ESPN's 'Sports Reporters' turns 20; Happy Birthday!
Happy 20th anniversary to ESPN's "Sports Reporters."
The show came after the late, great "Sportswriters on TV," featuring a bunch of grouchy Chicago scribes, but ESPN's version was pioneering in its own right.
I was going to mention this in the Sunday newspaper, but I didn't have room. So read USA Today's take on it instead.
ESPN told me I can't legally post the cool video of the opening episode - hosted by Gary Thorne! - that was distributed to media.
So here is a link to Awful Announcing's post that includes it. Let the Bristol Stompers complain to them if they want.
That's it for me today.
Happy Birthday to Christian Peter (36), Gwen Stefani (39), Patrick Flatley (45), Tommy Lee (46), Dennis Eckersley (54), Al Sharpton (54), Dave Winfield (57), Chubby Checker (67) and Jean Ratelle (68).
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Comments (6)
The ALL Sprots network thta was never suppose to fly. Now my 6 year old prefers it over the Disney channel. How time changes.
Neil- Happy Birthday, but you should have wished a Happy Anniversary to Bobby Thomson
Fair point, Peter. Dave Winfield was born on that exact day, by the way, which I've always thought is pretty cool.
And very ironic when you consider the nickname Steinbrenner gave him.
Ah, the Sports Reporters. This was the beginning of the ESPN master plan to control the universe. Get all the influential newspaper people on the payroll to minimize the backlash when you do stupid things to try to attract the 'casual sports fan'. In turn increase your ratings and erode sportsmanship while you're at it. Then the eroded sportsmanship creates guys like T.O., and Jeremy Shockey, and this in turn creates new 'controversies' periodically which increase the ratings even more. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's brilliant.
I just saw the original debut of the show. It was two beat reporters, one host (Gary Thorne), and one national writer (Ralph Wiley). It started out so innocent. As much as I like the man, it was Dick Schaap that really turn this into more opinion-based than actual reporting. It got personal at times like Dick using airtime to defend his son from getting treated badly by Bobby Knight that was for all intents and purposes a taped, edited piece that was replayed throughout that point and time and still to this very day.
The only guy who I liked on that show was Ralph Wiley since he admitted he didn't know much about some of the topics so he didn't act like a sports pope like Lupica and his parting shots were what he really felt rather than a shameless attempt to be witty and get a cheap laugh. He is very well-missed on both that show and ESPN's Page 2.