The sports coverage and announcing thread

[MFer 0]

The latest ESPN retarded discussion point on SportsCenter was "Joba Chamberlain: Cy Young candidate?" He's got a 2.24 ERA, but he's only 4-3 with 84.1 IP. The 99K's are great but his WHIP is over 1.2 and he is neither the most dominant starter or reliever in the AL this year. Even if he wins 10 of his remaining starts that gets him to 14 wins and at best 150-160 IP which is what Lee, Burnett, Halladay, Saunders, Mussina and Matsuzaka have already posted this season for the most part and K-Rod will probably end up saving close to, if not more than, 60 games. I hate how ESPN loves to present arguments based on nothing.

Yeah, I saw that. Usually Brian Kenny's pretty good, but he was pushing that argument way too hard.

[Mik 0]

I just saw a commercial on ESPN saying to stay tuned to Sportscenter to see how Manny compares to Babe.

 

Gag me.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Frankie Rodriguez better not win the Cy Young because of his inflated saves total. Saves are silly. I want more innings pitched than that.

 

 

If K-Rod gets 60 saves he'll win the the Cy Young going away... and sabermetricians will cry themselves to sleep.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

Deadspin's favorite pair o' tits is under scrutiny for some odd behavior in the Miller Park visitors' clubhouse, setting female sports reporting back several years:

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/sports/colu...ct-red-hot-Cubs

 

Very odd indeed. It's not even as if she's using her sexuality to glean any sort of access (as it were), information, or insight that any other sports journalist would never be able to attain. She just stands around and chirps out some obvious, mundane, tautological, or otherwise worthless remarks about the players, while possessing fantastic breasts. I mean, yeah, she looks good, but does she look SO good that she is thoroughly beyond reproach in the (snort) "journalistic responsibilities" that come with working at the Booyah? I wouldn't go that far. Suspend her for a week or two to teach her a lesson (rawr!) and move someone else to the Take Rick Sutcliffe's Sexual Harassment And Like It beat just to shake things up a little bit. Rachel Nichols?

 

 

This is what she was wearing.

 

 

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

Mike and the Mad Dog finally broke up.

 

Link

[naiwf 0]

That sucks. Russo didn't add much to the show the last few years, but I can't take Mike by himself either. He hates the Mets, doesn't watch any hockey or NBA games and I can only take so many hours of Yankees talk every week/month/year. The FAN doesn't really have anyone else they could slide into Russo's seat either. My gut says the ratings will slide gradually over the rest of this year and a change will be made by January.

[Guest Cal Moriarty]

The comments on that blog post are kind of interesting when they get to discussing how this will affect YES programming, or if they'll be moved to SNY, or possibly MSG. I know New York is big, but do you guys really need at least three team-owned local sports channels? Isn't there MSG2 as well? That's a lot of time to fill, and obviously, if it's being filled with a camera in a radio studio, it's not being filled terribly well.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

M&MD have been on YES since it launched in 2002. I don't really know why. I guess it's cheap filler. YES does have lots of original stuff as well. Apparently the network itself is worth more than the actual team.

[naiwf 0]

The comments on that blog post are kind of interesting when they get to discussing how this will affect YES programming, or if they'll be moved to SNY, or possibly MSG. I know New York is big, but do you guys really need at least three team-owned local sports channels? Isn't there MSG2 as well? That's a lot of time to fill, and obviously, if it's being filled with a camera in a radio studio, it's not being filled terribly well.

 

We don't need them, but once the Yankees went off and formed their own network and started generating huge sums of revenues the Mets followed in their footsteps. The majority of the programming on YES, SNY and the MSGs is crap. I pretty much don't watch MSG anymore since the Rangers lose some of their games to the Versus network and the Knicks are garbage. YES at least has Nets games in the "offseason", SNY has nothing of note.

[Mike wanna be 0]

The comments on that blog post are kind of interesting when they get to discussing how this will affect YES programming, or if they'll be moved to SNY, or possibly MSG. I know New York is big, but do you guys really need at least three team-owned local sports channels? Isn't there MSG2 as well? That's a lot of time to fill, and obviously, if it's being filled with a camera in a radio studio, it's not being filled terribly well.

I'd imagine it doesn't cost that much to record what's going on in the radio booth, and they can sell ad space for the televised version as well as the radio show; sounds like a win for the station, actually, they get 2x the advertising revenue for the same programming.

[naiwf 0]

Francesca is basically doing his "sad voice" discussing why the split happened, but it's so fake because he's been patting himself on the back the whole time. I guess I'll have to start listening to ESPN on 1050.

[Red Baron 0]

TSN2.

 

 

Okay then...

[MFer 0]

Dana Jacobson is about ready to literally kill Skip Bayless for his lack of respect for Michael Phelps.

[Darthtiki 0]

So apparently, Jeff Kent thinks Vin Scully talks too much

LINK

 

 

[Guest WhackingCockDick]

Francesca is basically doing his "sad voice" discussing why the split happened, but it's so fake because he's been patting himself on the back the whole time. I guess I'll have to start listening to ESPN on 1050.

I checked out some Mike and the Mad Dog on youtube to acquaint myself with this program. Chris Russo's voice is in a special class of grating, but I think I prefer him to the other guy, the comatose mope. It doesn't seem like they have a lot of fun, and it feels like the sort of thing that just wears you down after a while. Luckily, my sports talk just consists of grumpy old rich guys mocking the white working class.

 

"I'm 40. You don't get better when you are 40."

He's a man.

[MFer 0]

holy shit...Coach on ESPN First Take!

[Red Baron 0]

Was he any good?

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

I heard some of the Tirico & Van Pelt show today.

 

Yuck. It's awful.

[cabbageboy 0]

Coach wasn't too bad but his segments are mostly kept short. Just the brief bits showing a highlight, that sort of thing. I'd almost like to see him mediate 1st and 10 and try and corral Bayless and whoever.

[Brett Favre 0]

Coach is good. He did MSG New York a bit.

[UZI Suicide 0]

Mike and The Mad Dog breaking up really sucks.

 

I have SIRIUS so I'll be able to hear Chris Russo, but I don't think either of them is going to be as good without the other one. Granted, I think Russo will be much better off, but still.

 

I think Francesca on his own is going to be brutally bad. He's just too mundane and full of himself and it's going to be even worse with nobody there to disagree with him. I just wish they could have waited until after baseball season to do this, because I was really looking forward to Dog going off on Francesca after the Yanks are officially out of the playoffs.

 

Oh, and Jeff Kent is a fucking douchebag.

[Guest WhackingCockDick]

I'm normally not a two-wrongs-make-a-right guy, but you know what, since apparently Ron Santo is being held out of the Hall of Fame for being told to click his heels after wins, everyone should conspire to keep Jeff Kent out for being such a monumental asswipe.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I'm normally not a two-wrongs-make-a-right guy, but you know what, since apparently Ron Santo is being held out of the Hall of Fame for being told to click his heels after wins, everyone should conspire to keep Jeff Kent out for being such a monumental asswipe.

Santo doesn't even have heels.

[Guest WhackingCockDick]

He has gold gloves and aluminum feet!

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

Eric Kausilliwhatever annoys the sheer hell out of me again this week while filling in for Greenberg on ESPN Radio with the latest imitation of Tony Schivoine by an ESPN employee.

 

Get this one, 2008 is the greatest single calender year in the history of professional sports!

 

And he said this without the decency to bring up other years to debate against! I mean off the top of my head, 1969 was a very, VERY big year;

 

You had the AFL winning the Super Bowl in a game that sealed the merger, You had the Miracle Mets setting the baseball world on fire all year, And you had the last ring for Bill Russell.

 

Why, WHY must these commentators constantly come up with hyperbole every single time something major happens? I understand the need for them to commentate in the present moment, but don't insult history by coming out with statements like "greatest X in history" just because its fresh in your mind, and you are too lazy to do research. Or you fail to realize that generally history does the judging.

[Guest WhackingCockDick]

The four-letter network is in the hyperbole business, and Sillyass is one of their worse personalities. I don't know what else you expect. For whatever it's worth, 2008 has had one of the best Super Bowls ever, certainly the best that my age group has seen, and with all the emphasis that's placed on FOOTBALLLLLLLL these days, that counts for a lot in people's minds, even though the Stanley Cup was a little forgettable and the NBA Finals never really lived up to the hype. Then there's all the Phelps crap that I don't care about, but the rest of the country likes having its heroes force-fed to them, so there's that. This is shaping up to be a great baseball season, too. 1969 was big, yes. 1996 had the 72-win Bulls, an unforgettable Packers run (or pass, as it were!), and a pretty amazing Avs team. We'll see about 2008.

[Guest Vitamin X]

1996 was probably my favorite sports year, since I was really into hockey at the time and liked the Avs so seeing them and the Packers both get a championship was pretty nice.

[Guest WhackingCockDick]

Sports columnist Jay Mariotti has left the Chicago Sun-Times to pursue other opportunities. Mariotti, also a regular panelist on ESPN's "Around the Horn," joined the Sun-Times in 1991.

It's now official: nobody in Chicago sports media has a sack. If that's the end of Mariotti working locally, thanks for doing your best to keep the Jerry Reinsdorf p.r. machine in check. So who's gonna be the last guy to disembark the sinking ship that is the Chicago Sun-Times? Robert Novak's brain tumor might render him unaware of his surroundings by then. Guess it's nothing but fawning from here on out. Vinny del Negro can't be so bad, cuz Jerry's a good guy, real good guy. Oh, golly, that Ozzie sure is at it again, ha ha!

[Guest Vitamin X]

It's not just him though, Czech. A lot of regional media, especially print media, is falling by the wayside as having a global (read: web) presence and all that is becoming infinitely more important. Some companies like the NYT and LA Times and all that have done a pretty good job keeping up with the times (no pun intended) but I could see that the Chicago Sun-Times may not be as good a ship to stay on board with as, say, ESPN or some other media giant.

[Guest WhackingCockDick]

Yeah, it's more when than if for the Bright One. What's worse, the Trib is hanging on for dear life, too: they've made cuts across the board, including the sports department. Being from a family of middle-class suburban Republican types, we've always been Tribune subscribers, and the reports that it's about to become a dumbed-down USA Today (yeah, I don't know how either) while the other newspaper ceases to exist are pretty harrowing stuff for people who still like the experience of opening and reading a broadsheet newspaper. My only uses for the Sun-Times were Robert Feder's media column and Mariotti, so my reading of that publication has now been halved. I'm sure Jay is going to land on his feet, though.

 

By the way, word on the street is that Mariotti quit because Rick Telander got to write about Barack Obama instead of him. Go figure; both of those asswipes are responsible for the departure of my favorite sportswriter.