ESPN - Huh?

If you read daily, weekly, or know anything about what's going on here, you know about my usual distaste for ESPN. I mean, the concept is good, and the network used to be amazing. Now it's got a cheese factor well above ten and a monopoly on sportsfan viewing. We deal with it. Kind of like how Communists just deal with their governments.

Setting the beliefs of Vlad Lenin aside, I want to briefly mention a couple of the widely publicized events on the network. This shouldn't take but a moment.

First. This "Who's Now" thing. Who cares? If they really wanted to do a "bracket style tournament" of the modern athletes, and put them into four brackets of athletes that were once "Now," first of all, Billy Jean King doesn't fit the bill. I don't really think...Michael, Babe, Ali, BILLY...a female BILLY. Is this serious? I mean...they could have gone with like, Wayne Gretzky, arguably the most dominant athlete in any sport statistically. Or like, Pele if they wanted to diversify. Or like, a Dale Sr. No...BILLY JEAN KING. Don't get me wrong, Billy Jean King was great...but I don't exactly put her in the category of the others. Especially with all of the "Now" categories. Neither did ESPN when they did their Sports Century 100 Greatest Athletes gig.

But who really cares? The fans can vote on this thing. The fans also vote on the All-Star Games. These are the same fans that didn't select Matt Holliday to the starting lineup. The same fans that made Pudge Rodriguez the starting Catcher in the AL. Had this thing gone on 10 years ago...the two most "Now" athletes would have been Jordan and...Michael Schumacher. But would anyone have voted for Schumacher? Didn't think so. This "Now" thing is stupid. Disney needs to go away. Get back to ESPN when it was Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman. What's up Kilborn.

Round two just shows you how stupid these people are. You know that movie about the Yankees that ESPN is doing, mini-series, whatever. Rick Sutcliffe doesn't even really sound excited about? Well, it starts at 10 EST on Monday. You know what's on at 8? The Home Run Derby. The Home Run Derby is the most drawn out thing ever. That thing is going to last far longer than two hours. It always does. Berman gets bored. I don't even watch it anymore. Do they really expect that stupid mini-series to air on time? Maybe, just maybe, ESPN realized that no one cares about this Reggie Jackson series and how the Yankees saved New York (when only five people have ever saved New York...Giuliani and The Beatles) and they just don't want it to air. Regardless. Scheduling error. If that thing goes off on time, well, I will be for the first time, wrong.

ESPN has us by the you-know-whats. We can't do anything about it which is both bogus and sad. However, we have to deal with it because there isn't really another source for halfway decent sports entertainment on the tv. Fox Sports doesn't really matter I suppose. What happened to WGN being "America's #1 Sports Network?" Best of luck navigating ESPN for the next few weeks...I'm looking forward to seeing as much of the Transporter on FX as possible.