I'm not sure what the consensus is on Tony Kornheiser in his role as Monday Night Football color man, but let me put in my vote for HE SUCKS. 

Somebody needs to tell him his job as a football announcer is not to give opinions on franchises.  It's not his job as a football announcer to give speeches full of flowery and melodramatic hyperbole.  He's a color commentator -- his job is to be insightful and funny and initiate clever banter with Joe Theismann.  That's it.

The disaster that is Tony Kornheiser reared it's ugly little bald head non-stop in this game:  his constant barrage about what a horrible franchise Arizona is; his calling Arizona a "bad team" SEVERAL times; his tirade about how the city of Phoenix should just "close up the new stadium and call it quits for the year" if they lose this game; even on Arizona's first offensive series, they got a first down and he said they should "just call it good, go home right now, and tell everybody to drive home safe".  I just spent two hours trying to watch a great football game, and instead found myself saying over and over again, "Who asked you, Kornheiser?"

It doesn't matter if everything he said was true -- that's beside the point.  Making inflammatory statements and knee-jerk reactionary comments is his job on PTI, not Monday Night Football.  If they wanted that in the booth, they would get Charles Barkley.  In fact, I'm hoping that Barkley's appearance in the booth in the first half was a message -- maybe it was ESPN saying, "Is it just us, or would Charles Barkley be way more entertaining than this Pez-headed jerk we mistakenly hired?"

Tony Kornheiser is only mildly entertaining on PTI, and he's simply unbearable as a live football commentator.  He's not a live sports announcer, he's a just loud-mouthed New Yorker with a superiority complex.  The color commentator for a football game is supposed to be the guy you wish you were hanging out with watching the game.  He should be that likeable dude who's witty and insightful, not that guy you wish would just shut up and watch the game.  Whatever he is, he is not Monday Night Football material.

Note:  This blog was written last Sunday, 9-10-06.  I couldn't post it until now because my computer was acting like a punk.  Yes, I know Ohio State won again this week, so this is old news.  But, the sentiment still stands.

If you read my profile, you'll notice I live in Austin, TX.  Therefore, I am a Texas Longhorns fan.  And I will say right here, right now, that Ohio State KICKED OUR BUTTS this past Saturday.  Plain and simple, no excuses.  We even had some bad calls go our way, and we still lost.  We just didn't have it, and Ohio State did.  They were/are just a better team than us.

But, that being said, KUDOS for burning down your town!  Nice job!  You do realize that was WEEK TWO, right?  And that you were favored to win, right?  And that you live in Columbus, Ohio, right?  What a bunch of tools.  I know, I know.... it was just a few drunken idiots, everybody in Columbus isn't like that.  I know.  But that doesn't matter -- what matters is that the ridiculous, overblown ego your fans have just breeds that kind of behavior.  It's the "jackass index" -- the more overall jackass fans you have, the more likely that you'll have those super-jackasses who will riot and set half your town ablaze if you win a game. 

The Texas Longhorns won the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP last year, and there was no riot.  They were underdogs, and won one of the best college games ever seen after a last-second miracle touchdown by their superstar, and no fires were set.  Don't get me wrong, Austin partied its big goofy ass off, for sure.  But there's the difference between Texas and Ohio State -- Texas Longhorn fans have CLASS.

And it's not just in Columbus -- here's a little story that was posted by someone in my neighborhood:  "I watched the first half of 'the big game' yesterday in a bar in the marina
district of SF, because it was near a rehearsal space where I was rehearsing with a band that afternoon. I don't normally hang out in the marina, for obvious reasons.  For those of you not familiar with Marina, it's the place represented by TV shows about SF...where everything's 'fresh'.

Anyway, there was a pretty strong contingent of Ohio State fans in the sports bar where I watched the game. Way more obnoxious than any UT fan I've ever experienced. In my experience, UT fans are typically more about the party and singing 'Eyes of Texas' than being obnoxious. There was a small strand of burnt orange in the bar, but mostly a lot of red and silver. But of course the best looking women were in orange.

Although the game went badly for the Longhorns, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the Buck-eye fans. Because after the game, the fan-fare, the hooplah, and the bragging, they're still from Columbus, Ohio.

Kudos again.  Your jackass-ity stretches from coast to coast.  Even in the bar where I was watching the game, the one guy who was rooting for Ohio State (besides my friend Tim, an Aggie) was the most obnoxious guy in the bar.  Every time OSU would do something good, he'd stand up and nyah-nyah the crowd (nobody even knew this idiot), running up and blocking the TV and just acting like a complete fool.  I even heard him on his cell phone (what a fan -- on his cell during the game), talking to another jackass OSU fan I'm sure, saying, "Yeah, guess what dude?  I'm in Austin, watching the game!  Huh-huh... It's even a bar called the 'Little Longhorn', and I'm just here hollering for OSU... Huh-huh-heh-heh...."  Again, what a fine representation of your fan base, Luckeyes.

Let me remind you again -- it was WEEK TWO.  You were favored.  You had almost your entire offense back, and we had a freshman QB.  Congratulations, you beat a team that was ranked #2 only because of last year's performance.  I mean, what better reason to run around like deranged meth-heads and set fire to stuff?  I mean, after all, you do live in Columbus, Ohio.

Home of THE Ohio State jackasses.

There's a lot of unspoken rules in baseball.  It's a very old game, and certain things are done or not done as professional courtesy or retribution, and a lot is made out of "showing a guy up".  If you stand and admire a home run you just slammed 450 feet instead of trotting directly to first base, you may get "plunked" in your next at-bat for "showing up" the pitcher.  If you argue balls and strikes with an ump, you'll likely get tossed immediately for "showing up" the umpire.  Another thing that is not done is that a manager never takes a catcher out in the middle of an inning and put in a replacement.  You just don't. It's considered professionally rude to the catcher, in effect saying, "You suck so bad that I'm willing to go through the whole hubbub of making some bench-warmer put on all his gear and replace you, right this minute." 
 
In the Washington Nationals vs. Houston Astros game on Thursday, 3rd-string catcher Matt LeCroy was catching for the Nationals.  He has a notoriously terrible arm (which is why he's 3rd-string), and the Astros had stolen a record-breaking 7 bases on him by the 7th inning.  With two Astros on base, the Nationals' manager Frank Robinson -- a baseball legend who's been in baseball for over 50 years, and one of the few black managers in the league -- took out LeCroy with only one out in the inning.  The fans and announcers were shocked, but understood why it had to be done.  If they didn't take him out, the Astros would keep stealing bases forever and they would lose the game.  LeCroy was replaced with Robert Fick, who is normally an outfielder but can play catcher in an emergency.   

What happened after the game gave me hope for humanity and good taste, something I rarely get inspired to feel.  In the post-game press room interview, Nationals manager Frank Robinson was actually crying because he had embarrassed one of his players like that.

"I feel for him," Robinson said. "And I hope the fans understand. And I just appreciate him hanging in there as long as he did."

LeCroy wasn't even offended, and took it like a pro, saying: "If my daddy was managing this team, I'm sure he would have done the same thing."

Again, remember that Robinson is a black man in his 60's, a pillar of the game of baseball and one of the most highly regarded and respected men around, period.  And there he was, not bawling or silly, but with a steady stream of tears on his face, his voice shaky, all because he had professionally embarrassed one of his own players who was giving the best he could, in a virtually meaningless non-divisional game in the first 1/6 of the baseball season.

That's class.  That's balls.  That's a real man with real integrity, something we rarely get to see anymore in any multi-billion dollar corporate entertainment enterprise, especially professional sports

Unbelievable.  Barry Bonds just hit #714, possibly the most monumental moment we have seen in sports for 30 years, and ESPN couldn't see fit to cut away from it's riveting coverage of the Preakness pre-races at Pimlico for one stinkin' at-bat.  And, naturally, ESPN2 was educating us ignorant Americans on the wonders of soccer -- again -- while one of the most unattainable watermarks in all of sports was occcuring.  I've been trying to catch every Bonds at-bat since #713, and the Every Sport that's Pointless Network just blew it for me and thousands of others.

Thanks for nothing, ESPN.

I never was a huge comic book kid, but I did have a cool box full of Superman, Spiderman, Flash, Fantastic Four, and a few others to dig around in during my adolescence.  My favorites were the special "D.C. Comics vs. Marvel Comics" issues, where the heroes of the two biggest comic book companies were pitted against each other in all-out warfare.

As I was commenting just now on sleeplessinseattle's blog about interleague play, I realized that interleague baseball has the same appeal as "D.C. vs. Marvel".  Seeing the Subway Series between the Yankees and Mets is reminiscent of the epic battles between Superman and Captain Marvel, crashing around buildings and generally wreaking havoc all over downtown Metropolis.  I would imagine the Big Snapple goes through a similar ordeal during the Subway Series; I see a pair of husky dudes, one in a Yankees jersey, the other in a Mets', in fisticuffs atop a subway car racing through the Bronx.  I can even hear the unsuspecting children of a Mets fan/Yankees fan marriage letting loose with a James Dean-esque "You two are tearing me apart!!!  I know that has nothing to do with comics; it's just funny.

The series with the Cubs vs. White Sox could be likened to Spiderman vs. Batman.  Maybe you could call Giants vs. A's the "Incredible Hulk vs. The Flash" series -- steroid pun intended.  In fact, we should just call that series the "BALCO Bash", given the Bay Area's stellar physical fitness record in the '90's. 

As was brought up in sleeplessinseattle's blog comments by HalfBaked, one of the things that always distinguished baseball from football and basketball is the fact that its two leagues always stayed separate.  This resulted in the World Series being the ultimate in interleague play, where the two best teams on the planet had to face each other with no prior experience, going only on scouting reports and TV coverage.  Before regular-season interleague play, the World Series was a true "D.C. vs. Marvel" series.

As "Comic Book Guy" from The Simpsons would say:  "Best interleague series, EVER."