Don't Panic

For those of you who don't have cable, can't watch television in the morning/early afternoon, or live in a box, ESPN decided several months ago to take an expensive, hugely unnecessary stumble into the future by going live with all SportsCenter programming.

If you're having trouble imagining why this would be any different than the old format of SC -- where ESPN simply replayed the most recent SportsCenter on a loop -- that's because nothing has really changed. Not for the better, at least.

We are still treated to hour-after-hour of the same anchors saying the same stuff, since no sports news breaks before noon at least. For some reason, even though The World Wide Leader had figured this out and was saving truckloads of money on programming costs, they went ahead with their plan to be live 24/7. While there is no apparent added value (maybe Hannah Storm showcasing a different cowgirl costume every day? Josh Elliott angrily re-articulating his playoff-over-BCS college football ideas... again?), there is one big problem: the potential for error and editorializing.

With the old format, the anchors for the most part followed the script, meaning you knew what you were in for on an SC replay. With the glorious new system, you get interactions like this one. Chris McKendry was "interviewing" Buster Olney about the Yankees' nine-game win streak entering Friday's game. They had crept within a game-and-a-half of the front-running Blue Jays, with Boston only a half-game out. In reference to the two money giants nearing the top of the division, McKendry posed, in the condescending tone you would expect a fourth-grade teacher to use while asking you if you understood why she gave you a time-out:

"Buster, has order finally been restored in the American League East?"

Yes, Chris, not to worry. Everything is going to be alright. Those evil Canadians won't get in the way of your precious programming. You won't be forced to show any atrocities like this on your network. I mean, Brian Tallet?!?! Berman can't even make a cute little joke about that name! Besides, I thought Roy Halladay started all 162 games for the Jays. Or do they only play 144 up there -- I forget what the conversion rate is these days.

Surprisingly, Buster did not reaffirm McKendry's northeast-sheltered idiocy in his response. Instead, he re-stated his pre-season prediction that the Tampa Bay Rays-O'-God (no longer Devil-endorsed) would erase their then 5.5 game deficit and storm back to win the East. Needless to say, that's going according to plan.

The point is, there's no need for any of this. If the 24-hour news networks taught us anything, it's that there isn't enough news breaking in all of the world to justify their existence. Why, then, would a sports network think there is enough going on in their little slice of the pie to do the same?

On a side-note, is there a federally mandated height restriction on being a television baseball reporter? If I joined the after-work rec basketball team of Olney, Gammons, Kurkjan and Rosenthal, I'd be playing center at 5'9". Costas would come off the bench to give us a little more size down low.