Bizarro ESPN

What the hell has become of ESPN? I never thought of them as keepers of journalistic integrity but SportsCenter was the constant that kept me coming back. In the early '90s, CNN ran a sports program against SportsCenter but eventually lost the ratings war and threw in the towel. Too bad. Still, I grew to appreciate ESPN because they stuck to the core... sports. SportsCenter was a rock; a friendly voice in a bar late at night or in a hotel room across the country. I kept it on automatically like my own parents used to religiously watch the 11 o'clock news in their day. Now, (and I use that word ironically) I can only watch the first few highlights and then I'm off to see what else is out there. The straw that broke the camel's back is the latest "thing" on the show which is a "competition" to see which sports star is more "now". As soon as they mention it- and they talk about the next segment every few minutes- I start looking for the remote. Who is more "now"? That's something I would expect on the cover of Teen magazine or Tiger Beat. What a colossal waste of time. A sports news show should be driven by highlights and information. That's all we want. Here in ATL they run a sports news show on CSS at six at night and I've started watching that. It's kind of amateur but they talk about sports- well, enough to be acceptable. I wish I had been in the room when some hotshot "idea person" (I sense a female presence here) pitched the idea of "the next big thing! Who is more Now!!" God, how did they get in the room with that crap? To top it off, somebody said, "I like it. Go with it." In other words, go with it, throw away fifteen years of good will between us and our customers. Argh.

The Atlanta Braves finished on a good note before heading in to the break (thanks again to ESPN for making us play a night game on the west coast before the three day vacation). Only two games behind the Mets and if Smoltz comes back fresh, I like our chances in this division. To listen to sports heads across the country, The Mets are a mighty juggernaut but I think they're hot air. Not like Chicago style lack-of-substance, but I think Philadelphia has a better team than NY. Anyway, the only kind of moves I could see the Braves making are for some bullpen help, maybe another lefty. I wish they could go for a front-line starter but they're not gonna shell out any big bucks and they're not gonna trade Escobar or Saltalamacchia, so I can't see them getting anything more than complementary pieces. We just have to keep the core healthy and hope some starter in the minors is ready to try and grab Kyle Davies' job. Still, I'll battle anyone with this team.

It was worth the effort to rise this morning and watch the show from London as Roger Federer took care of Rafael Nadal in five sets. It was strange to watch as it felt like Nadal had the edge the whole time and then all of a sudden... it was over and it finished like it was supposed to with Ferderer matching Borg's five straight Wimbledons. In the end, it was a show of class all around. So eat a bag of horse manure, Dan LeBatard. What a clown.