When Mediocre Sports Columnists Start Blogging...

Richard Justice is not a great writer, but he was, within the conservative confines of a bad big city newspaper's sports section (The Houston Chronicle), bearable.

My point is, over at the Chronicle they gave Justice a blog, and it's a complete nightmare. The shackles of print have been cast off, and now Justice rants like a twelve-year-old about how awful fans are, how you should root for the guy whose value you are too dumb to comprehend, and how Vince Young died and came back to life three days later.

In his latest odd diatribe, he ventures this nugget:

The truth is, friends, that the people who've already decided that Hunter Pence should be on the team and that Chris Burke (or anyone else) should be benched are complete idiots.

Case closed, Richard (and I'm saying your name like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy). I'm glad that the Internet has opened up this level of discourse, and that you're no longer forced to assume a halfway maturated readership. MySpace!!

I think the prevailing opinion (on the Chronicle staff, anyway) is that the blogosphere is a good place to stir up controversy. So its writers throw out stuff like "complete idiots" in hopes of rattling the cage. That's understandable, in a weird way.

The result, however, is not a rousing debate. The result is a creepy melange of crap from a guy that I envision sitting up at 3 a.m. in his undies in a motel room in Milwaukee, working his damndest to find a controversial topic. I mean, sheesh, how does the debate about Chris Burke and Hunter Pence in center for the Astros require the use of "idiot" at all? They are two mediocre (thus far) players about whom no one knows what the final verdicts will be. That would be like berating an old lady at Foxwoods for dropping a nickel in the slots.

"Nice move, Gladys! Sure, I'm just a dumb old sportswriter who doesn't know that the Pirates' Cove machine over there in the corner is paying out at 1,000,000 to 1 and this crap here is at 1,500,000! Idiot!"

Clearly, the blogosphere is much better off in my hands.

***update***

Justice has just filed a blog entry in which he leaves Chris Burke completely off of his mock opening day lineup. A strange turn-around, and yes I did quote Emerson in the comment I left, thanks for asking.