Who's Now in a good way, besides Barry Bonds.

Here's the problem with "Who's Now." I know, I know, all of you love it so much, because over 140,000 of you voted Peyton Manning more Now over Amanda Beard. But, unfortunately, there is a problem. It's not Who's Now, it's really What's Now. What is Now? For example if, your boss told you that he needed the report now, would you give it to him 32 days from when he required it? That is what ESPN is doing. It's hard to figure out who is Now when you're taking a month to do it. What if in a months time Amanda Beard signed a 10-day deal with the Yankees in which she batted .346 with 10 home runs and 25 rbi's. That would be pretty damn Now, way more now than Peyton Manning, who is currently doing nothing right Now.

Looking at the bigger picture, Peyton Manning is the opposite of Now. He will never be Now. As with some other people on the list, like Tiger Woods, or Tom Brady to name a few. There's a certain level of accomplishment that transcends Now. Now implies to me that this person is in the spotlight at this current moment for whatever reason, but will someday fade. Some sports figures will always be on our mind, just because they deserve to be. Now is not relevant to certain people, because anything they do will make them now. If Michael Jordan did something today, he would be in the news, because he is always Now, beyond Now.

Now, that being said, being Now according to ESPN just means being the most popular athlete. If ESPN really wanted to make this interesting, they would promise to devote coverage accordingly to the place in which these people finish. So, if Brady beats out Manning, you will get 5 minutes of Tom Brady coverage for every three minutes of Peyton Manning coverage. After all, he is Now, right? Since he's Now, I want to hear more about him. Peyton Manning should have been more Now, now, he's just not as Now as Brady, and he's going to have to live with it until ESPN wants to fill some time with a popularity contest.

And who does ESPN think they are kidding putting Barry Bonds as a five seed? Is there ANYONE more deserving of the Now title than him? He is the only person to my knowledge that has a team of ESPN reporters (led by Pedro Gomez), the only person who's at bats are always listed on the bottom line, the only person who's upcoming pitching matchups are shown after every highlight of the game he just finished.

Here's another thing about Now that chaps my ass. It should be called Who's Now in a good way. I don't care what you say, Michael Vick should be in the final four of Who's Now right now. Name me the last NFL QB that is at a crossroads in his career, attempting to prove to the whole world he can still play, while trying to combat an illegal dog-fighting federal indictment? Oh, but he can't be Now because that isn't a good reason to be Now. In fact, as I traveled to Page 2 yo research Who's Now, here were the top headlines that appeared on that page:

ESPN Top Headlines
Sources: Vick unlikely to be indicted in feds' probe
Sources: Pistons, Billups agree to multi-year deal
Tour de France starts with prologue in London
Griffey, Reds go deep in win over D-backs
Morneau hits 3 HRs, Twins sweep ChiSox

None are even up for being Now. There is no Now on this list to my knowledge. You know why? Neither do I, because these people and stories, according to ESPN, are Now. It is ESPN's responsibility to bring us Now, that's the idea of Sportscenter. I want to see what is going on...NOW. One single athlete is never Now, because Now is always moving, transitioning, rising and falling. Something could happen Now and make someone more Now than we ever could have known. That is the beauty of sport, that is the beauty of the unknown. This is just a popularity contest.

Sorry to burst your bubble. I'll go Now.

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Is it 5pm yet?

a long day at the office

Unless you count that pesky year-long hiatus we took that spanned May 2006 through April of 2007, this was one of the laziest weeks in TSE's illustrious history. I blame the Wednesday national holiday and this being the slowest week in recorded sports history, save for a freakin' hot dog eating contest (that was awesome!). Look forward to some posting over the weekend and a full onslaught of goodness starting Monday morning. Until then, it's Friday, payday, just about 5pm and time for me to call it a day.

All the best, TSEers. more...

Profiles in Courage: Sergio Garcia

The following story is true and after a month of digging, has been confirmed by five separate people and the blog of one of the individuals involved.

Behind maybe Chris DiMarco, the best golfer on tour not to win a Major Championship has to be Sergio Garcia. He has always been a bit of a Streisand to me, but you can't knock his skill. At the end of May, Sergio put those skills on display at Jack's tournament in Dublin, Ohio - The Memorial. But by skills in this case, I don't mean his cut 5 iron from 180 yards out.

As a Columbus native, I have attended the tournament both on playing days and practice days and have a pretty good idea of what goes on during either. The men, they watch the golf; the drives off of 1, the approaches at 12 the finish at 18 and so fourth. The women, however, they watch the golfers. This story is about one of those women and the aforementioned Sergio Garcia.

I attended high school in Columbus, Ohio and among my legions of friends (kidding) is a girl named Sarah, currently a Junior at a college in Bloomington, IN. Sarah happened to be there at this year's edition of The Memorial with another mutual friend and while there, some interesting things transpired. She tells the story on her blog so I'll defer to her words:

Yesterday I got catcalled by a golfer that was hanging out by the caddyshack. Because that happens often with the caddies I justlooked and saw it was someone in Yellow pants. Later in the day I saw the player in in the yellow pants was actually Sergio Garcia, a very good golfer.

Now I know what you're thinking: so this broad followed around the Mich Ultra drinking Spaniard all day. Wrong. We fast forward to the next day.

Funny enough today while [a friend] and I were taking some wristbands back to our temp. office for the week we stopped by the putting green to watch Sergio putt
around. One thing led to another and SERGIO SENT OVER HIS CADDY TO ASK ME AND [my friend] TO DINNER. SERGIO GARCIA. He called and we told him if he was serious we would be game tommorrow. Obviously that was ok so I HAVE A DATE WITH SERGIO GARCIA. THE PRO GOLFER SERGIO GARCIA.

So Sergio Garcia went on a date with two college juniors he picked up at the practice putting green of The Memorial.

The story continues (and this is where the five confirmations come into play) and plays out fairly predictably: the heroine of our story went on to go home with El Guapo and proceeded to scissor kick all night long. For their sake, I won't reveal my sources (Sarah has yet to write about it on her blog, but I'm guessing that can't be too far off) but I trust them and they have all told me roughly the same version of the story, including the inevitable conclusion.

The morale of this story, of course is this: the next time Sergio seems like his mind is elsewhere while playing an important round of golf, chances are he's trolling for college ass in the galleries. more...

The Morning After on TSE - 7.5.2007

I have to hand it to ESPN. Even after Seaward nailed down 100 things to hate about the sports network to which we are all slaves (whether we want to be or not) they keep churning out new, better and more hateable things everyday. Let's have a nice, open-hearted discussion, then, about one of the worst things to happen to sports television since "Playmakers" got booted from the air (that's a long rant and beside the point so I'll digress):

Who's Now.

In the pantheon of things that are detestable, this must be displayed prominently toward the front. I'm all for alternative programming (well, not really, but humor me) however when ESPN started announcing this tournament, it peaked my interest, if only so I could see just how far down the network has fallen. For this "Who's Now" deal, ESPN has done the following:

- Created an entire set devoted to the 32-day competition.
- Hired somebody to record an "off-the-hook jam" as a theme song.
- Created an intro montage.
- Put Michael Smith, Keyshawn Johnson (really?) and Kirk Herbstreit (raise your hand if you were at his son's baptism...GoCM raises hand...count it) in a room with Stuart "Lazy Eyes" Scott for the "commentary" and "analysis".
- Bored the millions of ESPN watchers to tears of both hate and laughter with how stupid this whole monstrosity truly is.

I realize it is July 5th and the only thing going in the world of sports is baseball and Arena Football (go Destroyers! Beat Dallas!!) so ESPN really has to try to fill a 60-minute sports highlight show (and 90-minutes on Sunday nights). But there has to be something better than this. We're only 10 years removed from The Big Show with Dan and Keith and in those 10 years the greatest sports highlight show in history has turned into a pandering, promotional outlet for the sports stars of the world. There used to be in depth reporting and laugh-out-loud comedy in the daily sports wrap-up and here we are, in 2007, talking about Tiger Woods and Matt Leinart. Puh-lease.

I'm a loyal Sportscenter fan and while I hate what it's become, I will always turn it on in the mornings and evenings to catch up on what's going on in sports. But things like this make me want to try, in vain, to find something alternative to SC. What is the answer, you ask? Well I have no idea. That's why I'm sitting at a computer and blogging and not programming for the WWL. But if anyone has a better idea, it'll be welcome in the comments throughout the day. more...

Pepper needs new shorts!

Richard Shea, you are a ridiculous human being.

I know this is probably the dominion of Awful Announcing, but I just can't resist. Every year, I like to take in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest on the Fourth of July. It's kinda silly to watch grown men feed their face on a sports-oriented television network... but it's kinda fun. BY FAR the best part of the competition is the booth. In this booth, Paul Page does the play-by-play for ESPN while Richard Shea does the color analysis. In case you're not one of those in-the-know competitive eating buffs, I should probably tell you that Shea is the president of the International Federation of Competitive Eating -- that's right, the league president is the analyst. As you can imagine, hilarity ensues. (Any YouTubes from today's competition would be GREAT if anyone can locate them)

	"Usually you have to pay double for that kind of action, Cotton."

Some of Shea's gems from today:

• "If Chestnut wins, tomorrow if you Google 'hero'... 'American hero,' you'll find Abraham Lincoln, possibly Neil Armstrong, Taylor Hicks... and of course this man, Joey Chestnut!"
• "It's like the Super Bowl and the World Series all rolled into one."
  
• "This might be the greatest moment in the history of American sport!"

Taylor Hicks? Anyway...

You know what? I don't even feel like disputing Shea's charges. They are so awesomely ridiculous that I'm just laughing. I would've thought that maybe his analysis was the inspiration for the announcers so masterfully played by Gary Cole and Jason Bateman in Dodgeball, but I was surprised to find out that Dodgeball was released in June 2004, a few weeks before ESPN's first live telecast from Nathan's. So I guess not.

Nonetheless, on this Fourth of July, I say: Richard Shea, you are a great American.

Happy Fourth, kids. See you tomorrow! more...

2007 BCS Conference Team Preview: West Virginia

As part of TSE's Countdown to College Football, TSE regular Joe Table Blew It will preview all of the BCS conference teams: The Big XII, Big 10, ACC, SEC, Big East, Pac-10, and Notre Dame. This post focuses on West Virginia University, who will attempt to overcome the underdogs and make it back to the BCS.

The Mountaineers were riding high coming in to the 2006 college football season. They had just come off an amazing BCS victory over Georgia, and were entering the second year of the Pat White/ Steve Slaton era in Morgantown. The 2006 season though was a bit of a disappointment. Losses to an injured Louisville team and a surprise loss to South Florida at home put the 'Neers title hopes on hold for another year. Can the third year of the one-two punch jab their way to New Orleans?

Offense

There's no question that quarterback Patrick White has an immense amount of talent. Last year, he combined for close to 3,000 all-purpose yards and 31 touchdowns. The question this year is can he become more of a traditional quarterback? Rich Rodriguez has him in the spread offense, which should provide him with a host of receivers running anywhere from 5 to 25 yard routs. White will have plenty of opportunities to showcase his arm strength, and, to take this team to the next level, he has to. Steve Slaton will be more than capable of handling the load at running back, as he proved last year with his 1800 yard performance, virtually splitting the carries with White. These two have the opportunity to be front and center at the Downtown Athletic Club if they can manage to share the stage effectively. Darius Reynaud returns as the leading wideout on a team that needs some help from it's receivers. If White is going to throw more, which he can, he needs more of his wideouts to run better routes on a more consistent basis. Look, West Virginia can very easily run four wide at any time, and did last year, but part of the problem as to why White didn't throw it was sloppy rout running. White completed his passes last year at a 65% clip. His confidence from playing another year combined with the concentration of his receivers could make this a dangerous--balanced-- offense. The offensive line must recover from the loss of position coach Rick Trickett who departed for Florida State this year. Trickett was an amazing coach that made you hate him during practice, but was always focused on getting the absolute best out of you. I experienced his teaching first-hand for a week when my high school team went to WVA football camp in 2001. Coach Trick is old school, and will be missed in Mountain country.

Defense

The benefit of playing a 3-3-5 odd stack as your base is that most teams still don't know how to defend it. The setback? You need 5 quality defensive backs every season to pull it off. WVA has had mixed success with this formation that relies heavily on the roving corner, who sometimes plays like an outside linebacker. The front six can be as good as they want (they aren't very) bout if the Mountaineer secondary gives up 250 yards a game through the air as they did last year, it could be another season of disappointment in Morgantown. Fifth year senior Eric Wicks is the only model of consistency in the secondary, and could be the undoing of an otherwise talented team.

Prognosis

If someone can get this team to play some D, Slaton and White should take this team the rest of the way. West Virginia has once again scheduled nobody outside of their conference this year so, once again, the Big East is their conference to lose. The best this team can do though is win their conference, they really have no business playing with the big boys, especially this year. Expect the 'Neers to make a BCS Bowl, but not the Big One.

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Happy 4th of July

I would like to offer my apologies for my lack of posting today and yesterday.  I took the day off work Monday and actually had to do work today at...wherever it is I work...so I was unable to slack off, blog and get paid to do it (ah, the benefits of having access to the Internets at a place of business). Thanks to Seaward for taking care of that today.  

In response to one commenter, I will return with a new TMA on Thursday morning (taking tomorrow off, too, because it's a holiday and I'm lazy).  Apparently this commenter, let's call him JT Blew It, no, that's too obvious...let's call him Joe Table BI...wants facts and research in the daily TMA post.  So starting Thursday, expect a brand new edition of TMA filled with facts, news and everything else, while staying away from blatantly ripping off Deadspin.com (replace baseball with college football and you'll get the idea).  

Happy 4th of July, everyone.

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