Two great pieces up today. The first is Skinner's charming review of the new Fiona Apple disc. A very finely-written essay.
The second is Sonny Bunch's excellent assessment of how ESPN is ruining America's sports columnists. Great stuff.
11 hours ago
2 comments:
I don't have ESPN in my basic cable subscription; partly because ESPN is so expensive for my provider so they had to increase prices and partly because if I got full-blown cable ther would be terrible stations available for my young children (MTV and other crap). Anyhow, I catch ESPN at work and I think Sportscenter is killing sports. I hate the "boo-yas" and other crap. In addition, ESPN takes itself way too seriously.
I recently had an experience with a sports-radio show on my local ESPN station and I had an epiphany of what sports shows are all about. It was a couple of months ago when the Raffy Palmero steriod issue broke. This local show was talking about a very specific point of whether or not Palmero should be voted in on the first year of eligibility or should the writers do it on the second year as sort of a punishment. I called in and said, it doesn't matter because once your in you are in and your plaque doesn't say if you are a first-balloter or not. The host said that I was wrong and yes the plaque did say that, additionally the spent the next couple of minutes ridiculing me. I know someone who works at the baseball hall of fame and I emailed that person with the question. They responded a couple of days later and said I was correct. I also independently verified that I was correct. I forwarded this to the radio show. They responded (which I didn't expect) and they stated that I was correct and they usually say things on the fly.
I have to admit that I got some satisfaction about this extremely minor point and I spent way too much time pursuing this point (I'm spending too much time writing about this here). However, the whole sports pundit thing is all about filling up three hours of the radio show. BTW, political pundits also make shit up. The thing is, both types of pundits never have to admit they are wrong.
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