Last we checked in, we knew the site would include Bill Simmons, Deadspin contributor Katie Baker, Chuck Klosterman, and Lane Brown, late of New York Magazine. In the linked USA Today interview from earlier this week, however, two new hires were mentioned – Molly Lambert of This Recording, and Chris Ryan of GQ.

On the occasion of Mediaite’s year anniversary earlier this week, some of our staff members and contributors look back on what kind of crazy, weirdo year it was. There are two versions of the story about the last months of the life and times of Eldrick “Tiger” Woods. There’s the sports story, of course, but [...]

The NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals are two games in, and the Boston Celtics have taken a commanding 2-0 lead over the Orlando Magic. Celtic’s star Paul Pierce caused a bit of a stir when he appeared to imply an impending sweep by tweeting out “Anyone got a broom?” The offending tweet caused a bit of a dust-up, even getting mentioned in a post-game press conference, but it now appears that Pierce’s Twitter feed was hacked. What’s up with the Celtics and Twitter?

The sports story here is that the Cleveland Cavaliers, the regular season Eastern Conference champions, are out of the NBA playoffs, falling 94-85 to the Boston Celtics on the road in game six. The still-sports-related subtext is that LeBron James, the #1 draft pick of the 2003 draft, reigning, two-time MVP, and the supposed savior of basketball in Ohio, will be eligible for free agency come the season’s conclusion.

In less than a year, Bill Simmons quickly – and not surprisingly – amassed a fantastic amount of Twitter followers as a sports writer. However, his next step isn’t in quantity; it’s in innovation and devotion to his Boston Celtics. Buried in his NBA Round 2 wrap-up, he unveiled his newest idea: a Twitter account dedicated to starting chants during home games for his team

Just when we’re hit with the latest anecdotal piece in the overwhelming mound of evidence that Twitter is a massively entrenched part of our culture, an organization comes along that still seems to view the platform as an out-of-control threat to their own well-being: Major League Baseball has recently announced it’s barring any writer for its official site from tweeting on any non-baseball topics.

As someone who is one of the many influenced by BIll Simmons, an everyman fan who has been a writer at ESPN.com for more than a decade, I will be among the first to admit he isn’t the pure commoner he once embodied. His reach in sports journalism now includes the NY Times bestseller list, the 30 for 30 sports documentary series he produces and his star-studded podcast, The BS Report. His self-carved empire exists somewhere in the middle of “Booyah” and the screaming heads of Pardon The Interruption. And yet, he still is able to “keep it real.”

The understatement for the first quarter of 2010 is that CBS Sports has had an ok start to 2010. First, its broadcast of Super Bowl XLV became the most watched television program in history, to be followed by its annual domination of March and the NCAA Men’s hoops tournament. But there’s another spring event in the CBS Sports catalog that is going to be a bigger spectacle: this April’s Masters, and this year’s event has the tease of Tiger Woods return as its big draw.

After Friday’s new media showdown between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (via his MLB blog) and ESPN’s Bill Simmons (via his Twitter feed), all was quiet over the weekend.

Then yesterday afternoon, Olbermann fired back, and Simmons’ editor responded to Mediaite.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann let his sense of humor see the light of day on last night’s Daily Show Chatroulette satire, and now he’s already got another notch in the belt of being more down to earth than evidence sometimes suggests.

The target this time is ESPN’s Bill Simmons – a.k.a. The Sports Guy – and his far-reaching Tiger-Woods’s-Comeback-is-Like-Muhammed-Ali’s column that went up on Wednesday on ESPN.com. Update: Simmons responds!

In anticipation of SportsGrid, Mediaite’s upcoming sports baby (babies having babies!), and the crazy Power Grid-related arguing which will follow that launch we’ve decided to count down our list of the top 25 most influential sports bloggers, writers, and tweeters currently shaping the online sports narrative.

Former NBA benchwarmer Paul Shirley has gained a measure of fame through the years, but little of it is directly basketball-related. Thanks to his recent comments about not giving aid to Haiti, that trend continues – and thanks to the nature of the comments, it could be the last headline Shirley ever makes.

After serving a suspension from Twitter by ESPN, Bill Simmons returned yesterday to the social media site and tweeted up a storm.

Interestingly, much of it coincided with ESPN’s Monday Night Football game between Simmmons’ New England Patriots and the New Orleans Saints – the seemingly perfect venue for both sides.

Last week, Bill Simmons had some harsh tweets for staffers (“deceitful scumbags”) at a Boston radio station that just so happens to be an ESPN partner. On Thursday, the network determined that he had violated their Twitter policy and suspended from its use for two weeks. The subsequent blog coverage was biting, as many jumped at the chance to compare Simmons to a child on timeout. Is ESPN cutting off their nose to spite their face?

Earlier today The Big Lead asked if Bill Simmons, ESPN’s prolific columnist and New York Times bestselling author, is “serving an ESPN-imposed 2-week suspension from Twitter.”

Now we have an answer — it’s true. And the explanation of what happened notably came in a very new media way. Find out what’s up with the Sports Guy inside.

Bill Simmons is many things to many sports fans: a popular ESPN columnist, an influential Twitterer, and now, the author of a New York Times #1 bestselling book, The Book of Basketball.

Mediaite recently spoke to Simmons about the pressures of fame and bestsellerdom, his feelings about a fanboy named Will Leitch, and his plans to take over the Power Grid:

ESPN sportswriter Bill Simmons saw his latest, The Book of Basketball, top the bestsellers list this week for hardcover nonfiction, leaving millions of sports obsessives almost unreasonably proud of one of their own. Even some cynical bloggers are along for the ride, as evidenced by today’s Will Leitch-penned love letter “Bill Simmons, Establishment,” on Deadspin. It’s touching, in a Judd Apatow sort of way. But it’s also an insightful take on bloggers going mainstream, a subject we’ve touched on before.

In Bill Simmons‘ The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy you essentially get a 700 page Simmons column, complete with lists of the 96 greatest players of all time, the ten best teams in history and around 1,500 words on how Kobe Bryant compares to Teen Wolf. Nobody knows more about the history of basketball than Bill Simmons.

Being Phil Mushnick ought to be exhausting. His “Equal Time” column, a cranky collection of gripes that generally coalesce around the topic of sports media, runs thrice weekly in the New York Post. That’s a lot of outrage for one writer to manufacture!

We’ve written about ESPN’s Twitter policies several times, and looked into what seems to be allowed and what isn’t.

But, as we’ve seen from perhaps the most well-known ESPN twitterer Bill Simmons, using the medium to start/continue some sports media feuding is definitely allowed.

Just in case our mandate of covering the media is not recursive enough for you, we gather here today to watch the watchmen watch the watchmen. In other words: How did ESPN’s new ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer do in his first column for the World Wide Leader in Sports? The answer: pretty good… if you could make it far enough into the nearly 4,000-word column to get to the point.

A.J. Daulerio is the editor of Deadspin.com, pretty much the top sports blog around and so enjoyably written that even non-sports people are fans, perhaps because of headlines like this: Mets Third Base Coach Does Not Like My Pants And Will Not Eat My Poop Sandwich (UPDATE). (It ‘s the helpful updates that make the [...]

Now that’s more like it! Last night Jon Hamm was a guest on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and it was almost like they read my mind (or my post): Plenty of Mad Men talk, plus actual news in the form of a very cool video showing Hamm’s prep for the Season 3 ad where he’s sitting in an office filled with water, plus Hamm reading a “letter home” joking about fathering a child with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Linkbait, anyone?

During the the Yankees – Red Sox game last night, ESPN was experimenting with a new technology – one that takes on extra significance in light of last week’s rigid internal memo clamping down on social media. ESPN told Mediaite the “specific tools and implementations are in development” for greater incorporation of social media into ESPN.com and beyond”, and last night that plan took effect. How did it go?

This past Thursday Mediaite celebrated its one month anniversary. A couple of people have since asked us if we could break down our over all traffic numbers and publish the most trafficked Power Grid pages since July 6. The answer is yes! Turns out the results are actually sort of fascinating: who knew Christopher Hitchens had so much Power Grid game! Check out our inaugural Top Ten Power Grid Players after the jump.