Pen Pals
Posted on February 22, 2010 5:07 pm
Thank you for your letter, Steve. Can I call you Steve?
Let me answer that for you. Damn skippy I can call you Steve. I make Warren Buffett look like Jimmy Buffett – hell, I make him look like Hometown Buffet. I’ll call you Susie if I feel like it. So seeing as I can turn the whole god-damned Washington Post into a blue Valu-Pak mailer, what say you call me Mr. Anschutz.
Thank you for your helpful lesson on public relations. Let me tell you something, Jamie. The economy is up Sh*t Creek, and I’m the only paddle salesman in town.
I have a job. You have a job. My pawns on the soccer plantation? As of this sentence, they have jobs. Although if I get an inch in my Fruit of the Looms, that could all change.
You know who doesn’t have a job? Millions of our fellow citizens. Most of whom would have to chug an Ex-Lax mocha in order to give a crap about soccer in the first place. You tell the average piece of chewing gum on the sidewalk that hundreds of men are being paid to play Commieball, and they’ll be shocked. Then tell them they’re not happy with their job.
Hell, it makes me weep just thinking about it. Let’s you and I hold a telethon about it. Let’s tell the Red Cross, “Hey, hold up on Haiti. The MLSPU wants guaranteed contracts.”
I’m a heartfelt, devout Christian, but Jesus pimpin’ Christ and his stable of mixed-race hos – you think this is about public relations?
Guess what, Paul. I’m way ahead of you.
I hate to contradict the late Mario Puzo, but I like my enemies nice and far away. Keep your enemies closer? How has that worked out for Poland over the years?
This is why Garber’s a better don than Corelone, not simply because he can smuggle illegal cigars. Who are the three most famous MLS players?
1. David Beckham
2. Landon Donovan
3. No one who has convinced me to waste a minute’s thought on free agency.
Where are numbers 1 and 2, in this time of MLS players’ greatest trial? The wrong country, the wrong continent, the wrong hemisphere. You think after the crap I took last year from the god-damned Italians, that I’d let my mouthy kids stay later at the mall without a very good reason?
Maybe, just maybe, if David and Donovan were in Los Angeles, they might have drawn attention to how big and thick my whip is. They’ve got other fish to fry, though, and they’re on my boat doing it.
Landon used to be a player rep, for ********’s sake. Now he’s farting around for a tenth-place team, the soccer press is completely agog over it, and it’s totally upstaged the union. Someone’s gonna have to report on our little labor talks in order for people to be up in arms about it – no offense, Greg, but someone who matters. We both know you ain’t knocking hockey off the front page with this weak tea.
Hell, whose opinion are you hoping to change, Kyle? BigSoccer posters? Every single one of them would hold my puppyskin coat while I nibble my bald eagle kebab in exchange for the change in my dryer.
It’s a World Cup year. I’m getting paid. I assume you’re getting paid too, Ives. MLS can go dark this whole year for all I care. You think I need to keep cutting checks for Luis Angel Landin’s pancake budget? Guess again.
We’ll just start it up again in the fall, have a short season, maybe have MLS Cup in the snow in December. Won’t be me out there shivering my ass off.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a meeting with Tim about the LA Sol. I think this year we’re gonna win it all!
Love always,
Phillip F. Bignutz
King of the Wild Frontier
Sweet jesus, this was great.
Goff’s a quality reporter. But just because he’s had little to report about MLS, because of the negotiations being mostly under wraps, doesn’t mean he has to turn into an editorialist to fill the hours.
It appears there’s a reason he doesn’t do the editorial thing very often.
His was good (well…maybe okay-ish…at best. In the snow). Yours was better. Well done.
I really hope you mean “itch”. I don’t need to know those other details.
I did mean “itch,” but…yeah, the typo is funnier. -D.
Jesus pimpin’ Christ and his stable of mixed-race hos
Loney, yet again, raises the bar for POTY.
Damn.
Love it, pure comedy
Ding, fookin’, ding, ding, fookin’, ding.
Count it.
Too good.
Dan, you’re really making Goff your bitch lately. Very nice.
On a serious note, I wonder what Anschutz’s real emotional response would be to MLS going dark for an entire season (like NHL in 05). ITTET, I think you nailed where he’d come down over a public wage or free agency dispute. But this is the league he basically built and kept on life support on his own dime. I can’t imagine he’d be happy to see his product devalued like that. BUT … the cynic would say he has used this league to get entertainment venues constructed — and he’s been pretty damn successful in that — so maybe he wouldn’t be that personally bent out of shape afterall.
Luis Angel Landin’s pancake budget
Love it.
okay, cute points, but should note that Buffet is quite a bit wealthier than Anschutz. quite a staggering bit.
pure, unadulterated, awesome. loved the name changing.
Dan make me feel bad about myself.
What’s with calling out Ives?
Read it, laughed, wet my pants. Changed–wet ‘em again. Damn good stuff. God bless you Mr. Loney.
Classic.
Wow! Really surprised to see Goff take sides on the issue.
Steve, Jamie, Ives whatever his name is deserved to be called out on that one. Nice job Dan!
LMAO at that, “Here hold my puppy skin coat while I nibble on this bald eagle kabob” line.
Half a day late and a few bucks short, but every writer obviously has their fans, haters, and jock riders. Sometimes hard to tell the difference though.
That was awesome.
You updated that? What’d you do? Add the period on the end?
This paragraph from Goff hit the nail on the head:
“One of my most trusted contacts, who knows this league inside and out and is respected on both sides of the aisle, says: “It’s like the old Soviet Union — everyone knows the system stinks. The old guard is desperately trying to pretend that the system is essential and still works.” Ouch. That’s the perception, sir.”
When you compare Goff’s excellent columns to Loney’s baloney, it’s easy to figure out why one writes for the Washington Post and the other is an MLS shill for BigSoccer!
For everyone who hasn’t read this yet:
To get the full experience, open this in another window and then read.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHwNuLcGlgY"]YouTube- Main Title (The Godfather Waltz)[/ame]
But if we’re going to choose between dons, then you have to include a third option.
So it’s either:
a)
b)
c)
Something along the lines of Dear BS, I quit.
Goff is a quality reporter – I don’t know if anyone is denying that here. And reporting that quote would have been fantastic for a news article. But his editorializing just wasn’t fully thought-through, and Loney’s “baloney” punched holes through his arguments as well as anyone possibly could.
BaLoney didn’t punch holes in anything. All he did was act play clown for the circus that is BigSoccer.
Pretty much.
Ahhhh, nevermind….was given bad info from a friend. Nice how research clears up a terribly confused pal. Comment deleted.
Here’s what I think he thinks. MLS has been run more than a little Barnumesquely over the past few years. The worst thing about Adumania was that it worked; the worst thing about Beckhamania was that it worked. Followed by Soundermania and probably Unionmania. And I don’t think Portland fans are going to hold this labor stoppage against the MLSTimbers, so that’s another bump right there. And if/when the US gets into the second round, well, for once a good Nat World Cup performance is gravy.
The Powers That Are feel they’re on a winning streak, and they probably think they can go dark or hire scabs before the World Cup starts. Any negative coverage from April to May will be washed away by the big story in June and July. So that’ll be four months of no MLS paycheck. That’s an awful lot of youth clinics the players will have to hold, I’m afraid.
Which, if I may put on my hurt and pouty face, is why these accusations of “shill” are not only painful, but bizarre. You know what effect it would have if tomorrow morning, I call on every fan, woman and child to rise up against the MLS robber barons and give the players their freedom? In the words of Mr. Prosser, “None at all.”
I don’t know why pro-player sides feel the need to rip into Dan, and I don’t know why pro-owner folks want to rip into Goff. Neither one is really the issue. Goff chose a side, and did a poor job of crafting an opinion post to support it. Dan opted to point out the stupid-osity of said post, and by its nature it comes across as pro-owner (which it may be at its core, but the piece is simply take-down). Neither one has much to do with how this will play out, just talking heads is all, so why does everyone get in a tizzy over it? Don’t we all just want a damn season to take place?
After listening to Chris Klein essentially read from a union handbook (bless his heart, he’s a quite articulate man, shame it wasn’t Arthur Miller) on FFF, this whole thing seems so ridiculous. As Fake Sigi prophesied: nothing, then big stink, then end-of-days talk, then settle. How many times and different ways can Klein state “all of us players are serious, we’re all in this together, we really mean it, we’re not joking, just test us.”
Please let me play a game of “Mafia” with Chris Klein. For money. About 40K over the course of the year would be fine with me.
Without choosing sides, let’s ask the only pertinent question: who has more to lose? Annnnndddd……checkmate. For run of the mill MLSers, its Quakes or Home Depot, or worse yet AC St. Louis (how do they feel about being the union’s punchline for its “tales of woe” oratory).
Oh and sorry, missed the obligatory backslap we’re supposed to give our respective fearless leader: “Balls!” “WOWW!” “Smash?!” “Chocolate thunder cake%$”
“Well, it’s a bypass. You’ve GOT to build bypasses, don’t you?”
I think you mean he could turn WaPo into a Val-Pak mailer.
Which is funny ’cause I thought that’s all print media was anymore anyway.
Nice work.
Call a waaambulance for MLSPU.
The big problem with Goff’s editorial is that it comes with the unspoken assumption that there is a huge groundswell that will appear and support the players in this case.
Unfortunately, this is just not the case. As much as I love MLS, I know it isn’t the NFL, MLB, NBA, or even the NHL. Every one of these leagues employ the BEST players from around the world at their respective sports, period. People want to watch the best play. MLS, on the other hand, is a league trying to get any type of traction outside of the (relatively) hard core soccer fan audience. The problem is that soccer fans have access to most of the big leagues around the world and can scratch their soccer itch on nice, big High Def TVs.
Regardless of which side one favors, that is the truth, period. If MLS stopped today, please tell me if it even makes the front page of Goff’s own paper’s sports page – I doubt it. Spring would come and with it, NHL/NBA playoffs, NFL draft, MLB starting, etc. Except for 20K people in 16 cities, noone would miss a beat. Hopefully, the players realize they hold literally NONE of the cards and make whatever deal they can.
Is it fair – NO. But you know what, noone ever said life (or soccer) would be – Just ask the Irish.
Why is there even a players’ union or collective bargaining in the first place? Didn’t MLS allow them to have it?
If there’s really no “collective bargaining” to be had, the owners have the power while the players really have none, and it’s all just a front, why bother?
If they were both on more equal footing like the other big sports I could understand it.
i think Goff fancies his own voice.
well done.
That’s really going out on a limb, considering he is a journalist and has a blog.
Dan Loney is my God, I crave his rich bounty
So in an example of how wonderful Goff is, you give as an example a thought that’s not even his, just one he is converying in print?
Goff’s a fine writer, the piece he wrote was a poor conveyance for some valid opinions.
I wish Jeffrey Jones hadn’t been into kiddie porn, because then I could say
“Well. There it is.”
and not worry about the reference backfiring.
…I guess that’s a pretty selfish reason to wish someone wouldn’t patronize child pornography.
I believe he’s implying that Goff has access to “inside” sources and can solicit information from them directly, while Dan tends to consolidate and analyze information from various sources that have already been published (including Goff himself).
I don’t agree that the differences in their roles as writers makes either one of them more or less enjoyable to read than the other. Their roles are different. They’re informative and (occasionally) entertaining, for different reasons. Obviously Goff strayed from his usual role of simply reporting, into opinion, which provides an opportunity for people to challenge him in a way that simple statements of fact do not. I don’t think Goff should be criticized for crossing over – it’s his blog – but he should expect to be challenged when he does.
Dan Loney isn’t even worthy to shine Goff’s shoes. Button it, dweeb.
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