There are times — too many of them times — when you want to take ESPN by its shoulders, shake it hard and demand to know what it’s doing, to sports, to kids; what in the world is it thinking?
Saturday morning’s “SportsCenter” featured a “highlight” from the previous night’s UConn-Louisville game. In the first half, Louisville’s Peyton Siva went on a breakaway. When he reached the basket, instead of laying the ball in or slamming it down, he performed a 360-degree spin, then dunked it.
It was a spectacularly foolish slam. He flipped an easy two into a difficult, dopey and dangerous two, putting his team at unnecessary risk and himself at risk of deserved ridicule and embarrassment. But, as many have before him with many more to come, Siva chose showboating over sense, himself over his team.
On ESPN, in keeping with its practiced, conditioned heritage for mindless treatment of sports, co-anchor Neil Everett was thoroughly delighted by Siva’s move. And his excitement implied that it’s a given — we all loved
it, we were all jumping up (and inevitably) down for joy over Siva’s slam.
Naturally, ESPN always has it both ways. Had Siva blown that layup, ESPN would have given him the video razz-berries, mocked him, let us know that his reckless, senseless move hurt the team (quick cut to Rick Pitino reaction shot).
One is left to conclude that Everett would advise such play, that he’d encourage a kid to forsake two easy points to perform a risky stunt for the crowd and whatever cameras happen to be in the house.
In 1998, when the Kansas City Chiefs were penalized 15 times in a game, many for taunting, showboating, late hits and every act of unsportsmanlike conduct, their disgusted head coach, Marty Schottenheimer, explained, “It’s the ‘SportsCenter’ mentality.”
TV’s links linguists can’t find fair way
Golf-ish, the TV language of golf never actually spoken anywhere by golfers or broadcasters except on TV, is back and badder than ever. Australian Peter Donegan
, heard this weekend on the Golf Channel’s IMG production of the LPGA event from Thailand, was brutal.
Bogeys? What’s a bogey? Those are “blemishes on the scorecard.” Oy.
And with Suzann Pettersen
lining up a long eagle putt, Donegan invited viewers to stay tuned to see “if she’s able to manufacture a two-putt.” Nurse!
After John Senden
missed a putt in the PGA event from Los Angeles’ Riviera Country Club on Saturday, CBS’ David Feherty
explained it as a misread: “It breaks toward the ocean — the Atlantic.”
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The toughest job in sportscasting? How about being Doc Emrick
‘s backup on Devils telecasts, standing in for the best? But MSG’s Steve Cangialosi
, as he did Saturday, does it all the time, and does it superbly.
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The NBA’s Slam Dunk contest (and attending fanfare) has become a cheesy entry from one of those “Jackass” movies, but TNT and ESPN treat it seriously, like the World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and NBA Finals.
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The next time your cable system whines, ostensibly on your behalf, that it may have to drop a network because it has become too damned expensive for its subscribers to shoulder, think of this: Time Warner Cable just purchased Lakers’ local TV rights in a 20-year deal estimated to be worth close to $3 billion.
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For barely filtered candor, there’s ESPN’s Teddy Atlas
and few else. At the top of Wednesday’s boxing card on ESPN2, he tried to be kind, but it came out like this: The first bout could be competitive because it features a younger boxer, who may never be any good, against a vet, who no longer is.
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Man of the Week: New Orioles first baseman Derrek Lee
. Asked on SiriusXM why he signed with Baltimore, Lee said, “To be honest, for a lot of selfish reasons. First, they offered the most money. Secondly, I just thought that on the one-year deal it’s a great park to play in.”
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From Fred Rosen
of Boynton Beach, Fla.: As long as the Jets and Giants moved to New Jersey but remained the New York Jets and New York Giants, shouldn’t the Nets, upon moving to Brooklyn, remain the New Jersey Nets? Or, as Fred’s pal, Lee Mitchell
, suggests, the Brooklyn Nets.
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Sensitive to charges of sexism and high hypocrisy, Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue next year will present only swimsuits, no models.
Hurleys’ behavior a bad ‘fit’
For televised sensations, Pitt-St. John’s and Texas-Nebraska on Saturday were only nearly as sensational as St. Francis’s win at Wagner on MSG. Wild stuff.
Pity, though, that sensational doesn’t mean it wasn’t afflicted by adults.
Two spectacular, frantic comebacks won it for the Terriers. Yet both claw-backs seemed aided by the Hurley brothers, Wagner head coach Dan and assistant Bobby, who spent as much time berating the officials — endlessly complaining and demonstrating to them, cussing toward them, stamping, stomping, hollering at them, jumping at them, running up and down after them — as they did coaching their team.
That neither was ejected, nor even hit with a T, also was remarkable.
The Coaches Hurley even carried on during the postgame handshake, saying something to anger St. Francis coach Glenn Braica, as well as assistant Danny Nigro. Dan Hurley even had unsolicited words for one of Braica’s players. Ugly stuff, gentlemen.
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It’s 3 a.m. Do you know where your wide receiver is?
Unless you’re a milkman or rushing your wife (or baby mama) to the maternity ward, what’s the chance of anything good breaking out when you’re out and about between 3 a.m. and dawn? Yet 3 a.m. has become the witching hour for NFLers to be involved in serious street hassles. Last Saturday, Redskins wideout and kick returner Brandon Banks
was stabbed outside a D.C. club, shortly after 3 a.m.
That same morning, shortly after 3 a.m., Chargers wide receiver Legedu Naanee
was arrested in Indianapolis, charged with public intoxication and hindering a police investigation of a crime scene — a murder.
BTW, Braylon Edwards
‘ DWI arrest this past season was at 4:40 a.m.