World Wide Leader in Dirt

ESPN wrote the book on cable sports coverage. Unfortunately for them James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales wrote the book on them.

It’s been 24 hours since ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun was released and the public has gotten to read all the salacious details about the meteoric rise of ESPN and its high profile employees and that doesn’t even include the story about Sean Salisbury showing his penis to everyone.

Several of the book’s anecdotes were leaked on the internet last week, most notably Keith Olberman not playing well with others (http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/201106/espn-oral-history-sportscenter-keith-olbermann) and confirmation of my theory that ESPN was well aware Joe Namath was drunk before the Suzy Kolber interview and should have never put him on camera.

Producer on Kolber-Namath: "At halftime, when Joe was introduced he fell on his face at midfield. That’s how stinking drunk he was."

But I’m a Tony Kornheiser follower and the most appealing part of the book to me is the truth about the failure of Kornheiser on Monday Night football.



Bill Simmons on TK on MNF:

Tirico's always been nice to me, and I think he's a talented guy, but I thought how he acted was unforgivable, and I continue to feel bad for Tony... I had watched all of those Kornheiser games thinking, "If I was in that spot, and the expectation was that I was supposed to entertain, and had this guy with me who was subtly undermining me, changing the subject on me and greeting my jokes with dead silence, I would eventually strangle this person on live TV." Kornheiser is a better person than I am, apparently.

Also covered will be the mini-war between Mr. Tony and Chris Berman.

TK on Berman:

“The whole time I was on Monday night, Berman never mentioned my name. He loathes me, in part because of stuff I used to write about him. Berman and I have an antagonism that goes back many, many years, long before I ever got to ESPN.

Once in Minnesota, the big grand poo-bah stood there and lectured me, screaming at me about how great he was, how significant he was, how he built the network, and how I ought to be more grateful.

That’s when he accused me of writing the blog about him and that leather thing (a rumor that Chris Berman supposedly picked up a woman wearing a leather jacket at a bar simply by uttering the words, “You’re with me, leather.”).

He said, “I know how it got on the Internet.” I asked him, “What the hell are you talking about?”

While Tony was without blame in that case he certainly didn’t endear himself to the Swami by saying he was fat as a house on his Washington radio show.
Fast forward 40 seconds for the Berman slam.



I’m usually not a reader (unless you call internet porn descriptions reading) but I may have to make an exception to get the dirt on ESPN.