HHR’s Greg “Cadillac Mescallade” Mescall Reflects on the Recent New York Times Article on Bill Simmons (Writing a Sports Column Far From Print, and the Game), and the Writer’s Contributions to the Rise in Prominence of Sports Blogging.

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Note this date and time in the journalism world when the New York Times devotes a second feature in two weeks to a writer who made his name on the Internet. For the second straight week the Times covered Bill Simmons, well known sports writer for ESPN.com, as he wrapped up his book tour promoting his latest work, “The Book Of Basketball.”

First, no disrespect to the Times as they have a tremendous internet platform and have fully embraced technology with interactive graphics, videos, and writers tweeting away. That said, when looking across the journalistic landscape, the Internet still seems like a newborn compared to the history of the New York Times. “All The News Fit To Print” was likely coined without the slightest vision of html.

What is interesting in the grand scheme of the advancement of the Internet and sports media is that the almighty entity that is the Times devotes a few graphs of their publication to a writer who all but bypassed the traditional old guard of journalism, the newspaper. I wonder if because a book had been written, some traction was gained for Simmons to be covered by the Times, but I suspect it’s more of just the phenomenon that this writer has become.

While portions of the recent Blogs with Balls conference delved into access for bloggers and reading between the lines (and respect for the work of internet-only journalists), Simmons is perhaps the conquering hero of the group who hasn’t needed a press pass to get the job done. Without recycling what the article in the New York Times said, he has given the ultimate everyman fan experience to writing, something I’d imagine a lot of bloggers resonate with and might cite in their top three reasons for starting a blog in the first place.

From endless lists to pop culture comparisons, it’s a style of writing that really isn’t meant for the newspapers anyway. However, you can’t argue with results. A Shaq-esque following on twitter with close to 1 million follows and a mail bag that would make Santa Claus blush, clearly this internet writer is filling a huge void. Coverage like this should give confidence and credence to other bloggers that plowing away at what you love, even though it may seem fruitless initially, can actually get you somewhere. The Internet is only advancing. It wasn’t that long ago when people used the Internet as a launch pad to a place like the Times, and now you may find staff writers from that paper seeing how far they can spread their wings on the web. It is definitely a changing time.

One last thought that comes from this article in relation to bloggers and a point that was perhaps overlooked in some sessions of Blogs with Balls. At the end of the day, you still have to be able to write. This is no coronation of myself – as the Cadillac has had his share of posts with typos and errors that would give an English teacher angina – but it’s the root of the whole thing. Clamor for the access, the recognition, the ad money, the click-thoughs, the networks and all the rest, but save for a few hot photos, if the writing is not there, it will become evident rather quickly. That’s what gets lost on Simmons. The guy can write and he has a sense of humor. And that is what keeps people coming back. So credit to Bill Simmons for kicking in a door to sports journalism that wasn’t there and now having the ability to look out over an empire of readers.