media Page 215 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Media Approval Ratings: John Buccigross
We've noticed an awful lot of John Buccigross on "SportsCenter" lately, and that's probably a testament to his abilities to maneuver over there. He somehow escaped hockey jail....

Media Approval Ratings: Rick Reilly
You might know this already, but in case you don't: Rick Reilly, late of Sports Illustrated and soon to be everywhere on ESPN to justify that enormous contract, is one of the co-writers of Leatherheads, that new George Clooney movie that's opening Friday. Supposedly Clooney had to dramatically rewri...

Media Approval Ratings: Pat Summerall
We know that Pat Summerall isn't on television that much anymore, because of all his health issues and, you know, the bottle. (Summerall will be 78 in May.)...

Jay Mariotti Remains A Very Delicate Boy
You might remember back when Jay Mariotti, deeply hurt by critical remarks on Wikipedia, asking the site to take down those mean, mean words. You might have thought he had grown a thicker skin since then. You'd be wrong....

Media Approval Ratings: Jim Rome
To be honest, we don't listen to much sports talk radio. It's not out any particular inclination against it — at least, not entirely — and more because we live in New York. We don't have a car, which means we don't listen much to any kind of radio....

So, Does Anybody REALLY Care About Jose Canseco And Alex Rodriguez?
So something interesting happened yesterday, in the wake of all those Canseco stories. The "mainstream" sports world went nuts — poor Joe Lavin, the guy who bought the book, found his name on the freaking ESPN crawl — but you guys, the actual sports fans out there, responded with shoulder shrugs and...

Media Approval Ratings: Kenny Mayne
A few unusual facts about Kenny Mayne:...

Media Approval Ratings: Steve Phillips
It's not often you hear ESPN's Steve Phillips in the broadcast booth for a game, but hey, it's tough to turn down a trip to Japan. We think the days of the fake press conferences are over, but Steve Phillips remains, undaunted....

Media Approval Ratings: Stuart Scott
Last week, The New Republic, in a post about Sen. Barack Obama calling into a Philadelphia sports talk radio station, unleashed the following groaner:...

Media Approval Ratings: Buster Olney
When we first moved to New York, Buster Olney was the anonymous, goofily named reporter in The New York Times who knew pretty much everything you needed to know about baseball. He was their star. And then he went to ESPN. He's not the star anymore, but at least everybody knows his name now....

Media Approval Ratings: Vin Scully
With the tournament starting and everything, we thought it would be time to make it clear that baseball is about to start. (Not just in Japan either. Finally.) And we can think of no better way of reminding you than bringing up Vin Scully....

Media Approval Ratings: Mike Tirico
By now, most people know the old stories about Mike Tirico. (If you don't know them, they're right here.) Tirico appears to have gotten help for an obvious problem, and is apparently doing better. Good for him, because he doesn't seem to have time for a scandal now: The guy is everywhere....

Media Approval Ratings: Mitch Albom
Back when we were rehearsing on this here site, trying to talk the overlords into Gawker Media into the notion that a sports blog might not be a terrible idea, one of our first posts was about Mitch Albom's little ethical lapse at the Detroit Free Press. The surprise to us at the time was less than ...

Bob Costas Addresses Last Week's Comments
Last night, while preparing for today's tournament lunacy and trying to find a picture of Mississippi Valley State's logo (he is Ming, and he is merciless), our phone rang. We didn't have time to answer it, so 20 minutes later, we checked our messages. It was Bob Costas. He wanted to discuss, on rec...

Media Approval Ratings: Dick Vitale
Now that Dickie V is back and at full throat capacity, perhaps it is time to judge him....

Media Approval Ratings: Jim Nantz
We are coming up on the busiest month of Jim Nantz's life. He'll be broadcasting the Final Four, and then he'll head off to the event that he seems born to cover, the Masters. We sometimes think Jim Nantz is the living embodiment of the Masters. This is both a good thing and a bad thing....

Bob Costas Thinks You're A Loser
Some of you out there might like Bob Costas. Some of you might not. We've always been partial to the guy, not just because he's a St. Louis guy, and not just because he did the intro to the final episode of "Cheers," though that certainly helps. Costas is an obviously intelligent guy, if a bit smugg...

Media Approval Ratings: Al Michaels
Of all the brilliance of the great Berman videos, our third biggest thrill (behind the initial outrage and the deux deux deux) involves his rants about Al Michaels. As we said before, in this tiny little universe, Berman seems to see Michaels as Mozart, and himself as Salieri. Which is just sad....

Media Approval Ratings: Joe Buck
After reading KSK's anonymous and almost certainly not true (but still quite entertaining) tale of Joe Buck rollicking out in Vegas, we figured this was as good a time as any to check in with the ominpresent Fox broadcaster....

Media Approval Ratings: Bill Raftery
We think it's kind of amazing that ESPN has Bill Raftery working with Jay Bilas this week at the Big East tournament. That's not because we don't like either of them; far from it. It's just that Bilas, as a game broadcaster, seems to be doing a Bill Raftery impersonation. Which is fine, of course....