New York City is positively brimming with obscene millionaires who love to flaunt their wealth and even they won't be caught dead at the new ballpark. The team has been embarrassed by hundreds of empty (TV friendly!) seats at game after game. So prices are being slashed! Everything must go!

The full-season Legends Suite and ticket licenses priced at $2,500 per regular-season game in sections 15A-B, 24B and 25 will be reduced to $1,250 per game. Those who have already purchased those seats will receive their choice of a refund or credit. The full-season $1,000 seats will drop to $650 per game with a similar policy.

Those who have purchased full-season $2,500 seats in sections 16-24A, Legends Suite seats for $1,250, $850, $600 and $500 will receive a specified number of complimentary seats. The same goes for future purchases of such seats.

The Delta Sky 360 suites in Sections 218A-222 will be reduced from $750 to $550 per game, with refunds/credits for those who already purchased.

In order to encourage people to buy the $325 tickets in sections 115-125, fans will receive a specific number of complimentary tickets along with their purchases.

Keep in mind—the team still feels it's acceptable to charge $325 for a single-game baseball ticket that is not on Derek Jeter's lap. (Everyone below that level? Still full price!) Even worse, they've angered Keith Olbermann.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who owns three $850 Legends Suite season tickets, was unhappy prices were cut only for those with front-row seats while others will be given additional tickets.

A guy with three $850 season tickets is complaining about extra free tickets. I kind of hate America right now.

To fill seats, Yankees cut top ticket prices [Newsday]
Empty seats make Yankees cut some premium prices [AP]

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union and Ted Cox of the Chicago Daily Herald both took the opportunity in print to slam Flanagan's use of an F. Scott Fitzgerald line, used during one of her sideline reports on Sunday. The quote, "There are no second acts in American lives," was used in a pregame piece about the resurgence of Kurt Warner. Said Dougherty: "Ugh ... we're watching a football game, not dissecting American history."

No, that would be American Literature, Petey. And would you prefer the wit and wisdom of Michael Irvin or Emmitt Smith? This is why newspapers are dying, boys; you're pandering to people who aren't smart enough to read.

No, if you must criticize Flanagan, criticize her for being unoriginal. Everybody uses that Fitzgerald quote ... even Mike Tyson.

From the Tim Rich's March 16, 2008 U.K. Guardian profile on David Beckham:

"After taking a Beckham-sized salary to decamp to Los Angeles to recreate the glories of The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night for Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald remarked sadly that “there are no second acts in American lives”. Fitzgerald conclusively proved his point by drinking himself to death while producing unusable scripts that had no chance of ending up as a film."

Esquire, Sept. 1, 1999:

F. Scott Fitzgerald, a famous author Mike Tyson enjoys quoting, once wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives." But Tyson, a tormented soul at 32, proved Fitzgerald wrong Saturday night ...

And ...

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have written, "There are no second acts in American lives," but Michael Jordan went about proving him wrong.

From the March 16, 2008 Portland Oregonian:

And here’s the Seattle Times’ take on the spectacular fall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. If you think Spitzer’s career is all washed up, think again. Bottom line: F. Scott Fitzgerald may have been all wrong when he famously said, “There are no second acts in American lives. Says one American history prof, “In fact, F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. It happens all the time.

The same day, in the Augusta Chronicle:

F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous for saying “There are no second acts in American lives,” implying that you get one chance to get it right." Of course, that’s not true. There are second chances all around us."

Besides, the line — from notes for an unfinished novel, no less — doesn't even mean what people think it means. From Mad In Pursuit Journal.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "There are no second acts in American lives." This is one of his most repeated quotes. It's always used to open an article about someone making a new start in life or rising from the ashes of failure to achieve success. "F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong when he said ...". Come on, people. Fitzgerald was too close an observer of American life not to know that people reinventing themselves is fundamental. He did a turn in Hollywood writing screenplays, didn't he? Don't you think he knew the function of Second Acts?

So, time to retire this quote, in sports reporting and otherwise. Not because it's too high-brow, but because, like a Brett Favre retirement press conference, it's been done, and it's meaning has been misinterpreted to begin with.

Olberman Blasts Reporters Who Blasted Alex Flanagan [Awful Announcing]

By the way, apologies are in order to University of Georgia fans. I wrote that the incident occurred at Sanford Stadium, whereas several have pointed out that it appears that it was at a University of Florida game. The young lady being a Gator makes a lot more sense.

And so, the campaign to nominate "I fought the stall and the stall won" to the Deadspin Hall of Fame begins. We should also probably nominate the girl. And what the hell, the slug, too.

Countdown With Keith Olbermann [Official Site]

Well tonight, America's left-leaning football nation will get a preview of their reunion, as DP pops into the studio at "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" to discuss the Brett Favre trade. I'm as curious as you are to find out how Favre-to-the-Jets is Rupert Murdoch's fault.

Official Site [Countdown With Keith Olbermann]

According to NBC Sports, Patrick will reunite with Olbermann as part of NBC Sports "Football Night In America" broadcast starting this fall. Yes, it's true: Patrick and Olbermann will tag-team the highlights and, once again, unleash their highly-evolved brain power upon an unsuspecting sports nation. But it's not the 90's anymore. Can these two recapture the magic (and the mustache) they once shared without the show devolving into some egocentric meta-ranting designed only to amuse themselves? Will the suits at NBC worry that the non-reading football audience will feel too stupid to watch?

It's time to dust off your library cards, America.

Patrick Joins NBC, Reunites With Olbermann [NBC Sports]

Keith Olbermann seemed genuinely flustered last night when Al Gore took his sweet time taking the stage at Joe Louis Arena to endorse Barack Obama; so much so that he forgot what team Chauncey Billups plays for. Billups was onstage to introduce Gore, and Olbermann had to go to his notes to identify him; at first claiming that he played for the Nuggets. Close ... both cities begin with a D. Come on Keith, you're a former SportsCenter anchor.

Part of the problem was that Olbermann's show was just about to end, and he was frustrated because Gore had not yet reached the stage (those ethanol-powered limos are goof for the environment but slow). Meaning that the upstart Dan Abrams — who reminds me of that kid who you always threw rocks at from your tree fort — was going to get the speech on his show in the following time slot.

Al Gore Endorses Barack Obama [MSNBC]
Keith Olbermann Doesn't Have Much Time For Sports These Days [Awful Announcing]

We don't think it's a major exaggeration to say that Olbermann is sort of the Letterman of the sports world; back when he and Dan Patrick were hosting "SportsCenter," his perspective on sports was so new, so wry, so come on, this is sports ... this is supposed to be fun that you couldn't help but be intoxicated by it. In a way, Olbermann is a forefather of all this let's-puncture-a-few-holes-in-this-sports-world business. He also did a mean Jack Buck impression and inspired us to use the "6-4-3 if you're scoring at home ... or even if you're alone" joke about 40 times in college. Plus, there was that mustache.

You can vote on Olbermann's ESPN past, or his current Sunday Night Is Football Night work, or those ill-fated months with Fox Sports (remember when his head was haunting every hockey arena?), or his current "Countdown" show, his politics, whatever. We figure we just include it all.

So: Do you like the Keith Olbermann? Do you not like the Keith Olbermann? Let 'er fly.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Gelf Magazine, brilliantly, digs up Farred — now an associate professor of literature at Duke — for an interview, and he now seems almost embarrassed of his paper.

I look at [Who's Now] and think it's just crap. At the moment I wrote the paper, I believed it raised the IQ, but by now it is responsible for the deterioration of all sports talk. SportsCenter elevated sports talk because it was unique and singular, but now you have stuff like Rome is Burning. Proliferation is the death of intelligence. SportsCenter thrived because it was expansive and smart and because it stood in sharp contrast to other forms of sports talk. Part of [the decline] started with Keith Olbermann's departure. These guys have become parodies of themselves and haven't been replaced effectively.

Later on, he says Stephen A. Smith "has the intelligence of a Philadelphia mall rat." Fun!

Lamenting SportsCenter's Baroque Period [Gelf Magazine]

Anyway, Olbermann's got another gig: He's gonna be on NBC's NFL pregame show this year.

Keith Olbermann will return to sports for the first time in six years to join Cris Collinsworth as co-host of the pregame show for NBC's Sunday night NFL telecasts. Olbermann, who currently hosts a prime-time newscast and opinion show called Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, will join with host Bob Costas and analysts Jerome Bettis, Tiki Barber and Peter King on NBC's "Football Night in America."

OK, that highlight show is starting to become awfully crowded, and we anticipate many pissing contest between Costas and Olbermann as to who gets to play the role of "Moral Beacon Of The Sports World." We think Olbermann could probably take him; Costas would win the smug points, but Olbermann's at least a foot taller.

Olbermann To Join NBC Pregame Show [SI.com]

His admission of nightly betting came up only because, before he came on the air with us, I had repeated the standard history of his gambling while Reds' manager: that he never bet against his own team, but that he often didn't bet at all on their games. This, to me, was as great a transgression as the gambling itself, because it left open the prospect that he wouldn't use his closer or would rest his key players during the games in which he had no wager. To me that was a kind of passive-aggressive game-fixing.

Rose was correcting me. Used that term. The emphasis was not "I BET on the Reds every night," but "I bet on the Reds EVERY night." To me, that takes a little of the sting out of the process. At least Pete Rose the manager wasn't subservient to Pete Rose the compulsive gambler. At least the game outcomes weren't affected because he was saving John Franco until a night he had $500 riding on the result.

Remember, that's the point of all this: Whether Rose could have fixed a game. The perception of the interview does seem to skew a bit from its actual content. We do respect Rose's devotion to his team, though; we think he actually bet on the Reds to win that interview.

In Defense Of Pete Rose [The Newshole]

Here's your little blast for the past today: As difficult as it is to believe that Hootie and the Blowfish were ever considered cool — we're not sure that actually ever happened — it's, these days, just as difficult to comprehend ESPN being, you know, down with the kids. These two unique cultural curiosities intersected in this famous music video, which we suspect you haven't seen in a long, long time.

Each year the residents of this tiny Bohemian hamlet reenact the plucky villagers defeating the evil knights who tried to overrun the town. Mmmm, Bohemian omelet ... Of course, it's a fictional battle; these people aren't really reenacting, they're acting. Then again who am I to get into a semantics argument with a guy carrying an iron war hammer and a tunic made out of animals he killed with his own teeth? You're with me, leather!

(UPDATE: By the way, video of the segment can be found right here.)

Keith: It's very difficult to be the smartest person in this room right now.
Keith's Other Voice: I know. It is our curse

But we very much enjoyed this clip from "The Dan Patrick Show," where Olbermann surprises gubernatorial "candidate" Lynn Swann with some, you know, actual questions. A reader sums it up for us.

Around 2:20 p.m. ET last Friday, Patrick introduces Swann on the show. Patrick said (in a humorous tone) that, in light of the Swann's prior work with ABC and Disney, he was going to have OIbermann ask Swann questions. Swann seemed to think that this was going to be lightweight question theater (he joked to Patrick that he didn't know he'd changed to a news show). Olbermann's first question was on the current dispute between McCain/Warner/Graham and the Bush administration on the administration appearing to disregard an act of Congress: What did Swann think about the split within the Republican party, and which side was he on? Swann spouted a non-answer and ended the answer with the statement that it wasn't a state issue, so it didn't really matter to the Swann campaign.

Olbermann, in one of the sweetest comebacks I've heard in a long time, responded that if Swann wanted a state question, he had one: Senator Rick Santorum is talking smack about going after federal funding for New Jersey if they won't agree to dredge the Delaware River. What does Swann think about that? Swann was silent for four beats, then said that he had been on a bus, and he hadn't seen the papers (even though it's been a contentious issue for close to a month), and he really didn't know anything about the issue Olbermann was talking about. Olbermann, very quietly and with as much polite snark as he could possibly get away with, suggested that Swann may want to make a note of that one, and threw it back to Patrick with the question, "Are you glad you wanted to do that now?"

To be fair, political questions are really hard.

You're Doing A Heckuva Job, Swanny [Deadspin]

Afternoon: Irvin appears on Dan Patrick's radio show and reiterates his story that the pipe was accidentally left in the car. He adds the wrinkle that his wife was with him. Patrick even pushes him to take a drug test, but Irvin apparently didn't, uh, hear the question. The best part is when Keith Olbermann — still hanging around ESPN offices, tapping Scott Van Pelt on the shoulder and saying things like, "You know I made you, right? Right? Do you? Because I could really use some reassurance right now. I'm an important man. Hi. Do you like this tie? Because I can change it if you want me to." — talked about how Irvin cost a producer a job back at Fox Sports Net, during the end of the Olbermann's time, when the producer cast doubts on Irvin's ability to stay clean. The producer was canned ... then Irvin got busted for possession. Olbermann: "If he's innocent, he should take a drug test now instead of waiting until it's safe to do so."

Early evening: The Smoking Gun reveals that Irvin's "friend" the pipe "belonged" to was his brother. (Or so Irvin tells the police.) Later, The Dallas Morning News will steal this info without crediting TSG, which the Associated Press will then credit the Dallas paper for finding. Print journalists are such dopes sometimes.

Evening: Irvin makes his long-awaited appearance with Stuart Scott on "SportsCenter." Irvin brings up that he found the pipe from his "friend" while "pretending to hug him while actually patting him down." (We imagine this happening a lot around the Irvin household.) Scott puts on his best Barbara Walters face, and Irvin comes across as sympathetic, downtrodden and entirely full of cowpie.

No answer was given to the perfectly legitimate question a reader asked in the comments yesterday: "The incident happened Friday. So, did Irvin neglect to mention it until he had to own up because someone else found out and told ESPN? Did he mention it immediately and ESPN buried it till Sunday afternoon, after NFL Countdown had aired? If he didn't mention it and ESPN found out thru other channels, shouldn't that be deemed fireable in itself? And if he did tell ESPN on Saturday when he arrived in Bristol, aren't they incredibly negligent in allowing him on the air without saying anything?"

Good questions all. Stay tuned.

Michael Irvin s Side Of The Story [The Best Sports Blog]
Michael Irvin Pipes A Quote [The Smoking Gun]
Irvin Addresses Arrest [ESPN]

Witness his comments, at a commencement address at Cornell University (apparently they're letting anyone speak at Ivy League schools these days):

It gave him "dry heaves," and it would "make me ashamed, make me depressed, make me cry."

To reiterate Olbermann's career path:

1990-1992: ESPN2 anchor. You might remember Olbermann's skinny ties and mustache/mullet combo.
1992-1997: ESPN SportsCenter anchor with Dan Patrick.
1997: NBC Sports anchor. You might remember Olbermann from ... well, we don't remember Olbermann there at all. He had a brief MSNBC show most famous for talking about nothing but Monica Lewinsky for two years.
1999-2001: Host of sports program on Fox Sports. Most famous for billboard of his enormous head on every stadium's available advertising space.
2002-2005: Host of MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann." In a grand career move, Olbermann starts a blog.

He will continue the MSNBC show while appearing with his old pal Patrick on ESPN Radio. This absolutely cannot end well. We imagine Olbermann sitting at home late at night, alone, staring into a mirror, wondering if it's possible, anywhere, that a broadcasting profession could ever be worthy of him.

Olbermann Rejoins ESPN [USA Today]
I Never Left ESPN, I Just Had A Lot Of Vacation Time [Bloggermann]