Billy Paultz Reconsidered

As the lack of consistent activity on Billy Paultz Revisited may suggest, maintaining a blog can be a pain in the ass. Especially if you have a life, and double-especially if you work, and triple-especially if the work is primarily writing of a non-blog variety.
Anyway, the web lost a wondrous presence to such realities last week when Fire Joe Morgan ceased […]

[Read more →]

Here’s my column in the May 11 Sunday News, sort of relevant here because it’s about “new media,” blogs and etc. I should probably do more of this kind of thing. In fact, I will. Promise….
Old, new media can coexist
Question: I’m a fiftyish white male sportswriter, so how come I’m not as angry […]

[Read more →]

The headline to this post refers to an amazing 1955 Sports Illustrated piece about the Kentucky Derby by some Faulkner dude who could write a little.
It also refers to the fact that unlike most of America, I have worked Saturdays for my entire adult life. This not only doesn’t bother me, it’s an enormous relief. […]

[Read more →]

Occasionally someone asks who I think I’m writing for, what I consider my audience to be. OK, very occasionally, but it has happened. The answer is a person who’s interested in sport for its own sake, not because they went to Penn State or their nephew plays for McCaskey, a person who wants to know, honestly, what the […]

[Read more →]

The Sixers just got their first win of 2008, and yeah it was against dysfunctional, T-Mac-less Houston, but still. And now - what are the odds? - I’m watching the transcendent, “I’m into Nuggets y’all, I’m into Nuggets y’all..”
Now if they’d won at Denver, that would have been perfect. Think about it.
In other news…
*The question […]

[Read more →]

Right after I shut down the computer last night, MSNBC went to a panel including Joe Scarborough, who said people shouldn’t be critical of the punditocracy getting the Hillary thing so wrong because it was like sportswriters predicting the Yankees would beat the Red Sox (in the 2004 ALCS) after having a 3-0 lead.
Ugh. This […]

[Read more →]

BPR is back after a holiday vacation with considerable blog stored in its hump…
Alamo Bowl: Please understand that This Space is not a fan of Anthony Morelli. He was not a good major-college quarterback, and wasn’t close to what Joe Paterno and his staff portrayed him to be.
His performance in San Antonio included a lot […]

[Read more →]

The Mitchell Report on steroids, the latest major salvo in baseball’s longstanding public-relations war against itself, will be made public about 12 hours from now.
Journalists who’ve seen the report or talked to people who have say upwards of 100 players will be named as abusers of performance-enhancing substances. Mitchell had no subpeona power, and the report […]

[Read more →]

In defending Jimmy Rollins’ MVP election Tuesday, Bill Conlin of the Philly Daily News took on “Baseball Abstract” guru Bill James re Rollins’ fielding on Comcast SportsNet’s “Daily News Live,” Tuesday, then expanded his argument in today’s paper.
Background: James is arguably the most important sportswriter ever (granted that’s not saying much, but who else has actually […]

[Read more →]

The second-last time I went to a Phillies game to write a column I was surprised to see Stephen A. Smith there doing the same thing.
It was a Saturday afternoon game, and there weren’t many media people there, but Smith was, and he asked Charlie Manuel some decent questions afterward, and his piece, which appeared […]

[Read more →]