By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story now (Monday night, 9:00 p.m. EST) contains a response from Bill Simmons regarding the Bob Ryan comments on Sunday's "Sports Final" on CBS4 in Boston.

It also should be noted that this entry is setting visitor records to this page, which we attribute to both the Deadspin link (thanks, Will) and the popularity of both writers.

We tend to stay away from writer-on-writer hatin', but we recognize when there are heavyweights involved. My hope is that the ensuing discussion will at least, in part, focus on the "accountability" issue that arises.

Of course, I also hope it will stir a bit of banter over which guy you'd take if you could only have one? Shots will weigh in on that one during Friday's regular delivery. Thanks.]

Put in proper context, a potentially simmering feud between two of Boston’s most influential sports columnists should be nothing short of Red Sox/Yankees or Patriots/Colts.

However, we’re not yet able to determine whether the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan and ESPN.com’s Bill “Sports Guy” Simmons are on the verge of war, but we can be sure that Ryan is firing some test missiles, including an impassioned Doc Rivers defense (and Simmons slam) on CBS4’s Sunday night edition of “Sports Final.”

Ryan’s first public Simmons comment during the past two weeks came in an Ryan interview conducted on Nov. 14 and published at the outstanding Sports Media Guide website. (Note, it indicates it is Part One of the interview.)

During that revealing conversation, Ryan stated the following:

. . . You’ve got the shift in readership to the likes of Bill Simmons and all of the people on the Internet, who are a little less accountable than newspaper writers. But they’re all out there forcing us to re-evaluate where we fit in. It’s not the same and it won’t be the same – our influence is waning and eroding. Simmons is not doing what mainstream columnists do – he has no desire to speak to anyone in power – he observes and does what he does. There’s room for everybody – the access to information is staggering, imposing and intimidating. . .

Then, on Sunday evening during a “Sports Final” segment with host, Bob Lobel, Ryan again mentioned Simmons, and again hinted that he wasn’t enamored with the way Simmons was handling his Rivers assessment. The following is the transcript from that appearance, of that particular discussion.

Bob Lobel: I’m at the Garden and I’m hearing the “Fire Doc Rivers” chants. Boy, [Lobel is dripping with sarcasm at this point] that seems like a good idea. . .

Bob Ryan: You know, there’s a lot going on here with Doc and the fans. The tide is overwhelmingly negative. No matter what they do – even a big win like coming from behind on the road as they did, in a big second half at Milwaukee. . . winning three in a row, which they didn’t do at all last year.

People are pre-conditioned to think this team stinks. There’s no patience level whatsoever. And I’ll tell you something that is going on.

From 3,000 miles away, someone who has got some influence on I’d say at least 25 percent of the people who are after Doc Rivers, Bill Simmons. . . UNBELIEVABLE, has written a column last week at ESPN.com assaulting and just killing Doc Rivers.

And I’m telling you that the emails I get reflect the fact that people are paying attention to him from 3,000 miles away, as if he knows what’s going on with the Celtics.

Doc Rivers is not. . . The. . . Problem. . . Period. They need time to mature. Let’s let this play out. Come see me after the All-Star game. I promise you if they have shown no improvement, I will concede. I will wave my white flag.

I am not going to do this. I’m not going to bury Doc and I’m not bailing on this team.

The segment than rolled into a discussion of Boston College Football (where Ryan continued his roll by saying his alma mater has “become the masters of not being able to win the big games.”

It is very rare when a major, established writer will mention a fellow, established writer and basically call that writer out for a point of view that the first writer doesn’t agree with.

In all fairness, we should note that within the text of the Simmons column on the impending firing of Rivers, there is this portion on Ryan, where Simmons surely seems to choose his words carefully:

. . . Look, it’s never fun to write that someone should lose his job. By all accounts, Doc is a super guy — that’s the main reason both local papers and radio stations kept spinning his B.S. and enabled him to keep his job for this long. Just this week, the one local writer who understands basketball and all its subtle nuances – the Globe’s Bob Ryan – endorsed Doc and absolved him of all blame. Here was his reasoning:

“And, yes, I’m a Doc guy. I can’t help it. I’ve known him too long. I have too much respect for his intelligence, common sense and goodwill to abandon him in this hour of crisis. Do I know for sure that he can convey all the basketball he knows to others? No, I do not. But I know it’s there, and I’d sure like to play for him (assuming he could use a 6-foot, 1-inch forward with 1965 post-up moves).”

With all due respect to Ryan, the greatest basketball writer of my lifetime … what the hell does that even mean? He’s your friend, so you can’t admit that he’s a bad coach and you need more time to evaluate him? Nearly 200 games wasn’t enough? Come on.

Simmons also had this to say in that same column, which starts to address the “accountability” issue which Ryan (and so many Simmons detractors) brings up:

. . . Now it’s 2006 and I’m wondering if a press pass does any good. Unlike the old days, basketball reporters rarely get extra access anymore — it’s just the same herd of writers hovering around the same people, day after day, writing down the same boring quotes from the same group of bored people who just want them to go away. Unlike the old days, we can watch every minute of every game on TV. We can watch the postgame press conferences. We can watch highlights and sound bites on ESPN. We can argue about the team with other fans on message boards and blogs. By the time most newspaper stories are published, the news always feels a little dated. I’m telling you from experience – it’s possible to follow a professional basketball team without reading the local beat writers now. I do it every day. . .”

UPDATED PORTION BEGINS

In an email to Shots on Monday evening, Simmons, quite diplomatically, wrote: “I have no interest in feuding with [Bob] Ryan, he’s a great writer and had a big influence on me growing up. I’m glad he thinks that I have the power/influence to sway the thoughts of an entire fan base with a 3,000-word column - I wish this were actually true.”

It appears to us that Simmons is smartly choosing NOT to have this be a battle between Ryan and the Sports Guy. It may even be considered, by ogling on-lookers, that Simmons is growiung a bit here. He could certainly choose to fight a battle against Doc and Ryan (wasn’t that a bar?), but he’s willing to let things play out.

That’s a very sensible approach, considering both men are Disney Guys to varying degrees and a hissy fight over a coach isn’t all that becoming for either party. Our Boy Bill is growing up and Our Guy Bob is still King of this Town.

END OF UPDATED PORTION

• As for Shots, we tend to think the 3,000 mile thing is a bit over blown by Ryan and I’ll tell you why: Simmons is connected in the front office at teh Celtics. he’s got moles at all levels. Is he as tied in as Basketball Bob? Of course not. However, he’s probably just as connected with enough reliable Celtics sources as someone like the Globe’s Shira Springer or the Herald’s Mark Murphy.

Just because Simmons isn’t around the team every day and just because he doesn’t go into the clubhouse, I don’t find his opinion to be uneducated. He is the very “fan” that Ryan discusses passionately in the Sports Media Guide interview.

• Simmons did get burned a bit on the timing of his “Can Doc” column. The Celts streak reached its third win with the Knicks win that Simmons though would be Rivers’ unraveling. And, as the whispers (and chants) got louder at Friday’s loss, the Green bounced back with the Bucks comeback on Saturday. Doc may indeed go, but like Ryan suggests, it shouldn’t be until All-Star time.

• Don’t bother looking for the “Sports Final” video at the CBS4 website - that would be too logical to have such a thing available for viewers.

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. And can be reached at shotsATbostonsportsmedDOTcom