Ok, maybe that's a bit presumptuous and vain to think Bob Costas thinks the readers and writers of Niners Nation personally are idiots and losers. However, thanks to the Miami Herald, via the Big Lead we get to hear Bob Costas tell us all to shut our traps.
For much of my life I've been a huge Bob Costas fan. His thoughts on sports, particularly baseball, have always intrigued me. As I've grown up I've gotten a little annoyed with his smugness, but I've been willing to live with that. Until today, I figured he was a smart guy worth listening to on occasion. However, in showing how close minded an individual he is, I realize it's time to just cut bait and let him go be an ignorant jack-ass.
The big problem with Costas's comments are that he apparently thinks the First Amendment is useless and only professionals should get the protection of it.
As most blogs have stated, the whole blogging from your mother's basement is a bit past it's date of expiration as an insult. I just set up a blog from my apartment here in San Francisco and continue to update my blog while in law school. Does that make me a "get-a-life loser," Bob?
I think this one bugs me even more than the loser comments. Many of the people taking part in ESPN polls are the same people watching Bob on the Football Night in America NBC pre-game show. Is it the wisest idea out there to be insulting your show's prime demographic? This comment absolutely baffles me because it just seems insanely ignorant. It seems like the professional media feels they're endowed with some inalienable right to be the be-all, end-all of information disseminators. That kind of thought process would make me think they are somehow threatened by both the bloggers of the world, and folks like you who read Niners Nation on any sort of regular basis.
Do they really think that people are going to read blogs to the complete exclusion of newspapers, their websites and other traditional media? I have a broad range of sites I check out daily ranging from the blogs of SB Nation to Deadspin and the Big Lead to the SF Chronicle and Las Vegas Review Journal websites. The blogs of Matt Barrows and Matt Maiocco will remain part of my daily reading because they have access I'll NEVER have. And that's fine, because I'm not looking to be a member of the media covering the 49ers in the traditional manner. I'm just a fan who enjoys talking about the 49ers. I fully expect to maintain a diet of traditional and non-traditional websites because it gives balance and perspective. Bob Costas and his ilk seem to be petrified blogs are taking over the world and will put traditional media folks out of business.
But you know what? While I think we can all co-exist, if down the road traditional media lose large chunks of their audience because of SB Nation blogs and other progressive sites, well that's their own damn fault. The world continues to evolve and places like SB Nation are part of that cutting edge. I think these developments are forcing traditional media to catch up and make some drastic changes. And I think it's all for the better.
Anyways, I kind of went off on a rant, but in the end it's pretty simple. If Bob Costas doesn't like reading comments from people in traditional newspaper articles, he can do what I'll be doing from now on when he comes on tv: Ignore it.