Fed up with the worldwide leader in sports

I'm sick of ESPN. For that matter, I'm sick of ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPN Radio, the ESPN Zone, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Original Entertainment, ESPN Video Games, ESPN Classic and ESPN Radio.

I know this may be upsetting to those of you who go to sleep to "SportsCenter," keep it on all night and wake up to it in the morning, but one company has virtually complete control of the sports media market. ESPN can say something is important, and then everyone thinks that it is.

The Patriots winning 19 straight games is cool, but it's not an NFL record. And yet everywhere I look I see somebody talking about the Pats breaking this hallowed record. Uh, ESPN made that record up. No NFL record counts playoff and regular season games as the same. Somebody in the research department at ESPN decided that it was an "NFL record" (I'm talking to you, Schwab), so now it's in our faces.

ESPN runs sports media, and they know it, too. What kind of a company advertises its own positions on national television as "Dream Job"? I don't know about you, but I can't imagine being around Stuart Scott for more than 20 minutes before asking him what exactly his native language is.

And "Dream Job" is just another smug machine for the anchors. They already act like anyone other than themselves are dumb. Have you seen "SportsCenter Final Exam"? Even Linda Cohn treats these people as if they need to be in special-ed if they don't know what color pants Jesper Parnevik wore at the 2002 British Open. Mike Lupica and the rest of the Sports Reporters get a little breathing room, but Lupica's Napoleon Complex is more apparent every week.

Some of the writing on SportsCenter is amazing, but a lede about any kind of felony trial shouldn't have puns or rhyming jokes about the Ranch at Cordillera or the various misspellings of Jayson Williams' name.

Seriously, I am a target demographic member for most of ESPN's programs, but I really don't know anything about pop culture judging by the references on SportsCenter. When Stu Scott starts a 15-word rap reference that means "dunk" I am totally turned off of SportsCenter.

And ESPN's boobery does not stop at SportsCenter. How about their announcers. Everybody loves Jon Miller, and to a lesser extent Joe Morgan. But some of the former players they get to analyze games are (once again) on the brink of speaking English.

Granted, most MLB players didn't go to college, but of those who speak English as their native tongue and are multimillionaires, I would expect a few to be able to eke out a sentence without misusing a word. Some of these guys are the kind of people who would sign a petition (à la "The Man Show") vowing to end all suffrage in America.

To his credit, Al Leiter caught himself on Tuesday night's Fox broadcast saying "good" instead of "well" and promptly corrected himself. But ESPN former-player analysts seem to lack this brain function.

By far the worst transgressor is David Justice, whom ESPN signed a couple of years ago. I don't think I have heard a sentence with both a subject and a verb come out of his mouth yet.

I'm not just going to complain about grammar. Justice also has "John Madden syndrome." He states the obvious, with use of a high-tech slo-mo replay in order to clarify his point that hitting the ball closer to the center of the barrel makes it go farther, and then restates it for the next 15 minutes.

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Tell me why they couldn't get somebody with at least a communications degree from Duke to do that job — actually, never mind, they're all in the NBA. Anyway, DJ's not lending a heck of a lot of expertise. He has one clutch World Series in the early '90s and suddenly he can explain the subtleties of baseball to the masses.

Even Howard Cosell complained about this phenomenon back in the early days of big-time sports broadcasting. At least Don Meredith was able to articulate what he knew about football.

Nearly all of ESPN's former players and coaches treat the set like a locker room. Sean Salisbury is nothing short of a schoolyard bully in the way he treats John Clayton, who whups him on the argument points every time but usually looks like he's the loser because, well, he looks like a loser. I can't imagine why hearing Tom Jackson and Michael Irvin simultaneously yell "jacked up!" 10 times in two minutes is considered entertaining. What demographic are they shooting for with that? Fourteen-year-old "cool kids"?

I wish someone could explain why Mike Ditka needs to be analyzing anything. He doesn't know how to evaluate talent (Ricky Williams is good but not nine draft picks good). He talked for 10 minutes on ESPNEWS last week, and he brought up Bronco Nagurski more than once. I don't think that's necessary.

As much as I dislike watching real-life coaches, I disdain watching fictional ones. ESPN Original Entertainment has brought such classics to the airwaves as "Junction Boys" (Paul "Bear" Bryant), "Season on the Brink" (Bobby Knight) and "Hustle" (Pete Rose). Notice how all of them are doing things that parents tell their kids not to do? I can hear the ESPN execs now: "Let's hire some of these guys."

Some EOE properties are good, like "Pardon the Interruption" and "Around the Horn," but for every one of those, there are three awful concepts that made it through.

Remember "Two-Minute Drill"? How about "Beg, Borrow, & Deal"? You're right, those were horrible shows. And "I'd Do Anything" isn't going to break the trend, either.

Unabashed self-promotion is everywhere in ESPN World. I have to hear about what sweet programming is going to be on ESPN Classic every commercial break, and I get a constant update on how long I have to wait for ESPNEWS's press conference about Carlos Baerga's retirement.

It's not important just because ESPN says it is.

I'd keep going, but I don't want to miss the first round of Cardinals highlights. Oh well, I'll probably catch a few runs of "SportsCenter" while I'm sleeping.