Indulge me in a few calculations here. I started reading Bill Simmons 18 months ago after intentionally avoiding him for a while because his readers seemed obnoxiously loyal and enthusiastic to him. I have since become one of those very readers. He averages one column a week, long pieces that take about 20 minutes to read. So that’s around 72 columns read, evening out because I skipped some and mined the archives for others. Using the 20-minute per estimate, that’s 1,440 minutes or exactly 24 hours reading him. But that’s not it. There’s also the 3 – 4 weekly podcasts at around 45 minutes each. So that’s about 11,340 more minutes or 189 more hours. Let’s total it up. That’s 213 hours spent either reading or listening to this guy over the last 18 months.
213 hours! That’s more than five workweeks. That’s more than the time I spent talking on the phone with my parents over the same time period.
And why? He’s a fairly mediocre writer who specializes in Boston sports, the NBA salary cap, (not subjects I’m passionate about) and constantly references reality TV shows that I don’t watch or care about. And as a radio presence he’s fluid but unspectacular, given to meandering and self-repetition. Yet I’m not at all alone. I can list five or six of my friends who’ve likewise devoted many, many hours to share the brain space of this guy. If you type “email the …” in google his “sports guy” moniker shows up second, just behind the president. His recent NBA book became, briefly, the top-selling book in the nation. He’s entertaining, funny, and easy to read. Still, does that justify three hours each week?In my defense, most of the podcasts were only part of some multi-task endeavor – running, cooking, killing time on Ecuadorian buses.
In Ecuador, he filled a very specific need for me. His podcasts became comforting and familiar. Even while jogging along the smog-filled streets of Quito I felt like I was lazily discussing sports in a half-empty bar. It doesn’t hurt that Simmons often reminds me of Mike F., an old high school friend. And, especially this last year, I didn’t have that many male friends. There were a few other guy teachers, but I rarely saw them outside of work and often ended up the only male at an otherwise all female dinner. Sports made only cameo appearances in most conversations. I would sometimes talk sports with my students, but that was more my teaching them about basketball and (American) football or them teaching me about soccer. Simmons and his usual podcast menagerie – JackO, Chuck Klosterman, J.A Adande, Dan Le Batard, House, Adam Carolla, Chris Connelly – offered exactly the kind of conversations I enjoy but wasn’t having much of in Ecuador.
Put another way, Simmons and company allow me to feel nostalgic about an existence I’ve never totally lived. I dabble in fantasy sports and sometimes debate stats and free agent signings at a bar, but not all that often. Based on the image presented in his writings and podcasts, you start to believe that all Simmons does is watch games, pore over stats, read other sportswriters, gorge on HBO and reality TV, and find occasional humor in being the father of young kids. (In reality, I’m sure that the balance of his time is quite different.) It’s not necessarily a world I’d want to live in, but as the numbers show I’m a very willing tourist there for around 30 minutes daily.
I think the reason I love it so much is because I can listen to it on a drive home from work and feel as if i was listening in on a conversation my buddies and I would have over a few beers. He fills that void very well. I’m happy to see that you at least somewhat enjoy the time you share with him, and I like to think I had something to do with that.
Take care