnny Cash was relevant to prisons.

Peter trashes the latest Rocky movie, four months after it came out and actually received decent reviews.

Peter makes a mock suggestion that Peyton Manning should do commercials, but not nearly as funny as Peyton's own joke about how many commercials he does

[JohntheBaptist]

If there's any truth the Sopranos spoiler this mildly retarded fuckface just casually dropped in to his latest column, I hope he gets raked over the coals for it. Granted, it's nothing earth shattering, but all things considered, I can't imagine anyone thinking it was smart to just throw that into a football column with no warning.

What a fucking idiot.

[E5 Yaz]

at least he didn't name which characters were in the scene

[drleather2001]

From a guy who admits to having just discovered Guinness about a month ago, this comes across as a little laughable:

"(By the way, the greatest, truest Irish bar in America, Tierney, is in Montclair, N.J., and I say that because they pour Guiness the right way there. "

Now, I've never been to Tierney, so he might be right, and I lived in Jersey for 4 years so I have no issue with the notion that there are some decent bars here and there. However, I find it hard to believe there aren't "greater and truer" Irish bars in either Boston or NYC. Something tells me Peter King ("I just discovered Guinness, what a beer!") wouldn't know a real Irish bar if it bit him in the ass while he was pumping Tony Romo.

EDIT: also, how does Green Bay/Brett Favre get lumped together with Chicago and NE as a "tough game" for San Diego? Are you kidding me? It will be like 36-10. Finally, I think there's a fair chance Indy doesn't get to the NE game at 5-0. Tennessee, Denver, and Jacksonville could all trip them up.

EDIT 2: It often sounds now like he wants the Red Sox to fail. Why?

Edited by drleather2001, 16 April 2007 - 10:09 AM.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

EDIT 2: It often sounds now like he wants the Red Sox to fail. Why?

He's from the Shaughnessey branch of Sox fandom in that he's most happy when the Sox suck, because he loves to whine about them. Loves it. He has gone on record saying:

1. The CHB is a great columnist
2. The Sox should trade Manny for whatever they can get for him
3. Last year, the Sox were going to miss Tek more than Manny

BTW, what makes his lack of baseball knowledge so infuriating is that he used to be the Reds beat writer when he first started out. He either was completely clueless or forgot everything he knew about baseball.

Hopefully Keith Olberman puts him in his place this year when they're both on the NBC Sunday night show.

[cgori]

From the same column:

"I don't dislike the Raiders. It's just that ... how can I put this? It's like having a son you were once very proud of. A little rough at times, but he struggled and achieved and overcame a lot. Many people were against him. And then he just gave up. You look at him and you see a slouching person, nearing middle age, hair thinning, cigarette smoke staining his fingers, talking out of the side of his mouth, continually lying. Is this really your son? Well, yeah, and you still love him underneath it all. You just don't enjoy being around him.''
-- Paul Zimmerman in his SI.com column last week, responding to a reader who accused him of not liking the Oakland Raiders.

Brilliant, Zim. Just brilliant. When I grow up, I want to write like that.

That last quote says it all for me -- even he knows he writes some pretty ugly stuff. Zimmerman puts him to shame, week-in and week-out.

Edited by cgori, 16 April 2007 - 04:27 PM.

[Jethro Q. Walrustitty]

Hopefully Keith Olberman puts him in his place this year when they're both on the NBC Sunday night show.

Whoa. Waitaminit. Olberman and King on the TV screen at the same time? Could they get Jimmy Fallon to do some attempted humor and drive the suck level to all-time record highs?

[jacklamabe65]

I hate the fact that he's a Red Sox fan.

[JohntheBaptist]

c. Enlightening story about the enigmatic Manny Ramirez by Ben McGrath in this week's New Yorker. I'm still anti-Manny for how he dogged it so blatantly at the end of last season, basically sitting out a month for some reason known only to him. McGrath's conclusion, it seems to me, is that Manny's an oddball simpleton. Anyone who names his first two sons Manny Jr. has to be pretty odd.

What a coincidence- this is exactly the conclusion I've reached in becoming familiar with Peter King over the last couple months.

Also- did anyone else find that this wasn't exactly the conclusion of said article?

Edited by JohntheBaptist, 23 April 2007 - 09:10 AM.

[deanx0]

I love this week's column where he says he's not going to mention Barry Bonds as a silent protest to the fact that he cheated to get the record. Because there's no steroid and HGH use in football, right Pete?

[Shelterdog]

What a coincidence- this is exactly the conclusion I've reached in becoming familiar with Peter King over the last couple months.

Also- did anyone else find that this wasn't exactly the conclusion of said article?

I'd say the article says the opposite. It concludes that he's a strange cat, sure, and he's really goofy, but he's also a reasonably smart guy who loves cars, likes (and works hard) at baseball, reads books, watches the discovery channel, and doesn't give two fucks about the media.


The Guiness stuff makes him look like a moron. One month after discoverying (at age 49) that Guiness is good, he is now acting like the world's expert.

[E5 Yaz]

did Peter cover the Sydney Olympics? because he could have discovered that Aussies call Foster's "piss"

[Sille Skrub]

I love this week's column where he says he's not going to mention Barry Bonds as a silent protest to the fact that he cheated to get the record.

I found this as pretty admirable. In the grand scheme, it doesn't mean anything. It is just his own silent protest. Very cool if you ask me.

And Shaunie, I love the fact that he is a Red Sox fan. Sure his shot at Manny this week was misguided, but I always love it when he throws in Sox stuff at the end of his football column.

[jacklamabe65]

I found this as pretty admirable. In the grand scheme, it doesn't mean anything. It is just his own silent protest. Very cool if you ask me.

And Shaunie, I love the fact that he is a Red Sox fan. Sure his shot at Manny this week was misguided, but I always love it when he throws in Sox stuff at the end of his football column.

Thanks, Sille, but Dean posted this.

[Phil Plantier]

I don't have an axe to grind with Peter King - I find he's an ok read most of the time... but this was so strange I had to note it here:

I think Mike Vick needs to give about 20 golden handshakes to good old friends and tell them, "Sorry. I'm going to ruin my life unless I make a clean break with 70 percent of my past.'' And if those friends are real friends, they'll understand

http://sportsillustr...29/draft/6.html

Really? Those friends will understand when Michael Vick hands them a check for some amount and then tells them he can't see them anymore? What kind of people does Peter King hang with, that this is acceptable behavior?

Maybe the editor added in the word "golden", which I guess would make this whole quote different. But this sounds unbelievably crass.

Edit: added link

Edited by Phil Plantier, 30 April 2007 - 01:30 PM.

[Sille Skrub]

Thanks, Sille, but Dean posted this.

I love this week's column where he says he's not going to mention Barry Bonds as a silent protest to the fact that he cheated to get the record. Because there's no steroid and HGH use in football, right Pete?

(/borges)

[Drocca]

I love this week's column where he says he's not going to mention Barry Bonds as a silent protest to the fact that he cheated to get the record. Because there's no steroid and HGH use in football, right Pete?

(/borges)

I found this as pretty admirable. In the grand scheme, it doesn't mean anything. It is just his own silent protest. Very cool if you ask me.

And Shaunie, I love the fact that he is a Red Sox fan. Sure his shot at Manny this week was misguided, but I always love it when he throws in Sox stuff at the end of his football column.

[E5 Yaz]

May 14:

d. Gotta love TV Land. There's not much as funny, and I mean ever on TV, as the Mr. Ed episode where Leo Durocher teaches Ed how to hit a baseball -- and then Ed slides into home.

[Skeesix]

Speaking of chick flicks I liked quite a bit, I recommend Waitress, a neat little fairy tale about a likeable waitress, Keri Russell. Excellent actress, by the way. Lots of good life lessons in there.

I never noticed it before but he really is like Norm McDonald's impression of Larry King.

Except sort of gayer and more clueless.

Edited by Skeesix, 14 May 2007 - 02:10 AM.

[E5 Yaz]

2 for 2 today;

One of his quotes "of the week," is CHB's column of weeks ago about the Patriuots no longer being on the moral high ground.

He also praises Borges for his Moss story.

[Maalox]

I don't have an axe to grind with Peter King - I find he's an ok read most of the time... but this was so strange I had to note it here:
http://sportsillustr...29/draft/6.html

Really? Those friends will understand when Michael Vick hands them a check for some amount and then tells them he can't see them anymore? What kind of people does Peter King hang with, that this is acceptable behavior?

Maybe the editor added in the word "golden", which I guess would make this whole quote different. But this sounds unbelievably crass.

I don't think so. You've got to look after yourself in life, and sometimes that means severing relationships with people who are bad for you.

And I think King's implication was that a lot of those people aren't real friends, and the ones who are will reconnect later.

Al Gore had this same problem with hangers-on when he invented the Internet.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

King was absolutely abysmal today, first with the Shank quote and then with praising Borges without mentioning that he get canned on Friday?

Also the rebuttle by the NFL cable guy to his claim last week that paying for something, after getting it for nothing, is a good thing was strange in that he didn't offer any comeback to the NFL guy.

I am not looking forward to his column in two weeks when he comes back from Italy telling us about this "great new place I found. It's called Rome, and it's truly spectacular!" Of course there will be the inevitable comparisons of Italian cappuchino to Starbucks (Memo to Rome: More Starbucks!), some crap about how he got all of his sports news a day late and some boring story about how he was stuck at a five-star hotel and they forgot to put a mint on his pillow one night.

[Doug Beerabelli]

I'd be willing to bet a pile of money the word "gelato" will be somewhere in the column.

[SuzynWaldmansO-Face]

King picks the Colts to repeat over the Saints this year 44-37. Can't wait to see how many times he changes it.

http://sportsillustr.../03/mmqb/1.html

[JohntheBaptist]

4. Before my vacation began, I asked NBC boss Dick Ebersol which show I should download to my IPod. "Friday Night Lights,'' he said without hesitation. I took him up on it, downloading all of season one, and he's right. The parenting stuff in there is as good as the football stuff. Better, really. One question for the Life Gods: Why didn't I ever play for Coach Taylor -- at something, anything?

This guy is such a character. "The parenting stuff in there is as good as the football stuff." Fantastic.

[Shelterdog]

I am not looking forward to his column in two weeks when he comes back from Italy telling us about this "great new place I found. It's called Rome, and it's truly spectacular!" Of course there will be the inevitable comparisons of Italian cappuchino to Starbucks (Memo to Rome: More Starbucks!), some crap about how he got all of his sports news a day late and some boring story about how he was stuck at a five-star hotel and they forgot to put a mint on his pillow one night.

Well, looks like you were all pretty damn close on what the Rome column would look like:

1.) No mention of gelatto, but he did go to the same pizza place three times.
2.) The great new place is Tuscany, not Rome - and would you believe it, Tuscany apparently has great food and is really charming.
3.) Italian wines are good. He knows this because he is now a semi expert.
4.) "International travelling is tough. A guy was snoring on the plane. It was loud."

To be fair lots of people make the same sort of banal observations when they travel - it's not shocking that you notice the same sorts of things other people noticed before you. Although not a lot of people include it in their football columns.

[TheoShmeo]

King picks the Colts to repeat over the Saints this year 44-37. Can't wait to see how many times he changes it.

http://sportsillustr.../03/mmqb/1.html

King's analysis re the Pats and Colts is weak. He questions the Pats' linebacking, without accounting for the fact that they added the most sought after free agent at linebacker, Adalius Thomas, and brought back Junior Seau who, despite his age, played very well at linebacker for them last year until he got hurt. And he dismisses the fact that the Colts lost two starting corners with the non-sequitir that Manning hasn't lost his "Jeter-esque" desire to win, while seemingly ignoring that one of Brady's well known attributes is that he's among the more competitive and driven athletes in professional sports. I'm not saying that King had to pick the Pats, and I know that many people will in fact pick them, so perhaps he's trying to distinguish himself (as much as that can be done by picking last year's winner), but I do think that his analysis is -- surprise -- extremely superficial.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

The wine thing killed me as did loading every single "Friday Night Lights" onto his iPod. And good pizza in Italy? The hell you say ...

[deanx0]

King's analysis re the Pats and Colts is weak. He questions the Pats' linebacking, without accounting for the fact that they added the most sought after free agent at linebacker, Adalius Thomas, and brought back Junior Seau who, despite his age, played very well at linebacker for them last year until he got hurt. And he dismisses the fact that the Colts lost two starting corners with the non-sequitir that Manning hasn't lost his "Jeter-esque" desire to win, while seemingly ignoring that one of Brady's well known attributes is that he's among the more competitive and driven athletes in professional sports. I'm not saying that King had to pick the Pats, and I know that many people will in fact pick them, so perhaps he's trying to distinguish himself (as much as that can be done by picking last year's winner), but I do think that his analysis is -- surprise -- extremely superficial.

King's picked the Pats the last two years, so I'm glad he's off the wagon...

[Harry Hooper]

King is middling overall, but I can't argue with what he wrote here. Seems like the Colts' wins over the Pats have all featured Manning (principally with Dallas Clark) gouging the Pats defense with passes in the middle of the field. Adding Thomas to the LB corps doesn't mean the Pats have fixed this weakness, given the other LBs and Harison are all a year older. What they really need is a Pfifer replacement.

[Sille Skrub]

The wine thing killed me as did loading every single "Friday Night Lights" onto his iPod.

In fairness, it is a great show.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

It has been on for a year. And I don't think it was on opposite "House".

[JohntheBaptist]

I'd like to think that had he known about all the great parenting going on in the show, he's have been watching it all along.

[Doug Beerabelli]

The fucker's on a roll. Recommended the CHB book for father's day.

Maybe the King sign of approval will get him disappear from the Globe just like it did for Borges.

[mt8thsw9th]

I'm pretty sure my father would disown me if I gave him a book by the man he refers to as the Chia Pet.

[Jethro Q. Walrustitty]

He also gave the "They're Unstoppable" reverse mortal lock jinx to the Patriots. Now they're going to finish 7-9, third in the division behind New York and Miami.

[Sille Skrub]

FWIW, King has picked Indy to repeat.

I thought it was a good piece today. It certainly got me excited especially considering Rodney's quotes about Moss. I don't get the Peter King hate around here, for my money he is one of the better football writers going.

[mt8thsw9th]

I just read the whole article, and why would Steven Spielberg, of all people, want to direct a Sopranos movie? That doesn't really seem to be his type of flick...

[E5 Yaz]

I just read the whole article, and why would Steven Spielberg, of all people, want to direct a Sopranos movie? That doesn't really seem to be his type of flick...

i could not stop laughing at this:

The opening is there for a Beatles reunion seven years down the road, either in another season or the biggest movie of 2014. James Gandolfini might say now he never wants to see Tony again, but I wonder what he'll say a few years from now, when Steve Spielberg says to him: "I'll give you $100 million to play Tony for two hours.''

[E5 Yaz]

That is, until I got to this.

a. Thanks, one and all (including you, Mike Timlin), for making Peterpalooza the swellest birthday party a big lug could ever have. You only turn 50 once, but once is enough if it's done right, and it was.

b. I think if you're a parent of a young teen or preteen girl or boy and you want to read a great book about what your high school parenting might be like, read Dan Shaughnessy's Senior Year, a recounting of his son Sam's final year of high school in Massachusetts. Ostensibly it's about Sam's pursuit of baseball greatness and a full ride to a college baseball school. But more than that it's about the treacherous waters a parent navigates with a kid in an affluent town with many of the problems (drinking, depression, lax study habits) teens sometimes face. He rightly questions why we micro-manage our kids so much today and how it hurts both us and them. I commend Shaughnessy for writing such a blunt book, because he shows the warts we see in all of our kids. It's a really good read, and for the dad who has everything except a good book, get it for a dad you know for Father's Day. He'll thank you.

c. Toughen up, Paris Hilton.

d. I can't believe I just included Paris Hilton in this column. I should be ashamed.

e. Coffeenerdness: you know it's your birthday, and you must be very hard to buy for, when you get six Starbucks cards as gifts.

f. Someone delivered five cases of Heineken Light to my house Friday. In cans. A lovely gift. The gift of life. I just wish I knew who sent it so I could thank him/her/them/it.

The guy calls his own birthday "Peterpalooza," then is ashamed for mentioning Paris Hilton.

[Sille Skrub]

Solid piece on Moss.

Like I said, he's one of the better football writers going. You just need to ignore the coffee/travel/other stuff.

[drleather2001]

Solid piece on Moss.

Like I said, he's one of the better football writers going. You just need to ignore the coffee/travel/other stuff.

It was a solid piece, and King's access to players is unrivaled. In fact, this is probably due to the same "aww shucks" personality and penchant for shooting the shit that we often ridicule. His BSing about his life lets him relate, on a personal level, to the people he wants to open up and give him insight. He's genuine, at least, and he sincerely loves the game he covers, which is a lot more than we can about some other sports writers out there.

BUT...His MMQ columns are usually puff pieces. He's allowed to get away with them because he's already so accomplished and can, when he wants to, pull a great story out of his ass. I just think the non-football segments of his MMQs go a little too far, especially when he starts to moralize or tell the readers things that they (probably) already know and passes it off as a revelation ("Hey! French wine is REALLY GOOD!").

Again, I know its done with the best intentions, but it just rubs me the wrong way; in part because I see that stuff as having opportunity cost, that he could have written more about the failed Raiders option schemes or something...stuff that is educational.

So yea, you're right, we should ignore that stuff...but it's such a meatball down the middle of the plate that its really hard to resist.

Edited by drleather2001, 14 June 2007 - 09:00 AM.

[Sille Skrub]

but it's such a meatball down the middle of the plate that its really hard to resist.

Is it though?

This thread and the Simmons thread kill me. When both of these guys are writing to their strengths, they are unparalleled IMHO. They can't do it all the time so I've learned just to ignore the weaker stuff. For me, it really isn't that hard.

I guess people just feel better about themselves when they complain about someone else.

[TheoShmeo]

Is it though?

This thread and the Simmons thread kill me. When both of these guys are writing to their strengths, they are unparalleled IMHO. They can't do it all the time so I've learned just to ignore the weaker stuff. For me, it really isn't that hard.

I guess people just feel better about themselves when they complain about someone else.

I don't think that's entirely fair vis-a-vis King.

King writes columns that regularly contain a lot of "trivia" that could only be interesting to a relatively small subset of his readers. I like a lot of his football stuff, and I especially like his access, but reading MMQB is an exercise scanning to avoid the uninteresting parts, at least for me.

In addition, his football analysis is sometimes quite superficial. I posted this above, but I found his remarks about Manning maintaining his Jeter-style desire after having won a SB, especially in a paragraph where he was talking about the Pats and Colts, to be an odd point to emphasize in light of the fact that one of Brady's well known attributes is not resting on his laurels. I don't write that as a knee-jerk Pats fan defending Our Tom, and I never would have thought that Manning would be content with just one title, anyway; I just thought that it was a lazy distinction for King to have made in that context.

For what it's worth, I agree wholeheartedly on Simmons and don't get all the hate, even though I need to skim many of his columns so I can skip over some of the pop culture stuff there, too.

[JohntheBaptist]

Is it though?

This thread and the Simmons thread kill me. When both of these guys are writing to their strengths, they are unparalleled IMHO. They can't do it all the time so I've learned just to ignore the weaker stuff. For me, it really isn't that hard.

I guess people just feel better about themselves when they complain about someone else.

Maybe I'm missing the tone of the thread a bit, but to my eyes, no one's really complaining as much as they are laughing. His non-football stuff is just off-the-charts funny. He's a character. I'll take your word for it on his prowess as a football writer- I don't watch the NFL, so I wouldn't know- but having been intro'd to his fluffy MMQ column endings via this thread... I mean, it's undeniably silly. It's begging to be pointed out, I think.

[Sille Skrub]

OK, maybe complaining wasn't the right word.

I dunno. Maybe I'm a glass half full guy or like to focus on the good rather than the bad in all things. I do pretty much skim MMQB for the parts that I find interesting as I do with Bill's columns. But, I probably do that with pretty much anything I read about sports.

What I do find is that for the most part, there are probably no other people who write about sports who are as cubically transformed as these two. I mean shit, here in Boston we have to put up with fucktards like Felger, CHB and Callahan in our daily fishwrap. If we want to listen to sports radio, we're forced to listen to WEEI who trumpets out blowhards like Pete Shepard and Meter all day.

The most surprising part of all this is that I learned that a renaissance man such as yourself doesn't watch football.

Come on man, it's the national pastime for goodness sake!

[Nite Vizhun UV]

The nice thing about Peter King is how he breaks his MMQB column up into easily digestible pieces with section headers to warn readers what to skip:

"Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week"

"10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:"