Stool Samples

By: Josh Bacott and Pat Imig (email @ pgi@joesportsfan.com)

It’s quite amazing to see ESPN taking the company name beyond sports coverage and out into the mainstream. In 2006, the network will begin a relationship with EA Games to provide real statistics and analysis in the Madden NFL games.

The network has also been working with Mattel and Screenlife on the brand new Scene It Sports Powered by ESPN trivia game. It’s a board game with questions coming from player cards and a DVD hosted by Dan Patrick. The DVD includes real game highlights and athletes, including Lance Armstrong, Dwayne Wade, and Donovan McNabb, among others.

Apparently having their own flavor of Gatorade wasn’t enough for the folks in Bristol.

In addition to all that, there is also the new ESPN Shot Block Basketball game built by Fisher-Price. This thing comes with two balls and two arms that attempt to block your shot, or you can fold the chute down to play one-on-one. The kicker is that the machine comes with the ESPN theme song and Dick Vitale’s voice.

That’s right; Dick Vitale’s voice in toy form.

On the annoying meter, it’s the equivalent of giving your kid a drum set and then making a rule that he/she can only play the drum solo from Firehouses’ Don’t Treat Me Bad for as long as they own it.

If these games are any indication of the future for the ESPN brand name, you can probably count on ESPN frozen dinners appearing in your local grocer’s freezer some time soon. Maybe they could pull off SportsCenter Ice Cream Bars; imagine…Linda Cohn on a stick.

And we certainly wouldn’t be shocked to see an eoe spin off of The OC called The SC, a “Fact of the Matter” DVD starring Steven A Smith and “UH UH” T-shirts courtesy of Sean Salisbury.

It’s just a matter of time.

Crap that actually came from somebody’s mouth

“Sometimes you see what you see and sometimes you see what you want to see.” – Randy Cross

In the case of Cross, most of the time what we hear sounds like crap.
_____________

“I have a son. I can only hope he grows up to be half the man Tom Brady is.” – Randy Cross

That’s one of the most ridiculous man-love quotes in at least the last seven days.
_____________

“He looks like a genius. Oh by the way, he is a genius.” – Trey Wingo on Joe Gibbs

You know those geniuses. They always find ways to lose to the Giants 36-0.
_____________

“He used to be my man 50 grand. The Revolverlutionary. The Phrenologist.” – Scoop Jackson on Phil Jackson.

It’s so refreshing to finally get to read an article written by a man who really doesn’t concern himself with whether or not he’s making any sense whatsoever.
______________

“I have a number of friends who tell me if they had my body they would probably walk around naked.” – Terrell Owens

Terrell, this would be a little piece of info you might want to file under the heading “stuff that I shouldn’t share with the media.”
______________

“Carmelo Anthony, looking like he’s off to his first All Star appearance.” – Bill Walton, 10 minutes into the Denver Nuggets’ 2nd game of the season.

If nothing else, the NBA brings with it a giant red-headed hippy analyst who loves to jump to conclusions.
______________

“A couple of years ago (Kobe Bryant) dropped a serious load on Denver one night and came back and did it again the next.” – ESPN announcer Jim Durham

Jim, that’s no way to talk about Kobe’s rape trial in Colorado.

______________

“He’s a football player. He wants to play football.” – Mark Schlereth on Tedy Bruschi

Anytime you throw in the word football on a football show, it’s good.
______________

“This guy can play football.” – Paul McGuire on Ruben Droughns

You certainly can’t argue with that comment.
______________

“All we can do is pray for him.” – Joe Horn on T.O.

We’re on our knees and say 13 Hail Mary prayers every hour. We really need to help T.O. pull through in this tumultuous situation.

Lock of the Week

The Lock of the Week has nothing to do with point spreads or over/unders. It has to do with a punter.

The absolute lock is that if Chris Gardocki, the punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers, comes into the game to attempt a punt, there is a 100% chance that the announcers will let the audience know that Gardocki has never had a punt blocked in his career.

Use this little piece of knowledge to impress your friends while watching the games this Sunday.

Who Am I?

I’ve been in the league now for ten plus years. I’ve won an MVP award. My quarterback rating for my career is above 82. My team has been decimated by injuries. No one seems to notice that I’m “all alone” on the field. No one seems to attribute every mistake that I make to me “pressing”.

I’m Steve McNair, and damn it, I just want the same breaks from the media that #4 gets.

Media Rant of the Week
Occasionally, while writing this column, we start to wonder if maybe we’re too cynical. Are things really as bad as we make them out to be? Is the media this crappy?

And just as we get to a point where those questions start to look more justified, you see something on TV that reaffirms everything that you previously thought – the sports media truly is unintentionally hilarious.

That signature moment came on Monday night when SportsCenter, the show that set the standard for sports coverage years ago, threw it to their newest segment – the simulated MLB press conference.

Simply put it was the stupidest segment in SportsCenter history, handily beating out the time that Freddie Prinze Jr. was called in to narrate game highlights.

It’s hard to capture just how dumb this thing is. Former Mets General Manager and current Baseball Tonight analyst Steve Phillips was playing the role of Yankees GM Brian Cashman and taking questions from a fake audience on a fake press conference set in front of a cluster of fake microphones.

Apparently someone at ESPN actually convinced people that it would be better to present this ridiculous setting to analyze the off-season strategy of Major League baseball teams, rather than to simply have Phillips sit at a desk and tell us what he thought.

The segment unleashed a flurry of questions that need to be answered:

How does ESPN find the extras that play the role of the audience for these simulations?

Should we feel sorry for Sal Paolantonio and Buster Olney, who are forced to actually stand and act like they are asking questions at a real press conference? (We don’t feel sorry for Jeremy Schaap because he clearly loves this idea)

Did Steve Phillips come up with this idea?

Does anyone else picture Phillips standing in front of the mirror in his dressing room before the simulation and talking to himself like Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights?

How would you feel if you were the actual GM of the Yankees, Brian Cashman watching this disaster?

Would you be flattered or mortified that a grown man was on TV pretending to answer questions as you?

Steve Phillips does know that he’s not really the GM of the Yankees right? The answer to that became a little more questionable when he answered a question about free agent Hideki Matsui by claiming that “it will be me that will be handling the negotiations.” No, Steve, you handled the negotiations for the Mets when they were horrible and then you were fired.

It seems that only a few teams were deemed worthy of a simulated press conference. It might make for more compelling TV if these demonstrations took on teams with real problems. Imagine Phillips trying to answer questions about what he’ll do as the GM of the Kansas City Royals and their $35 million payroll.

That would at least be entertaining. Of course, by “entertaining” we mean terribly awful.

Sean Salisbury is Angry At You
If you are one of the people who think Corey Dillon may be nearing the end of his career, Sean has a special message for you.

“People… STOP. Corey Dillon is not over the hill because last year he rushed for what, sixteen to seventeen hundred yards and all of the sudden he forgot how to run? Get over it!”

All you people out there, just know that Salisbury is sick to death of your nonsense. He’s ready to snap you in half like a Slim Jim.