Recently in The Worldwide Leader Category

I'm going to make this press conference brief. As you all know by now, I had an affair with a 22-year-old ESPN employee. Because of that, I have been suspended indefinitely from my duties as an analyst for postseason games and ESPN's Baseball Tonight. This woman has stalked and harassed my wife and children, so I ask that you please respect my privacy at this difficult time for me and my family. However, I will take a few brief questions. Yes, Buster Olney?
Is this for real? Or are you just pretending to be a lecherous douchebag, like you pretended to be a GM in those "press conferences" you made us do a few years back? You know, those "press conferences" that robbed all of us of our professional dignity and integrity?
This is totally real. Believe me, I wish it wasn't...
Oh, so it's like when you pretended to be GM of the Mets!
No, Buster, I was an actual GM. You know, I'm pretty proud of what I...
Hey, Steve, Jeremy Schaap here. Are you attracted to the criminally insane? Or are those the only women you can convince to sleep with you?
On the advice of my attorney, I'm going to have to...
Steve, Peter Gammons here. In the litany of bad decisions you've made in your life, which is worse: having sex with some random kookadook who ruined your life, or trading Melvin Mora for Mike Bordick?
Mike Bordick had some pretty big hits for us down the stretch in...
How about Jason Isringhausen for Billy Taylor?
Billy Taylor was a fine closer who...
How about you trying to trade both Jose Reyes and David Wright while they were still prospects?
Peter, those deals didn't go through, so...
Steve, you nearly ruined the Mets, you were universally hated as a talking head, and now your personal life is in shambles and you've got zero credibility because you couldn't keep it in your pants. All because you got off on a power trip to bedding a subordinate less than half your age.
Do you have a question, Buster?
No, I don't, Steve. I just wanted to remind you how totally fucked you are right now.
Thanks, Buster. Okay, thank you all for your time. I have to go now...
Oh no, Steve, you're not going anywhere. This is where you stay now.
This is where I stay now? I don't understand.
ESPN has an Ironic Punishment room for all of its employees who commit sexual harassment.
Yeah. This is where they've been keeping Sean Salisbury for the past two years. His cell phone constantly rings, but it's always other dudes texting him pictures of their junk.
IT'S TORTURE! DELICIOUS TUMESCENT TORTURE!

The great thing about sports in general--and baseball in particular, I think--is that it turns adults into little kids again. It makes us marvel at amazing feats, believe in miracles...

/the theme from The Natural swells

Sorry, almost had a Costner moment there. Schmaltz aside, sports are fun because they can bring us unbridled joy and enthusiasm. We can all go a little nuts when our team wins The Big Game, pump our fists and proclaim THAT'S THE BEST DAMN GAME I'VE EVER SEEN!

And when I say "we", I mean "the fans". That should not include members of the media, who are paid to be impartial and stoic and have a sense of perspective during even the most thrilling moments. Jayson Stark of ESPN must have missed that day at J-school, because he busted out a column about game 4 of the NLCS that blew my mind with its complete lack of historic perspective or rational thought.

When last we met Mr. Stark, he was advising the Mets (via anonymous MLB scouts) to trade Jose Reyes. So his judgment is already suspect in my eyes. My opinion of him has not been elevated by his piece about Monday night's thriller, entitled "Phillies walk off into history".

He sets the scene with a series of one-sentence paragraphs, describing how the Phillies were down to their last strike when Jimmy Rollins belted a two-run double into the right field gap, completing a come-from-behind victory and putting Philadelphia on top three games to one in the series.

It was a dramatic win, to say the least. It deserves some dramatic prose. What it does not deserve is to be described as "an October baseball game that is going to be talked about for the rest of our lifetimes."

Maybe Stark has powers of prognostication that I don't. But "talked about for the rest of our lifetimes"?! This was, at best, the third-best playoff game played in the past week. It was the second-best playoff game played that day. Games 2 and 3 of this year's ALCS--extra-inning, tension-filled marathons--were both better.

Hey, it's the All Star Break! Celebrate with this piece from 2008, wherein  I recount how ESPN tried to turn Josh Hamilton's very good performance at the Home Run Derby into The Greatest Story Ever Told. Smell the goodness after the jump. (Original post here.)

Not long ago, I was forced to back-handedly apologize to Newsday's Wallace Matthews, my most hated sportswriter. For years, I insisted he was one of the worst writers ever. Then I ran into Howie Carr, and even I had to concede there are worse humans than Wally.

I find myself humbled again. Last week, I penned a post on the execrable play-by-play work of ESPN's Chris Berman and Rick Sutcliffe. I even said they were worse than the unholy trinity of Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, and Steve Phillips.

Trust me, after last night, I will never write such words again.

Miller, Morgan, and Phillips decided to forego the piddling baseball game between the Mets and the Giants. Instead, they regaled the audience with a master class on Gut and Grit and Edge. To wit: The Mets don't have it. They proceeded to discuss which member of the 'core' should be traded.

If you don't listen to sports talk radio, you might not know what this refers to. Over the winter, Mike Francesa made quite a bit of hay positing the following theory: The Mets have a core of David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran. Since they haven't won in the last three years with this core, then one or more of them must be dealt away.

Francesa has no stated opinion on which of the three should go. Or rather, he has no coherent strategy. In the offseason, he advocated trading David Wright. After Wright started to hit and Reyes made some baserunning blunders, he spent an entire week begging the Mets to trade Reyes. Way to stick to your guns, Fatso.

He also has no idea how you'd replace the production that would be lost if any one of these players were traded. That hasn't stopped him from hammering this point over and over again, when not shoving buttered Suzy Q's into his snack-hole. Other NY media types followed suit, because everyone bows down to The Sports Pope. And now the national sports media has picked up the narrative--particularly lazy, unimaginative types like Miller, Morgan, and Phillips.

Keep in mind, the Mets had won 11 of their last 13 going into Sunday. Keep in mind that the Mets are in first place right now (though if this team has proven anything, it's that first place in May means nothing). Keep in mind that they had come from behind to win the first two games of the series, including one game in which they trailed 5-1 to reigning Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.

But if you just watched this broadcast, you woulda thought the Mets were 12 games out with no relief in sight. Kafka couldn't have written a more hopeless script than the one delivered by the ESPN crew.

Do I think the Mets are perfect? Of course not. There's a lot of things about this team that bother me and make me fear for its long-term success. And I'm perfectly willing to hear bad things about my favorite team. But I think the announcers might want mention at least one positive sign from the last two weeks, at least in passing, before shitting all over the team for three hours.

There was no room for this in ESPN's telecast. Obviously, before the game, the hateful trio had decided they were gonna talk about Grit. And talk about it they did. For three goddamn innings.

Joe Morgan's idiocy is well documented. His tortured ex-player logic is the epitome of low-hanging fruit. Although I actually laughed out loud when he said, despite the Mets winning 11 of 13, they hadn't been playing well. They just took "advantage of other team's mistakes." I guess so, but only because you could technically define any good outcome for one team as a mistake made by the other. One team's three-run homer is another team's hanging slider.

Jon Miller is a homer and a clown. He didn't contribute much to the Grit Argument. But he didn't try and stop it either. How can you stand by and watch such atrocities take place in front of your own eyes?

Then there's Steve Phillips. Look at this man. Just look at him.

Even if you have no idea who this is, isn't that a face just begging to be slapped?

Who did Phillips want to trade? Carlos Beltran. You know, one of the best centerfielders in baseball. The guy putting up MVP numbers. That guy.

Of course, as Metsradamus points out, Phillips tried to trade both David Wright and Jose Reyes while he was the Mets' GM. So by default, he'd have to pick Beltran, since the other two options wouldn't be here now if it were up to him.

Beltran is hated for not being A Leader, but I've never seen a better centerfielder in my life. The man gets to balls that should not be caught and makes the plays look easy (as opposed to someone like Jim Edmonds, who got to balls that shouldn't be caught and made them look hard so he could get on Web Gems).

And if you wanna talk Grit, how about breaking your face open trying to catch a ball, then coming back only a few weeks later? How about running up a fucking hill that shouldn't be in the outfield in the first place to make a total Willie Mays catch and save a game? Is that enough Grit for you? No. Beltran is just a little too Brown to be gritty.

Just in case everyone forgot, Steve Phillips ruined the Mets. He took a team built on slick fielding and a solid bullpen and turned it into a fat, slow sieve with the likes of Mo Vaughn and Jeromy Burnitz and Roberto Alomar. And he got Bobby Valentine--the best manager the Mets ever had--fired because he couldn't do anything with the blobulent mess he gave him.

To me, hearing Steve Phillips complain about the Mets is like hearing Dick Cheney complain about the Obama administration. You had your chance, you fucked up royal, and yet you still won't go away and leave us alone. You keep flaring up like the festering little boil you are to insist that you could do it better than the current guy--even though there's an enormous body of evidence proving your thorough incompetence (although in Cheney's case, it was something more sinister than incompetence).

It doesn't take Freud to figure out that Phillips is projecting his failures onto other still-employed baseball executives. When he blasts the Mets for assembling the team the way they have, what he's really saying is Fuck, I traded Melvin Mora for Mike Bordick? I really am a douchebag, aren't I?

Boomer and Sutcliffe, all is forgiven. I will take one of your information-free broadcasts any day of the week over Miller, Morgan, and The Hair Helmet.

Why does ESPN hate baseball? I have no idea, but the depths of ESPN's hatred suggests a deeply personal reason. Maybe baseball toyed with ESPN's emotions. Or rebuffed a romantic advance. Or beat ESPN out for a big promotion.

Considering how many MLB games ESPN airs, you'd think they wouldn't hate it so. But they must, if their broadcast crews are any indication.

The legendarily awful Sunday night crew of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan almost goes without saying. Although Joe doesn't anger me quite the way he once did. Perhaps I've mellowed in my old age, but when Mr. Morgan sticks to generic comments on how to bat or field, he isn't horrible. Jon Miller now gets most of my ire. He's one of those announcers who never sounds comfortable unless he has an excuse to yell.

Then there's the hair-helmeted Steve Phillips. Few former GMs are less qualified to provide color commentary, and most of them are dead. It doesn't even matter who's paired with him. His smarminess and total incompetence drown out whoever shares the booth.

But did you know there's an even worse ESPN baseball announcing crew? Neither did I, until Wednesday night. It's Rick Sutcliffe and Chris Berman. They called a Dodgers-Phillies game that fateful eve, and put together one of the absolute worst play-by-play jobs I've ever heard. And I'm including John Sterling and Fran Healey in this equation. It was that bad.

A-Rod really disappointed me, baby! He's gotta set a better example for the kids! 'Cause the kids are what's important, baby! I talk to the kids all the time, and they love me! They're always giving me high fives and thumbs up and doing an "L" sign on their foreheads! If you're not hip, then you don't know the "L" stands for "Laugh a Minute"! The kids love me, baby!

I've tried to give A-Rod some advice! I told him he don't need steroids! I told him to follow his dreams, and stay in school, and listen to his parents! But he keeps telling me to stop bothering him during his daughter's birthday party! I told him my invitation musta gotten lost in the mail, and he threatened to call the cops! It's sad when people get too big to listen to complete strangers who are famous!

Michael Phelps really let me down, too! Smoking the reefer! Doesn't he know that winners don't do drugs? No hope in dope, baby! I've tried to reach out to Michael, but his manager said he'd have me thrown in jail if I contacted him one more time!

You know who else I'm disappointed in? Congress! We gotta get this country on the right track, baby! Republican, Democrat, don't matter! Let's get something done already! I don't know what, but let's just do it, baby!

You know who else let me down? The good people at Best Western Inns! I stayed in one last weekend when I was out west attending my great-niece's christening! They used to give you the shampoo and the conditioner. Now they just got conditioner! I asked at the front desk, and they said they don't provide it free no more! What is this world coming too?!

Why can't you get a good pork chop anymore? Get on the stick, butchers!

Also, this cryogenic chamber just ain't cutting it anymore! I know it has to maintain a constant temperature of -200 degrees Fahrenheit to keep my vital organs from seizing up, but can ESPN throw in a magazine every now and then?

"Hi, this is Rick Reilly, and welcome to Homecoming, the show where we interview famous athletes in their home towns. Our first guest is Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton, who overcame drug addiction to thrill us all in last year's Home Run Derby. Josh, my first question to you is HOLY SHIT, THERE'S A TIGER COMING RIGHT AT US!!!"

During Monday night's Home Run Derby, Josh Hamilton hit some of the most impressive moon shots ever clubbed within the confines of the House that Ruth Built. And as we all know, anything accomplished at Yankee Stadium is at least 10 times more important than anything accomplished anywhere else.

The only things bigger than the home runs Hamilton hit were the lengths to which the ESPN talking heads went to praise him. You see, Josh Hamilton's a recovering heroin addict--perhaps you heard about it when you weren't too busy not living under a rock for the last year.

Granted, Derek Jeter wasn't taking part in the Derby, so ESPN had to find someone else to verbally fellate. But their unblinking love of Hamilton--a man they couldn't pick out of a lineup before the night began--was so embarrassing, it was approaching near Favre-ian levels.

Rick Reilly, the finest sports commentator 1987 had to offer, was particularly cringe-worthy in what I believe was his first on-air ESPN gig. He kept credulously repeating a dream Hamilton said he had, in which he was interviewed at Yankee Stadium after a home run derby. How amazing that he had that dream! How prescient! How [consults thesaurus] portentous, even!

CHRIS BERMAN: Welcome to ESPN's Spook-tacular NFL Playoffs Preview! Brought to you by Budweiser, Coors Light, Heineken, Levitra, and Budweiser! I'm your host, The Boomer, Chris "Oz Never Did Give Nothing To The" Berman. Because the NFL playoffs are so huge, ESPN is preempting its round-the-clock poker coverage to give football its due. First off, the NFC. How do you see the senior conference shaping up, Ron Jaworski "Huh! Good God, Y'all-ski! What Is It Good For-ski"?

RON JAWORSKI: It's been a disappointing, mediocre year in the NFC..

CHRIS BERMAN: Absolutely nothin'! Say it again-ski!

RON JAWORSKI: Last year's conference champs, the Seahawks, just barely staved off the 49ers to take the NFC West. And I'm pretty sure the 49ers' offensive line is actually made of popsicle sticks. No one in the NFCreally scares you. There are compelling reasons why each of the conference playoff teams couldn't go all the way.

MIKE DITKA: Except for the Bears.

RON JAWORSKI: Actually, the Bears have many glaring question marks, such as Rex Grossman's horrid passer rating, which can make babies cry from across a room.

CHRIS BERMAN: Boomer here, barking atcha for another slam-dangle, froo-farah, mama-say-mama-sha-mama-kusah edition of NFL Countdown LIVE! Or whatever the hell we're calling it now. There's a full slate of roast-'em tenderize-'em down-ya-go action this Sunday, but rather than focusing on all the exciting matchups, we figure our audience would rather watch ex-players in suits scream at each other. The big battle this week is happening in foxy Foxboro, Taxachusetts, where the Ponies gallop in to take on the Patriot Act. Of course, my question has no real answer, and one could make a case for either side depending on personal preferences. So let's debate it as if it's a friggin' North Korean nuclear summit. Who is the better QB, Peyton "Place" Manning or Tom "Three Times A" Brady?

MICHAEL IRVIN: I wanna tell ya Chris, [unintelligible] Colts [garbled] not T.O.'s fault [possibly Sanskrit] "White House" [still garbled] so that wasn't my pipe, know what I'm sayin'?

RON JAWORSKI: You're right, Boomer, there really is no answer here. Manning and Brady are both excellent quarterbacks. Manning is a more gifted athlete, of course, but Brady has the rings, so...

MIKE DITKA: Ron, allow me to interrupt you and completely dismiss you as a human being. The NFL is about winning, unlike all other sports leagues. Brady has won three Super Bowls, while Manning's barely won any playoff games at all. Until Peyton can capture as many championships as Brady, he's a worthless piece of shit who should thank whatever horse-headed pagan god he believes in that I haven't killed him yet.

BERMAN: So Coach "I Know What You" Ditka "Last Summer", you're saying that Tom "A Very" Brady "Christmas" is vastly superior to Peyton Manning "The Torpedoes"?

JAWORSKI: By your logic, Jon Kitna is a much better quarterback than Peyton Manning simply because he rode the Ravens' defense to a Super Bowl ring.

DITKA: The ring proves it. In this league, jewelry trumps natural ability. Brady's Pats could lose 85-0 to Manning and Colts, and Brady would still be the better QB in every way.

JAWORSKI: Just so I'm clear, you just said,using your brain and your mouth, that Brady could lose to Manning badly, like he did last year, but still be better than him. [shakes his head violently]

IRVIN: I wanna tell you, you wanna talk about the championship bling, Brady's got it. [grumbling, throat clearing] interception [ancient incantation that almost awakens a demon] mink coat [an car engine backfiring] It's snowin' backstage, you feel me?

BERMAN: For the record, I think that Peyton "A" Manning "For All Seasons" is better than Tom Brady "Brook Farms Turkey", because saying so allowed me to use two more wacky nicknames.

JAWORSKI: Of course you can make the argument that Tom Brady is one of the best "field general" quarterbacks of our era. But the debate is less clear cut when you consider...

DITKA: No no no no, I will not waffle on this issue. You are dumb and wrong and you used to play for the Eagles and you're wrong. Peyton Manning will never be better than a piece of dog shit stuck to the bottom of my shoe--unless and until he wins the next seven Super Bowls on one last-second Hail Mary pass that also somehow rescues a little girl from a burning building.

IRVIN: They gonna be some Patriot Games up in Foxboro, you feel me? [irrecoverable error, some data may be lost] Cleveland steamer [static between radio stations] y'all remember that group EPMD?

JAWORSKI: Jesus fucking Christ, are all of you people retarded?

TOM JACKSON : I'm not, Jaws. I just wanted to come on the air and say that Tiki Barber is dead to me. You hear that, Unibrow?

BERMAN: Okay, when we come back, another useless, unresolveable debate: Is this the week that we finally make a passer out of Michael Vick "Of It All"?

IRVIN: Ron Mexico!

DITKA: The point of being a quarterback isn't to pass--it's to win ballgames for his team, and Michael Vick always does that, except when he doesn't. Even when the Falcons lose, he helps his team win.

JAWORSKI: [swallows arsenic tabet]