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ESPN suspended Bill Simmons from Twitter for a few days after he called the Skip Bayless-Richard Sherman First Take meltdown last week awful and embarrassing. His tweets may have been a little harsh especially when talking about his own employer, but as tough as it is to say, we agree with the Sports Guy. There really was no winner. Sherman came off as clueless, dumb, and repetitive, while Skip was being Skip, which won't win him anything. Check out more Twitter fails from Bill Simmons and others in our Brief History Of Sports Writers Getting in Trouble on Twitter.
RELATED: Seahawks' Richard Sherman Ethered Skip Bayless On ESPN's "First Take" (Video)
Bill Simmons
Date: 10/26/2009 and 11/10/2009
Website/Publisher: ESPN
These tweets got Simmons suspended two weeks from Twitter by ESPN. But it was a very fugazi suspension because he was still allowed to tweet about a book he had coming up. Maybe that half-ass punishment is what made him feel he could sling dirt at his own network just a few years later. As for what he said, he targeted Boston radio station WEEI, who had just announced a partnership with ESPN. Simmons criticized the Boston station and called them scumbags.
Jon Krawczynski
Date: 1/24/2011
Website/Publisher: Associated Press
Nobody likes ref's much and as a sports society we love to see coaches and even players get into a referee's grill. For some reason, Jon Krawczynski, who covers Minnesota pro sports for the Associated Press, got in trouble for bashing NBA officials. If there is ever a pro league with suspect refs it's the L. Nobody has forgotten ref Tim Donahue or the constant skeptical calls in the NBA. Hats off to Krawczynski, good tweet.
Michael Smith
Date: 7/13/2011
Website/Publisher: ESPN
After an awful crash in the Tour de France, ESPN's Michael Smith took to Twitter and sent out a series of tweets that got him in some hot water with bike enthusiasts around the world. We suggest Michael Smith just stays away from any cycling topics in the future.
Jason Whitlock
Date: 2/11/2012
Website/Publisher: ESPN
Jason Whitlock was just trying to get a few laughs, nothing you can knock him for. But unfortunately for him people didn't take it as well as he hoped they would. His little play on Jeremy Lin and Asian stereotypes didn't make people smile at all. Instead, it made him the target of some hate in response to his tweet. But honestly, who cares what Jason Whitlock has to say about anything?
Joe Cowley
Date: April 2012
Website/Publisher:The Chicago Sun-Times
Sports journalist, Joe Cowley had to delete his Twitter account after his series of sexist tweets went viral. It's crazy how serious some people take things. His comments were supposed to be taken as jokes but everybody just chalked it up to egotistical sexist garbage.
Tony Grossi
Date: January 2012
Website/Publisher: The Plain Dealer
Cleveland Browns beat writer Tony Grossi was reassigned for tweeting this about Browns owner Randy Lerner: “He is a pathetic figure, the most irrelevant billionaire in the world.”
Yeah, that's good enough to get you put onto a different beat. Later, we found out that Grossi thought he was sending a private tweet and later apologized. This is one disciplinary action we have to agree with. He has no business writing tweets, let alone writing tweets professionally.
Guy Adams
Date: July 2012
Website/Publisher: The Independent (UK)
Throughout the Olympics, Guy Adams took to Twitter and ripped NBC repeatedly for its coverage of the Games in America. Tweets like: "Am I alone in wondering why NBColympics think its f*cking acceptable to pretend this road race is being broadcast live?" and "Matt Lauer: ‘Madagascar, a location indelibly associated with a couple of recent animated movies."
After making fun of Matt Lauer a couple of times, the next thing you know his Twitter account was suspended. Both NBC and Twitter were both in the wrong for suspending Adams for sharing his point of view and the public took to Twitter in defending him.