media Page 98 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

ESPN President's Memo: Support The Troops; Also, We're Firing People

Below is a memo from ESPN president John Skipper, sent companywide just before the Memorial Day weekend and forwarded to us by a Bristol tipster. "This is the only communication we've received from upper management this week that mentions the layoffs," our tipster writes. Happy Memorial Day!...

MLB Network Is Just Inventing New Statistics Now

If only my dog could shit with at least a .275 average....

Trope-Recycling Bill Simmons Has Bill Simmons Syndrome

Bill Simmons this week mused on the fate of Dwight Howard, who appears to be the NBA's equivalent of plutonium: a potential world-beater but perilously radioactive. To characterize the gap between Perceived Dwight Howard and Actual Dwight Howard, the founder of Grantland and ESPN spittling-head did ...

Hawk Completely Melts Down About This Blown Double Play Call

Chicago White Sox announcer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson was obviously a little high-strung yesterday when Chicago had bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th with one out against the lowly Marlins. When umpire Angel Hernandez called White Sox batter Alex Rios out at first base to complete the double play an...

Yep, The L.A. Media Is <em>Still</em> Confused By The City's Hockey Team

Man, that was close. Just when we were starting to think we'd get through an entire NHL season without a Kings-related screw-up from the Los Angeles media, Fox 11's Liz Habib rides to the rescue....

David Foster Wallace's Interview With Roger Federer Lasted 20 Minutes

David Foster Wallace's 2006 Times Magazine profile of Roger Federer is one of sports journalism's most famous write-arounds. Or, as Wallace wrote himself, the piece was "a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context." But the Times flew Wallace out to Wimbledon, so surely he got to spend some...

NESN Reports <em>SportsPickle</em> Satire About Brian Urlacher As News

Yesterday satirical sports website SportsPickle published an amusing story on Brian Urlacher's retirement, claiming the Bears linebacker was retiring but signing a one-day contract with the Packers so he could "go out a winner." Today, while broadcasting coverage of the ACC baseball tournament, NES...

ESPN Is Now Hiring. Young And Cheap May Apply. [UPDATE]

One ESPN source put it this way: ESPN "hacked" hundreds of jobs and will replace those laid off "with younger, cheaper, less experienced people."...

ESPN Guy Praises Johnny Manziel's "V-I-P-ness" (Say It Out Loud)

College Football Live's Joe Tessitore aroused attention today by stroking Johnny Manziel's total package....

Lynn Hoppes, Who Was The Worst, Is Out At ESPN

ESPN's Dancing with the Stars correspondent Lynn Hoppes—a man who drooled over swag, recruited a scam artist, plagiarized Wikipedia, and stole my girlfriend—has been laid off, three sources have confirmed. ESPN is also shutting down Playbook, Hoppes's home for the past year. An ESPN spokesman decli...

Ex-ESPNer: Did Network Cut 300-400 Jobs To Pay For <em>SportsCenter</em> Set?

A recently laid-off ESPN source gave us more details about the ESPN job cuts, the first significant staff reduction in four years. First off, it appears these layoffs will stretch over several weeks. There will be more technology and creative services layoffs today. Layoffs in production are coming ...

Jalen Rose Says Tony Allen's Flop Was Worthy Of A Pulitzer Prize

When Manu Ginobili hit Tony Allen with a flagrant foul late in last night's Grizzlies-Spurs game, Allen engaged in a truly fantastic bit of theater by pretending that Ginobili's foul had caused him to slam his head against the floor. It was a flop for the ages (which doesn't change the fact that th...

Wolf Blitzer Asks Atheist Tornado Survivor, "Do You Thank The Lord?"

We Had A Seventh-Grade English Teacher Grade Rick Reilly's Poem

Remember last week, when Rick Reilly tried to pass off this stupid poem as a sports column? Since he's an adult who gets paid an exorbitant amount of money to write about sports, Reilly was rightly lambasted by most everyone who saw his poem. But we wanted to give Reilly's poetic skills a chance to ...

Sources: ESPN Laying Off Hundreds [UPDATE]

ESPN is laying off a portion of its staff today, a network spokesman confirms to us. How many? ESPN won't say. A tipster told us earlier today that it would be more than 400 staffers. A source at ESPN said that number is a little high, but it appears to be in the hundreds. ...

Say Goodbye To The Premier League On ESPN With This Outtake Reel

Yesterday marked the end of ESPN's Premier League coverage, and to commemorate it, the network aired this blooper reel of Ian Darke and Steve McManaman, the best soccer broadcasting duo on American television. ...

ESPN's Darren Rovell And The Fitness Model: A Brief History [Update]

May 11, 2009: Darren Rovell writes about Nora Tobin, a model he's never heard of whom he saw in an advertisement on his CNBC blog:...

ESPN Will Replace CBS As The Home For The U.S. Open Finals. Thank God.

In two years, ESPN will start broadcasting the men's and women's finals at the U.S. Open. ESPN has gone all-in on tennis—it already airs the Australian Open and the Wimbledon finals—and this means that CBS's decades-long run of broadcasting the men's and women's U.S. Open finals will conclude next S...

The Royals TV Broadcast Had A Half-Inning Of Silence For Fred White

Fred White was the radio voice of the Royals for 25 years, and remained close to the team until his sudden death yesterday, at the age of of 76. During last night's game, he was given the perfect tribute: silence, and baseball....

How North Dakota Lost Its Mind Over A "Choke Job"

On Feb. 16, the Northern Arizona basketball team rallied to beat North Dakota in overtime, 74-72. In a postgame interview with North Dakota head coach Brian Jones, the team's radio guy, Paul Ralston, a university employee, called the loss a "choke job." What ensued was the most pitiful college sport...