media Page 139 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Salsa Music That Played After Victor Cruz's Touchdown Sunday Was Entirely Planned By NBC
The NFL looks down upon premeditated celebrations, but it seems that restriction doesn't apply to the No Fun League's broadcast partners. Despite NBC's Bob Costas gasbagging about celebrations earlier this season, the Peacock Network elected to enhance Victor Cruz's celebration with a bit of Latin...

No, Brad Nessler, West Virginia Is Not A City In Virginia
This just in from the Allstate Sugar Bowl featuring Michigan vs. Virginia Tech: In tomorrow night's Orange Bowl, the Clemson Tigers will "take on another team from the state of Virginia: West Virginia." (H/T Jeff Q. and Cyrus the Virus)...

Here's Mike Ditka Calling Dan Orlovsky A Polack, Then Apologizing
Mike Ditka comes from a Ukrainian family and grew up amongst people of various Slavic extraction in western Pennsylvania. He inevitably had friends who were Slovakian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovenian, or Czech. He also probably knew some Polish people, whom he and everyone else he grew up around cal...
![Mavericks Play-By-Play Voice Mark Followill Will Not Tolerate Your Online Criticism [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/18j4opz3qbkx6jpg.jpg)
Mavericks Play-By-Play Voice Mark Followill Will Not Tolerate Your Online Criticism [UPDATE]
NBA X's & O's maven Sebastian Pruiti (formerly of NBA Playbook, now at Grantland) watches a lot of basketball on television—as much, I'd wager, as anyone in the country. An experienced observer of local NBA broadcasts, then, he's within his rights to offer the tame criticism of the Mavericks broadc...

Mike Milbury Referred To The New York Rangers As "The Blue Shits" Yesterday
It wasn't deliberate, and he quickly corrected himself, but we can all still have a laugh at it. [NBC; h/t to Roe H.]...

ESPN Thinks Helmet-To-Helmet Hits Are Pretty Great
The Worldwide Leader did away with its "Jacked Up!" segment some time ago, but it's still not above marveling at and even promoting footage of a good old-fashioned helmet-to-helmet blast, as this tweet to its 2.4 million followers clearly indicates....

ESPN's SkyCam Becomes Self-Aware, Starts Attacking Iowa Players
It was bound to happen eventually: the wire-suspended ESPN SkyCam came crashing to the ground late in Friday's Insight Bowl in Tempe, nearly decapitating Iowa's Marvin McNutt and leaving the Worldwide Leader's Sean McDonough to apologize with a sheepish "Sorry folks."...

No, <em>ESPN The Magazine</em> Columnist Was Not Comparing The Marlins' New Stadium Deal To The 1989 Massacre Of 14 Women In Montreal
You probably know Chris Jones from Esquire, Grantland, or his busy Twitter feed, but it's his column in ESPN: The Magazine that has ticked off legions of his countrymen. Jones, like the angry mob needlessly chasing him online yesterday, is Canadian....

In Case You Missed It, TNT Toppled A Christmas Tree Onto Shaq
After years of trashing Chris Bosh (the "RuPaul of big men" comment in 2009, the "Big Two" reference earlier this year) the chickens finally came home to roost. On TNT's postgame show last night, the crew convinced O'Neal to take the last in-studio shot of 2011—in front of a precarious Christmas t...
![Columnist Calls Former OU Coach A "Slapdick" Hired "Because He Was Black," Doesn't Realize He's Being Recorded [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/Image_Not_Found_1x_qjofp8.png)
Columnist Calls Former OU Coach A "Slapdick" Hired "Because He Was Black," Doesn't Realize He's Being Recorded [UPDATE]
After yesterday's Fiesta Bowl press conference for Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Bill Young, Tulsa World columnist Dave Sittler did what a lot of reporters often do once the cameras and microphones are turned off and the interview subject hasn't yet bolted for the lunch spread. Sittler enga...

Soon, ESPN Will Be Nothing But 24 Hours Of People Disagreeing With Skip Bayless
You should read Richard Deitsch on Dana Jacobson's defenestration from ESPN's First Take—as a co-host, she was to Skip Bayless what Dave Garroway was to his pet chimp—but you should really read this ESPN interview with First Take producer Jamie Horowitz, which is a stupid little fractal of everythin...

15 Years Ago, I Wrote A Fan Letter To ESPN. Here's Who Wrote Back.
I don't remember now what was in my letter, which I'd addressed to the very nonspecific "SportsCenter anchors." I'm sure it was your standard fan mail—"I'm a big fan, I watch every morning, I want to be on ESPN one day." I don't think I asked for a reply, and I definitely didn't ask for signed heads...

As Far As ESPN Is Concerned, Not A Single Hockey Player Died This Year
SportsCenter's annual Year In Review show enters heavy rotation on the WWL this week, and as is tradition, it includes an "In Memoriam" segment recognizing the athletes and sports figures lost in 2011. Puck Daddy has the complete list of those honored:...

What The Hell Was Up With Linda Cohn Last Night?
We're generally fans of Linda Cohn, but last night's 11pm SportsCenter was bizarre. It started with a cold open featuring Cohn lamenting the onset of some kind of holiday-related depression, then continued to the above segment in which she seems genuinely surprised to be interviewing the New York ...

Charles Barkley: "Skip Bayless Has Surpassed Peter Vecsey As The Biggest Jackass In The History Of Journalism"
Following up on his earlier claim about "hating Skip Bayless more than any person in the world," TNT Inside the NBA commentator Charles Barkley launched another barrage in his media beef with the ESPN First Take pundit today on The Dan Patrick Show....

<em>New York Times</em>: College Football Is In Crisis, What With The Resume Padding And Child Rape And Things Like That
Today's New York Times writes up the resignation of Yale football coach Tom Williams, caught in a resume-padding scandal after he claimed to have been a former Rhodes Scholarship finalist. A two-bylined investigation by the Times in November, as Yale quarterback Patrick Witt was dropping out of the ...

Jarome Iginla Is Flabbergasted By Reporter's Repeated Question That's Not Actually A Question
"Setting up the play. Setting up the play. Setting up the play. Setting up the play."...
![Legendary Columnist Bill Conlin Resigns Over Forthcoming <em>Philly Inquirer</em> Bombshell [UPDATE]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/17w9ey2hws0vijpg.jpg)
Legendary Columnist Bill Conlin Resigns Over Forthcoming <em>Philly Inquirer</em> Bombshell [UPDATE]
The Philadelphia Inquirer's top investigative reporter, Nancy Phillips, has written a story containing what we're told are allegations of child molestation against sportswriter Bill Conlin, a longtime columnist at the rival Daily News. Conlin resigned just moments ago, according to a source at the D...

<em>Monday Night Football</em>'s Experiment With A New Sideline Reporter Failed Miserably
ESPN paid the NFL $1.1 billion this year for the rights to broadcast Monday Night Football. To bolster that coverage and warrant that massive sum, they pay millions of dollars in salaries to NFL sideline reporters Suzy Kolber, Rachel Nichols, Sal Paolantonio, and Ed Werder....

Here's Five Minutes Of Cricket Announcers Trying To Record A Broadcast Intro
I'm not entirely sure what this is, except that it came on my ESPN3 feed immediately after the end of Baylor's 66-61 win over UConn in women's hoops last night....