mediameltdown Page 83 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Dope Scandal: Why Is ESPN's Drugs-In-College-Football Story So Stupid?
Honestly, I feel bad for everyone involved in the making of this ESPN The Magazine feature about college football's marijuana "problem," which has to be the stupidest sports-and-dope story I've read in an allegedly reputable outlet since the Yahoo guy went running around the Syracuse campus with a p...
James Jones Flopped, And It Sent Jeff Van Gundy On An Apoplectic Rant
ESPN basketball analyst Jeff Van Gundy has gone on rants about flopping before, but today's (sparked by a third-quarter dive by James Jones in the Heat-Knicks matchup) is one for the ages. Play-by-play man Mike Breen tries his hardest to get Van Gundy off the topic, but fails—JVG even runs over t...
Ian Eagle Had A Whiny Meltdown Last Night, Accused Partner Mike Fratello Of Being "Patronizing"
The final minutes of last night's YES Network broadcast of the Celtics-Nets game were awkward after veteran play-by-play rock Ian Eagle inexplicably voiced his complaints to analyst Mike Fratello on-air....
This Is How Angry People Get When A Radio Station Pretends To Hire Jim Rome
Houston's KILT-AM recently ditched The Jim Rome Show after a longtime affiliation with the program. (14 years of Rome? Where are the Visigoths when you need them?)...
Bay Area Sports Radio Legend Fired For No Apparent Reason
Imagine if Mike Francesa just walked into WFAN one morning for work, ready to start his regular shift, and management hauled him into an office, told him he was being fired, gave him 100 pages of paperwork, and said he had minutes—not hours—to clean out his desk and leave. Twenty minutes after that,...
10 Years Of Newspapers Declaring That Mariano Rivera Is Too Old
On Friday, Mariano Rivera blew the save. It was the 73rd blown save of his career, and one of many from baseball's opening weekend. Predictably, it brought out the old standby storylines: Is this it for Mariano Rivera? Has Father Time finally caught up with the cutter?...
The <i>Baltimore Sun</i>'s Entire Predators-Red Wings Recap: "Type Here"
It's 2012, so hopefully you're not reliant on the morning paper for game results from the night before. Still, maybe there are a few elderly Baltimore hockey fans a little confused by today's Sun, which omitted the Nashville/Detroit capsule for some very unhelpful dummy text....
Will ESPN Walk Away From Rick Reilly And His $3 Million Contract? Probably, Source Says
Since 2007, Rick Reilly's "ridonkulous" ESPN contract has been the envy of sports journalists everywhere: He reportedly earns $3 million a year or so to do … whatever it is he does. Write a bunch for the site! Appear on TV! Go on the radio once in a while! Tweet photos of his wife!...
TV People Have Mispronounced Louis Oosthuizen's Name At Least 20 Different Ways In The Past 24 Hours
Bubba Watson's sudden-death Masters win yesterday over Louis Oosthuizen and the albatross Oosthuizen hit early in the Sunday round have placed television anchors and reporters in the unenviable position of having to pronounce the name of the South African pro. We found dozens of mispronunciations...
Here's How Four Broadcast Teams Described The Orioles Streaker On Friday
The ad hoc policy to not televise fans who run onto the field during baseball games is intended to discourage copycats, though its effectiveness is debatable at best. Yet while viewers may be blind to the rogue fan's activities, announcers can't resist providing their own take on the action....
Warren Sapp Is Broke
TMZ has the exclusive on QB-Killa's bankruptcy, and it's grisly. Sapp owes $6.7 million to his creditors—nearly a million of that to the IRS—and only has $6.45 million on hand. Among that $6.45 million are some distinctly Sapp-y assets:...
Here's Terry Francona And Bud Selig Arguing Over Who Finished Each Other Off
ESPN's inaugural 2012 baseball broadcast last night didn't exactly go smoothly, what with people flipping off the Baseball Tonight set and cameras catching players pantsless. There was also the issue of Terry Francona's microphone, which had him either sounding like he was broadcasting from a clo...
Rick Telander: Cubs President Theo Epstein Might Walk On Water This Season (Or Something)
Robot-fearing Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander senses a higher power surrounding these 2012 Chicago Cubs. It's something holy and ethereal, or maybe it's grounded in hard, empirical data. Gosh, maybe we'll let him sort this out....
ESPN Cameras Caught Rafael Furcal With His Pants Down
With an on-premises pool and the overall clothing-optional vibe of Miami, the new Marlins ballpark is ripe for sighting people without their pants on. We just figured the first person to be spotted sin pantalones would be a spectator, not a player. But ESPN did us right by grabbing this shot of t...
Annals Of Bullshit: The Myth Of The Myth Of Cal Ripken's Historic Home Run
Twenty years ago, Oriole Park at Camden Yards brought in an era of fake history in baseball architecture. So it fits that The Baltimore Sun's roundup of the park's greatest moments would feature fake history too. For the No. 1 moment, baseball beat reporter Dan Connolly described the night Cal Ripke...
That "White Michael Vick" Issue Of <em>ESPN The Magazine</em> Is Up For An Award
Remember this edition of ESPN The Periodical? It's been nominated for a National Magazine Award in the "single-topic issue" category. As you know, the issue touched on of the one of the great faultlines in our culture today: bad Photoshop. [ASME]...
Fishing Writer Submits April Fools' Column Without Telling His Editor, Paper Runs It As Fact
April Fools' Day is a day when internet users need to be especially vigilant. For every creative and well-conceived joke, like Google's 8-bit maps or AdBlock's CatBlock, there are 10 dumb "pranks" that consist of nothing more than "making shit up" and calling it an April Fool's Day joke. They're not...
Tim Tebow Is So Uncontroversial The <em>Times</em> Is Afraid To Say What's Not Controversial About Him
Hey, anyone want to fire up the ol' Tim Tebow culture war again? It's been, what, three days? Well, here's a "meet the new guy" story in today's New York Times called "Tebow, a Careful Evangelical." It is a generally inoffensive look at the quarterback so beloved by people who collect Hummel figurin...
Mistaken ESPN Text Alert Reads Like A Cry For Help
A number of readers have sent screen grabs of this mobile text alert sent out a short while ago by the Worldwide Leader. Was it simply an innocent error, or was someone somewhere in Bristol trying to tell us something?...
Al Trautwig Is Worried About Amar'e Stoudemire's Bulging Dick
Every time an athlete comes down with a bulging disc, we start the countdown. It took MSG's Al Trautwig but a few hours to make the inevitable slip-up....