While not quite as egregious as some of the earlier gaffes from this postseason, the two mistakes only take us one step closer on the march to full instant replay reviews. It was a close, bang-bang play but TV showed that Chase Utley was clearly safe at first on the back end of an eighth-inning double play. (Even blatant Yankee fans say so.) A correct call by first base ump Brian Gorman would have given Philly runners at first and third for the next Ryan Howard strikeout, but it still affected the way the later innings played out.

The first goof was a much tougher call, but it did appear that Johnny Damon's line dive skipped off the dirt before landing in Ryan Howard's glove in the seventh. I say "appear," because even though most commentators* agreed with that take the umpires would not admit they were wrong (Gorman was out of position to see it, but could have been overruled by another ump) and the replay was close enough to leave some doubt. That is the great fallacy of instant replay, of course. In the sports that do have it, referees still botch calls on a regular basis—even after looking at the video tape—so the idea that replays will get everything right is laughable.

So both teams got screwed and it probably wouldn't have changed the final outcome, but an expansion of instant replay in baseball is now inevitable. Enjoy that.

Umpires miss two calls in Game 2 of Series [ABC]
Enough is enough with these blown calls [Yahoo]
Umpires botch 'close' call to end eighth [NY Post]

* * * * *

*The only people who saw no problem with these calls were the Baseball Tonight crew, who suddenly became apologists for bad officiating. First of all, why is Berman even there? Karl Ravech owns the sport all year long, but then Fat Head McGee decides to show up for the World Series to annoy us all to death. (I would never use the word "hate" about another human ... but man do I hate that guy. Like a sickness.) Listen as he, John Kruk and Bobby Valentine pretend there's no reason whatsoever to dispute these calls.

"As good as a call" as he could have made? No, actually I can think of a better call. Like the correct one. Jackasses.

For instance, here's CSN Washington's Chick Hernandez outside of godforsaken FedEx Field earlier today (via @dcsportsbog).

In other DC football news, Chris Horton's official website responded to the player's benching with some harsh words for his fellow Redskins. No other team in the NFL has had more social media problems. Also, they aren't very good at scoring touchdowns.

Obviously I'm watching Redskins vs. Buccaneers (they're already booing at the 13:47 mark in the first quarter), and shaving months off of my life in the process. I'll save my venting for Twitter.

There are seven other 1 pm games, and I'm sure they're all going to be a lot more fun. I suggest watching them, and talking about them in the comment section.

Defacing aside — Daulerio himself claims to have ashed on the star during his brief time squiring Blazer Girl around the ESPN compound — it's about time ESPN got around to acknowledging Chris Berman's contributions. He has done so much for the network, and yet there are stretches when we go an entire week without seeing that clip of Berman running a fade route in Tampa. If it weren't for the fact that he lies atop ESPN like a 300-pound turd blanket, one might easily forget he was ever there.

Our tipster also writes:

I see you guys got a look inside the beast that is the Bristol Campus Compound. It's really just a collection of office buildings, many of the cubes go unused because you spend your time in a common room cutting highlights or the "newsroom" which is a giant clusterfuck.

Everyone that works in the newsroom was picked on as a child and is now trying to prove how "cool" they are working for ESPN.

Example: That douchebag's desk with the bobble heads... I am pretty sure I know who he is. Tall guy who wears his cowboy hat around campus being a douchebag. The guy gets incredibly loud walking around thinking he is friends with everyone. He's a loser and can eat a bag of dicks.

Anyway, thought I would send you the latest addition to the ESPN "Quad" ... a Walk of Fame. Just like Hollywood but with less hookers.

* * * * *

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Even you, Dwyer. Petchesky will be here soon.

Latest email from her:

"Fuck. And Yes. The bike rack is phenom. One of the gentleman running around (who said he spoke to you) and is in charge of this whole thing, i think, said he doesn't think the decoys (ed. note. these are the coyote decoys employed to spook the geese) are still out. But that he'll see if anyone knows where they're stored since I asked nicely."

She's a gamer.

Other things of note from my brief time at tWWL headquarters:

• Remember the movie Last Action Hero? With the one scene where the little boy takes that magical golden ticket to the Movie Land where all the movie characters just blissfully stroll around town in character like it's no big deal? That's kind of like Bristol. Here's a list of people I randomly bumped into or crossed paths with during my two hours on campus.

• Colin Cowherd, looking surly coming in for his morning radio shift.
• Howie "Don't Call Me 'Stump The'" Schwab wearing a baby blue Tomlinson jersey and eating a bag of chips.
• Skip Bayless, looking tense while prepping for First Take
• And a brief reunion with my ex-girlfriend Linda Cohn on the stairwell which resulted in a way too excited embrace on my part. I'm still not over it. I admit it.

Plus:

• At one point I was trotted over to the Sports Center set and introduced to Hannah Storm and Josh Elliott who was very excited about the minor league Tim Tebow night. I wasn't even paying attention to him because I was mesmerized by Hannah Storm's radiance. That lady's impeccable.

More to come.

*****

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. New mother nature, etc.

And it would be foolish to ignore that invivtation based on the antiquated notion that They, Worldwide Leaders Of The Universe, are our sworn enemy based on past incidents. Nope, bygones be bygoned, I say.

I agreed that their generous invitation would be an "ample learning experience" for all involved, but due to some prior commitments here in NYC, I won't be able to attend the full day-and-a-half of festivities. So I outsourced.

Considering the top-tier writing talent available to us both in-house and through outside correspondents, I decided it was important to spend our limited funding on a person who, in my opinion, could ably tackle the goose-infested playground in Bristol, Connecticut with the vim and vigor required for such an important assignment. Yes, Spinheads, Blazer Girl is here to rescue us once again.

She is in mid-flight right now most likely carrying a gym bag full of mismatched thrift store wares, her iPod and Xanax. Once she lands, she'll be whisked off to Bristol to get some rest before her big day of ESPN education, along with the many other blogs and traditional media outlets in attendance.

Here's her itinerary:

Thursday, Aug. 27
Time (ET) Topics
9:30 a.m. Digital Media
10:45 a.m. ESPN's 30th Anniversary
12:30 p.m. Lunch with ESPN President George Bodenheimer
2 p.m. Event Production (U.S. Open tennis, NASCAR, 2010 FIFA World Cup, etc.)
3:30 p.m. Campus Tour
4:45 p.m. ESPN International / Writing Time / One-on-One's
6 p.m. ESPN Films "30 for 30"

Friday, Aug. 28
8:30 a.m. Monday Night Football / NFL studio shows
10 a.m. State of Sports roundtable
11:15 p.m. College Football / ESPNU
12:15 p.m. SportsCenter / Journalism

And some of the ESPN on-air talent she'll be mingling with at lunch:

• Bob Ley
• Jeremy Schaap
• Hannah Storm

and...

• Chris Berman

Yep. This is how the story ends, kids. Access. Favor. Indiscretion.

******

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Heady days.

Wait, what? Boomer? Chris "Don't Call Me Ethel" Berman? Yes, none other. So says one John Prendergast, of the Center for American Progress, who seems to have never watched television in his life. Here's what he told the Post:

"There are a few. Joel Osteen: Americans are looking increasingly to the pulpit for spiritual direction in uncertain times, and the biggest televangelist-author of all of them is Osteen. Chris Berman, HBO [sic]: If you are a sports fan, and there are tens of millions of them in the U.S., this choice requires no explanation. When the Boomer speaks, people listen. Oprah Winfrey: One of the tag lines of the 21st century has become, 'It must be true; I heard it on Oprah.'"

Oprah, some televangelist and Berman. Obviously, the man doesn't watch TV the way you and I do. I'd give Prendergast the benefit of the doubt here and suggest he's maybe only vaguely familiar with the work of Chris Berman and is therefore unaware that Chris Berman makes Mary Hart look like Ed Murrow, except that Prendergast's day job would suggest otherwise. He's the co-founder of the Enough Project, a nonprofit group that works to end crimes against humanity.

If Not Cronkite, Whom? A Few Notables Weigh In on Whom (or What) They Trust. [Washington Post]

His last update from the ceremony:

I've seen 30 different dudes try flirting with the trophy girls, making trophy wives? hahaha

Come on, guy! Flirting with award show trophy girls is the only moment of fun most of these fellas get in a year. (Besides playing children's games for million-dollar salaries, of course.) Why do you gotta call them out on interweb blog sites? That's not being very "bro-like." But one guest in particular received special attention from Wilson.

Those messages were later deleted from Wilson's feed, but helpfully preserved by this website that refuses to let your most embarrassing online moments die a noble death. If you can't even make small talk with a statuesque statue holder without getting called on it, then what's the point of being a superstar?

C.J. Wilson (str8edgeracer) [Twitter]
Chris Berman Finds New Leather, C.J. Wilson Tweets It [Walkoff Walk]

This isn't an easy question to answer. Video of the derby is hard to come by, and transcripts don't seem to exist. We decided to estimate. Our method: Berman's call varies, obviously, but both Wikipedia and IMDB render it as "back, back, back, back," i.e., four "backs" per home run. He has called the derby since 1998 — this year's will be his 12th — and in that span a total of 912 derby home runs have been hit; if each one warranted a "back, back, back, back," Berman would've said the word "back" 3,648 times.

Doubtful, but let's say instead that every third home run earns a "back, back, back, back." Maybe that's still overgenerous, but remember that this doesn't include the premature "back, back, back, back"s wherein the ball falls sadly shy of the fences. Nor does it include the long, looping home runs that deserve perhaps a fifth and maybe even a sixth "back." Our total, then: 1,216 "backs," or nearly 110.5 "backs" per year. This is a lot of "backs." This is more than four times as many "backs" as there are words in the Gettysburg Address.

In other realms of entertainment, scientists have addressed the relationship between repetition and likability. We defer here to the work of one Philip A. Russell, of the psychology department at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He has written an insightful paper about popular music recordings in which he concludes that "repetition increases familiarity but has little effect on likeability" and suggests listeners may possess "a self-regulating mechanism which decreases exposure once likeability begins to decline." This mechanism is known commonly as the mute button.

The Berminator goes in as part of the television class, which also includes Bill Maher, Jon Cryer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Peter Graves and others, but his star won't officially be cemented into Hollywood Boulevard until 2010. I hope The Kinks reunite to do an updated version of "Celluloid Heroes" to commemorate this event: "But don't walk through Berman's sight-line, or he may yell at you, he'll scream and curse and turn all red, until you bring him a deux, deux, deux..."

****

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Enjoy the rain.

New York Daily News media columnist Bob Raissman tackled the issue of stadium security in his Friday column, contrasting the treatment of radio broadcasters and players' wives to everyone's favorite ESPN personality.

He devotes two grafs to Berman but still manages to sufficiently sting him. If you can't tell, the bolded lines are my emphasis:

Nonetheless it seems security does not take the same rigid stance with everyone - like ESPN's mouthy Chris Berman. Monday, he was seen walking around the Yankees clubhouse like he owned the place. Berman was big-timing to the max, strolling into areas clearly marked "no media allowed beyond this point." Perhaps Berman thought the sign did not apply to him because it did not read "no clowns allowed beyond this point."

By the time PR personnel found out Berman was trespassing and went to evict him, he was in Girardi's office talking to the manager. Berman occupying prohibited space in the Bombers' clubhouse is nothing new. He did it at the old joint and in Detroit. When the Yankees were in there, he parked his tuchis in the players' food room, totally off limits to media. Perhaps Berman subscribes to the following old adage: If it ain't catered, it ain't journalism.

And Raissman wasn't the only New York sports media hound to target Berman this week. The Post's Phil Mushnick called the Worldwide Leader a "broken network" in his Sunday space, saving some of his harshest words for Boomer:

That's why Kenny Mayne is stuck playing that Kenny Mayne character on ESPN, Lee Corso is stuck playing Lee Corso, and Chris Berman, who long ago should have been encouraged — even ordered — to move beyond and above his clown act, remains ESPN's head clown. They've all been painted into corners.

Nothing to add here.

Yankees insecurity: Off field, meanies are in play [NYDN]
Kornheiser's departure won't fix broke network [NY Post]

You know ,I can't rip on Berman too much for this — everyone knows he sweats a ton — and, I'll be honest, during hot days in July, you could build a koi pond in the bottom of my pants as well. But this was from yesterday's Quail Hollow Championship in Charlotte, where the high temperature was a breeze-filled 80 degrees. He should probably get that thing fixed. (Thanks to Nick K. for the photos and the tip.)

*****

Good morning. It's Thursday. Destroy.

This little gem comes to us from a blog on the website of what is apparently the "Flagship Station for South Florida Sports." I can only assume that this is a radio station, perhaps one dedicated to the broadcast and discussion of sporting events occuring in and around southern Florida. One of their hosts is a ladyperson by the nom de radio of "DStro", who in the course of relating her favorite Super Bowl stories, writes:

Runner up with Chris Berman giving me a nickname when I was sitting in the lobby writing on my computer the first night in Phoenix at about 2 am. He walks in alone, pauses, sees me across the lobby and says, "Computer babe." And continues on to the elevator.

Computer babe? Really, Boomer? You're slipping; might be time to lay off the deux deux deuxs. This concludes your regularly-scheduled Chris Berman anecdote.

[790 The Ticket]

Exactly. According to the Sports Media blog on the DMN, the award was first presented in 2006 and previous winners include James Brown, Greg Gumbel and Jim Nantz.

Of course Berman has been successful "on the job" as an ESPN personality for many, many years, but one would figure the whole demonstration of integrity "off the job" qualification would trip him up. But, really, they must be counting only 2008. (Remember the notorious freak-out and "deux, deux, deux" videos were from a few years ago.)

So congratulations, Mr. Berman. You're an inspiration to sweaty comb-over wearers and Canadian drug traffickers everywhere.

Chris Berman Tapped For Pat Summerall Award [DMN]
Pat Summerall Award History [JBJamesbrown.com]
What's With The Hair? [Wingman Blog]

Super Bowl Media Day is really a glorified press conference, where each player sits in front of one microphone while various reporters stand at a respectful distance and take turns shouting out one, maybe two questions, and everyone gets to hear the answer. Unless, you're Chris Berman, in which case it's perfectly fine to interrupt what everyone else is doing to conduct your own one-on-one interview with Hines Ward. He even brings his own microphone! So maybe if he wants to cross the rope line and ask five or six followup questions about obscure Pittsburgh trivia, then the rest of you typewriter jockeys can just put that in your straw and suck it.

It's like none of you have ever been to Media Day before! [Video via ESPN News]

And I'm not sure what greatest sportscaster list would have Bill Walton included in the top 40, unless one was going by height. Oh wait, he's on the ASA board. OK. Anyway, Vin Scully was voted No. 1, and he just found out about it, so it must be fairly recent. Right? What the voting criteria was is a mystery, and play-by-play guys seem to be mixed in with color analysts, and Terry Bradshaw (honorable mention!). Plus, gratuitous Joe Morgan.

From Tom Hoffarth at the Los Angeles Daily News:

The Dodgers finally caught wind of this list and sent out a press release Monday afternoon. As for Vin Scully being named No. 1, he emailed to us: "The sportscasters' vote is news to me. I never voted but I am humbled to be in front of Mel Allen, Red Barber and Curt Gowdy. The longevity part must have been the decider."

Dick Enberg, who made the top 10 and is also the Chairman of the Board for ASA, also emailed back before heading out to Melbourne to cover the Australia Open tennis championships starting next week on ESPN: "Frankly, there's plenty of room for argument, which is common with any of the suspect 'Best of All-Time' lists. It never helps your chances if deceased. (Check: Husing, Brickhouse, Dunphy, Stern, and of course, Chick Hearn.) With the exception of yours truly, the top 10 is pretty solid."

There's nothing at all about this on the ASA web site. All in all, a very odd endeavor.

And Marv Albert is on the Advisory Board. Oh good.

The Whole Top 50 ASA list, From Scully To Collins And Beyond [Farther Off The Wall]
Scully No. 1, This Is News? [Farther Off The Wall]

Didn't a certain portly sports anchor distribute several tongue lashings to underlings who ran around behind the scenes during one of his broadcasts not too long ago? I'm sorry to blow up like this but it's like no one's ever worked on TV here before? Jesus!

Showing up late and disheveled is a great way to get into Ditka's Doghouse.

In fact, home teams are 2-4 in this year's playoffs. On the other hand, weather has not yet been the factor it will be today. And home field or no home field ... six turnovers for Jake Delhomme? That's more than five! Even worse, this totally obvious YouTube video was not made with yakkity sax. It's so unprofessional. It's almost like none of these people have ever worked on TV before.)

And yes, it was delay of game on Joe Flacco, but it was 3rd-and-2 and the play went for 23 yards. It's kinda hard to claim that a flag would have won Tennessee the game at that point. Plus ... Joe Freakin' Flacco! A rookie, 2-0, on the road. Deal with it!

Apologetic Delhomme looked like raw rookie [Arizona Republic]
On football: One-and-done will linger after Titans ' choke [USA Today]
Playoff hopes blown when whistle wasn't [Tennessean]

* * * * *

I'm heading out shortly for what I'm told is a wi-fi enabled bar, that I'm told will be overrun by hyper, possibly inebriated Giants fans. (I won't tell you where it is, because I'm afraid of you people.) I have no horse in this race, but I will venture into the belly of the playoff beast and attempt to bring you tales of local fan excitement. I'm like that Survivorman guy, as long as I don't have to brew my own beer out of tree bark.

OK, let's not pussyfoot around. Voting for Elite Eight round matchups is open until Sunday night.

First, a look at the bracket to this point. (Thanks, Happy Pants Jim Cooke.)

Voting will remain open through next week ... so let's go. It's No. 3 seed Chris Berman vs. No. 11 seed Baby Mangino. A look at the nominees' 2008 resumes:

No. 3 Chris Berman
Perturbed, slightly, with behind-camera movement.
Forced ESPN to take video brilliance off YouTube.
Watched Deadspin hang onto them anyway.

No. 11 Baby Mangino

Existed.

So, who wins?