It's The End Of The Boom Run, And We Don't Feel Fine

As we've written before, though not here, we love the Great Outdoor Games on ESPN: It's pretty much the highlight of baseball's All-Star Weekend for us, definitely more fun than the game. We can never decide which we enjoy more: The fierce rivalry between the Hoeschler sisters in women's log rolling, or the small dog agility competition. We probably have to go with the dogs. Though it would be cool if they could train the dogs to log roll.

Anyway, it is with genuine sadness that we report that ESPN is postponing the Great Outdoor Games for 2006, saying it will "relaunch the event in 2007 with fresh ideas and approaches that will improve it for our fans, viewers and participants." We don't know what this means — we're guessing something with the letter "X" in it — but we actually surprised by how much the cancellation bothered us when we heard about it last night. There was something so dopey and earnest about the Great Outdoor Games; they were like a flashback to the old days of ESPN, when they really needed events like "Boom Run" and "Hot Saw" just to fill out the schedule. They'll rework the Great Outdoor Games over there, and maybe the ratings will improve, and maybe they'll hit a younger demographic, but we bet they're nowhere near as much fun.

Great Outdoor Games Postponed Until '07 [ESPN]