ESPN Is Pathetic

Dollar

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Dan Murfman said:
I'm ready to heckle. The set for their college award show is stone throw from my hotel room.

 
 
Then I guess it's time for you to start gathering some stones.
 

joe dokes

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Following the trade of Shoppach to the New York Mets in August 2012, Lavarnway became Saltalamacchia's backup before being handed the starting position by manager Bobby Valentine, who shifted Saltalamacchia over to first base.
 
http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox
By Kyle Brasseur, Special to ESPNBoston.com
 
Some shift.....he played 2 innings at first base the entire 2012 season.  In August, at the end of a 14-1 win.
 
 

ifmanis5

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Stephen A. Smith spending 10 minutes ballwashing the Kobe & Jeter legacies this morning.
:barf: :barf: :barf:
 
 
EDIT: In addition to the ESPN.com Kobe ballwashing cover story by Adande. It's so unfair he's hurt!
 

dirtynine

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Current "News" headlines: sources, sources, twitter nonsense, sources, sources, sources, paywall analysis

0% actual news content.
 

LondonSox

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expectations that changes will be positive? I'm going with not good.
I just kind of expect them to continue to collapse into the worst parts of network news in a ratings war with the new competition. I mean fox sports 1 is already managing to lower the tone. Which is kind of impressive.
 

SydneySox

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Not that it's a big deal and I know we all mostly just complain in this forum, but I put Sportscenter on in the background while I was alone in the office this morning and Steelers Safety Ryan Clark was on. I know we hate him because he's certainly had his share of shots and the Patriots but I thought he was absolutely fantastic. He was saying enough interesting, eloquent things about football that I actually noticed and turned around to listen. Normally I ignore all the bullshit talking heads on that show and just watch for sports highlight vision, but his talk about football - on the ground actual plays -, specifically the Welker-Talib play in the greater sense was really interesting.
 
I thought he was great and it puts a lot of the "anti" Patriots stuff a little bit more in context in that I can imagine it was delivered far differently than it read. I think he'll end up being a pretty interesting talking head if he wants to be and if no one coaches him up to be just another guffawing empty shark in a suit like every other ex-player on tv.
 

tims4wins

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The problem is that all of the ex players start out like that, but 3-5 years later and they are just spouting off all the same crap as everyone else.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Corsi said:
 
Jesus.
 
They do know Tebow has been out of the league since training camp, right?  Or is their implication supposed to be that Manning's role in the team's success is minimal and any schmo off the streets could take such a stacked team to the big game?
 

ifmanis5

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It's not even March and ESPN is already into Full Jeter Alert mode. The sum and total of their baseball coverage is 'Hey, What's Derek Jeter Up To?' What a horrible star fucking one note network this has become.
 

dirtynine

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I finally installed a browser plugin, WasteNoTime, to combat the muscle memory that leads me to visit ESPN.  The plugin lets you pick websites to block and redirect to other pages.  I have it going to a random Wikipedia page instead.  Life has improved by just a little bit. 
 

LeoCarrillo

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I'm no math major or anything, but yesterday First Take was discussing whether LeBron's 61 was more impressive than Kobe's 81.
 

terrisus

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To be fair, there are a number of ways that could be approached rather than a straight 81 > 61
Standard deviations from average scoring, scoring relative to strength of the opposing defense, etc.
 
I have no idea if they touched on any of that stuff, but it certainly is possible.
It's why in Baseball we have stuff like OPS+ and such - to account for eras and scoring environments and such.
 

Euclis20

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terrisus said:
To be fair, there are a number of ways that could be approached rather than a straight 81 > 61
Standard deviations from average scoring, scoring relative to strength of the opposing defense, etc.
 
I have no idea if they touched on any of that stuff, but it certainly is possible.
It's why in Baseball we have stuff like OPS+ and such - to account for eras and scoring environments and such.
This is basketball, not baseball.  Adjusting for different scoring environments and eras count for a lot less, especially when the events happened just 8 years apart.  The whole thing falls apart when you realize that Kobe's 81 point effort was the 2nd highest ever...LeBron's 61 is merely tied for 42nd.  The topic is only discussed because it's First Take, and because it's Bayless and Smith, a duo for whom intelligent, rational and rational debate is absolutely impossible.
 

gtg807y

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terrisus said:
To be fair, there are a number of ways that could be approached rather than a straight 81 > 61
Standard deviations from average scoring, scoring relative to strength of the opposing defense, etc.
 
I have no idea if they touched on any of that stuff, but it certainly is possible.
It's why in Baseball we have stuff like OPS+ and such - to account for eras and scoring environments and such.
 
Maybe, but the reason they had that debate was so they could have pictures of LeBron and Kobe on the screen at the same time. I don't watch a lot of ESPN anymore outside of live sports and their college football news shows, but it seems like they do crap like that a lot. They have 5 or 10 (LeBron, Kobe, A-Rod, Tebow, Manziel, etc.) names that they shoehorn into every other segment. And if there's no logical reason to mention multiple big names in the same segment, they'll make one up. Like, "what advice does LeBron have for Johnny Manziel?" 
 
No one on the planet cares about the answer to that question, and no one was asking it except for some ESPN reporter. But then they can ask LeBron about Manziel, then "Lebron on Manziel" becomes a story segment on Sportscenter, and "LeBron to Manziel: 'always wear clean underwear,'" is a sidebar story on ESPN.com. And then they can talk about it on First Take, where Stephen A. will say he's not sure if Manziel should wear clean underwear always, or maybe mix in a skidmarked pair occasionally, and Skip will vehemently deny ever wearing underwear and that he doesn't understand why anyone would. And the whole time, LEBRON/MANZIEL is slapped over every ESPN platform. They're Shitty SEO Bait: The Network at this point.
 

ifmanis5

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Turned on SportsCenter this morning looking for baseball highlights since it was, you know, OPENING DAY. Got none. Zero. I did get NBA and NFL news. And of course 5 minutes of Stephen A. Smith talking about his beloved Derek Jeter. Die in a fire, Bristol.
 

DukeSox

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Fck ESPN for having the Trout home run as the "HIGHLIGHT OF THE NIGHT" on its homepage since last night and well into today.  
 
Guess what - the Angels lost.  MLB isn't the NBA where the dunks matter more than the game.
 

ifmanis5

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I think I can state without objection that ESPN is anti-baseball. They're fine putting the games on in the summer when there is little else to schedule, but the culture of the network cares not about the game at all.
 

cromulence

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ifmanis5 said:
I think I can state without objection that ESPN is anti-baseball. They're fine putting the games on in the summer when there is little else to schedule, but the culture of the network cares not about the game at all.
 
They don't really care about the sports themselves, really. They just need sports to continue existing to give them shit to debate about for hours on end. Which is why the example of SAS talking about Jeter makes sense - they're willing to talk baseball, but not willing to spend a lot of time on good highlights packages and useful information about what's going on around MLB. Instead, they pick a topic and talk it to death.
 

Hendu for Kutch

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I was bored and looking for something to read the other day, so I decided to check out espn.com.  I very very rarely go there any more, given that anything worth a damn is now behind the Insider paywall.  One of the top stories in the right column was about Lebron's reaction to the Miguel Cabrera deal.
 
The fall of espn.com is rivaled only by the fall of the Boston Globe sports section.  Espn.com was the first site I visited every morning for a long time, now it's a punchline.
 

gtg807y

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Hendu for Kutch said:
I was bored and looking for something to read the other day, so I decided to check out espn.com.  I very very rarely go there any more, given that anything worth a damn is now behind the Insider paywall.  One of the top stories in the right column was about Lebron's reaction to the Miguel Cabrera deal.
 
The fall of espn.com is rivaled only by the fall of the Boston Globe sports section.  Espn.com was the first site I visited every morning for a long time, now it's a punchline.
 
I finally deleted it from my bookmarks today. That LeBron headline and the Trout thing were the breaking point. I hadn't seen the score of the Angels game so I assumed it was some walk-off homer they were featuring. Nope, the Angels lost by seven. They're the biggest name in sports media and they're basically just going full Buzzfeed-level shit. 
 

cromulence

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Why does ESPN.com seem dead set on making Cricket popular in the US? I've seen Cricket scores come before NHL scores (no big shock I guess) on the ticker at the top and there have been multiple features/stories on the front page about it. I get that Cricket is huge in much of the world, but just stop trying to make Cricket happen in the US. It's not going to happen. And if it does, it won't be because you shoved the Sri Lanka - India score in my face.
 

axx

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cromulence said:
Why does ESPN.com seem dead set on making Cricket popular in the US? I've seen Cricket scores come before NHL scores (no big shock I guess) on the ticker at the top and there have been multiple features/stories on the front page about it. I get that Cricket is huge in much of the world, but just stop trying to make Cricket happen in the US. It's not going to happen. And if it does, it won't be because you shoved the Sri Lanka - India score in my face.
 
They have a TV deal apparently. They don't with the NHL. That's all you need to know really.
 

cromulence

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Ah, didn't realize they had a TV deal. Should've realized; if I had I wouldn't have phrased it as a question as it fits their MO perfectly.
 

BS_SoxFan

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They're also behind that new Jon Hamm cricket/baseball movie so there's probably some incentive to feature it on Sportscenter and other programming.
 

mascho

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To be somewhat contrarian, anything that gets Andy Saltzman (co-host of "The Bugle" with John Oliver) more work is fine by me. They've given Saltzman a video podcast on their cricket page.
 

litigator02

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gtg807y said:
 
I finally deleted it from my bookmarks today. That LeBron headline and the Trout thing were the breaking point. I hadn't seen the score of the Angels game so I assumed it was some walk-off homer they were featuring. Nope, the Angels lost by seven. They're the biggest name in sports media and they're basically just going full Buzzfeed-level shit. 
At the risk of hijacking a perfectly good thread, any recommendations for what to replace espn.com with? I've got all the same gripes with it that you guys do, but am struggling with where to send my clicks instead...
 
cromulence said:
Why does ESPN.com seem dead set on making Cricket popular in the US? I've seen Cricket scores come before NHL scores (no big shock I guess) on the ticker at the top and there have been multiple features/stories on the front page about it. I get that Cricket is huge in much of the world, but just stop trying to make Cricket happen in the US. It's not going to happen. And if it does, it won't be because you shoved the Sri Lanka - India score in my face.
 
Today's match between Sri Lanka and India was the final of the World Championship competition for the shortest form of cricket (the version that's about as long as a baseball game). Personally, I like the idea that top-level sport which is extremely popular somewhere else in the world gets featured somewhere on the ESPN.com homepage, even if I know it's more down to the deep partnership ESPN has with Asian cricket and its ownership of the Cricinfo website.
 

cromulence

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ConigliarosPotential said:
 
Today's match between Sri Lanka and India was the final of the World Championship competition for the shortest form of cricket (the version that's about as long as a baseball game). Personally, I like the idea that top-level sport which is extremely popular somewhere else in the world gets featured somewhere on the ESPN.com homepage, even if I know it's more down to the deep partnership ESPN has with Asian cricket and its ownership of the Cricinfo website.
 
I got that it was some kind of major international event. Still...it's India vs. Sri Lanka and our country collectively doesn't give a shit about cricket. No reason for it to be big news on the front page unless they're trying to make more money somehow.
 

Bosoxen

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cromulence said:
 
I got that it was some kind of major international event. Still...it's India vs. Sri Lanka and our country collectively doesn't give a shit about cricket. No reason for it to be big news on the front page unless they're trying to make more money somehow.
 
I was at the gym yesterday and saw that the final play of that match was #3 in their top 10 plays of the weekend countdown. They're definitely pushing cricket pretty hard.
 

cromulence

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Bosoxen said:
 
I was at the gym yesterday and saw that the final play of that match was #3 in their top 10 plays of the weekend countdown. They're definitely pushing cricket pretty hard.
 
Weird. I think I'd have a hard time getting into it as a baseball fan. I tuned in for a second and someone got a boundary, which is a really good thing. I mean, he did a nice fist pump afterwards. But to my baseball eye, he just shoved his bat out there and weakly fouled it off. Whoop dee doo.
 
(Yes, I get that the rules are different and I'm sure what he did is difficult. Just saying.)
 

Stevie1der

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cromulence said:
 
Weird. I think I'd have a hard time getting into it as a baseball fan. I tuned in for a second and someone got a boundary, which is a really good thing. I mean, he did a nice fist pump afterwards. But to my baseball eye, he just shoved his bat out there and weakly fouled it off. Whoop dee doo.
 
(Yes, I get that the rules are different and I'm sure what he did is difficult. Just saying.)
 
I think the dynamic is pretty cool, even if I have little actual interest.  Imagine Ortiz up there, constantly fouling balls off, poking them to the gaps when he can, and accumulating runs for the Sox knowing that as soon as someone catches the ball on the fly or he lets the ball past him into the catcher's mitt, he's out and can never come back to the plate again that game.
 

ifmanis5

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SportsCenter did the top 10 Wrigley Field moments. Steve Bartman was #1. Babe's called shot was #2. Gale Sayers 6 TDs was #3. They're just trolling right?
 

SydneySox

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Stevie1der said:
 
I think the dynamic is pretty cool, even if I have little actual interest.  Imagine Ortiz up there, constantly fouling balls off, poking them to the gaps when he can, and accumulating runs for the Sox knowing that as soon as someone catches the ball on the fly or he lets the ball past him into the catcher's mitt, he's out and can never come back to the plate again that game.
 
Jesus christ you guys.