Comparison: ESPN vs. NFL

ESPN says Stephen A. Smith will not appear for a week on their TV show "First Take" or his radio show because of comments he made that implied some women provoke domestic violence. The comments were in the wake of the NFL suspending Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for two games for beating up his fiancee (now his wife).

So...knock out your woman and drag her unconscious body out of a hotel elevator? Miss two games.
Talk about it in a stupid manner? Miss ten "games."

I'm so glad the NFL and Roger Goodell have educated us on the correct levels of punishment for dastardly acts.





(These two clips should actually be connected into one, as they were part of the same scene. This won't be a problem in a few months.)

espnW? How About espnG? Oh, Yeah...

When I was clicking on some Michael Vick links for the post I just wrote, I found an article at something called espnW. (They're also on Twitter.) What is it? The site says, "espnW is a destination for women who are passionate sports fans and athletes."

So I'm thinking, if ESPN is going to have separate sites tailored to specific demographics, where's espnG? Or espnLGBTQ? Or the really long acronym that includes every possible variation? How about a "destination for gays, lesbians, etc. who are passionate sports fans and athletes"?

And then I remembered: there already is such a destination. And as you can probably guess from the logo, they're 10 years old now. Congrats, Outsports.

Random Stuff: B-52's, MLB on Fox, McNabb

Just covering a few things at once...

• My ears are still ringing some from last night's B-52's concert. Between their show and the opening act, a Philly band named Gang, the music was really loud. When I blogged about my trip to the box office to pick up the ticket, I had a comment saying the B-52's were now "a tired act." I can understand that a little, since the commenter had seen them perform here in 1979 and 1980. They do look a little older, a little heavier (well, not Keith Strickland -- he looks yummy), but I thought it was a great show and the crowd seemed to agree. I took some video but the sound quality is pretty bad because it was so loud and the camcorder in my cell phone isn't that special, so I don't think I'll bother posting it. (Plus a couple of them are sideways because I held the phone sideways. I have to remember to slide out the keyboard first if I want a wider view.)

• On the final weekend of the baseball regular season, Fox is again showing the less meaningful Yankees-Red Sox game instead of the crucial Giants-Padres matchup. The Padres need to win to stay alive for both the NL West and NL Wild Card. The Giants are trying to clinch the NL West, and at the same time hurt San Diego's chances of catching the Braves for the Wild Card. (If current results -- Padres leading, Braves losing to the Phillies -- hold, tomorrow will be a heck of a day for clinchers and there could even be a one-game playoff on Monday.)
  
  Oddly enough, though the Phillies are also playing at the same time, they're showing the Phils on Comcast Sportsnet. I think they're on Fox as well in parts of the country. Usually if the Phils are one of the Fox games, Fox shows the game locally. It's hard to believe that Fox isn't blacking out a local Phils telecast, and that they're showing us the stupid New York-Boston crap instead of the game that directly affects the Phillies -- the Giants-Padres will help determine the Phils' first playoff opponent. They'd get more people here switching back and forth between Fox and Comcast if Fox were showing the Giants-Padres here.

• I've avoided all of the national sports outlets this week because, not unexpectedly, they're too busy taking potshots at Philadelphia and at Eagles fans. After all, Donovan McNabb returns to the Linc tomorrow for the first time as a Washington Redskin. Between McNabb, drama queen/martyr that he is, and his suck-ups in the national media, there's really no reason to watch ESPN or NFL Network or visit any of the national sports websites. There's no actual journalism there this week as it relates to the Eagles, only misinformation, outright bias and lazy (blah blah blah Santa Claus 40 years ago blah blah blah) writing. Of course, it's not exactly fun listening to WIP either, with the callers and hosts pushing their own agendas re: McNabb. So, many heartfelt thanks to the Phillies for giving me another playoff run to keep my mind off the Eagles/McNabb melodrama.

Let's Talk About Twitter

Since I seem to do my best work in the early morning hours -- to be more precise, since I tend to post in the early morning hours -- here's a blog post. My original intention (since I keep putting off the posts about the three movies I've seen in the last 2 weeks) was to just write about some random stuff in my head at 2:30 a.m (the time I began this). However, it's turned into a whole Twitter thing.

As of now I follow about 275 Twitter accounts. (I have about 180 followers of my own and am always looking for more, so tell your friends!) While I really like Twitter, there are things about it that I dislike immensely, and it's not posts about the weather or people's lives that some get worked up about -- they see tweets (or Facebook status updates, for that matter) like "Going out to dinner..." as boring. I don't mind them, though. They're little looks into people's lives.

Following 275 accounts, though a few aren't really active at all, it takes time trying to read through the timeline. That makes me want to try and save time by dropping some of those I currently follow. I don't want to unfollow anyone who's following me back, though, and of those who don't follow me back, I always seem to find various reasons to keep them, whether they're really entertaining or just because they're a favorite of mine (like Annie Lennox).

I finally dumped a couple today, one being ESPN's Jayson Stark. Why Jayson?

Phillies vote for Pedro

Well, the Phillies have made one sensible decision: Jamie Moyer will go to the bullpen as Pedro Martinez will make his first start on Wednesday night at Wrigley Field. The question is why Pedro is going Wednesday and not Tuesday. J.A. Happ threw 127 pitches in his last start, and perhaps would benefit from an extra day's rest, but he's going on Tuesday, and Cliff Lee is being held back until Thursday, giving him 6 days off between starts. My guess is that ESPN bribed the Phils to hold Pedro until Wednesday, since they are televising the game nationally.

After being swept by Florida over the weekend the Phils' NL East lead is down to 3 1/2 games (since the Marlins won tonight). They continue to struggle at the plate, which is putting more pressure on the pitching staff. Cole Hamels still is floundering and Moyer, well, the fact that he's out of the rotation tells the story. The Phils are fortunate that Lee, Happ and Joe Blanton have pitched so well lately. The bullpen will get help as Chad Durbin is back from the disabled list, but J.C. Romero is going to rest for about a week before throwing again, so he won't be back soon.

ESPN reporter victim of hetero pervert

We constantly hear blathering from right-wing nuts and other assorted homophobes about the behavior of gays, but they and everyone else need to keep one thing in mind: most people are heterosexual, and quite a few of them are perverts.

For example: ESPN reporter Erin Andrews recently became the victim of one such sleazebag. Someone secretly videotaped her as she was naked in her hotel room. The video was posted to various websites, including YouTube. Her lawyer and ESPN got the sites to remove it, but hackers are using the hype to spread computer viruses and malware. The creep is now reportedly trying to sell the video. The worst part is that so far, no one even knows where or when the invasion of privacy took place.

Is there any doubt in anyone's mind that the perpetrator of this crime is a heterosexual male? Come on. How many lesbians would drill a small hole into a hotel room from an adjoining room and use a spy cam to film a naked woman? Yet it's homosexuality that's immoral? Does anyone really think that preventing same-sex marriage would have stopped this particular act, or any of the many similar acts by other straight people?

I could be on ESPN someday!

Earlier today I turned on the TV to watch the baseball game of the week on Fox, but before I got to it I found something on ESPN called "The Border Battle." Apparently it was the first-ever game between teams of what the announcers described as "elite players" from the USA and Canada...in men's slow-pitch softball! I don't know how these players were determined to be elite, but now I have something to shoot for in my own softball career.

The game was played in Oklahoma City at the ASA (Amateur Softball Association) Hall of Fame Complex, in between games of an event called the World Cup of Softball, featuring some of the top women's fast-pitch teams. So the field they were playing on, unlike the adequate-at-best fields in Fairmount Park that the City of Brotherly Love Softball League uses, was pristine and had an outfield fence. Thus, in the men's game they had a rule that a team can hit no more than 10 home runs in a game. After that, any balls hit over the fence are considered outs.

When I turned on the game, Canada had a 16-8 lead going into the bottom of the fourth. The USA then sent 21 batters to the plate and scored 17 runs, to move ahead 25-16. However, by that point in the game they were already up to 9 homers, and the announcers were worried that too many of those home runs had one or no runner on base when they were hit. With the 10-homer limit it's considered wise to hit as many as 3-run bombs or grand slams as possible.

However, it turned out not to matter as Canada was retired in order in the 5th, and team USA scored some more, threatening to hit the 15-run lead required for the game to end under a mercy rule. The USA eventually got its 10th homer and one ball over the fence for an out after that, but were able to finish off a 30-23 win.

I was surprised to see slow-pitch softball on ESPN, but at least it's a sport, sort of, instead of yet another poker show.