I know these things to be true: the Hayden Panettiere Clock has officially started. Kevin Durant can score 50 points with one arm tied behind his back, and one leg hacked off. The Celtics couldn’t be doing more to secure their chances at the first pick in the Kevin Durant Sweepstakes if they just sat on the bench in their street clothes the entire game. (And with the Celtics’ luck, they’ll be drafting a one-armed, one-legged Kevin Durant.) I am finding the extremely annoying Edie Falco to be very hot these days (and, having said that, I will light myself on fire as soon as I finish this column). If the LA Dodgers could pick up all the guys from the 2003 Red Sox “bullpen by committee,” then Grady Little will bleed out of his eyes every time he goes to the pitching mound, and I will laugh. Nomar will hurt himself again this year, because the “Thanks, Beautiful” Curse will never die. A-Rod will never win a World Series. Dusty Baker will never win a World Series. And sports blogs are, as the kids might say, “teh suck.”

Let me put it to you this way: you know that sinking feeling you got, when you were in college, and you woke up next to that cute but kinda heavy girl you knew from your Bio class? The one that’s really really nice to you, and likes to hang around you, and always tries to get uncomfortably close to you? And you shake your head clean of all the shots and beer you had the previous night, and you wonder if it’s just some weird dream? And then you stub your foot on those crappy bunkbed hinges while trying to get your socks on? And, while you’re bouncing around in your dorm like some cross between Elmer Fudd and John Belushi from Animal House, you’re trying to figure out the best way to get out of this mess, because if your friends see her leaving your room, they’re never gonna shut up about it? And, to compound the problem, the girl in your bed has a totally smoking roommate (think of Rebecca DeMornay in Risky Business, or Meadow Soprano stripping for her boyfriend in this season’s premiere) (I mean, seriously, when did she get hot?) (and of course she’s hotter than Edie Falco) (WHY AM I STILL THINKING ABOUT THAT?) that was the one you were trying to hook up with at the party that got you in the mess you’re in?

Well, dudes, here’s the problem – I just woke up, and most of you guys doing this “sports blogging” that’s getting you congratulations from folks on the internet and mentions on lists with yours truly right at the top? You’re that ugly-cute chick I’m trying to sneak out of the dorm before my buddies wake up. I mean, it’s great that 99% of you think I’m so fantastic that you out and out rip me off without shame, but now it’s gotten ridiculous. If I’m the young Marlon Brando – the respected and revered actor, the guy known for the “I coulda been a contender” speech – the rest of you guys are the fat Marlon Brando – the old overweight hack, the shadow of his former self cashing paychecks for garbage like Don Juan DeMarco, which I had the unfortunate opportunity to watch with Sports Gal, once upon a time. Not good times – bad times.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I am totally happy with my part in breathing new life into sports journalism with my down-to-earth fan-based writing style, and my injokes and references to movies and TV shows. Sports journalism has gotten so bogged down in one of two modes – the “first they said this, and then this” reporting you see in most newspapers, and the “agony of defeat” stories that end up on those HBO sports specials no one watches. (And don’t get me started on Inside The NFL – that show is like the Brando that’s pushing up daisies right now.) It needed a fresh new voice – the fan’s voice – and I’m glad that I helped establish it. But, the thing is, what I did – and this is the part none of you seem to understand – it isn’t all that new and exciting anymore. Sure, it was back in the days when the internet was a new thing and I was writing my column for some Boston website and I was the BOSTON Sports Guy, with about twenty fans (and I’m counting all my Boston pals in that twenty). And before I go any further, let’s make one thing clear – I wrote a COLUMN, not a BLOG. I didn’t just shoot off my mouth during my lunch hour and post it within five minutes of finishing. I had to work at getting everything I wanted to say said in the right way, and it took a real long time.

Of course, now that I’m possibly ESPN’s most read columnist (and I’m not saying this to be cocky, I’m stating a just-about true fact), my style and my quirks are pretty much known by anyone that’s heard of me. It’s natural for folks to just copy what I do simply by accident. I’m fine with that. But all you guys that came along these past few years – that Deadspin guy and all his little buddies, and all you other guys riding their coattails, or all you dudes starting blogs with your pals that you use to complain about folks talking about sports, or all you newspaper writers that are trying to blog – ask yourself this: what are you actually trying to do that I haven’t already done? Besides stating the obvious in a totally obvious way. And letting all those swears fly loose and free (which I’d do, too, were I not writing for a readership that includes a lot more people than the ten or twenty I chat with online after work). And posting all those pointless T&A pictures.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not adverse to admiring more than a few ladies (when the Sports Gal is off jogging, or changing diapers, or cleaning the bathroom). But, really, if I wanted T&A, I’d go to a website that’s a lot more enticing (and a lot less covered with ads) than some slapped-together little Blogspot that’s just cutting and pasting writing from newspapers and other sites. How hard is that to do? One of my friends from Boston used to do that, when he worked for an insurance company. He clipped mentions of the company he worked for from various newspapers, and put them all in one convenient place for the PR department. He was an intern, he didn’t get paid, and he rightfully didn’t get complements from folks about how he was able to cut the article out cleanly. But now you guys do it, in between ads for Stubhub and Eagles cheerleader snapshots, and you want … well, let me ask again, what are you actually doing?

I mean, the internet’s great and all – obviously, I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. But now, all of a sudden, everyone’s got a blog, and everyone’s talking about sports and pop culture in the same way that I did almost TEN YEARS AGO. Imitating is fun to do, but I figured it would get old after a few weeks, and since so many folks are still doing it, I’m just trying to figure out why. Seriously – it makes about as much sense as the Red Sox giving the Marlins their future shortstop for a guy that can’t go 5 innings without getting a hangnail. Yet, the Marlins have a superstar in a position where most folks are still playing guys like Luis Rivera (possessor of the Worst Baseball Swing Ever, without question), and I’m still being copied. It’s not that I want to turn into Murray Chass about all this (and, wow, wouldn’t discussion about the Red Sox and Yankees be improved by about 5000% if Chass and the CHB were lost somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, or the sun), but when I see some dude talking about Pam Oliver’s DSL (where the L stands for something that the writer would like S-ing his three-inch D), or another group of paragraphs wondering whether Peyton Manning is gay or not, it’s all I can do to sit on my hands and not send off e-mails that sound like this:

“Dude, I’m sorry that you never got any girls to talk to you in high school, or that your frat buddies have pictures of your balls in someone else’s mouth, or that your job totally sucks compared to mine or your local septic tank cleaner, but if you’re going to try and be ‘funny’ when writing about sports stuff, TRY TO NOT DO A CRAPPY JOB ABOUT IT, OK? You know, it’s possible to talk about women being sexy and attractive without sounding like a Buttafuoco. And it’s also possible to say something about sports that’s not A) the same old thing, B) someone else’s same old thing, C) some old thing that no one wanted to say in the first place because it was TOTALLY STUPID AND POINTLESS TO SAY, or, most importantly, D) MY OLD THING.”

I mean, sure, I always like to joke about, “yep, these are my fans,” but I’m starting to wonder if the dude that sent me that 15-page e-mail breaking down the hotness of all the Facts of Life girls by where they’d hit in the Red Sox lineup, could he be the same dude with a blog telling me to shut up and die while posting pics of Bonnie Bernstein bending over and talking about Derek Jeter and A-Rod playing catch for the 500th time? And how did this happen? When did everyone that read my columns turn into some brainless moron that can’t even string two sentences together without having to show off about how much they think they know about things they don’t know much about? Are these really my fans? Are my fans the reason sports blogs suck? And, if that’s the case, is the reason that sports blogs suck actually my fault?

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.