Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

14 Of 19 ESPN "Experts" Are Complete Idiots

Check this page on Sunday and you’ll see what I mean.

On the other hand, I’ve been proudly sporting green and gold all around NYC for the past 2 days and have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of respect I’ve gotten.

I didn’t expect to be beaten down in the street, but I did expect folks to be like “Are you kidding?” especially with the city at full fever pitch over a Subway series that will never happen. (Two names: El Disastro and A-Fraud.)

Instead folks have explaining how they are in real fear of the A’s. Now that’s something you’d never get on ESPN or out of the media capital of the world. Watched ESPN News again tonight and the A’s gutsy win was reduced to two questions:

1) Johan Santana lost?

2) Huh?

No wonder they say Zito wants to go to LA (great food, great music and arts underground, great sunsets, bacterial beaches, lousy entertainment industry, way over-rated baseball teams) or NY (great town, great people, greatest closer in my lifetime, great team in Queens, swarms of lazy sports pundits, and the most hateable sports team owner in the history of mankind). In good old American media groupthink, who wouldn’t want to go to a town where all the media live?

Personally I never believe the hype and I hold out hope like the true underdog.

Same thing happened to the White Sox last year, when the media turned on a dime in the World Series and decided to make them America’s team after steady ignoring ’em for most of the year.

Maybe Ozzie Guillen can replace Vern “Mumble More Dumb Stuff” Wells. (The Jays are a lot poorer but they still suck.) Or maybe I should just get used to it.

posted by @ 8:32 pm | 11 Comments



11 Responses to “14 Of 19 ESPN "Experts" Are Complete Idiots”

  1. Blackmail says:
    October 4, 2006 at 4:11 am

    That game yesterday was a masterful performance. The Phils are already on record that they won’t pursue a guy like Zito, so hopefully King Cole “becomes” him next season!

    Even though they got bounced last night, I think the Tigers stand a decent chance if they can win the next two. I think the Yankees pitching will only deteriorate as the series continues, quickly and drastically. An A’s/Yanks ALCS would be great for the revenge angle, but my mother-in-law’s allegiance to the Yanks notwithstanding, I’d rather see anyone else in that position.

    As far as experts go, I felt sad for Peter Gammons, who’s really not all the way back, and Ravech [who’s like the Joe Buck of ESPN baseball] kept cutting him off, even though Ravech was making just as many mistakes [and or rambling.] But I liked Vernon Wells more than Tino! That Bugs Bunny line was decent!

  2. Jeff says:
    October 4, 2006 at 5:03 am

    yeah, gammons has kinda become like dick clark. tino misses his cues but i’m just not feeling mr. wells. but hey, nobody’s as bad as joe morgan!

  3. Blackmail says:
    October 4, 2006 at 5:57 am

    All due respect, re Morgan, but seriously Berman’s the worst, hands down. Joe Buck sounds like arrogant flatulence, but Berman’s whole “olde tymey” contrivance makes me so angry.

    But I’ve been spoiled by listening to Harry Kalas my entire life. When he goes we get laughingstock Chris Wheeler full-time. Yikes!

  4. Jeff says:
    October 4, 2006 at 6:16 am

    oh snap i completely agree with you!

  5. oscar says:
    October 4, 2006 at 10:04 am

    on the flipside, this new oakland resident is sporting pinstripes with pride. what can i say, i grew up 10 blocks from the stadium!

    and forget about a-rod, jeter is the straw that stirs the drink (tm: reggie) a five-for-five performance in the post season is what the capt is all about.

    hoping the As and Yanks meet up and settle it on the field. should be a great series.

    much respect,
    oscar

  6. Jeff says:
    October 4, 2006 at 7:23 pm

    summary of espn coverage on wednesday night:

    torii hunter missed a flyball? how did that happen?

  7. Blackmail says:
    October 5, 2006 at 6:29 am

    You must be bracing against collapse at this point. Between the Kotsay’s homer and Paul Lo Duca pulling an double play, it’s clear that anything can happen.

    [Including the Yankees pulling the plug on Game 2, allowing their old bodies more rest, etc.]

  8. Jeff says:
    October 5, 2006 at 9:44 am

    well, everyone is mainly worried about mark ellis’s injury. here’s a guy who set the all-time mlb second baseman record for best percentage (and folks are not even buzzing about him for a golden glove btw, which is part of what we from the east bay like to call the usual sh*t), and whose play has been incalculable to the team’s hardly-vaunted defensive strength.

    (yes, defense wins games, but that fact is completely over the heads of most sports announcers and mlb team owners…hence the steroid scandal.)

    but the espn bs about 3rd game collapses is just espn bs. no one is worried about that. this team is not like the jeremy giambi/eric byrnes teams of yore–prone to making torii hunter-like mistakes. they are very zen in that way, you never worry about them getting the job done right. you only worry that they’ll be unable to take the field.

    can i grouse some more? oh wtf it’s my blog.

    everyone was like “the curse of the bosox” this year when injuries all befell the team late, as many here in nyc are about the mets right now.

    we played through all that this year–harden, bradley, duchscherer, kennedy were all out for significant periods. we still are playing without bobby crosby, kotsay day-to-day and chavvy in unreal pain.

    these guys do their thing, not some el disastro “oops i tripped i can’t play coach!” or a-fraud “but chavvy has worse numbers than me!” or manny being manny.

    jon lester caught a really really bad one and i pray he comes through it. i know lymphoma and its treatment from personal experience.

    but that’s where the fault lies with boston and its gm madness this past year. they have more than twice the payroll of oakland but their team had nothing close to the a’s depth.

    dead sux fans can blame the baseball gods or theo, but the situation began last winter when the ownership figured they could do it all themselves. the dead sux have more in common with the marlins than they would like to imagine.

    so anyway, we don’t worry about collapse.

  9. Blackmail says:
    October 6, 2006 at 11:51 am

    i think the tigers can pull this off! that is if randy gets roughed up early! dear magglio ordonez…

    i’ve been rooting very hard against the mets, but it’d be hard for me to take the cards getting in the series again, especially since the phils were ultimately the better team this year [but played in a tougher division.] the NL is just so ugly that it’s hard to care about that side of the bracket.

    meanwhile the ALDS is like watching the AFC Championship game.

  10. Blackmail says:
    October 6, 2006 at 5:30 pm

    Congratulations! What an exciting series for the A’s! Hearing the Marco Scutaro chant was really awe inspiring. Best of luck against in the ALCS!

  11. Jeff says:
    October 6, 2006 at 7:56 pm

    thanks man! just had to register this so i can be sure i wasn’t dreaming…

    friday night espn coverage:

    pedro gomez: eric chavez agrees with us that the a’s this year aren’t that talented. and now back to kenny rogers.

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