ESPN’s Rick Reilly is a douche. Is he also a thief?

From espn.com, sportsblogit.com, or Rick Reilly's tummy directly?

I’m not sure how to cite the above picture.  From espn.com (here)? From sportsblogit.com (here)?  From proelite.com? From something called “Esther Lin”?  The important thing is, I’m kindasorta trying to cite it.

See, if you’re new to Fourth and Fifty, we promote or at least condone scallywaggery, motherfuckery, obfuscation, and general tomfoolery.  We are 5.5 regular Houstonians that like sports, happen to be assholes*, and use this “new media” venue to make fun of each other and everyone else just like we do through email, text, and face-to-face interaction.  There are only 3 rules.  1) You don’t talk about fight club. 1) Don’t be boring. 2) Try not to steal someone else’s shit. 3) Write about sports every once in a while so the boss doesn’t revoke your credentials. 3a) 3 feet on the floor at all times. That last one was a line from West Wing, and I’m sure they stole it from someone else but am too lazy to do research. But halfass citation is better than no ass. Right, Rick Reilly?

Right, Rick Reilly?  (cue cricket noises, and keep reading for some egregious shit)

Athletes have ridiculous tattoos, and it is fun to look at them and talk about them.  Rick Reilly wrote a fairly enjoyable article on espn.com recently about some of the more outlandish ones.  It was enjoyable for the pictures, not for the writing.  Reilly discovered 4th grade sarcasm and can’t get off it.  That’s what she said. (Heretofore known as TWSS  - and we borrowed that from The Office, who borrowed it from every middle school in this history of mankind.)  An example of Reilly’s “humor” from the article:

Many NBA tattoos seem to have all the foresight of a 4 a.m. Vegas wedding. Why else would Orlando Magic guard Jason Williams have “W-H-I-T” on the knuckles of his right hand and “E-B-O-Y” on the left? How often does a person arrange his fists side by side so that people can read them? Answer: Rarely. Which is why Williams must get these two comments quite a bit:

(1) “Nice to meet you, Whit.”

(2) “E-boy? Is that a scouting Web site?”

Ok.  I would have gone with “Kenyon Martin has a similar tat that says “YellowBo”‘.  (You know, Bad Ass Yellow Boy?  Best tat ever.  Queue the music. And intimating that he can’t count because he went to Cincinnati, which has an athlete graduation rate of -23%. But I digress, and YellowBo isn’t that funny, only marginally funnier than Rick Reilly, who gets paid schfifty-five billionty dollars to do this for a living.)

So, a pleasant enough column because of the picture links.

Even more pleasant the first time it was written, in April by Matt of sportsblogit.com.  Here’s the post.

You douchebag, Reilly. What do the following athletes have in common?

• Stephen Jackson
• Kenyon Martin
• Jason Williams
• Melvin Costa

They are in both columns.  Now, the list in each column is longer, but there are similar archetypes: “goofy big white guy”, “face/head tat”, “mistake/regret tat”.  In addition, the aforementioned pictures appear to be largely the same. I’m sure there are other blogs, columns, etc that preceded Matt’s post, and he isn’t terribly funny, but it’s the second fucking thing I found when I googled it trying to find a less voyeuristic/quasi-erotic picture of Melvin Costa.  I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.  Choose for yourself whether this is pure coincidence or not.

This ends the “information” part of this post.  If you’re only looking for evidentiary, discovery, whatever kind of pseudo-legal documentation, feel free to stop reading. For those who like them some lowfalutin shit-talking (as opposed to highfalutin), this next section is dedicated to you.

We’ve covered ESPN’s exponentially growing hubris a few times.  Here and here.  We’ve talked specifically about The Sports Guy slowly becoming the most egocentric writer ever.  Deadspin recently hit on this same point in a terribly clever titled book review.  I might have gone with “I am Ozymandus“, but terribly clever nonetheless.  We might have even had a few choice things to say about Reilly from time to time.  But this is new.  There is a difference between “we don’t like the direction our favourite company is going” and “it took us 15 seconds to find the shit you should have sourced, don’t you have fucking interns?  Literally, fucking interns?  ROFL. ZOMG.”

There is douchebaggery, and then there is douchebaggery. Pop your collar 4 times, Reilly, you’ve entered rarefied air. You’ve ascended from douchebag emeritus to the title of One Who Has Carnal Relations With His Mother. You’re a motherfucker.  You fuck your mother.  You used to be a decent writer back over at Sports Illustrated back in the day, but then you got the equivalent of tenure and then a bunch of money to switch companies, and now you’re a shell of what you used to be. A turtle shell that certain historical cultures used as contraception. Absolute power douches absolutely.  With great power comes great douche-sponsbility. Mo money, mo douches. Who is your favorite R&B singer, Reilly, Erica Ba-douche?  Do you like the toilets in Europe? When saying goodbye to your friends, do you chunk the douche? Do you drink Douche Equis when you eat at Taco Cabana?

That’s about it.  Maybe this is a mountain/molehill thing, but you be the judge for yourself.  Two options if you happen to agree. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to email ESPN’s ombudsman, here. The motherfuckery thing would be to cite the two columns and then go off on a random rant while adding douche-tastic puns. Choose wisely. Now excuse us while we ride off on our high horse.

- Your friends at Fourth and Fifty

*5.5 Assholes might be a bit of an overstatement.  Reggie and Wanks are probably the nicest guys you will ever meet in your life.  I don’t know Moose Knuckle in RL.  But Me, Pipez, and Rex are certainly ginormous assholes, and if you do a weighted average, then you’ll probably end up at 5.5 Assholes.