When this little gem of a column starts off with an Entourage quote in the first graf, you know we're in for something special. Breaking down the "Walk of Shame," Chris Surette handed in one of the most repugnant works of "journalism" we've seen in a while. Not repugnant because it's immoral, but because it's simply not funny.

But girls, even though many may consider you a slut after witnessing your glorious Walk of Shame, just realize that you have given this lucky guy a story he can share with others at the Grape for the rest of the year. We ought to thank you for that. And hopefully you got something out of this to … actually, we don't really care.

[snip]

Let's be real, we are too young to have a little mini-me running around. I would rather enjoy my college years drinking my face off and having to clean my own vomit, than cleaning the vomit of 16 month infant. Also, if you can't remember her name, there is a very good chance you don't know much about the broad. Trust me, you don't want that hood rat giving you a venereal disease. Not because half are not curable, but the next time you try to bang and that little cutie sees that rash around your genitals, she's going to be running for the fences.

Fairfield is a Jesuit institution, which means some in the administration aren't too happy with the subject matter. Indeed the entire newspaper faces harassment charges, and could lose their funding.

Now I'm not going to say that one student is solely responsible for the death of journalism, and I'm not going to say it's wholly because of his Red Sox fandom...I'm just going to imply it.

He Said: The Walk Of Shame [Fairfield Mirror]
Fairfield U. Newspaper Faces Discipline Over Column's 'Harassment' [Connecticut Post]

Dear Guild member,

We are pleased to announce that today Stephen A. Smith returns to the Inquirer as a Sports Columnist.

In August, Arbitrator Richard Kasher ruled that Philadelphia Newspapers did not have good and reasonable cause to terminate Stephen and ordered that he be reinstated to his former position and receive a portion of the back pay he would have earned since being unjustly fired in January 2008.

The Guild first grieved Stephen's August 2007 demotion to general assignment reporter, then his termination and the matter was taken to arbitration. Once again, Guild counsel Neal Goldstein was successful in bringing one of our members back to work, his 10th consecutive victory against the employer.

While Stephen was eager to return to work immediately following Arbitrator Kasher's ruling in August, Philadelphia Newspapers repeatedly challenged the arbitrator's decision and later attempted to reassign Stephen, all of which led to a forceful letter from the arbitrator clearly ordering the company to reinstate Stephen to his Sports Columnist title.

I'M BACK [SAS Twitter]

It's ridiculous to blame Drew for "not vetting" this story as thoroughly as possible given that he's doing a series that's built on first-hand accounts about supposedly asshole coaches. Drew came to me with this story and suggested this one was unique enough to stand on its own outside of the series. I agreed. It was amusing and given Murphy's reputation as a hot-head and the other details of the event that were clearly true, it seemed completely plausible.

Obviously, that was wrong. When you run one-sided versions of stories, which we often do here, the goal is just that — to show one person's side. That's it. It's been my experience, more often than not, that putting these first-person accounts on items reveal a larger truth or open the door to finding out the bigger story. This is how we've successfully done many things on this site over the years from "You're With Me Leather" to Josh Hamilton.

Of course, this is not how traditional media outlets do things. Most people read Deadspin for various reasons but I don't think any readers come here with the idea that what they'll find will be something they'd find in magazines, newspapers, or websites that they'd find elsewhere. This site has been built employing both traditional journalism practices and non-traditional ones, which has tremendous benefits but plenty of risks as well. I don't think it's that difficult to distinguish between when we're practicing journalism and, especially, when we don't. But when facts are wrong, they get corrected, as they should. And unlike other traditional publications, I think we draw a lot more attention to our mistakes than just a 10 word correction buried on page A12.

We've already run the correction on the story and Drew did his best to rectify that situation. This is simply me underlining that fact that he was doing what he was told to do by me and he's not the bad guy in this situation. The real culprit is the misguided fellow who emailed the bullshit story to begin with and, of course, the very elastic editorial policy employed here by Deadspin which is championed by me.

Regardless of this unfortunate incident, I'm confident that we're doing the right thing most of the time. When we don't, well, it has to be addressed. This is me addressing it.

'Til the next episode.

Sports Media Challenge, which helped produce the segment for SportsCenter every weekday since April, says they had a six-month contract that simply expired, but that they will continue working with ESPN to create other online, social media-type stuff for the network's other properties. But if you're an up-and-coming young sports blogger who has been dying to hear Sage Steele read a pithy quote from one of your posts on the air ... it's not happening. Yeah, sorry about that.

Sports Media Challenge - Training and Consulting for Sports Personalities [SMC]

Rose handled postgame duty last night, baffling the Yankees with a series of unanswerable questions, like the zen koan he threw at Derek Jeter — "Jeets," he called him — about GPS devices or something. It was a command performance. For a brief moment, he made Chip Caray look like Red Barber. On Twitter, Rose was deemed ...

... LAME

... weird

... awful

... crappy

... terrible

... absolutely terrible

... corny

... sooooo damn CORNY

... a tool

... such a tool

... such a moron

... a dufus

... a douchebag

... a fuckin d-bag

... a bit of a goofball

... a total ass whip

... one of the worst post game and pre game analysts!!!

... gunning for razzie as worst championship post-game celebration presenter

... a grease fire as an anchor/reporter

... just as worthless and annoying as Buck and McCarver

... the worst thing Fox has ever produced

That's right. Worse than The $treet. I will borrow from Caray here: Chris Rose, you've just been fisted.

Photo via The New York Times

EARLIER: Fisting Chip Caray

It looks like all those newspaper layoffs have hit the New York media pretty hard, because every outlet in the city was forced to share the same headline today. And judging by a scan of stories from across the country, whoever wrote it was very busy last night. They had nine years to come up with something and this was all they could think of?

(By the way, as of 8:45 this morning, only Yahoo had adjusted their website. You guys know how the internet works, right? Unfortunately, the Post, Daily News and Newsday headlines are forever emblazoned on today's front page.)

Actually, this is exactly the correct amount of inspiration that yet another Yankee championship should generate. Congrats, Bombers, on a job ... done.

[Thanks to commenter Mickey Sabbath for catching the Yahoo page]

* * * * *

Thursday. I offer this begrudging tribute to all the Yankee fans who woke up in a drunk tank this morning.

Rovell's apology:

I said that Keflezighi's win, the first by an American since 1982, wasn't as big as it was being made out to be because there was a difference between being an American-born product and being an American citizen. Frankly I didn't account for the fact that virtually all of Keflezighi's running experience came as a US citizen. I never said he didn't deserve to be called American.

All I was saying was that we should celebrate an American marathon champion who has completely been brought up through the American system.

This is where, I must admit, my critics made their best point. It turns out, Keflezighi moved to the United States in time to develop at every level in America. So Meb is in fact an American trained athlete and an American citizen and he should be celebrated as the American winner of the NYC Marathon. That makes a difference and makes him different from the "ringer" I accused him of being. Meb didn't deserve that comparison and I apologize for that.

That's all well and good, but the idea at the heart of Rovell's first story — the mystique of the African marathoner — isn't going away anytime soon. Rovell was far from the only offender, as The New York Times' Gina Kolata notes. Kolata, in addressing the question of whether Keflezighi is sufficiently American, alludes to the widely held notion that an African runner represents some kind of a winning genetic bingo card. This is true to the extent that every great athlete is, in one way or another, a winning genetic bingo card. For whatever reason, though, whenever a big marathon rolls around, we pretend that the Africans are winning less because their abilities were forged at some happy intersection of culture and circumstance and geological phenomena and more because their abilities derive from some super-special nucleic juju that no one else has. (Rovell wisely avoids this minefield only to bumble into another. He thinks that Africans run faster because they're really poor.)

Keflezighi's victory has renewed what the New York Times judiciously calls a "debate." It's not a debate. It's science and common sense on one side and on the other a handful of grumpy people who've decided that the genetic advantages that may or may not sort themselves according to race somehow matter more than the countless other genetic advantages all world-class athletes necessarily possess.

What I Got Wrong About Keflezighi [CNBC]
To Some, Winner Is Not American Enough [The New York Times]
EARLIER: American Who Won NYC Marathon Isn't American Enough For Some People

It was bad enough when they tried to weave the plot lines of Game 4 into a hackneyed story about blue rastafied cat aliens, but the most egregious example of fake enthusiasm for this sure-to-be-terrible movie was the actual fake enthusiasm by the fans watching it on the big screen at Cowboys Stadium. Look, if News Corp. wants to show their three-minute infomercial on the jumbotron that's fine. But don't make people pretend that it was it so exciting it brought them to their feet. I haven't seen acting that forced since the last episode of Joe Buck Live. Were they paid to do that or did those poor saps spend all their dignity just to earn tickets to a Cowboys game?

By the way, funny how the trailer listed James Cameron's previous sci-fi triumphs, but forgot to mention "The Abyss." What an odd oversight!

It happens four times a year. The papers in the two cities facing off for the championship in any sport will, without fail, run a column bashing their counterpart. It's often about food, or landmarks, or celebrities, but it's a given that none of it is sports-related in the least. Let's take a look at the NY-Philly catfight.

•The New York Post started the day off with a doozy of a cover, but the accompanying story is pretty weak. The usual platitudes about Philadelphia being small and their fans boorish abound.
Best line: "Philly fans are a bunch of whiners and should learn how to dress. They should try reading GQ."

•The Philadelphia Inquirer gets surprisingly offensive, devoting an article to picking holes in the Post's story. It even takes the time to point out that those probably aren't really Shane Victorino's legs on the cover.
Best line: "Check out the [Post's] 'evidence' in a story that, apparently, took three people to write."

•The New York Daily News takes the "aww, aren't they precious" tact, and belittles Philadelphians' confidence. They call the Phanatic a "pig-nosed monster" and actually use the term "Sillydelphia."
Best line: "What makes this city of 109 neighborhoods - with names like Germantown, Fishtown and Swamp Poodle - unafraid?"

•Stuck in neutral territory, the Newark Star-Ledger goes the tried-and-true "this thing from this city vs. this thing from that city" route. Comparisons of local delicacies, noted figures (historic and fictional) and even accents are arbitary and stereotypical enough to offend both sides.
Best line: "Every March 17, green puke runs down Fifth Avenue. Every Jan. 1, soused Mummers at least have the decency to puke into their satin parasols."

•Even the Associated Press gets in on the fun. It's a mostly dry breakdown of how the cities match up, alongside a photo of Philadelphia's mayor do-si-do-ing with the Phanatic.
Best line: "The Yankees and Phillies have never been real rivals. New York has a record 26 World Series titles and the Statue of Liberty; Philadelphia has two and a statue of 'Rocky.'"

While I didn't highlight it, rest assured that every single article prominently mentioned cheesesteaks. What's that, Deadspin readers? You're from the rest of the country and don't give a crap about this showdown? Carry on, then.

Here it is, in full:

A Message from George Bodenheimer

Top Story 10/23/09 @ 4:19 PM

ESPN is clearly one of the most dynamic companies in the world and we take great pride in our work. Our success often leads to media stories about our business and people. Those stories are often very positive, but not always.

During the last few days, we have received a fair amount of unwanted media coverage, including a series of Internet posts where the editor expressly stated that many of these items were based on rumor and that they had not attempted to verify their accuracy. Compounding this issue is my disgust that some of our own unidentified employees are leaking materials to the media thereby contributing in a significant way to these destructive efforts. As you know, we have policies that govern how and who should be in contact with the media regarding the company. I feel it is very important to make clear to all employees that violating these policies is a serious offense which can, and very likely will, result in the immediate termination of employment of the offending employee.

ESPN has a hard working, creative culture that produces outstanding content every day. Our culture and our people are the keys to our continuing success. I also want to reaffirm our commitment to maintaining a workplace where all employees have the opportunity to grow, are free from harassment of any kind and are respectful and positive toward each other.

If anyone feels that we are not living up to our commitment or that your work environment, either in our offices or at any remote location, is of concern, you can and should bring that to the attention of your supervisor, your HR business partner, our HR Leader Paul Richardson, Ed Durso or to me personally.

Our mission is to serve sports fans. Our values call for us to show care and respect for all employees. I want to assure you the leadership of ESPN is committed to achieving both.

EARLIER: George Bodenheimer Requests That ESPN Employees Stop Telling The Media Who's Boinking Whom