So, what’d you expect from ESPN? A classy, dignified pregame to last night’s “Decision” by LeBron James? The preface was everything ESPN does to everything, and that ain’t good.
“We’re all on the edge of our seats,” SportsCenter anchor Linda Cohn said at 8:05 p.m.
If so, perhaps that came from slumping in our seats, a weary response to too much of too much. By the time James got around to it, the whole thing seemed less suspensful than Geraldo Rivera prying open Al Capone’s vault.
At 8:07, nearly an hour and a half before James named the name, SportsCenter co-host Ryan Burr asked, “But now, in the final hour, where things can really start to change, what is coming out of LeBron’s camp, now?”
How’s that? Things can really start to change in the last hour? How does he know that? Based on past “Decisions?” This one was unprecedented, and for the sake of sports, modesty and dignity, we should hope it stays unprecedented; we should hope nothing this ugly happens again.
As always with TV, the going-to-the-Heat telecast carried the whiff of a fix, of “Follow the money.”
Jim Gray, the “chosen” independent interviewer who took James’ declaration, did a nice job of keeping it low-key while stretching it, but, according to broadcasting sources, Gray was chosen because of his “special sales relationship” with the online college, the University of Phoenix, one of the telecast’s primary sponsors. Gray’s Monday Night Football pregame show Westwood One Radio is sponsored by the University of Phoenix.
And James’ first day-after exclusive interview has been scheduled to be this morning with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” That’s ABC, owned by Disney, which also owns ESPN.
The one who seemed to bring the most subdued, dignified feel to the night was James, who spoke like a pro, a team guy, a modest guy, a good guy. He came out much better than those who advise him had advised.
One day — soon, hopefully — James will take a hard look at the last few weeks and encourage the next free agent superstars to do it differently, to do it more gracefully, to do it better.
And, until ESPN changes its style and direction to replace hype and self-promotion with its original, long-gone good sense of sport — to avoid doing it on and with ESPN.
In real World, Cup final time all wrong
Not that many, by now, believe anything ESPN claims, but Sunday’s World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands on ABC/ESPN is scheduled to start at 2:30 p.m., ET, not at 1:30, as ESPN was trying to sell to its viewers yesterday.
* No fooling, I couldn’t agree more with Mike Francesa: The immodest excess attached to everything and everyone in the LeBron James sell is nauseating.
But doesn’t Francesa hear that in himself when he speaks of how he only sits in the best seats, makes big dough, mixes only with A-listers and clearly is far superior to anyone who is listening?
* The next golf broadcaster who refers to a putter as “the flat stick” gets three noogies.
Incidentally, putters aren’t flat; they have a couple of degrees of loft in them or the ball, sitting on grass, would have a tough time rolling.
It’s Mass. hysteria as usual
THIS week’s story about Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry stumping for Boston’s Kevin Youkilis to be elected to the AL All-Star team — “I’m Kevin Youkilis and I approved this message” — sorta reminds us of a story another Red Sox, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, has told.
After receiving a hate-spewing letter from a Boston alderman who claimed Lee’s anti-establishment politics as evidence of anti-American activism, Lee returned the letter with this:
“Dear Alderman, I think you should know that some jerk has gotten hold of your stationery.”
* The MLB Network continues to do niche cable programming proud. On Sunday at 8 p.m., it has the 1965 All-Star Game, from Minnesota’s 25-years-gone Metropolitan Stadium — the first time that game has been shown nationally since the day it was televised live on NBC.
There’s a lot to look for and listen to. Sixteen players in that game became Hall of Famers, and a 24-year-old Milwaukee Braves catcher, Joe Torre, hit one of five home runs. MLB Network even (and wisely) left in a few commercials, including one for the Plymouth Valiant.
Bob Costas, 13 when that game was played, speaks the intro. Jack Buck and Joe Garagiola were in NBC’s booth.
The black and white film’s arrival at MLB Network makes for a good story, too. The only known recording of the game came to Secaucus, N.J., eventually, starting from an Alaskan TV station. Years ago, the biggest televised sports and news events wound up in film reel boxes in Alaska and Hawaii for viewing by U.S. servicemen, then shipment to our servicemen stationed further into the Far East.
The 1965 All-Star Game reels made it, somehow, from Minnesota to Alaska, to the Sports Museum of New England, then to MLB Productions. There is still an Alaska, August, 1965, postmark on the packaging containing the three reels.