Tommy Gun Fires Bullets at:ESPN
Everyone's favorite sports network and their 24 hr coverage of C.C. Sabathia signing with their beloved New York Yankees. Holy crap they paid a lot for him. ESPN's making him the biggest thing since sliced bread. Well, he IS pretty big.
But honestly, I'm already sick of hearing about him being a Yankee and it's not even the end of the first day. ESPN has round the clock coverage and updates on all their networks. I hate how ESPN focuses on the New York teams and "force" their viewers to suffer through round the clock coverage.
Hour 2 of the C.C. Sabathia signing:
Buster Olney: "This is the smartest move by Yankees GM Brian Cashman. They sign him to the largest pitching contract in baseball history at 7 years and $161 million..." REALLY? A smart move? I have two words for Buster: "MIKE HAMPTON!"
Hour 3 of the C.C. signing:
A ten minute segment featuring 1050 AM Sports radio in New York listening to the play by play announcers of the Yankees suck C.C.'s (insert male body part) and tell everyone in the world how awesome the Yankees are.
Hour 3 & 15 minutes of the C.C. signing:
After dedicating 5 minutes of updates to the rest of the sports world, they come back and do a five minute interview with the beat writer for the Yankees.
Hour 4 of the C.C. signing:
A series of interviews with the head janitor of the Yankees, a local hooker who "establishes" her ground around the Stadium, and Mike the hot dog stand vendor outside of the ball park. Meanwhile, there's a couple of trades in the NBA including a 5 player deal between the Suns and Bobcats. Who cares? Back to the interview with the stadium's grounds crew chief.
Hour 6 of the C.C. signing:
Trey Wingo: "I've got confirmed reports that C.C. has just ordered a Baconator from Wendy's. Let's see if we can get some camera footage from him doing it."Pan into C.C. in the drive thru at Wendy's.
Wingo: "Yep. It's a Baconator. I think he's getting bigger."
Agh!
Did you know you can buy an estimate 32,264,529 Baconators (~$4.99) with his contract?
Monday we had the greatest pitcher that we've ever seen retire (Greg Maddux) and he gets a
two minute blurb on his career, but when this dude signs with the Yanks we get an all day ordeal. This is the first day...who knows what the rest of the week will bring to us. F*ckin' ESPN! Even Mike Mussina's retirement from the Yankees and baseball attracted more air time than Maddux.And it's not just the Yankees. It's all the New York teams. Yesterday it was Francisco Rodriguez signing with the Mets. Brett Favre and the Jets, Plaxico and the Giants, Marbury and the Knicks, etc., etc. Hey I live in the "forbidden" time zone, the Mountain, and I know more about those teams than I know what's going on with the home team Broncos.
Hour 7 of the C.C. signing:
Breaking News: The Yankees have offered A.J. Burnett a five year contract.
Crap.
Here we go again.
Chinks in the Armor:
College Basketball: A few games in and I'm already sick of it. Is it March yet? At least Illinois is doing well at 7-1.
Hockey: Joe Sakic out for 3 months with 3 broken fingers suffered in a snow blower accident. A snow blower accident? WTF? Poor Joe, his best days are long gone. Sad to see a legend go out this way.
On the topic of hockey...what channel is it on? Barry Melrose fired so early into his coaching stint with the Tampa Bay Lightening. And he's returning to ESPN in 09'. That's awesome. Now when he gives his two cents in, I don't have hear him start off like, "Back in 93', when I, the greatest coach ever, coached the Kings to the Stanley Cup Finals..."
Now we can hear him say, "Back in 08' when I coached the Lightening for 16 games before getting canned..."
The Final Shot
And just for Bookie...
'Bout a week ago we were sitting in the bar section of a local restaurant watching the T.V.'s and they had a show on about the Nuggets. Low and behold it was the George Karl Show.
Even though it was his show and we saw him...oh let's say...for about three minutes. Kind of like his coaching stint with the Nuggets...in between leaning up against the scorers table gazing into the bright lights pondering what type of ice cream he's going to indulge himself in after the game. Hmm...chocolate or vanilla? Wow. That's a tough decision. I'm in a pickle.Technical foul on K-Mart.
Come on' coach! Pay attention and stick up for your players...or should I spice things up and make it a swirl? Throw some of those cherries on top along with some sprinkles and chocolate syrup. Coach? Hello?
Anyways...
There was an upcoming segment on the show coming up after the commercial break. The sound was turned off, so we weren't sure who or what it was about. It showed Julie Browman taking lessons in a gym from some scuzzy lookin' homeless dude.
Bookie: "Who's that?"
Me: "I don't know. Looks like some assistant coach or something."
Bookie: "No. I think it's Mark Randall."
Me: "Nah. He's a lot cleaner cut than that."
It can't be. Mark Randall has done some tidbit analyst advice on post game shows and he's usually clean cut. He supports a beard, but it's trimmed pretty nice. This guy looks like he rolled out of the dumpster and through on a pair of sweats he got at the Salvation Army for half price. He's got scruffy, uncombed, greasier black hair, and one of those beards that's just a week or two shorter than Jesus's.So the program returns from the break and goes into that segment. After a minute or two, the program puts up one of those "Name Identifiers Subtitles" underneath the scuzzy guy talking and...it's Mark Randall!
No way!
Holy Crap. The dude looks like some mechanic coming out of Jiffy Lube. A grease monkey. I was waiting for him to say something like:
"Well ma'am. I've added three quarts of oil, and checked the pressure in the tires. I added some air to them, so you'll probably have some better traction and balance when driving. I also notice that your throttle was sticking a little bit, so I added some grease to it and it works like a charm."
Oh my God, he's turned into a bum! Mark Randall's homeless! I tried surfin' the net for hours for video feed of this segment, but couldn't find it. Sorry.
Well, I think that I've fired my last rounds and emptied the clip. Until next time...
Tommy Gun
