It’s not even mid-afternoon and we’re learning all kinds of stuff today.  I’m not even sure where to start.

How about with this?  Better grab the tissues, because ESPN has posted the final Bill Simmons’ column to appear in ESPN The Magazine.  We learned from The Big Lead a couple of weeks ago that Simmons wouldn’t be part of the magazine any longer, and Simmons fired off a hacktastic rant to defend the move.  He says it’s because of the “new deadlines”, but the reality is that even in a festering pile of feces like ESPN The Magazine, Simmons’ columns stood out for their overall lameness.

Simmons never got good at writing for the magazine.  Plain and simple.  And in his final column, he proved again that he has no idea how to write one.

In this one, he chose to write about his dad.

Hey, who’s going to complain about a son writing nice things about his dad?  Dad’s are great.  I’m all for them.  I’ve got a great one, myself.

He explains that the “Sports Dad” has recently retired from 33 years as a superintendent, presumably all of them in the inner city hellhole of Easton, Massachusetts.  (If by inner city hellhole you mean a suburb of 25,000 with a median household income of nearly $90,000 and an average home value of $450,000.

Bill thinks his dad should have retired three years ago, and he worried that the stress of dealing with spoiled punks (like his son?) all day and driving 45 minutes (one way!) to work was too much for the old guy.  (Note: The average Chicago commuter needs 32 minutes to get to work, so Dr. Simmons isn’t exactly doing a Bataan Death March to work each day.)

All in all it’s a nice enough piece.  It would have made a great column in a church newsletter or a weekly shopper.  What it has to do with sports and something that bills itself as a national sports magazine is up for debate.

But what we really learned is that Simmons’ dad hasn’t seen the right side of a razor in a very long time.  And, with his ludicrous hair and flavor savor mustache he looks just like Dr. Red Duke, the infamous trauma surgeon and former Health Update host from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

—————————————————————

But that’s not all we’ve learned so far today.

Check this great find, passed along by ESPNChicago.com’s Jon Greenberg (through Paul Sullivan.)

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/news/story?id=4343622
today.

You obviously need Insider to read it, but here’s the good part.

Things certainly are better of late, as scouting director Tim Wilken has brought

some respectability back to the Cubs' recent drafts. The international scouting

department, under the direction of Paul Sullivan, has made some big

breakthroughs, especially in Asia, as the current team in Boise has a pair of

Koreans generating significant buzz: shortstop Hak-Ju Lee and outfielder

Jae-Hoon Ha. Still, there's a lot of work left to do to overcome the mistakes of

the past -- and it's still not enough to allow them to be major players at the

deadline, financial unrest or no.

Who knew Sully was leaving his day job?  No word yet on his plans to shake things up.  But I think he could start by letting Oneri Fleita go back to his old job.

Because Oneri looks just like Muji…oh, never mind.

————————————

And, that life is just better when Tao of Santo is back Twittering again.