A 60's radical seeing racism at every turn? Shocking.

Someone called Czaban a racist this morning because he was supposedly saying that Vick should get 22mos rather than 18mos or something, it was hard to get what the guy was getting at. Also, not shocking.

Think of ESPN as a manufacturing business...and sports stories are the raw materials.

It's a lot more economically lgical for the company to create more product with less raw materials. If ESPN can create 100x more programming from one story than fifty different sources for 100 stories on MLB or something, it is obvious the way to go is to use the one story source to create many stories.

It's the "ride it into the ground" effect combined with laziness.

Expecting the "race card" to go away 40 years after black folks actually get to vote isn't happening. If anything good came out of the Vick-o-rama yesterday, it's that Doug and Ryan Stewart and Jemele Hill actually got to explain on a national stage why many of us feel the deck is still stacked, even though what Vick did was inexcusable and disgusting.

Skip Bayless once did the impossible for me: he made me feel sorry for Tom Landry.

I'm a Cowboys hater from way back, but his book about Landry (God's Coach) was such a relentless hatchett job, that it made me have compassion for him.

Bayless is the Albert Goldman of sportswriters/commentators.

Well, what are we going to do? Watch the OTHER nationally televised sports program? ESPN can do whatever the Hell it wants, and we have to take it.

What I can't take is ESPN's arrogance. The anchor makes condescending statements like "Our top story is OBVIOUSLY Michael Vick," and "Coming up, even more Michael Vick." Why is Michael Vick "obviously" the top story? Because you said so? Why do we need an entire show dedicated to him? Because you said so? Did you consult or even study your core audience before you made such an obvious decision to dedicate an entire newscast to this guy?

Or did ESPN just do what it always does: gain an audience dishonestly by getting it so pissed off that it just HAS to tune in to find out just how far it is going to take it?

ok, here's my take on espn's take.

roughly about four years ago i quit watching sportscenter. slowly, i quit watching 80 percent of espn. now i only watch live games, college gameday and sometimes PTI (only because it too has become predictable).

as phil mushnick recently wrote, espn has become an "idiot's picnic."

there are tons of places i can get information from without having to deal with the PC slant of Father Disney or the ramblings of lunatics like Rome/Bayless/Mariotti/Paige/Screamin' Stephen A-hole Smith, et al.

and you know what? i am so much less stressed out than I used to be. and more informed.

everyone should do themselves a favor and just tune out bspn. you'll be surprised how much better off you will be.

I read the email you posted from the grandmother peace activist. i used to get all irate over this verbal sewage of bspn, until i just shut it off.

with the internet, satalite radio, podcasts and, thankfully, blogs like awful announcing, bspn has become irrelevent. i like to think intelligent people don't pay any attention to bspn any longer.

at least i know i don't.

i haven't watched/listened/read any of the bspn platforms in the past week mainly due to the fact i knew it would be virtually all vick all the time.

i don't know what has been said/written about vick by bspn, and frankly i don't care.

There should be an award given to SR for being able sit and watch the entire Skip/Stu's banter. I had to change the channel.

What I did see in the few minutes that I was able to stomach was THREE "racists". Everyone points to the 'white on black' racism, but let us not forget there is 'black on white' racism as well. And you could literally see the venom in the eyes of the two Stu's.

Having said that, Hollywood nailed it on the head as to the "why" ESPN is on Vick overload.

please cindy brunson, put the glasses back on.

"Someone called Czaban a racist this morning"

Wouldn't be the first person to say that. Won't be the last either.

Skip Bayless makes me yearn for more Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan.

Say what you want about Bayless, but he puts his neck out there every day unlike most of those guys who are careful who they criticize.

And I'd take him over the Two Live Stews any day. It's offensive that those two morons have been allowed to become the national voice for Atlanta.

Skip Bayless would say that Wayne Gretzky was not the greatest hockey player of all time in a "First and 10" segment just to have an argument, if that's what the ESPN producer told him to do.

The specific comment made by Bayless that prompted me to email AA was his calling Vick "bad to the bone" after describing what that meant to him. He did say at some point that it had nothing to do with race which made me wonder why he expressed that disclaimer. He said that there were some people that were inherently "bad to the bone"; born that way and would always be that. He used it the way he has used the word "thug" and, disclaimer or no, I don't recall his ever calling anyone who is white a thug or "bad to the bone".

Later when the 2 Stews were trying to explain what signing bonuses were by reading the definition from some document (? maybe NFL contract preparation glossary ?), Bayless refused to accept that definition and insisted he had a better take on it. The 2 Stews remained calm and tried to rephrase their point but to no avail. The shows producers halted the exchange by telling Bayless in his earpiece the the discussion thread was over and time to move on. (Yes, he said that on the air.)

I didn't see racism in the eyes of the 2 Stews. They had the look of men talking to a wall. And, they were far more critical of Vick than other guests. They didn't make excuses for him at all. When they did bring up race, it was to try to explain why there was such passion in Atlanta along racial lines.

SR

So "bad to the bone" is racist?

He said that disclaimer because every time a white guy like Bayliss says something about the obvious thug nature of a lot of black guys in sports, he gets called a racist.

Which is absolutely stupid, but doesn't stop a lot of people.

I guess calling someone a moron for having this kneejerk race reflex will be also racist.

First off, I don't think any of the three are racists...I was merely pointing out that everytime the term "racist" is mentioned, it is almost always automatically assumed that it's 'white on black' racism.

Secondly, I totally agree again with Hollywood as to the "why" Skip felt he had to add that disclaimer.

Thirdly, you should read Jason Whitlock's column at FoxSports.com; it states really well the inherent "thug" nature in the Hip Hop community, which is the most prevalent culture of black athletes in professional sports (and no, I have no data to support that claim, but that is my assumption).

But again, kudos to you SR for being able to sit through those segments...this is a discussion that needs to be talked about.

What happened to Leonard Little if the US is extremely racist?

Why was he treated differently?

Maybe it's simply the insane shit that Vick got involved in and Little's offense was sort of more understandable and common. Who knows.

There are DUI deaths all the time, but not too many psychotic dogfighting rings run by superstar NFL QBs.

Was Art Schlichter vilified, sent to jail?

Does Stuart Scott now have a glass eye?

Not only Leonard Little, but think Orenthal James Simpson, Ray Lewis, etc.

Honestly, if dogs' lives are worth more than human lives, then we, as a country, are in world of excrement.

And the claim that white athletes are not held to the same standard when it comes to abhorant behavior, just think of Pete Rose, Mark Macgire, Ken Camanitee (God bless his soul), and that Cubs pitcher that I can't remember the name of.

For goodness sake, if any of these people had electrocuted dogs, drowned dogs, hanged dogs, and killed them in any other way, you can bet your bottom dollar that ESPN would be all over it like stink on poop.

I'm just so very sick and tired of the race card being played anytime a black athlete (or non-athlete, for that matter) is played.

You can be totally free to do whatever you wish in this country, as long as you obey the laws. Vick obviously flouted those laws and should be justly ridiculed, punished, and made to do his time.

So let's get off this racist angle and realize that he bankrolled a felonious organization.

Hey Dummy,

You're supposed to write a few comments...get in and get out.

If you're going to write long-winded speeches every single time, start your own blog!

Signed,

The World

Anonymous 1:39: You need to chill out, take some ritalin, and try to focus on more than 20 words at a time.