New Article: Chucking Out the Garbage

[Irv]

Chucking Out the Garbage
By Philip Tan-Gatue (WillisReed)
March 6, 2004

[Irv]

I have no reservations about naming names due to this forum post's separation from Phil's journalism. The Toronto Star columnist is Dave Feschuk. He's still not as bad as Dan Le Ba(s)tard from the Miami Herald though.

Also, my only response to Feschuk and Raptors fans is this -- they have absolutely no understanding of the game of basketball. They were a pathetic group in the franchise's inaugural season and they still are now.

[SlingBlade]

Excellent Phil

What a relief to read an article on SOMETHING besides the current state of the Knicks. I know Im not a big Lenny fan, but I totally agree on this one.

Arrg and Irv, Dan Le Batard has started writing for ESPN the Mag. Such an idiot......this guy always sounds like he's trying to be pro sports's Pope or something. If he lost his "holier than though" schtick, he'd have nothing to write about.

Oh, and off topic, but I loved John Maloney's last article as well. lol......naked Salma Hayek with beer.......great image.

[gerry42]

I agree with Philip's editorial, I went to the site and read the entire article and others written by Feshuk. What team did he coach to a championship? The Knicks won a game they needed to win. I'm happy for their success and especially for their coach :cheer:

[Knicks Analyst]

Leave LeBatard alone! Geez, he's a successful sports writer, show him some respect will you please?

[Irv]

F*** Le Bastard and the donkey he rode on to becoming a writer. I will not show him any damn respect because he doesn't deserve any. Wanna know why? Here, enjoy.

-----Begin Article-----

NEW YORK FANS -- OBNOXIOUS! OVERBEARING! UNPLEASANT!
Wednesday, May 7, 1997
Section: Sports
Page: 1C
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: DAN LE BATARD, Herald Staff Writer

Knicks fans are crawling all over our city now, prevalent as cockroaches, only difference being that cockroaches don't wear expensive sports jerseys. You know the kind of Knicks fan I'm talking about, don't you?

He has almost as much grease in his hair as he does on his body, and he wears his baseball cap backward because, well, the hat didn't come with directions.

He has pasty skin and wears a ``Ewing'' tanktop that shows off way too much of his flabby arms, and he starts all sentences with the words, ``Yo, Vinny,'' even when addressing his mother.

He always looks the same, even when he is a she, and he is the most obnoxious, overbearing, unpleasant thing in all of sports.

But enough about New York's positives.

Quick question for South Florida-based Knicks fans who drone on endlessly about the city of New York's superiority:

If New York is so wonderful, why the hell do you live here?

Anyway, I would offer my hand to New York today, as this delightful Heat-Knicks series begins, but I'm afraid New York wouldn't return it. You have to be good at stealing there, see, because everything is so absurdly overpriced ($21 for a glass of orange juice, $300,000 for a one-bedroom studio, $84 million for a Larry Johnson). Heck, New York's Wheel-Of-Fortune prices are so outrageous that not even wealthy Knicks broadcaster Marv Albert can afford a decent toupee.

Stealing? You say South Florida has no room to make fun of crime anywhere? Well, OK, but stealing is just one of the many things we do better than New York. Which is how, with one year remaining on his New York contract, Pat Riley came to be our coach.

I'm telling you, Heat owner Micky Arison ought to be arrested for theft. The guy gets Riley to coach for $3 million a year while vagabond Larry Brown somehow gets much more than that. Larry Brown? Did I miss something or did Brown win something in the NBA when I wasn't looking?

Anyway, let's get away from Philadelphia, where there is no professional basketball, and concentrate on the playoffs. I would keep ripping New York (cultural contributions: the middle finger), but that's too easy. I would rather focus my hatred exclusively on the Knicks. The Heat is being very difficult about this, Miami's players refusing to say anything that sounds even mildly inflammatory, so I'm here with the gas and the flames.

What does it say about a sports team when its most famous fan is Woody Allen, a man so morally sound he is married to his daughter? Next on New York's famous-fan list is Spike Lee, which leads me to wonder if you have to be a dwarf to root for these guys. It must be tough for 3-foot-9 Knicks Coach Jeff Van Gundy to control all those big, tall players, seeing as how Van Gundy spills onto the court before games from a clown-filled Volkswagen, but he seems to have a grip on it. He suspended John Starks recently after getting into a heated argument with Starks' navel.

Pat Riley will get ripped throughout this series by the New York tabloids, but let me ask you this, New York: Who would you rather have coaching your Knicks team in this series -- the real Riley or Pocket Pat?

The Knicks are more talented than the Heat, no doubt, but Miami somehow won the Atlantic Division anyway. Riley wanted Allan Houston. New York got him. Riley wanted Chris Childs. New York got him. Fact is, New York pretty much got all the free agents it wanted this off-season, while Miami didn't get any, and the Heat still ended up with the better record. Know why? Because the Heat has the better team. I'd rather have one P.J. Brown than a thousand Larry Johnsons.

Bulls forward Scottie Pippen had it about right about Johnson. He called Johnson ``a cheerleader who might as well have been sitting over there with Spike Lee'' and added that, ``I've accomplished things accidentally in my career more than Johnson's accomplished on purpose.'' Pippen also called Johnson ``garbage,'' but that's a cheap shot and Pippen should apologize.

To garbage.

Then there's Patrick Ewing, whose facial features were once used by cavemen to chase frightened wooly mammoths. The only reason Ewing isn't the ugliest person in all of sports is because a few years ago Washington imported Gheorghe Muresan from Triteni, Romania.

So ugly?

That's what this series will become beginning tonight.

And isn't that beautiful?

-----End Article-----

While I'm at it, screw Michael Jordan too for golfing the day before what would have been a sweep of the Cheat in the 1997 ECF. I predicted the Cheat couldn't hold Jordan's jockstrap and would get swept out of town along with the pathetic fairweather Miami fans. I didn't account for Jordan not taking the Cheat seriously either. They had no business being in the ECF and their putrid performance against the Bulls proved it.

Anyway, three cheers for Phil calling out no-talent columnists who can't differentiate a basketball from a watermelon.

[WillisReed]

At least Dan Le Batard is just impolite, not totally brainless.

Blaming Lenny for injuries... sheesh.

Blaming Lenny for this LOTTERY team's "bad habits" even though half the team is new and had no experience with Lenny...

[Knicks Analyst]

Irv, he has grown up that was in 1997. Geez, people change.

[New York Nik]

There's no excuse for a columnist getting the facts wrong, but I think everyone understands that the media should be -- no, has to be -- critical of the people they're covering.

Especially when they're covering a group of multimillionaires whose job it is to put a damn ball through a basket.

I understand as Knicks fans we don't like to see our people criticized, but when you work in a very public job, in a field of entertainment that requires fans to pay out the ass to see in person, well...then you have to expect criticism, especially when you're not delivering on promises.

And the biggest payroll in basketball is an implied promise in and of itself, because ultimately we're footing the bill and not getting results.

[Irv]

Irv, he has grown up that was in 1997. Geez, people change.

I can post a 1999 article from him as well that is just as ignorant. Regardless, you are missing the point, and no, you are not speaking for him when you claim that he has grown up. How do you know that he has? There is no excuse for continually getting facts wrong and writing blatant mistruths because you have a blind hatred for a team simply because they have dominated the one that you regularly cover. The only reason he isn't barking now is because virtually all of the characters in the rivalry are gone now.

[WillisReed]

There's no excuse for a columnist getting the facts wrong, but I think everyone understands that the media should be -- no, has to be -- critical of the people they're covering.

Especially when they're covering a group of multimillionaires whose job it is to put a damn ball through a basket.

I understand as Knicks fans we don't like to see our people criticized, but when you work in a very public job, in a field of entertainment that requires fans to pay out the ass to see in person, well...then you have to expect criticism, especially when you're not delivering on promises.

And the biggest payroll in basketball is an implied promise in and of itself, because ultimately we're footing the bill and not getting results.

This article of mine was not about criticizing or not criticizing. Heck, I can criticize my Knicks too, you know, like I did when they traded Patrick (albeit it was in a near drunken stupor... my ranting...Also I was one of the Fire Layden Fire Chaney people.) It is about respect, and it is about Fester Chuck using his head.
As I said in the article, how can Lenny be blamed for things beyond anyone's control? Fester conveniently forgot also that Toronto had two good seasons with him, and he conveniently forgot about all the injuries Toronto had last season? That was an NBA record for manpower games lost.

[Irv]

Critically analyzing the history of a coach is one matter. Blatantly misrepresenting it, for whatever reason, is another. Mr. Brickchucker covers the Raptors. I mean, he probably didn't know what basketball was until the team came to town. Regardless, is it an excuse for him not knowing anything about Lenny's coaching career prior to his stint with Toronto? Absolutely not. It is his responsibility to research the subject before writing about it. Failure to do that results in this tripe that Brickchucker thinks is a column.

[WillisReed]

Heck, he misrepresented not only Lenny's pre Toronto career, but Lenny's First two Toronto years as well! Going above 500 without Vince, and making the playoffs? that's motivation man. Yet Fester Chucker writes as if Lenny had three straight 20 win seasons.

[Knicks Analyst]

Critically analyzing the history of a coach is one matter. Blatantly misrepresenting it, for whatever reason, is another. Mr. Brickchucker covers the Raptors. I mean, he probably didn't know what basketball was until the team came to town. Regardless, is it an excuse for him not knowing anything about Lenny's coaching career prior to his stint with Toronto? Absolutely not. It is his responsibility to research the subject before writing about it. Failure to do that results in this tripe that Brickchucker thinks is a column.

Leave LeBatard alone. He's a professional. He has his opinions. If some people don't like him tough for them. They don't have to read him. Obviously the number of people who enjoy his work outweigh those who don't, Irv. If that were not the case he would not be considered one of the more elite sportswriters.

[Irv]

Who are you, Dan's public defender? Being in the public eye, he's going to be subject to criticism. He did something that got him publicly reprimanded by the editor of the Miami Herald. I am not obligated to respect him because of his alleged level of prestige as a sportswriter. I am not obligated to respect him because his hatred for the Knicks is obvious in his writing whenever he does write about the Knicks.

Peter Vescey is a professional. So is Mitch Lawrence. How come you didn't waste your breath defending either of them when they wrote something stupid?

It's quite obvious that you like Dan's writing. I don't. Why are you trying to convince me otherwise with this apologetic tripe?

Finally, I wasn't even writing about Le Bastard in the text of mine you quoted. I think you need to pay attention to the thread instead of blindly supporting your favorite sportswriter.

[Knicks Analyst]

Leave LeBatard alone. He's a professional. He has his opinions. If some people don't like him tough for them. They don't have to read him. Obviously the number of people who enjoy his work outweigh those who don't, Irv. If that were not the case he would not be considered one of the more elite sportswriters.

Don't put words in mouth. He's not even CLOSE to being my favorite sportswriter. (My favorite is Tony Kornheiser). This whole thread shouldn't even be under the Knicks topic. Any way you just can't seem to understand that just because you him doesn't mean you should have to feel this burning obigation to make everyone else feel the same way. That's just the way I see it through this thread.

[WillisReed]

Who are you, Dan's public defender? Being in the public eye, he's going to be subject to criticism. He did something that got him publicly reprimanded by the editor of the Miami Herald. I am not obligated to respect him because of his alleged level of prestige as a sportswriter. I am not obligated to respect him because his hatred for the Knicks is obvious in his writing whenever he does write about the Knicks.

Peter Vescey is a professional. So is Mitch Lawrence. How come you didn't waste your breath defending either of them when they wrote something stupid?

It's quite obvious that you like Dan's writing. I don't. Why are you trying to convince me otherwise with this apologetic tripe?

Finally, I wasn't even writing about Le Bastard in the text of mine you quoted. I think you need to pay attention to the thread instead of blindly supporting your favorite sportswriter.

For the record, I like Pete Vescey but not Mitch Lawrence.

[Irv]

You told me to leave Le Bastard alone before I posted that article. You didn't do the same for Dave Feschuk. Why? I had committed only one sentence to Dan and you pleaded me to show some respect for him, but not for Feschuk.

Both have grossly misrepresented the facts. Why is your crusade for Dan's integrity (and only Dan's) more important than the facts of what transpired? You still aren't answering my question as to why you chose to support Dan but no other sportswriter that has been named in this thread.

I call it like I see it. My rants about Dan aren't intended to convince an entire forum of anything. I don't think he is a good sportswriter by any stretch of the imagination. You're getting into a pissing match with me because I don't like him.