Thanks to all of you that voted and participated in the First Round of the Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament.  If you're new to the party, the JMMT is in search of putting a new face on Awful Announcing's Mount Rushmore.  The field began with a diverse array of sports media personalities including national and local, play by play and analysts, studio hosts and radio hosts, and everything in-between.  Some "lucky" current sports media personality will be the newest person to be memorialized on the Mount Rushmore of Awful Announcing.  Throughout the last week, the field has been cut in half from 32 hopefuls down to 16.  Here's the full results from Round 1...

1) Skip Bayless d. Woody Paige  77.91% - 22.09%
2) Rick Reilly d. Hawk Harrelson  58.7% - 41.3%
3) Tony Siragusa d. Jack Edwards 71.55% - 28.45%
4) Thom Brennaman d. Jon Gruden 58.32% - 41.68%
5) Deion Sanders d. Mike Tirico 69.59% - 30.41%
6) Michael Irvin d. Dick Stockton  71.61% - 28.39%
7) Chris Berman d. Erik Kuselias  76.83% - 23.17%
8) Pierre McGuire d. Reggie Miller  57.62% - 42.38%
9) Craig James d. Mike Patrick  75.17% - 24.83%
10) Joe Theismann d. Mike & Mike  65.70% - 34.30%
11) Mark May d. Dave Lapham 65.07% - 34.93%
12) Jim Gray d. Jim Nantz  78.15% - 21.85%
13) Stephen A. Smith d. Stuart Scott  51.45% - 48.55%
14) John Sterling d. Matt Millen  58.69% - 41.31%
15) Joe Buck d. Chris Rose  72.53% - 27.47%
16) Colin Cowherd d. Bobby Valentine  88.47% - 11.53%

A few notes from the first round before we reveal the second round draw...

*Matt Millen won our 2010 Worst Announcer of the Year reader poll at Awful Announcing at the end of the last year by a wide margin.  However, he lost out to Yankees play by play man John Sterling in what I consider to be the upset of the first round.  Yes it is baseball season, and yes, Sterling has had some epic botches recently, but still the result is surprising with just how critical fans have been of Matt Millen.  The force of the Evil Empire is certainly strong.

*It should be no surprise that Colin Cowherd received the highest percentage of first round winners by a wide margin.  He was the only person to receive over 80% of the vote... after all, over 80% of voters said that Cowherd should be fired in an AA poll last month.  Jim Gray and Skip Bayless received the next highest percentages.  The closest first round matchup saw Stephen A. Smith narrowly defeat fellow ESPN NBA personality Stuart Scott.

*The most interesting first round matchup may have been Pierre McGuire's comeback victory over Reggie Miller.  Reggie had built up an early lead, but then the online hockey community got involved and pushed Pierre to the top.  How far will their passion against McGuire carry the bald headed analyst?

*Here's the network breakdown for the remaining 16 competitors...

8 ESPN, 3 Fox, 3 NFLN, 1 NBC, 1 local announcer

Now, without waiting any longer, we'll reveal the draw for the Second Round matchups.  As a reminder, we're randomly redrawing brackets every round until the semifinals to add a little more unpredictability and remove any bias due to seeding.  We drew the top 8 votegetters from Round 1 against the Bottom 8.  Here are your second round matchups with the dates of each.  We'll run two matchups a day again in this round and be back on Monday with the 2nd Round recap and Quarterfinal draw.  Links to the polls are here as well and winners are in bold.

Thursday - John Sterling v Skip Bayless 
Thursday - Joe Buck v Deion Sanders  
Friday - Chris Berman vs Mark May  
Friday - Colin Cowherd v Joe Theismann  
Saturday - Jim Gray vs Thom Brennaman
Saturday - Craig James vs Rick Reilly
Sunday - Michael Irvin vs Pierre McGuire
Sunday - Tony Siragusa v Stephen A Smith
 

Last night’s Midsummer Classic didn’t thrill the executives over at FOX Sports.  The game turned out to be one sided and didn’t have any of the late inning drama to keep the average television viewer from flipping off the tube and hitting the hay. Is Johnny Johnson willing to stay awake past 11PM ET to watch the garbage game that went down last night?  Not a chance.  Overall, the game was a snoozer. The best action came in the bottom of the fourth inning. Unfortunately, FOX decided to do a ridiculous interview with Justin Timberlake during, what turned out to be, the key inning of the game. Why FOX?? WHY??!!

First of all, it just doesn’t make any sense to do the interview at that juncture of the game. Adrian Gonzalez had just hit a homerun to give the American League a 1-0 lead and the National League was bringing their 2-3-4 hitters to the plate in their half of the inning. It didn’t seem like a good spot in the telecast to have Mark Grace interview Timberlake, did it?  You would think that someone in the production truck would have said, “the NL has some big daddy diesel hitters coming up, maybe we should hold off on the Timberlake interview?” After Carlos Beltran led the inning off with a hit, FOX should have adjusted their plans by pushing Timberlake to another inning or bumping him completely. I hate when FOX does these celebrity interviews to begin with, but if they’re going to do them, can they please use their noodle and do them at a time of the game that is more sensible?

As for the interview, it was awkward.  Grace looked like and sounded like a fool.  He really came off as a creep when he put his arm around JT and said, “why don’t we come over here and get a shot of the pool?” He might as well have just said, “let’s move over here so we can get these girls in their skimpy bikinis on camera.” Timberlake’s joke about the beer was a big fat Cheese Doodle.  Also, I have to admit, his sarcastic comments directed at Joe Buck actually bothered me. He had no business poking fun at Buck. Timberlake basically criticized Buck’s ability to call a game and commented on the voice troubles that the announcer has had to endure over the past several months.  I don’t think JT should have done that during the telecast, it was a little unfair and cheap.  Buck did what he was supposed to do and bit his tongue; I give him credit for that.

A few pitches after the disastrous interview with Timberlake concluded, Buck was given a chance to prove to JT and the television audience that his voice was actually in fact “getting there” like he previously declared when he was told by JT that he had a "classy voice."  Buck didn't deliver (link here in case the video goes down)....

I’m sorry Joe, but I could barely hear what you said.  You were completely drowned out by the crowd and sounded hoarse, flat, bland, raspy, lethargic and old.  Clearly, your voice isn’t as wholesome as it should be. Why not take a break?  You can come back after Vin Scully calls the 2011 World Series on FOX. What do you think?

***Ed Note: While Tweeting about Buck's voice during the ASG last night, Dan Bell, VP of Fox Communications, Tweeted us this response...

danpbell @awfulannouncing for the record, Joe has our full support as he gets back to 100% and he is staying on the air.

Fox's position comes as no surprise, but is no less disappointing.  At least they took the time to publicly address their support for Joe Buck though, so thanks to Dan.  In spite of what countless fans have said on Twitter, there is seemingly no scenario where the network will even consider sitting or resting Joe Buck.  It was clear that Buck's vocal cord virus (and again, we wish him the best in recovery) took away from the game last night.  The question has to be when Fox will listen to the fans that are wanting something new in the Fox booth.

As for Vin Scully, he respectfully declined an interview with AA through a Dodgers spokesman, citing the countless interview requests he receives and the need to choose amongst them.  He is aware of the World Series movement, and we're still hopeful that it happens with both Fox and Joe Buck publicly on board with the idea.
 

The highly predictable Mike Leach tell-all book is coming out this week as the former Texas Tech coach gets his own platform to talk about his controversial firing at Texas Tech in December 2009.  But, we're not as interested so much in Mike Leach's endless pursuit of justice as we are his juicy feud with the next US Senator from Texas, ESPN's Craig James.  (And Leach's budding career as a terrible analyst.)  The firing, feud, and lawsuits have been well documented, but Leach's new book pulls back the curtain even more on the specifics of Craig James and his involvement in the story.  All the quotes are from an excerpt published in Sports Illustrated...

Adam's daddy, Craig, came around and campaigned for his son. He talked about how good Adam was. It all started when we beat Cal in the Holiday Bowl. Craig, who was there to announce the game, came up to our hospitality room. He started talking about how great his kid was and how great the bloodlines of the James family were. I later found out that he tried giving the same sales pitch to the Nevada staff after calling their bowl game too.

Is it a surprise to see Craig James trying to sell multiple programs on his kid?  Of course not.  Now, using his position as an ESPN analyst to do so might make most people shudder.  What's laughable though is Craig James touting the bloodlines of the James family.  What, does the James family include someone that defended the Alamo?  Perhaps a member of the Grand Ducal of Luxembourg?  Are you kidding me?  The fun continues...

Craig James told Tech chancellor Kent Hance that Adam had spent three hours in that electrical closet based on instructions from Pincock. That night, Craig called Larry Anders (chairman of the Tech board of regents) and complained that Adam had been forced to practice with a concussion and had been locked in an electrical closet. We'd already held out the starting quarterback for a month that season because he had a concussion -- the starting quarterback. Adam was forbidden to practice because he had a concussion. We wanted him away from the field.

I think we're all pretty well in agreement now that Adam James went into that closet on his own and the Texas Tech hierarchy used the Adam/Craig James controversy to get rid of someone they perceived to be as a loose cannon.  Still though, let it sink in that a top ESPN college football analyst was on the horn with a school chancellor to get a coach fired.  What would Fox do if Tim McCarver was trying to undermine Tony La Russa.  Or CBS if Phil Simms had it in for Sean Payton?  Was ESPN blissfully unaware that things like this were happening...

There has long been rumblings that ESPN was looking to pump new life into ESPN Classic and ESPNews. While ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN digital properties continue to grow and thrive, Classic and News have not kept pace and at times lost some of its audience share.

Pop quiz: What channel is ESPN Classic? Do you know if you even get the channel? Not the easiest question.

Hoping to rejuvenate Classic, ESPN has reached a syndication deal to broadcast the acclaimed series Friday Night Lights. 

"ESPN Classic has picked up the repeats of the five-season series, which has been lauded for its realistic depictions of football, family and life in the heartland. After a Season 1 marathon on Thursday and Friday, the episodes will be shown on Thursday nights beginning July 21. They will also be broadcast on the Longhorn Network, an ESPN channel for Texas sports that starts in late August."

It's a very shrewd move by ESPN, as most of ESPN Classic's programming is irrelevant. Sports fans hardly even know when a classic game featuring their favorite teams is actually airing. The channel is relegated away from the rest of ESPN networks by most cable providers, is not in HD in many households, and features programming that has low awareness and only small niche audiences.

Friday Night Lights, however, brings programming to the table that has a cult audience from its run on NBC and DirecTV. Also, a very well known brand via the book and movie, and a reputation for being one of the better shows on television that never achieved ratings success. Its penetration with sports fans is even pretty marginal, as the show was almost cancelled a couple of times before being rescued via an innovative partnership between DirecTV and NBC. 

Along the way, fans of the show bemoaned the lack of interest as Friday Night Lights was championed by many to be one of the best shows on television. Now, similar to shows like The Wire, Seinfeld and The Sopranos, syndication gives those who missed out a second chance to catch the series while also attracting diehards who are clamoring for a second showing.

I am in the first boat as I've watched a handful of episodes and have enjoyed the series, but never made the commitment to put it in the rotation. Dramatic football, life in the heartland and Explosions In The Sky? Sounds good to me.

ESPN kicked off the series by airing the first two episodes tonight on ESPN with a graphic promoting the full launch on ESPN Classic. Great timing with no other sporting events in play besides an All-Star game that many have decided to shun.

It's a bit interesting to see ESPN working with NBC on this syndication agreement because they've been butting heads trying to acquire sporting rights, but the deal made too much sense to both sides. It will be interesting to see how much pop ESPN will get for adding Friday Night Lights and if similar programming begins to get mixed into ESPN Classic. How about Hang Time or Two A Days?

I'm going to break some news this morning.  Are you ready for it?  You might want to sit down, because this news will shock you.  In fact, it may be the most surprising sports story of 2011.  Here it goes...

Chris Berman annoys everybody.

Well, almost everybody.  Steve Levy is evidently still drinking the Kool-Aid.  I'll give you a moment to collect yourself.  You see, like most of these ginned up All-Star "festivities," the novelty of the Home Run contest has worn thin over the years.  Kinda like a certain loudmouthed announcer that anchored the coverage tonight - Chris Berman.  I tried to watch the competition on the DVR, but only got through about 2 back, backs before I had to shut it down and watch The Pick, The Pawn, and The Polish, resisting the urge to pour hot wax in my ears and download The Herd podcast.  Thankfully though, we had many Good Samaritans that suffered through the Home Run Derby at various times and spoke up on their feelings towards the one and only Chris Berman.  

You see, the MLB All-Star Game and preceding Home Run Derby is like Christmas in July for Awful Announcing.  The MLB All-Star break is normally the deadest period of the sporting calendar... but we get Chris Berman and Buck/McCarver on back to back nights!!  What could be better?  (Or worse.)    We chronicled your responses during the US Open on Chris Berman's subpar play by play skills, but one would think that the Home Run Derby would cater more to Berman's hideous schtick.  At least he gets to use his catchphrases and nicknames ad nauseum, right?    

The only fitting way to analyze Berman's "performance" in the Home Run Derby is to turn it over to you.  As always, these are Real Tweets from Real People...

Our final matchup of the 1st Round of the Joe Morgan Memorial pits two champions of awfulness in two very different fields.  One, Colin Cowherd, may be the single most disgusting human being in the sports media.  Yet, despite all of the reprehensible nonsense Cowherd has spewed over the years, he remains somehow untouchable by ESPN.  Meanwhile, Cowherd's opponent has somewhat of a birthright to replace Joe Morgan on AA's Mt. Rushmore.  Bobby Valentine certainly hasn't distinguished himself after teaming with Orel Hersheiser on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. But, is his awfulness enough to overcome the vile Cowherd?  Don't forget to come back tomorrow for all the Round 1 results and 2nd Round matchups!  Let's see how they stack up!

Colin Cowherd vs. Bobby Valentine

Colin Cowherd

Fact File: Host of ESPN Radio's The Herd and co-host of SportsNation on ESPN2

Why He's Here: When polled last month, nearly 85% of respondents said that ESPN should end its relationship with Colin Cowherd.  His stereotyping and pontificating are legendary for all the wrong reasons.  Very few in the sports media get away with offensive and flat out wrong statements like Cowherd has the ability to do.  Cowherd likes to pander to intellectual elites and openly mock large portions of his audience.  Thankfully, CBS passed on a sitcom pilot based on the life of Cowherd.

Links:

Cowherd Shuts Down The Big Lead Just To Be A Douche
Cowherd's Ignorant and Insensitive Take On Sean Taylor's Death
Cowherd's Race Bating Includes Ridiculous Comments Towards John Wall
Cowherd Thinks Mark Mangino Was A Jerk Because He's Fat
Cowherd Almost Got A Sitcom On CBS 
Cowherd Tells The Unemployed It's Your Own Fault 

 

Bobby Valentine

Fact File: ESPN Sunday Night Baseball analyst

Why He's Here: ESPN finally pulled the plug on Joe Morgan in the Sunday Night booth and in stepped Orel Hershiser and the former Mets manager.  However, Valentine hasn't gotten a lot of love from fans in less than a year in the spotlight.  In fact, some are even saying they wish they had Morgan back.  Yipes.  Is there anything worse that can ever be said about an announcer?

Links:

Bobby V Joins Sunday Night Baseball
Apparently Bobby V and Marv Albert Use The Same Hair Care Product
Bobby V...Public Safety Avenger??
Bobby V Said Something He Didn't Mean To Say

Vote!

Colin Cowherd d. Bobby Valentine 88.47% - 11.53%

After a week of awfulness, botches, screwups, homerism, puns, screaming, and shouting, the Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament reaches its final day of Round 1 matchups.  Yesterday was perhaps the most interesting day yet as Stephen A. Smith narrowly defeated Stu Scott by a handful of votes and John Sterling knocked out 2010 Worst Announcer of the Year Matt Millen.  And, we've saved two of the tournament favorites for the final day.  Up first is everyone's least favorite star announcer, Joe Buck, facing off against his Fox underling and former host of the Best Damn Sports Show Period, Chris Rose.  The winner of this matchup and the winner of Cowherd/Valentine will be our final entrants into the 16 person 2nd Round draw.  Who's your all-star of awfulness?  

Joe Buck vs Chris Rose



Joe Buck

Fact File: Fox's #1 play by play man for NFL and MLB.  Has announced several World Series and Super Bowls.

Why He's Here: Joe Buck has quickly risen to the top of the most disliked sports announcers.  His dry, monotone style doesn't quite fit in with an age where Gus Johnson and Kevin Harlan are two of the more popular sports announcers in the business.  Beyond that though, Joe Buck has a certain air of smugness towards his announcing duties, even admitting in the past that he isn't that big of a sports fan.  His attempted and failed late night career told sports fans that he had bigger and better things to do than announce the biggest games in sports.

Links:

Joe Buck Doesn't Enjoy Baseball Anymore
Real Tweets From Real People - Joe Buck
It's Time For Fox To Sit Joe Buck
The Artie Lange Interview

Chris Rose

Fact File: NFL on Fox play by play and Fox Sports studio host

Why He's Here: Chris Rose had a decent run on FSN's Best Damn Sports Show Period.  Yes, the show was only good for about a year, but Rose had his moments.  His run as a play by play man... not so much.  Rose is far from the worst play by play man, but that's about the best thing you can say.  His work as a serious studio host and reporter has also been widely criticized.

Links:

Chris Rose singing
Chris Rose & Torry Holt is a magical duo
People Don't Seem To Like This Chris Rose Guy
Chris Rose and "Jeets"

Results:

Joe Buck d. Chris Rose 72.53% - 27.47%
 

When ESPN cut ties with Joe Morgan, there was some concern that there would be a debilitating decline in content around these parts. Thankfully, Bobby Valentine has performed admirably in filling Morgan's shoes. 

Tonight, during the home run derby - a holiday usually reserved for Chris Berman vitriol - Valentine attempted to stress how tiring it is for the derby participants to try and hit home runs on every swing. However, as usually is the case for Valentine, it didn't come out as he intended [video via Richard Deitsch]:

"Fag [out]" is in the Dictionary, and means to tire, so there's technically nothing 'wrong' with what Valentine said. But there's precedence suggesting that it's probably a poor choice of words.

And, supposedly, it's not even what Valentine meant to say (and his grimace right after saying it may indicate as much). SI's Richard Deitsch reached out to ESPN and Valentine apologized for it: 

"I meant to say fatigued and it came out wrong. I'm truly sorry for my mistake."

Interestingly enough, this could've been one of the few times Valentine said exactly what he was thinking, but acted as if it wasn't in order to cover up his usage of a word that might leave a negative impression. 

 

ESPN is suing my alma mater over the university's refusal to turn over emails during their recent investigation of the Ohio State football program. If you recall, Jim Tressel was fired/retired/removed by the university after coming to the realization that their 5 game self imposed suspension (extended from a laughable 2 game suspension) would not be enough punishment for the NCAA.

Under relentless media pressure, Tressel was shown the door for not forwarding emails that told of NCAA infractions involving illegal benefits. Not only did he not forward those emails through the proper channels, he actually reached out to Pryor's mentor, Ted Sarniak, a businessman from Pryor's hometown.

Sarniak's mentorship or involvement with Pryor has always been something of a mystery with many believing it's an inappropriate and unnecessary relationship for the richest guy in town to befriend a high school star athlete. 

ESPN wanted to probe into the relationship and found it curious that Tressel would contact Sarniak about the brewing scandal, but was denied a copy of the email by Ohio State citing FERPA, a law that protects student privacy. 

ESPN's full brief can be found here in which they assert that the emails in question should not fall under FERPA. They're asking for the emails to be turned over and for Ohio State to pay for their legal fees.

We actually have someone on AA's staff who is currently studying for the bar who might be a better person to get into the legal specifics. It's not really clear who has the inside track on this case and what Ohio State's response will be.

Even before this recent scandal, Ohio State fans along with fans of other power programs have always conjured up the belief that ESPN has some type of agenda against the program. With so many pundits and hours of coverage, there is always something to grasp at to build the case that there is some type of conspiracy against the program.

This sentiment gained a lot of traction as Ohio State found itself in the news cycle and subject to months of investigative reporting that turned up a myriad of additional illegal benefits but little else that tied directly to the athletic department and coaching staff. The most common gripe is that months were spent on this story while schools who have actually been hit with stiffer allegations by the NCAA or the media (Oregon, UNC, Auburn) have seemed to produce a fraction of coverage and investigative reports.

Matt Yoder commented when this story first broke that ESPN's Mark May went so far as to ridiculously propose a conspiracy theory in favor of the Big Ten and against the SEC.  Now, with this lawsuit, you have to wonder if the largest sports media company in the world and the 2nd largest athletic department have changed their facebook status from "In A Relationship" to "It's Complicated".

It remains to be seen if there is anything juicy in that email or who has the law on their side. The thing to consider here that these two entities work together closely and quite frankly need each other. College Gameday needs approval to film on campus, the Big Ten needs Ohio State's support to extend television deals with ESPN, and both rely heavily on each other in many facets.

With the Ohio State scandal winding down, is it really wise on a PR level for the grossly profitable ESPN to be suing a public university for legal fees? Beating a dead horse or are they carrying the flag for investigative journalism? 

Either way, it will be extremely interesting to see how these entities co-exist going forward with this lawsuit being filed.

With the one year anniversary of The Decision festering through the sports world, Jim Gray made an appearance (audio at the link) on the Dan Patrick radio show to talk about his brainchild.  A year later, and The Decision's lingering, distinctive, disgusting odor still circles throughout the sports world... and Jim Gray still wants to claim the credit for it.  From his namedropping of Steven Spielberg's partners to being surprised by the criticism, (really?  REALLY?) to not wanting a mulligan on the inane questions he asked LeBron before the actual decision, Gray comes off as a man very content with his role in the circus that was The Decision.  The quotage comes from Sports Radio Interviews...

How the idea came about:

“I was with my wife and I think it was game two of the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Lakers in Los Angeles at the Staples Center and I was sitting in the stands and walked down at halftime to say hello to Maverick Carter, who was sitting in the front row with Ari Emanuel. We just got to talking and David Geffen, one of Jeffrey Katzenberg’s and Steven Spielberg’s partners was sitting with him as well and we just got to talking and I said to Maverick it’s going to be an interesting summer and I would like to do the first interview with LeBron when he decides on his team. He said you know we can think about that, that’s not a bad idea. I had a history with LeBron. Interviewed him when he was in high school, did his first game when he played against the Sacramento Kings, was there the night that Gordon Gund won the lottery for the Cleveland Cavaliers, interviewed him on the night of the Draft and so on and so forth. I had known LeBron for some time so he said he would consider that. Then I said better yet why don’t we announce his decision live on television and go buy an hour of air time on a network and just explain it to all the fans at one time where he is deciding to go. Ari jumped in and said that’s a brilliant idea. Maverick said ‘you think so? Can you put this together?’ Ari said we gotta do this. Maverick said we can give a lot of money to charity and it just kinda went from there. That’s how it started, just kept in touch every once in awhile texting Maverick throughout the course of whatever it was, the next three or four weeks, and it became The Decision.”

What criticism has surprised him the most since The Decision:

“Just that there is so much of it. This after all was just a television show. I think what had probably happened is that everybody in New York and New Jersey were hoping it was the Nets and Knicks. He had meetings with them and the folks in Los Angeles, the folks in Chicago, and the people back in Cleveland, everybody had their hopes up. When he finally decided on Miami all the people in all those other cities were disappointed because they all wanted him to play there. There’s only one place you can play at a time. I think it just got built into such a thing where there was a letdown in all these other cities. I’m surprised that it still gets the attention that it gets. I’m surprised at the reaction when you go to certain cities and he does to play in certain cities and they’re booing. A lot of those cities didn’t even have a chance to get him. I don’t think that anybody could’ve foreseen what has gone on. Did you foresee this?”

Would like a mulligan?

“Mulligan in terms of what I would have asked? (Host: Yeah. Anything.) I probably would’ve asked LeBron to explain why we were at the Boys and Girls Club because to the audience, in looking back at the tape, we never said why we were there.”

Whether or not he would do the show all over again:

“Would I do the show again? (Host: Yeah.) Yes. We’d all make it better.”

Gray just advanced to the second round of our Joe Morgan Memorial Tournament to place a new face on AA's Mount Rushmore, and this interview just gives his critics more ammunition.  I think he may have won a few more votes for the next round.  Check AA on Wednesday to see who he faces in the second round.  

One Year Later Jim Gray Would Do The Decision All Over Again - Sports Radio Interviews