NFL Mlb Media Watch

I told you last week that not too many people saw Barry's 755th home run live on TV. Now comes the word, via Ben Maller, that more people watched the Cowboys/Colts game on FOX Thursday night than Barry's record breaking 756th home run Tuesday on ESPN. From Ad Age:

The game on Fox last night delivered a 2.7/8 rating and share from 8-11 p.m. in last night's Nielsen "Fast Affiliate Ratings" in the ad-centric adult 18-49 demographic, which if it holds would tie for the eighth-rated program of the week.
...
But the 1.1 ESPN household rating for Bonds' blast -- compared to NBC's 22.3 rating for when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record (adult 18-49 figures aren't available) -- underscores just how much baseball, and especially media, have changed over the last 30 years.

Well, it does show how much the media has changed recently, and how much football now dominates. The low ratings also confirm my suspicion -- that not too many people were sitting around, excited to see Bonds break the record. Or maybe everyone just wanted to see Pam Oliver go toe-to-toe with her producer. Now that could account for the difference.

Previously at FanHouse:
Not Many People Saw Bonds 755 Live
Pam Oliver, Tony Romo, and a Cockroach

Back when I was in high school, a marketing teacher of mine quaintly said that in the near future we will be able to pay for gas using cash at the pump, sort of like how a vending machine works. He said that the new credit card slots at the pump have been such a great addition that it is inevitable that the cash slot will come soon.

That was 1993. Instead, we have all kinds of stupid little things attached to our gas pumps to distract us [the best is that picture of a cop telling me that driving off without paying for my fuel is a crime]. Soon, we will have ESPN at the pumps to keep us busy.

According to USAToday, ESPNews will be coming to your gas pumping experience via something called Gas Station TV [click on that link to see happy patrons watching it].

There's a reason drivers pull out of traffic and park it at select high volume pumps: GSTV. Gas Station TV entertains, informs and advertises directly to customers as they fuel up their rides. Daylight viewable LCD screens perched above the pump provide a constant shout out of targeted, first-rate ABC and ESPN programming and sponsored messages down to each individual gas station. There are no clickers handy to surf with or DVR's to slide by the targeted ad content, just one channel, one driver.

Why not? We have TVs plopped throughout shopping centers, lines at the amusement parks, restaurants, banks, the doctor's office and pretty much every menial task we have to do every day. So why wouldn't gas stations try to avert us from watching how much our gas is costing us? The only cool thing here is that it's ESPNews up there and, well, when the wife makes you pump the gas you can catch up on what's going on. I mean, that's a bit better than the ol' sports-section-above-the-urinal trick.

This certainly puts a new spin on that ESPN commercial with David Ortiz putting on Jorge Posada's Yankees cap. I knew the very idea of a New England sports icon wearing a Yankees hat would be repulsive to some Boston fans, but is it really front page news?

I guess so. Tom Brady walked down the street while wearing a Yankees hat. That's the front-page story in today's Boston Herald. And there's a hint of scandal in the stunning news that he's done it before:

But avid Brady Bunchers know this isn't the first time No. 12 has committed the ultimate in homer heresy. We told you way back in 2003 that Tom was sporting a Pinstripes lid when our ever-vigilant spies spotted him fueling up at a Dunkin' Donuts in Foxboro. At the time, the excuse was that it was a gesture of solidarity with then-Yankees rookie Drew Henson, who, like Tom, is a former quarterback for the University of Michigan. Of course, that lame-o rationalization has gone by the boards now that Henson has ditched MLB for the NFL to play third-string quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings

With Leather says it in stronger language than I can, but seriously. It's just a hat. It's not like he made a profane rap song or anything.

Previously at FanHouse:
Tom Brady Galpal Gisele Stops Modeling Victoria's Secret
Bridget Moynahan Talks Baby, Not Tom Brady
Shocking! Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Brady Like Hot Women
Greg Olsen's Rap Lyrics Cause a Stir in Chicago

The news that Los Angeles Times sports writer Mike Penner is a transsexual who will soon begin writing under the byline Christine Daniels is a good opportunity to note that transsexuals are part of every segment of society and every occupation. In fact, Penner is not the only transsexual sports writer in America.

Christina Kahrl has worked on all 12 editions of the annual book Baseball Prospectus. In most of those editions Kahrl was a man writing under the name Chris Kahrl, but two years ago she changed her byline when she changed her gender.

"Nobody has batted an eye," Kahrl said at the time. "Everybody has been great and supportive."

That's a good sign. Simply by living their lives, Kahrl and Penner are helping to make us a more open-minded society.

Disclosure: I've never met Kahrl, but she has been involved in Pro Football Prospectus, an annual to which I contribute.

In noting the death of David Halberstam yesterday, I said that while they weren't his most important works, his contributions to sports writing shouldn't be overlooked. Today, I've been struck by how many sports writers have mentioned Halberstam's influence.

Halberstam loved sports. Sometimes you see a "serious" journalist take on a story about sports, and you can't help but feel that he's out of place. Not Halberstam. He was a a true fan who just happened to be a brilliant writer.

After the jump are just a few of the examples of sports writers remembering Halberstam today. Read them all, but more importantly, read some of Halberstam's work. You'll be glad you did.

David Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize as a reporter in Vietnam for the New York Times, and he was one of the most important journalists who covered the civil rights movement. He wrote about things more important than sports.

But Halberstam, who died today in a car crash at the age of 73, was also a sports fan through and through, and we wouldn't do him justice if we failed to acknowledge what an important part sports played to his life and work.

Halberstam's sports books include Bill Belichick: The Education of a Coach, Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, and Summer of '49. Halberstam put just as much intellectual energy into covering sports as he put into covering Vietnam, and although sports will be just a footnote in most of his obituaries, his contributions to the world of sports writing shouldn't be overlooked.

With a few simple words on his radio show last week, Colin Cowherd used his ESPN microphone to shut down TheBigLead.com for more than 48 hours. Cowherd urged his listeners all to go to the site at the same time, and that was enough traffic to knock the site offline.

Now ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber says the Worldwide Leader has implemented a policy that ESPN's airwaves are not to be used to ruin anyone's business. I'm a little surprised that policy needs to be spelled out explicitly -- do they also have a specific policy against torturing farm animals on company time? -- but it's a good policy.

Still, there are some issues that are unresolved, starting with why Cowherd did this. Schreiber described Big Lead as "a sports blog that is sometimes unmercifully critical of ESPN," but I read Big Lead (who also blogs at FanHouse) and I've never thought his criticisms of ESPN are anything outside the norm in the sports blogosphere. (He did quote a former ESPN employee whose criticisms of ESPN were outside the norm, but if ESPN has a problem with that, its problem is with Jason Whitlock, not the site that interviewed him.)

And, unfortunately, there's one other issue we should note: Cowherd got what he wanted here. He showed that he's more powerful than a blogger. In Big Lead's first post after coming back online, he wrote, "we'll be spending the better part of today looking for a new host." So, congrats, Colin Cowherd. Your total number of listeners exceeds the volume of traffic that Big Lead's host can handle. I take it this makes you feel big. I think it makes you look small.

Previously at FanHouse:
Colin Cowherd has Listeners?
ESPN's New Ombudsman Another Tony Kornheiser Pal
Too Close to Tony Kornheiser? ESPN Ombudsman Responds

Suppose you're a second-tier ESPN radio host. Maybe one with a past history of antagonizing the blogosophere. You've got millions of listeners, many of whom are simply too lazy to change the channel. How should you spend your Thursday? How about crashing a high-profile blog just because you can.

Earlier today, Colin Cowherd decided to celebrate his power and virility by sending all of his listeners to The Big Lead. You may have heard of it--it's one of those edgy, investigative blogs that makes the mainstream media uncomfortable, and its author is a FanHouse contributor. Anyway, a few minutes into this audio, you can hear him order his audience to visit TBL right away, hoping he can shut it down. Cowherd has nothing against TBL, hasn't ever read it. He just wants to prove a point about ... I don't know, his need to prove his power and virility in public. Draw your own conclusions.

I can't even begin to describe what a cheap shot this is. I know that blogs scare people like Cowherd, and I get that if we tangle with them, there might be consequences. That would matter if, you know, Cowherd had any reason for doing what he did. Instead, well, let's just say that history does not look kindly upon bullies and intimidators.

Oh, and make sure to read Deadspin's seething take on the matter.

"When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times." -Mark Twain

Cincinnati deserves to be dumped on a times. It's a nice city with great tradition, interesting people and their own ways of doing things ... but this comment attributed to Mark Twain pretty much should be the caption underneath the Nati's skyline. Cincy operates in it's own little world and anything from outside doesn't resonate too well here. As a transplant from Charlotte, leaving the city to see my family makes me feel as if I'm leaving the woods and revisiting the outside world again. Sorry, guys, but I'm one of the few people that actually moved to the Cincinnati area ... not from.

That's where ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd comes in. Cowherd's show, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, spent several minutes ripping the city of Cincinnati [you can listen to the rant here]. Cowherd does a number on the city by commenting on a news story about an airplane forced to land because a smoker goes crazy. That flight was from Cincinnati to Hawaii ... and Cowherd just runs smack all over the city. Listen to it, and you can't fight him on it.

He calls out the entire town, including the sports scene. The Bengals arrests, Bobby Huggins running a rogue Bearcat program, Marge Schott and Pete Rose fire-storming the biggest gambling scandal in baseball. He also talks about Hustler's Larry Flynt being from the city and former mayor Jerry Springer. And he, of course, touched off on the current mayor of Cincinnati's pitch on Monday:

"What is it with Cincinnati? ... For how small a city it is, is it me or does Cincinnati have a disproportionate number of bottom-feeders and low-level gutterballs?"

"Jerry Springer, Pete Rose, the Bengals, Bob Huggins, wild chick on an airplane, Larry Flynt ... They're not serial killers, they just have no class."

"I mean, it's just boring. People get in trouble. It's just boring."

"A similar sized city is Hartford. Charlotte. They're not in the news this much."

"Just a mess."