I have to ask... and I know it's February and it's considered a slow sports month, BUT....When I turn on the 11 PM Eastern Sportscenter expecting to see highlights of my beloved Purdue's victory over MSU as well as other college basketball highlights and maybe a feature about pitchers and catchers reporting for Spring Training, WHY must I be subjected to:
...and ALSO, coming up, Chris Berman will talk about a stupid play from 1982 between two meaningless, insignificant college football programs (Cal and Stanford) and this wild and wacky play that, really, kind of sucked and the officials totally effed up since there were like, at least, two forward passes and at least one guy was down.
I mean, seriously... what is the point of all of this? Weren't these "highlights" created to show us what happened in the games that day? Not to live on for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years. And how bigger-than-its-britches has ESPN gotten now? They actually want us to vote for the best highlights?? Not the best plays ever... no, the best highlights. If that's the case, can't we vote for one where someone farts during the highlight or something? If it's the "greatest highlight" we're voting for, then they play is actually kind of immaterial.
How about Jay Crawford not realizing he's on live and not taping a segment?
How about Andrew Bynum dropping the F-bomb during a casual interview?
Or how about Nicole Ritchie offering herself to Kobe in the most biblical of ways?
I want to see a girl forget the words to the American national anthem at a hockey game, then go retrieve the lyrics, then fall on her ass.
I want to see large men in tiny, skin-tight shorts brawling in a college basketball game... something you don't see anymore. (Really, when was the last college basketball fight?) Oh, okay, I guess they do still happen. (I especially like the end of that last clip when the announcer says, "...stomps on Jamal Smith -- can't do that.")
How about two NHL coaches getting in each other's faces during the most heated days of the Red Wings-Avalanche rivalry?
There's always Desmond Howard doing a bowl game special and talking about the Holiday Bowl, which featured Cal versus Texas A&M, and thinking A&M was the University of Texas...even going so far as to talk about specific players on UT and Cal matching up!
Or Tiger Woods letting a fart fly?
Honestly, the choices are endless. But no, we don't get the best highlights... we get to see the Stanford band on the field again, or Cartlon Fisk "waving" his home run fair to give the Sawx a miracle victory in the World Series -- which they then of course lost the next day. And we get to see... wowzers... Henry Aaron's home run again. Or Doug Flutie's hail mary pass to beat Miami back in '84. Wow, thrilling. And so topical. Maybe Berman can mention Flutie's f-cking drop-kick field goal a few hundred more times. Vomit.
Speaking Berman, of course, the best part of all of this is that the fat-ass, obnoxious, impossible-to-take bag of turds is the "host" for this made-up craptastic event. That's right, Berman, he of the cursing, disgusting and revealing videos circulating out there (the vids were taken off YouTube by ESPN but the link I put there will get you to them via Deadspin). Chris, I think YOU have already provided us with the "Greatest Highlight" of our year -- seeing you for what you really are: a complete douchebag.
11 comments:
I can tell you this:
I care about it as much as I cared about "Who's Now."
The worst part is that Berman is actually CALLING these plays while he shows the highlight... and doing a Godawful job of it, too. They don't even play the historic calls, which in some cases, have come to define the highlights themselves. It's absolutely disgusting.
Ugh. ESPN is reeeeeeeeetaaaaaaaardeeeeeeed.
It's painful to watch. It already sucks having to wait through all the highlights you don't really care about until they get to the ones you do. Now they make you wait longer? Weak.
Oh yeah, and has anyone else noticed that like half of the "top ten" plays are hockey goals now?
Eeeeeaaasy on knocking hockey there, Nate.
I'll knock hockey with you, Nate!
I'm not a fan.
I really don't mind hockey, and I love the fights and blood and guts and severed arteries aspect of it. But the other night Purdue had some really sweet highlights and 4 out of the 10 highlights were hockey... I just don't get it. 3 of the goals looked identical to me (obviously not an avid hockey guy). I dunno, if you can appreciate the nuance to each slap shot, more power to you. I'd just like to see some #&$*&&# Purdue highlights on there sometime, and it just seems like the NHL is getting more play than normal this year.
This is another AWFUL gimmick by ESPN, but lay off the cal-stanford play. That is the second best play in cfb history, behind flutie's pass.The novelty is what makes it so good.
mo boiler's comment perfectly echoes my thoughts. Having anyone modern, but especially Berman, doing the voice over on these historic sports moments, takes about 80% of the impact away form each highlight. The way they're running it just makes it seem like "WE are awesome, see how our ownership of these clips makes us great?!?" sort of ESPN masturbation.
Let us have the original highlights as they truly are/were, so we can enjoy a moment of sports icon-fueled common bonding.
Cal-Stanford the second best play in college football history??? Come on, man.
As I said, at least once, the ball-carrier is clearly down (one of the earlier "laterals" when he's gang-tackled -- you can see his knee is down) and do we really need to analyze how many forward, non-lateral passes there were?
Also, did the game MEAN anything? Nope. Thus hard to say it's a great play.
The REAL finalists for the Greatest Highlight of All Time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4f6wiQJh4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztlLwgSFCg
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