Tuesday Night Open Thread, Brought To You By “Takes on Fire”

Big news this week, as Fox Sports has announced how they’ll be deploying friend of the site Jason Whitlock.  He and fellow esteemed sportstalker Colin Cowherd will be spending AN HOUR every day yelling at each other on FS1 in a show called Speak For Yourself, a show that I’m sure we’ll all be watching rapturously every afternoon.

This news is, all kidding aside, actually GOOD news.  We are living in the waning days of the EMBRACE DEBATE era.  It will hopefully be remembered for the disgust from viewers and commenters, and not the ratings that it pulled in for ESPN.  It always amazed me that people were willing to watch uninformed yabbos like Mike Wilbon, Woody Hayes, Skip Bayless, Cowherd, Whitlock, Mike & Mike, Tony Kornheiser, Jay Mariotti, Steven A. Smith, Bill Plaschke, Tim Cowlishaw, and the rest debate old man topics like respecting the game.

This CONFOUNDS me.  I love sports.  That’s why I built this site: because I love sports (and all of you, of course) and I cannot tolerate the format of modern sports talk.  Who is entertained by morons screaming at each other?  YouTube commenters?  People using AltaVista?  Whoever is buying whole chicken in a can?  These are the lowest goddamned denominator of people, being pandered to by both morons and very smart people who PRETEND to be morons.  I think Skip Bayless is probably very smart.  He plays a shithead on TV for money.  I get it, really.  But I fucking hate it.  I hate that I can’t just leave ESPN on in the background during the day without getting annoyed at the awful goddamned banter between people I can’t stand.

Anyhoo, the era seems to be ending.  ESPN has figured out that the toxic environment they’ve fostered over the last several years with expensive talent and annoying content is costing them viewers.  In an age where the “Most Outrageous” clips quickly go up on YouTube or are dissected by Deadspin and Awful Announcing minutes after they happen, they don’t seem to be in the market to provide awful TV anymore.  As sports increasingly becomes a watch on the go proposition, we don’t need to listen to these guys’ opinions any more.  We all have our own viable opinions now.  Hopefully, these shows disappear, and thoughtful sports talkers like Dan Patrick (Sandler obsession aside), Rich Eisen, and Scott Van Pelt can help show that we don’t need the garbage to attract eyeballs.

Anyhoo, sorry about the rant.  I have VERY few pet peeves.  Sports yelling and taking sports too seriously in general is one, so if you read all of this, I appreciate it.  Enjoy the evening.  We have…uh… the Caps trying to keep their President’s Cup season alive against the Penguins on NBC Sports, the Thunder and Spurs in Game 5 on TNT, and a buncha baseball, including the Cardinals traveling to Anaheim to see old pal Albert Pujols flail weakly, which is what I’ll be watching.