Possibly one of the hardest things for any ESPN announcer working right now is being on the same broadcast team with sideline princess Erin Andrews. It's impossible to just cut over to Andrews, without getting tongue-tied and flush, as this is when it's time to impress her with professionalism — "No, no, no I don't think you're pretty, Erin? You're just a colleague and you are my peer!"— and not use the A-game, hot chick charm.

Rick Sutcliffe, in the booth last night for the Braves/Cubs game on ESPN, apparently didn't get the memo, and he just couldn't ease up on the good ol' boy flirtin'.

It's relatively harmless and probably something that Andrews herself isn't completely used to at this point (plus, you know, Sutcliffe is recovering from colon cancer right now), so she's a tough girl and probably not offended. Yet, blogger USS Mariner took offense to the whole thing, and decided it was time to act chivalrous for once, without the requisite half-erection.

I don’t care what your opinion of her is: Erin takes an enormous amount of entirely unjustified personal crap. She’s been treated badly by players, awkwardly clutched by coaches. If you put her name into a search engine you need to get decontaminated within minutes of just looking at the results or your eyes will melt. Erin is objectified and degraded in a way that no male sports media figure has ever had to face, and Rick Sutcliffe, working with her, should know that and, if he can’t support her, at least shut up.

It is amazing and embarrassing that no one on the broadcast crew stopped Sutcliffe. No one cut his mike, nothing, and his partner didn’t stop him but instead ended up playing along. The broadcast team and the network let someone use game time to slobber all over another broadcaster for absolutely no reason.

That’s it, that’s all I have. Fuck you, Rick Sutcliffe. Fuck you, other guy in the booth. You’re embarrassments to my gender.

See what she brings out in people? He's willing to fight a man with cancer to defend her honor.

Rick Sutcliffe Is Concerned For Erin Andrews' Skirt In Chicago [Big League Stew]
Rick Sutcliffe Is A Horrible Person And ESPN's No Better [USS Mariner]

Bill Murray is currently pre-gaming at the keg-erator this very minute.

Sutcliffe Returning To ESPN Baseball Tonight [Awful Announcing]

Since Sports Illustrated is making its unveiling of the 2006 Sportsman Of The Year award into a two-month enterprise, we figured we could do the same thing. Therefore, we are introducing the Deadspin Sportshuman Of The Year tournament, where 16 nominees will compete for the sainted title. We've put together the seeding, and you'll vote every Tuesday and Thursday to narrow the field down to one winner at the end of the year.

We'll have a fun bracket for you on Tuesday, filling in all the seeds, but we thought we'd start you off with an 8-9 seed battle. Only one can be crowned. Enjoy.

No. 8 Seed: Matt Leinart
2006 Highlights
Drafted by The Buzzsaw That Is The Arizona Cardinals.
Consumated sexual relationship with Paris Hilton.
Impregnated USC basketball player.
Discovered what life with the Buzzsaw is really like.

No. 9 Seed: Rick Sutcliffe
2006 Highlights
Partied with Bill Murray and then made the unfortunate decision to go live on the air. (Sadly, the video has been eradicated from the Internets, as far as we can tell.)
Suspended for going out there and trying to solve that thing.

So, go vote: Who advances to the Elite Eight?

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For some reason — perhaps it's the Cardinals-Cubs series tonight — but we started becoming rather nostalgic and wistful about Harry Caray today. We're not sure why. Jack Buck was always our favorite announcer anyway. Maybe it's just because we don't have many Harrys anymore; people who are liable to do and say anything, and do and say it in as entertaining a way as possible. Maybe if they let Rick Sutcliffe do all the games drunk, maybe. Or maybe we're just vanilla Jim Nantz/Joe Buck/Greg Gumbel-ed out.

Anyway, we were hoping to find a video of Harry pronouncing "Grudzielanek" or explaining how Dawson spelled backwards was Nosewad, but, alas, we could only find this Rapping Harry commercial from the mid-80s. For now, we guess, it will have to suffice.

And Here's Your Rick Sutcliffe Video [Deadspin]

After a brief moment of awkward silence, Blyleven blurted out, "Let's talk about Paula Abdul ... Did you get lucky with her?"

We'd pay good money to see a Blyleven -Rick Sutcliffe booth combo, wouldn't you?

Um, Does He Know His Microphone Is On? [World Of B]
-And Here's Your Rick Sutcliffe Video [Deadspin]

Sutcliffe's "offense," of course, was the drunken appearance he made on a local Padres telecast last week, including the now famous, "George Clooney! Down there trying to solve that thing!" soliloquy.

Sutcliffe has since apologized, saying he "was not in optimum condition to go on live television." We have to say, though, that if every ESPN personality who was "not in optimum condition to go on live television" was suspended for a game, well, our telecasts would be oddly silent. Which might not be too bad, actually.

Out: Rick Sutcliffe [USA Today]
And Here's Your Rick Sutcliffe Video [Deadspin]

(UPDATE: Actually, the Chicago Tribune's Teddy Greenstein had this scoop first.)

We asked for it, and you provided it: The complete video of Rick Sutcliffe's drunken meltdown on the Padres' telecast Wednesday night. Whoever posted the video was kind enough, in the middle of the video, to give us closeups of the announcers' faces, particularly play-by-play man Matt Vasgersian, who desperately tries to steer conversation away from his own career and toward, oh, ANYTHING else.

Word has spread about Sutcliffe's performance, to the point that ESPN ran an apology from Sutcliffe on "SportsCenter." But there's the moment, in all its glory. This is what happens when you go drinking with Bill Murray.

Remember: George Clooney, he's try to get everybody to go over there and solve that thing.

Sutcliffe Drunk [YouTube]
Sutcliffe Gives Incoherent Interview [San Francisco Chronicle]

We might question why Bill Murray doesn't have anybody better to hang out with than Rick Sutcliffe, but we're not complaining. Because — as we've been hearing all morning — Sutcliffe showed up on the Padres' local telecast and was absolutely bombed out of his mind.

When an ESPN personality is piss drunk on television, and there's audio of it, well, that's kind of the American Dream right there.

(We're still looking for video, by the way. If anybody taped it, operators are standing by at tips@deadspin.com.)

Rick Sutcliffe Three Sheets to the Wind [Gas Lamp Ball]