WHAT A MESS! Long ago, SportsCenter (Pictured Chris Berman and Greg Gumbel, circa 1985) was a simple sports news show. Now it’s so overloaded with nonsensical non-news it resembles the famous candy episode of “I Love Lucy”. (
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Espn has become that 1952 “I Love Lucy” episode, when Lucy and Ethel are hired to wrap candies that spill onto a conveyor belt. The candy ends up in their pockets, in their mouths, on the floor. Just a big, ridiculous mess.
Sixty years later, ESPN plays the role of that conveyor belt. It habitually seizes the big names in sports and beats you silly with them. Brett Favre (then Aaron Rodgers), LeBron James, Terrell Owens, Dwight Howard, Jerry Jones.
And now, Tim Tebow.
Tuesday’s 1 p.m. “SportsCenter,” long lost as a valued stop, was a reenactment of that Lucy episode.
ESPN’s, left-side vertical topic list included six items. The first was, “Happy 25th Tim Tebow.” The sixth was, “Tebow’s Birthday.”
On the main part of the screen, ostensibly used to show movement — sports action, even — as opposed to reading what’s on the screen, images from Jets camp appeared.
There was more to read. The images were of teenaged girls holding signs wishing Tim Tebow a happy 25th birthday. The graphic beneath made for more reading: “Jets’ QB Tim Tebow Celebrates 25th Birthday.”
So there you go. ESPN, near the top of SportsCenter, covered the same “big,” non-story four times — at the same time.
Too much candy, all at once, makes a gooey mess. Makes you sick, too.
It was ESPN, not NBC, that presented the most ridiculous Olympic TV moments.
Early in the Games, “Pardon the Interruption” hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon issued “spoiler alerts,” suggestions, early in the shows, that viewers who didn’t want to know that day’s results from London now turn away for a few minutes while the results were being discussed.
Nice, viewer-friendly touch.
One problem, though: As these alerts were being spoken, and throughout PTI, Olympics results appeared on the ESPN crawl along the bottom of the screen.
* Well, Cablevision finally cleared NFL Network, thus good news, bad news: Thursday night football, invented by the NFL for NFLN — there was no previous demand for Thursday night games — and a sure boost in Cablevision subscriber fees.
Turns out what Cablevision represented as a concocted, short-season network no one much wanted and no one should be forced to pay for, is now a network that many really wanted and for which now all will be forced to pay.
But that’s the Dolanvision way. And now the NFL’s way, too!
Of course, had Cablevision owned even a tiny piece of the NFLN, it would’ve been cleared from the network’s start.
NFL remains game of brutal violence
The Nfl, better late than never, can demonstrate its concern for head injuries and players sentenced to a lifetime, often shortened, of neurological and internal organ damage. And it can show its tough side on matters of criminality among players. But both issues remain significant and highly active, impossible to ignore.
There’s still an epidemic of arrests of (college-bred) players for incivilities ranging from drunken driving, to domestic battery, to possession of assault rifles. If three days pass without an NFLer being arrested, well, that’s impressive.
As for the on-field human carnage, the NFL continues to move closer to a blood sport, closer to indefensible.
The first 18 minutes of game-time in Friday’s Jets-Bengals preseason opener saw four injury timeouts.
The Colts, in their preseason opener, lost linebacker Pat Angerer with a broken foot that will require surgery. Backup linebacker Scott Lutrus was lost for the season with a torn ACL. Three other Colts were injured, two with bruised ribs.
In the Lions’ preseason opener, wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi was removed with a suspected concussion. Falcons linebacker Akeem Dent won’t play this weekend. He’s out with a concussion from the preseason opener.
Early in the Cowboys’ exhibition opener, tight end and future Hall of Famer Jason Witten left with a lacerated spleen. He’ll likely be out for over a month. Witten was hit by a clean, chest-high shot, but nonetheless a shot, one designed to knock him down (and perhaps even silly), as opposed to an attempt to tackle him.
On and on, and on. More coming this weekend. Plenty more.
Bounties or not, the understanding remains: Football is violent, thus the team that outbrutalizes its opponent has an advantage. Tackling remains optional, but still not preferred.
Aresco the right man for Big East
I’ve known new Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco as a CBS Sports executive for a long time. He’s a warm and thoroughly decent man. I suspect that if there’s a man who can come out of this kind of gig at such a time with his warmth, decency and dignity intact, he’s the man.
* At Yankee Stadium on Monday, the large outfield screen showed footage of:
1) Phil Rizzuto, running as fast as he could to first (was Robinson Cano paying attention?).
2) Mickey Mantle, after hitting a home run, quickly circling the bases, head modestly down (unlike today’s sluggers, Mantle was unable to slap or shake the first base coach’s hand because, when the ball cleared the fence, he was on his way to second).
3) Rafael Soriano doing his all-about-me bit, violently ripping his Yankees jersey free from his pinstriped pants after retiring the last batter in a home game.
* Nice catch by reader Sean Curran: On Sunday, South Korean Yeon Ryu won the LPGA Jamie Farr Classic. Jamie Farr played Corporal Klinger on TV’s M*A*S*H, set in South Korea during the Korean War. … Astonishing, how Nike influence (money) misused U.S. Olympians to change our colors from red, white and blue to Nike black and white, while the media mostly wrote and said nothing about it.
* As booth trios go, and generally they go badly, YES’s group of Michael Kay, David Cone and Paul O’Neill this week worked well, mostly by not trying too hard. A little bit of this — humor, storytelling, applicable analysis — a little bit of that. They even allowed TV to be TV, once in a while allowing the games to breathe on their own. … On Monday, the Yankees sent an e-mail noting that they had signed Derek Lowe. But the bottom of the missive carried the more important info: a link to purchase a Derek Lowe-Yankees jersey.
* Lookalikes: 12-year-old Morgan Maschler submits Rory McIlroy and One Direction (boy band) singer Harry Styles.