With ESPN going live for Sportscenter in the mornings, there are bound to be moments where slip ups happen.  I think we’ve caught our first.  Along with Sean Salisbury calling him a crypt keeper, John Clayton busting ass while talking about Derek Anderson has to be one of his finest moments on camera.  Did someone step on a duck?  Must be the barking spiders.

Are we supposed to take this seriously?  ESPN should just openly root for all Boston sports teams and make our lives a whole lot easier.

ESPN has announced that, from now on, they’re changing their name from the Worldwide Leader in Sports to the Rehashed Story Network. I’d be curious to know the last time NFL Live talked about a story other than Brett Favre, the NFC East, or the New England Patriots. And whatever happened to that West Coast baseball game ESPN used to show once a week to, you know, provide baseball fans with a nationally televised game that didn’t involve a team from New York or Boston. There’s a reason that most people didn’t know about Josh Hamilton’s story until he was hitting 28 first round dingers in the Home Run Derby; ESPN doesn’t cover teams that aren’t in huge media markets.

In case you were concerned or didn’t know about it, ESPN will be airing Green Bay’s first pre-season game and their first regular season game on prime time so everyone can bask in Brett Favre’s greatness. But you must know about it already because you just watched NFL Live do a role play with Floyd Reece pretending to be Ted Thompson and Drew Rosenhaus pretending to be Brett Favre’s agent while they acted out a conversation between the two. Why would they do this? Is there really nothing else going on in the football world that takes priority over an amateur skit? Absolutely nothing that was said in the five minutes of Reece and Rosenhaus bantering has any factual weight or any relevance to the topic of Brett Favre.

Then, of course, I would want nothing more than to watch the Yankees and Red Sox play the first and third games of a meaningless June series on primetime. Why would ESPN bother showing anything other than Cubs-Cardinals, Yankees-Red Sox, or Mets-Phillies. Those are the only teams in the league right? How about giving Anaheim more than one prime time game every two months. They’re the best team in the league, at least give them some love. How about showing us Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, and Ian Kinsler slug balls out of Arlington every now and then? Would it kill to go to Florida and show us the Marlins, a team who is just a few games out of first despite half the team being fresh out of high school. To ESPN, yes, it would kill.

I suppose the purpose of this article doesn’t go beyond a simple rant. Nonetheless, I can’t believe that ESPN continues to get away with garbage unbalanced coverage of the sports world based on what they view as important.

This screen captures comes compliments of a forum I visit frequently. Honestly, how in the hell does this get past the chain of command that exists during a broadcast like Monday Night Football? Whoever screwed the pooch will likely be getting some sort of punishment tonight. If this blunder isn’t proof that MNF should stay the hell away from Buffalo, I don’t know what is.

Keyshawn Johnson held a press conference yesterday to officially announce his retirement from the NFL. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that this retirement won’t last. Keyshawn had plenty of offers to continue playing which as far as I’m concerned, mean that he will have offers for a few years to come.

I can’t count the number of times we see this happen, where a player retires and then a year or so later, he is right back in the game. All of these guys miss the game when they sit out for a year, and I don’t think Keyshawn will be an exception. The exceptions to this rule tend to be guys who retired on their own terms, that is something Keyshawn didn’t get to do. For now, Keyshawn will be an analyst for ESPN, and I probably couldn’t be more pleased. We get rid of one egomaniac who played wide receiver and replace him with another. The upside for Keyshawn is that he never had a cocaine problem to deal with, so he won’t have that hanging over his head when he reaches the ESPN studios.

I’ll be interested to see how Johnson does at ESPN, but I won’t expect him to be there for more than a year. I expect this to turn out similar to all other athletes who take a year off before returning to their sport for one more “shot at a championship.” I hope that isn’t the case for Keyshawn, he had a good enough career where he doesn’t need to add an more past his prime years to his resume.

In response to the great feedback we received over last week’s Top Ten, we’ve decided to show ten videos that missed the cut in our top ten. Because there were so many to choose from, tons of gems were left out. We thank everyone for the feedback in last week’s article and hope you enjoy this week’s ten.

Bobby Labonte: Before road rage was a weekly occurance on the NASCAR circuit, most drivers stayed pretty level-headed during the race. One of those calm drivers was Bobby Labonte. But in this clip, an unidentifiable mascot (bulldog?) takes a joy ride in Labonte’s #18 car. As Labonte flips out, Rich Eisen slips him a few bucks.

Read the rest of this entry »