I’ve been reading a lot of Bill Simmons these days (”The Sports Guy” from ESPN). He can rock a column like no one I’ve seen since Hunter S. Thompson or Chuck Klosterman, and the beauty of it is, I don’t really care what he’s writing about. Yes, I’m partially fixated on his columns about the NBA because I’m a rabid basketball fan, but while I hate both football and baseball, I find that when Simmons is writing about them, I’m nonetheless totally interested. Some people are just geniuses like that. Hunter Thompson’s book on the 1972 McGovern campaign made me a political junkie for a few weeks, when in my real life, it’s something I basically can’t stand to even speak about.

Recently, one Simmons column featured an extended email-engagement with author Malcolm Gladwell (”The Tipping Point” and “Outliers”). Their debate focused upon a group of celebrity athletes whom Simmons had identified as the opposite of Gladwell’s “Outliers:” in his words, “Inliers.” Allow me to quote:

“In “Outliers,” your thesis was that success wasn’t as random as people seem to think, and that outside factors play a much bigger role than we realize.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book even if you totally missed an obvious chapter: How the dawn of the Internet made Anna Kournikova about three times as wealthy as she would have been had she broken onto the tennis scene 10 years earlier. Does she bank $50 million in endorsements without horny teenagers Googling her? No way. . . I also think you should have done Donna Summer, Scooby-Doo and Jerry Seinfeld chapters.

My idea for the sequel? “Inliers.” Not as catchy, and it kind of sounds like a bad George Clooney movie, but bear with me.