I havent blogged in 6 months. I wish it was writers block. There are soooo many topics to talk about. Life just sometimes gets in the way. Today i am going to talk about the "hype machine" that you and I know as ESPN. ESPN has been my dream destination since i was able to see on cable television in the 80's. They all seemed to have fun doing sports. They were so creative, witty, funny, and always kept me coming back to the television. Whether it was Sportscenter or actual game programming, i honestly thought I was watching and listening to something special every night. They built up everyone. They made athletes bigger than life. Somehow, in the last 10 years all of that has changed. Athletes are not sports figures anymore. We know what they eat, who they date, what clubs they go to, who they voted for, what kind of underwear they have. We know that if they have an opinion, it will appear somewhere. If they insult people, assault people, animals, trees, we will find out. Riley Cooper was at a concert and made racial comments last year and we found out about it. We found out that a football player was taking a fertility drug to help grant his mothers wish of having a grand child. ESPN doesn't miss a thing. God forbid if they built you up and you fail. They made Robert Griffin out to be superman and when his knee failed him and his mouth sounded off, he has become a punchline. Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer i ever seen. He is probably the greatest golfer most have seen. His dominance in the sport is only equaled by a few athletes in other sports. ESPN cannot wait to criticize him. The guy shot 74 74 last week and the headlines made it seem like he shot 80 and 81. Jon Anderson and Jay Harris took sniper shots at him like he insulted their family. Many great athletes over the last 20 years have had epic falls. Mike Tyson, Micheal Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds,Marion Jones, Tiger, just to name a few and ESPN pounced on them like a hungry lion. No excuse was good enough. If they apologized, it wasn't contrite enough. If they blamed someone else for their roles in their scandal, they were throwing the person under a bus. If they took 100 percent accountability they needed to take 1000 percent accountability. ESPN had no shame, embarrassing Jim Harrick, when he was at Georgia, or George O'Leary for embellishing his resume. Now we have Johnny Football about to embark on a career that has bust written all over it. Blake Bortles will be the one who earns his draft status and make Jacksonville relevant again. Manziel is the new Tebow. There was so much hype around Tebow that it scared teams from giving him a true chance. How about Micheal Sam? He is gay. Okay.. Can he tackle or rush the quarterback? What changed because he told the world he is gay. He is quick off the ball and once he learns how to take better rush routes he may have a future in the league. It should have been a story for a day. if at all.
So what my point? My point is today, I cannot watch sports the way i watched it 20 years ago. Sports reporting has become so personal and vindictive. There was a writer in Philly who wrote a story about Nick Foles without even interviewing for the piece. He was asked on the Dan Patrick show why the negative tone and he said matter of factly that he was upset that Foles didn't give him access to him. Really? How about having some fun. The ranting of Dick Vitale was criticized by so many that he actually toned it down to appease his critics. In fact ESPN added a third man to the booth to almost silence him. Instead of the announcers saying Tiger Woods had back surgery and he shot a respectable 74 today on the difficult course, they say boy Tiger has lost his swagger, he is a shell of himself. Lets put up a graphic that says he hasn't won a major since 2009. Even though he has moved to second in all time overall wins and if get s healthy again he could possibly pas Sam Snead in the next couple of year. Each story has innuendo and criticism without knowing all of the facts. No one has yet to see the video of Ray Rice striking his wife but yet we are lead to believe that he knocked her out and the District attorney in New Jersey gave him a slap on the wrist and the NFL Commissioner did the same thing. So instead of criticizing law enforcement for not holding him more accountable, the NFL is supposed to teach him a lesson. The Redskins nickname is offensive but the team is not changing the name. Their fan base doesn't care. The people who buy the season tickets don't care. How much more noise can you make on this topic? If the Washington teams games are all sold out, what does that tell you. In short I just turn the volume down and hope for the best...
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