September 14 is one of those dates that college football fans already have circled on their calendars. That’s the day when the defending national champions from Alabama travel to College Station, Texas, seeking revenge against Texas A&M for the Crimson Tide’s lone loss of 2012. Imagine the millions of eyeballs that will be glued to CBS that afternoon.

Looking over the rest of the schedule, the day’s second-best game is probably going down in the Lone Star State, too. Up-and-coming Ole Miss and treading-water Texas will tussle in Austin that evening. You probably won’t get to watch it.

The Big 12 announced on Tuesday that the Ole Miss-Texas game will air in primetime on the little-seen Longhorn Network. The reaction in SEC country was incredulous.

Last night on Jimmy Kimmel, Shaq participated in a shooting contest with two-year old sensation Titus Ashby and lost 8-0.

Ashby became a YouTube sensation recently and certainly lived up to all the hype, sinking six shots in a row as time wore down.

While I think we all expected the contest to be a bit closer between a 15-time all star, 4-time NBA champion and a toddler, Shaq did not seem to be bothered by the blow-out, giving Titus his shoe as a prize. Titus seemed unphased by Shaq's size and the audience. It was an impressive performance by the two-year old, and I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more about him in the years to come. He's a better shooter and less of a baby than Dwight Howard.

[Next Impulse Sports]

All Times Eastern

Arena Football
Orlando Predators at Tampa Bay Storm -- CBS Sports Network, 7:30 p.m.

Australian Rules Football
Adelaide Crows vs. Sydney Swans -- Fox Soccer Plus, 2:30 a.m.

Boxing
Boxing After Dark, Montreal, Canada
Light Heavyweight Title Bout
Chad Dawson vs. Adonis Stevenson -- HBO, 10 p.m.

Manny Ramirez's stint in Taiwan with the EDA Rhinos has given us plenty of magical moments, from his 10-foot-shy slide to his distaste for home-plate collisions to his moonwalk out of the batter's box, but he's now even inspiring craziness from his team's announcers. In the clip below, Manny hits a perfectly normal home run and jogs around the bases, but that inspires the play-by-play announcer to switch from Mandarin into broken English and deliver one of the funniest home-run calls ever.

"This ball is long gone, just like the ex-girlfriend who will never return. Home run!" Well, that's an interesting analogy. It's the delivery of it that's the best, though. The random fan holding up a purple helmet with Manny's #99 and what are supposed to be dreadlocks is also pretty great, especially considering that the helmet seems to have a Dallas Cowboys star on it for some reason. It's nice to know that Manny being Manny can still produce bizarre moments from everyone else. 

[Manny Does Taiwan]

SB Nation has continued their trend of impressive hires, bringing aboard David J. Roth. Roth's well-known for his work with The Wall Street Journal, The Classical, The Awl, VICE, Sports On Earth and more, so he'll add another big name to the cast of those SB Nation already has.

An SB Nation source told Awful Announcing Friday morning Roth will be working for them as a full-time staff writer as of this coming Monday.

"As a staff writer Roth will be writing a variety of pieces both long and short, and will also be appearing in studio from time to time," the source said.

Thus, this move could bolster SB Nation's burgeoning video content and their longform section as well as the main site. It's an ambitious hire from SBN, and it will be interesting to see how Roth fits in with the outlet.  

Last night's broadcast of the MLB Draft on MLB Network showed off a lot of good things about the progression of the Draft. The MLB tie-in with Baseball America and their player rankings was a welcome complement to ESPN's usage of Mel Kiper Jr's rankings during the NFL Draft.

The analysis on the main panel by MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo was excellent. Jim Callis, the editor of Baseball America, also did a great job at breaking down picks and explaining the reasoning behind teams' questionable picks (such as the Royals taking Hunter Dozier eighth overall) and the reasoning for the fall of certain players (most notably Arkansas right-hander Ryne Stanek). John Hart wasn't great in his role on the main set, but his extensive experience in front offices provided some unique insight that neither Mayo or Callis could offer.

However, there were plenty of cringeworthy moments during MLB Network's coverage that they really need to remedy. Most notably was, of course, the dreadful performance of Harold Reynolds. Calling the performance of Reynolds bad is an understatement. His commentary on the Draft this year was absolutely horrendous, including the following missteps:

The 2013 NBA Finals kicked off with a fantastic Game 1 between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat.  It was everything the NBA could have asked for from an opening game to a series as the Spurs kept Miami close throughout and ultimately registered a dramatic come-from-behind 92-88 victory on the road.

In spite of their success, the Spurs have never materialized into a national ratings draw.  The "boring" label may not be fair to this year's team, but it's clear the nation has never embraced the Spurs.  Since 1982 San Antonio has been involved in the three lowest rated Finals:

Who else could be the guest on the Silver Anniversary edition of the AA Podcast except our first and most frequent guest, the co-author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller Those Guys Have All The Fun - Jim Miller. With several stories surrounding ESPN in the last month, we catch up with Jim and get his take on the happenings in Bristol as well as a few stories he broke on his Twitter page. Topics include...

-TBS hiring Keith Olbermann and where his long-term destination might be.
-The reaction to the hundreds of layoffs at ESPN.
-Whether or not the bursting cable bubble is a myth or reality and the impact on ESPN and other sports networks of rising costs.
-Expectations for the new ESPN ombudsman Robert Lipsyte
-Culture change at ESPN evolving from the Steve Phillips scandal
-The rise and fall and rise of Stephen A. Smith.
-The increasing competition of Fox Sports 1, NBCSN, and CBS Sports.

More great insights from one of the most respected writers in the country on the 50th AA Podcast. I know I'm contractually obligated to say this for every podcast, but this is one you don't want to miss.

In case you've missed any of our podcasts, check out all of our interviews on iTunes or our AA Podcast RSS Page.  For more from Jim, follow him on Twitter @ESPNBook.

Recent Podcasts:

AA Podcast 49: NBC's Will Buxton on Monaco & F1

AA Podcast 48: Ed Olczyk on the Stanley Cup Playoffs

AA Podcast 47: Tom Verducci on MLB

AA Podcast 46: Dan Levy on sports media

AA Podcast 45: John Koblin on Jason Collins and Chris Broussard

While we may poke fun at Dick Vitale for his Duke homerism, crazy schtick, and cheerleading behind the microphone, but he's one of the legit nicest guys you'll ever see in sports.  Vitale has raised millions of dollars for the V Foundation and his unconditional positivity isn't just an act.  That's why I have to think Vitale didn't mean any harm with this tweet during last night's victory for the Spurs over the Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, although it turned out to be one of the inadvertent funniest tweets of the year.

After one of his patented moments of silence for an opposition home run earlier this week, we were treated to another classic example of Hawk Harrelson homerism.  Thursday night the White Sox hosted the A's and went to extras once again.  Down 5-4 in the bottom of the 10th and down to their final out, Adam Dunn stepped up to the plate with a man on and hit a ball high and deep to left field that fell at the warning track for the final out of the game like something out of Major League.  Just listen to Hawk's call...