If H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger, the author of several books including Friday Night Lights, intended to be the voice of reason in the ever growing sports writing field, he failed miserably. If his plan was to embarrass himself, his family, and his friends, job well done sir!

For those that don’t know what’s going on, Bob Costas put together a Town Hall Meeting to discuss the landscape of sports and rise of bloggers and sports talk radio. As you can see Buzz Bissinger had a lot to spew on the topic and Braylon Edwards had nothing to say. DeadSpin’s Will Leitch handled himself well at ground zero, because he easily could’ve done like Bobby Brown at the :50 mark.

What I could take from Bissinger’s rant is that he doesn’t know the difference between a post and a comment, and he was playing to the crowd by repeatedly messing up Big Daddy Drew’s name when Will had clearly corrected him.

BB: Is this guy’s name Balls Deep or Big Daddy Drew Balls?

WL: Big Daddy Drew. It’s Big Daddy Drew.

BB: Ok so Balls Deep.

Hmmm..

Buzz’s disdain for bloggers hinges on cruelty, speed, and journalistic dishonesty. I’ll give him the speed aspect. One of the things I’m most guilty of is rushing a post in order to have something first.. It doesn’t lead to lies or dishonesty, just some shoddy writing. But speed has also led to bloggers breaking news.

Nobody’s perfect.

Buzz thinks bloggers are mean and he’s right to a degree. Some blogs or bloggers can have a cruel slant to their writing, but not all. It’s just like the MSM, some guys are pricks and some aren’t. Outside of the coarseness of the language, I don’t think sports bloggers are any more cruel than their mainstream counterparts. Ask Barry Bonds, Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb, and now Roger Clemens if they’ve received more hate from blogs or the mainstream media. Coaches were being run out of town long before Firesoandso.com came along, and calling guys names isn’t new either.

‘The bloggers made me do it.’

Being the author of Shattered Glass gives Buzz Bissinger the right to speak on journalistic dishonesty, even if he has a selective memory. I wish HGBB was more clear as to which blogs are being dishonest. In my experience the sports blogosphere, Blogfrica, will police itself. I can’t imagine, and I’ve never heard of, a sports blogger writing fake posts and trying to pass them off as real. The community would call bullshit and the writer’s credibility would be ruined. What I have heard of are mainstream writers like Stephen Glass or Jason Blair, writing for major publications and making huge mistakes. These are people that have journalistic credentials. They would meet Bissinger’s journalistic standards. Buzz, IM (instant message) me when a sports blogger writes blatantly false material on the level of Christopher Newton.

The old timers that are lashing out against bloggers are doing so because they’re out of touch and afraid of change. Let’s take a look at it from their side. They’ve been dedicated to doing sports in one way for 20 or more years, and now they have to sit by helplessly as their forum starts to dwindle. Newspaper circulation is down. Newspaper employment opportunities are down. That hurts. So while their world is shrinking, they’re watching a new, lawless form of sports media emerge. Instead of embracing the change they’re trying to fight it, but they’ll soon learn that you can’t ride a horse and buggy on the information super highway.

Bob Costas Town Hall Meeting. Courtesy of Awful Announcing

**If you’re a believer in astrology and junk like that, check this out.. Buzz Bissinger is “H.G.” Bissinger.. I’m H.G. Buzz was born Nov 1, 1954. I was born Nov 1, 1971. He hates blogs, I have a blog. Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do.

Buzz Bissinger, Will Leitch, video, youtube

When the law and sports intersect I turn to Rob Becker, legal analyst for FoxSports.com. You can check out his views on Tim Donaghy’s plea deal here or Michael Vick’s arraignment here. Rob stays busy but he set aside some time to answer a few questions about the Michael Vick case for YBB.

HG: Since it looks like Michael Vick is going to accept a plea, can you tell us what that means for him and his defense team?

RB: Well from Michael Vick’s standpoint, he’s looking at the possibility that next week the prosecution would bring additional charges against him that would expose him to additional time in prison, and if he can plead guilty this week to what he’s already been charged with he can ensure that those additional charges won’t come down. Plus, he knows that he’s probably going to be convicted anyway because there are at least 7 witnesses against him now plus a ton of documents. So from that perspective, he should plead guilty and he can also probably get about 4 months taken off his sentence. By taking a plea and accepting responsibility for his actions Vick will probably be sentenced to 6-12 mos under the federal sentencing guidelines. However, if the government can portray him to the judge as a leader of the dog fighting enterprise, then under the sentencing guidelines he could get 12-18 mos. It may well be that what the prosecutors and Vick’s lawyers are negotiating over is whether Vick should be considered to be a leader of the dog fighting enterprise.

HG: And how do things look from the government’s side?

RB: From the prosecution’s perspective, if they can get him to plead guilty to everything he’s been charged with so far that’s a pretty good result it seems to me. You don’t have to win the game 100 to nothing. And at least they would be spared a trial against a high-powered defense team so I think there’s something in it for both of them.

HG: How much prison time is Vick avoiding by pleading out and when would you expect to see him on the field again?

RB: There’s a couple of things. First of all, I think if he pleads guilty he will almost certainly miss not just the ’07 season but also the ’08 season because he won’t start his prison term immediately. His best hope is to come back in ’09. If he took it to trial, by then he would have those additional charges and maybe he would end up with something like 3 years in prison, maybe he wouldn’t come back until the 2011 season. Those years matter. If he comes back in ’09 he’ll be 29 years old, so taking the plea makes sense for him as long as he’s not hoping he’ll come back too quickly.

HG: There’s been a major backlash against Michael Vick causing him to lose some endorsement deals. We’ve seen other athletes bounce back after serious legal problems, so what are the chances of any company doing business with Michael in the future?

RB: Given the reaction to his alleged crimes, it’s so strongly against him. We don’t see the normal kind of split in opinion that we see in a lot of other cases. I think that although it’s not unrealistic to think that he can come back and be a quarterback, I think it is unrealistic to think that he could get endorsements. I don’t think anyone wants to associate themselves with a dog fighter, particularly if he pleads guilty to dog fighting. If I were him I’d be happy enough to be paid by a team to play football and I wouldn’t be thinking that I’d be making additional monies from endorsements.

HG: The majority of people agree that dog fighting is inhumane, but would you agree that this case has been motivated by Michael Vick’s fame?

RB: I think that in a sense the government stumbled upon this. They were trying to prosecute his cousin for drug charges. When they went to the property, they stumbled upon the dog fighting ring. When you’re a prosecutor, that’s what you do. If you find out about a crime you prosecute it. I don’t think they were motivated by Michael Vick’s fame. Furthermore, when they discovered the disgusting aspect of this case what would stop them from wanting to go forward and prosecute? I think that would be the next logical thing to do once you learned the gruesome details.

Latest could mean more trouble for Vick. Courtesy of Rob Becker and Fox Sports

What Donaghy’s Deal Means. Courtesy of Rob Becker and Fox Sports

Hip HopBoxing is dead.. That’s if you listen to the critics. What people are conveniently forgetting is that boxing has been written off a thousand times before and yet it still staggers forward. The fight over the weekend and the untimely death of Diego “Chico” Corrales have people talking boxing for now… Even if it’s for all of the wrong reasons.

 I was lucky enough to catch up with HBO Boxing’s Jim Lampley just before he boarded a plane to New York. Lamps had plenty to say.

HG: There’s been varying opinions on the outcome of the fight..Some people calling it controversial. How did you feel about the decision?

JL:Well I don’t know why there would be any controversy. I thought it was pretty cut and dry. It was a good fight, better than I expected. I give Oscar De La Hoya a ton of credit for being able to threaten Floyd Mayweather and make him look vulnerable at times, but at the end of the day, particularly in the late rounds, I thought Floyd’s precision punching and effective defense won the fight. I think the two scorecards that had Mayweather winning 116-112, 115-113, those are right in the same neighborhood with where I would have seen the ultimate outcome of the fight. That’s what I expected. Floyd Mayweather to win by decision. I think Oscar deserves a ton of credit, he fought better than I would have expected him to be able to do under those circumstances and he made it a real fight. That was the best thing that could have happened for the sport.

HG: Does the fight warrant a rematch?

JL:I think economics may in fact lead to a rematch, that wouldn’t surprise me. What would surprise me is if there was any difference in the outcome. I think that in the case of an experienced, technical fighter like Mayweather, once he’s had a chance to look at an opponent for 12 rounds, he’s probably going to do better against that person the next time around. Consequently, it’s highly unlikely to me that Oscar could do better. I think probably a lot of his fans and followers don’t really realize that. There’s a lot of people that saw this fight that hadn’t been exposed to Mayweather before. Now that people have seen Mayweather perhaps they understand his precise approach to the sport, his risk free style of fighting, it’s not terribly exciting but it let’s him win all of his fights..that’s what he does.

HG:What did you think of Judge Kaczmarek’s decision, 115-113 for De La Hoya?

JL:Kaczmarek’s scorecard is more enthusiastic for Oscar than I could bring myself to be. I think in order to have scored the fight for Oscar you have to give him every conceivable benefit of the doubt, and it just didn’t look to me that he was able to win rounds after he stopped connecting with his jab. The lingering mystery that will affect people’s view of the fight is what happened to De La Hoya’s jab? Why did it go away after the 7th or 8th round? As long as he’s landing his jab he was in the fight with a chance to win, once that stopped he was no longer in the fight with a chance to win.

HG:You made some comments about the MMA, mixed martial arts/UFC after the fight. Would you like to follow up on those comments or offer any other views on mixed martial arts vs. boxing?

JL:NO. Because in retrospect I’m sorry that I brought it up. I think that it sounded to defensive for our sport. We had a good fight in circumstances which created audience demand the likes of which no other combat sport could ever approximate. I felt like that was a good enough statement in and of itself. To be totally honest, I haven’t watched as much mixed martial arts as for instance Max Kellerman who disagreed with me so I defer to his opinion on the subject. I wish that I had just kept my mouth shut and stuck with commenting on boxing as opposed to something that was extraneous at the time.

HG:Finally, boxing lost one of it’s warriors last night.. Diego Corrales. Your final thoughts on Diego.

JL: I loved Chico. If you knew him, if you knew him sweet, sober, prepared to fight, the way I saw him several times during his career, you couldn’t help but love Chico. He was a warm, gregarious, outgoing guy. He had a problem when he drank alcohol. I hate to suspect that alcohol might have had something to do with his ultimate demise. There’s a lesson to be learned there. It’s a dangerous substance, legal or not. I don’t think Chico ever really completely got a handle on that, which is true of a lot of people in our sport. But he was essentially a sweet person, a very out going person. He was as big a boxing fan as any fighter could be. He came to as many fights as he could possibly attend. It was always fun to see him at ringside. He had a tremendously entertaining career and will forever be remembered for having fought in the fight that many of my colleagues regard as the greatest they ever saw. I only saw his first fight with Jose Luis Castillo on television, I was not there live, but that drama was unforgettable. His comeback win in that fight is a monument to courage and we’ll miss him.

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