I award you partial points for getting the artist correct:

My favorite thing about these broke-ass boxing shows is how the broadcasters still pretend like they’re dealing with Ali-Foreman or something that’s actually relevant beyond their tiny little niche at the bottom of the gutter.

One of the best headlines I’ve ever seen on Deadspin.

These guys are such thin-skinned, narcissistic dimwits.

Fair enough. I generally take “faster” to mean the actual movement of the individuals, but you make a good point.

C’mon, man, I love baseball above all other sports and always will barring something catastrophic, but that’s not what people mean by “fast.”

No, I get it.

“The dynamic he has exploited is a simple one: In exchange for access to his entertainingly shameless heel act, nearly all levels and sectors of media have, for longer than I have been alive, happily deferred to—echoed, even!—his presentation of himself as a high-powered, gold-plated winner.”

That wasn’t your argument and even your modified stance is silly.

It is certainly part of the conservatism, but it’s an incredibly trivially part b/c it’s Rob fucking Dibble.

Yes, and hockey is much less popular than baseball in America despite being much faster.

Right, which is why you could argue that is what’s killing the game’s popularity. I’d still disagree, but that’s at least a reasonable argument.

I’d say the evolution away from live to virtual attendance is what’s hurt baseball, though its demise is wildly exaggerated.

Whoa, what?

Yeah, if there was something actually defamatory here, the NFL would be suing the NY Times instead of sending a grumpy letter.

Yeah, that’s a fair opinion.

Nah, it’s just that “lack of showboating is killing baseball” has become a thing so, whenever some old-timer or stick-in-the-mud complains, it gets press and people pretend it’s some widespread attitude.

Meh. More of them play soccer.

Counterpoint: football wide receivers.