ESPN Page 149 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A Love Letter To The Deadspinners
We say this in all seriousness, and mean it about as much as we could possibly mean anything: The main goal of this site was to give people something entertaining to distract themselves from their desk jobs. We feel like we somewhat succeeded in this role; it's terrifying to contemplate how many law...

Our Friends At Bristol
On the book tour, one of the most common questions we were asked: "Do you ever talk to any ESPN guys? Do they hate you?" The two people they asked about most often were Bill Simmons and Chris Berman. We're not sure what that says about either of them, or us....

Who's Sorry Now? ESPN Columnist Edition
I wanted the final Who's Sorry Now? post during Will's tenure to be a memorable one, and this one's a doozy. Jemele Hill's latest column over at the Page Dos includes the phrase "I'm sorry," not once, but three times ... plus dozens of other variations of the term sprinkled throughout. It's a mea cu...

ESPN Still Desperately Wants To Be Cool Again
A couple of years ago, some of ESPN's on-air talent was being lured away by another competing cable network that promised them a Daily Show-style vehicle, centered around sports instead of politics. Some were very interested — and some were very disappointed when the deal never went through, especia...

Rich Eisen Just Can't Seem To Escape Embarrassing Flirty E-mail Accusations
The saga of former Philadelphia anchorhussy Alycia Lane has reached its messy legal stage, as the publicity-attracting former newslady has filed a 40-page lawsuit against the former station, mostly alleging that her former employer was completely wrong for firing her. Once public, the suit also br...

The Continued Downsizing Of Stephen A. Smith
This Thursday's NBA draft coverage on ESPN will not have Stephen A. Smith seated up front this year, instead they've relegated him to draftee-interviewing duties, an assignment the Miami Herald says, "he handled capably and calmly after the Celtics won the championship Tuesday."...

Trey Wingo Wants To Remind Everyone Of ESPN's Plebian Roots
NFL Live's silver-haired lead dog Trey Wingo is one of the more likable chaps over at ESPN and straddles the line between Disney drone and regular guy better than most other WWL employees. Wingo took some time away from cuddling with Mark Schlereth to speak to Dan Levy's OnTheDL podcast and gave an...

ESPN Is Giving Jemele Hill Some Quiet Time
As you've probably heard by now, ESPN has suspended Jemele Hill for a "period of time" after one of her columns broke Godwin's Law and invoked Hitler. We do hope local Boston sports radio is happy now that they have their scalp....


Pardon The Interruption...In My Pants!
The above photo of PTI-er and blog despiser Michael Wilbon and Girl Next Door Kendra was taken last night at a post-Lakers after party by p*rn star and blogger, Christian, from HIS personal blog Christian Sings The Blues (NSFW), which he describes as "My Strange Life Within the Adult Film Business: ...

Bill Simmons Still Comfortable With Rick Reilly Hanging Around
All the sports news came from Boston last night, so hey: Why not keep piling on and play with some sports media news from Boston too? How could one ever get tired of Boston, right? Right? Who's with us?...

Welcome To Internet Land, Mr. Reilly
Well, everybody's favorite paid-more-than-a-middle-infielder columnist made his debut today, and it's a nice little column ... about Rick Reilly. As far as Look, ESPN Readers, I'm Here! columns go, it's a step above Jemele Hill's — whom we still like — and a few steps behind Simmons' epic "Is Roger ...

One More Special Message To Go
David Hirshey writes regularly for Deadspin about soccer. Well, until today, anyway....

Prepare For Rick Reilly's Debut On ESPN
Rick Reilly might not like bloggers, but if you have a problem with that, you better get over it. Because his contract with ESPN begins next week....

Bill Simmons Is Enjoying His "Rebellious" Status
Ever since his gauntlet-throwing interview with us last week, Bill Simmons has been doodling with his blogspot page. Amusingly, he seems to be drawing a parallel between himself and Tom Cruise's character in The Firm....

Hey Kids! It's ESPN Rise! (Kill Me Now)
Those old enough to remember the launch of Sports Illustrated For Kids know what fun is in store for America with ESPN's newest venture, ESPN Rise. It's ESPN's attempt to go after the high school demographic with content — including a magazine, programming events and even a presence on SportsCenter...

Simmons: "Certain Promises Were Not Kept"
We're not the only ones who noticed that Bill Simmons hasn't written a column in two weeks — until today, anyway — and hasn't been featured much on the home page of ESPN.com. We figured it was nothing; the man has taken extended breaks before. But, just to be thorough, we emailed him and asked if an...

Tony Kornheiser Leaves The World Of Newspapers
Sad news this morning, and we're pretty sure it's the fault of the goddamned blogs: Tony Kornheiser, after nearly 30 years at the Washington Post, has accepted a buyout from the paper....

The Era Of Hannah Storm's Sports Center Will Blow (In) Soon
On Saturday, SI.com's Richard Deitsch revealed that ESPN was plopping long-time sports-and-news talking head Hannah Storm into the new morning slot for Sports Center. Tomorrow, ESPN will make the formal announcement at upfront presentations, the big-snazzy press conference done to get the advertiser...

Hannah Storm To Weather SportsCenter Circus
Hannah Storm may have the name of a pro wrestler, but she's a serious germalist. She was the first full-time female sports anchor at CNN and a prominent figure at NBC Sports for a decade before jumping to CBS to host the CBS Early Show. She also told us about injuries in Madden '96, so she's got tha...