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…and he can’t hang around Bristol anymore, either.

ESPN, acknowledging the sun rises in the east, had this statement:

“Steve Phillips is no longer working for ESPN,” network spokesman Josh Krulewitz said in a statement. “His ability to be an effective representative for ESPN has been significantly and irreparably damaged, and it became evident it was time to part ways.“

Yathink?

I still wonder what was more damaging, the affair, or who it was with. Talk about calling someone’s judgment into question. Not that his tenure as Mets GM or agreeing to those fuckawful fake press conferences at ESPN hadn’t already let us know that his judgment was in the shitter…

The continuing unending verbal assualt on the nation’s president? No.

Letting fly a cartoon during their NFL pregame show that makes fun of Jessica Simpson’s weight gain? Yes.

Seems about par for the Fox course.

A little chatter about it here in the Swamp. Well, that and exactly what her weight gain has or has not been. We focus in on the important stuff in the Swamp…

Gary Clark gave me homework over The Bourbon Chase. I had to read LeBron James’ and Buzz Bissinger’s Shooting Stars and start posting to the front again. Here we go.

Shooting Stars tells the story of how LeBron James learned basketball and created lifelong friendships with his fellow players and coaches. Little Dru, Sian, Willie, and eventually the mercurial Romeo. The coming together of “The Fab Four” then “The Fab Four plus One” in high school to the eventual “Fab Five”. The guys started playing together as a travelling AAU team eventually attending Akron’s St. Vincent’s and won three of four Ohio high school championships, including being USA Today’s number one their senior year.

The book consistently glosses over essential details that leaves the reader longing for more.  Things like LeBron’s mom, only 16 when LeBron was born, is absent from his life for months at a time doing “what she needed to do” to get her life together and become more involved in her sons life. LeBron doesn’t see what could have been wrong when his mom, still on public assistance, got the loan for the $50,000 Hummer she “gave” him for his 18th.

Worst is the pages long descriptions of the basketball games won and lost and LeBron’s internal dialogue. I paraphrase here the pages describing the Ohio Championship game their Junior year where they were runners-up:

“Roger Bacon is playing us tough. We’re trading baskets” (Tons of internal dialogue. How did we get here? We’re supposed to be too good. Why didn’t we listen to the coach?). “Roger Bacon makes a three pointer with 20 seconds left. They’re up by seven” (Much more internal dialogue. LeBron blaming himself, the refs, the partying, his sore back, etc.).

I hated this book. It made me sad to be caught reading it. Swampers, runners, fellow air travelers all pitied me. One woman in Lexington asked me if I realized I was reading a book written for nine year old boys. I nodded slightly and averted her gaze. Best for the description of Grant Wahl’s SI cover piece when LeBron turned 18 and the impact of the media pressure that ensued. Worst for everything else.

C minus.

Disclaimer: We received a promotional copy of this book for review.

Yeah, college football hasn’t kicked off yet today, but who’d have thought on a Saturday in September that you’d have to tab past EPL scores to get the top 25 schedule?

Of course, this wouldn’t be the case if ESPN didn’t have EPL rights on Saturday mornings.

And apparently she could bring world peace if she was omnipresent.

The local ABC affiliate in San Diego is reporting that Shawne Merriman has been arrested for assaulting Tila Tequila.

“A spokeswoman for the for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said Merriman is accused of choking and restraining television reality show hostess and model Tila Nguyen.”

No further details yet, but I’ve got a hunch that this story might get some play in the media. Obligatory photo below. Chargers choking jokes are not.

…of interest.

Once you’ve dipped your wick into a celebrity, your dating life remains public? So it would seem.

At any rate, the Cowboys qb is reportedly hitting this:

That’s former Miss Missouri Candice Crawford. She’s a Dallas TV reporter.

So now you know too.

…they kick me back out.

Well, Versus does. And DirecTV. The NHL indirectly, I guess.

Between the two (or three), I will have far less access to the NHL this season, as DirecTV’s spat with Versus has led to Versus being dropped from DirecTV’s line-up this morning. If that isn’t fixed, not only are nationally broadcast regular season games of note not available, but the playoffs and Stanley Cup Final will be, in large measure, inaccessible to DirecTV folk.

Which seems less than ideal.

Still, this is just silly:

So, who’s at fault?

No one, really. But I will say this: In 2007 and 2008 when DIRECTV was anxious to prove it was the HD leader — and that it offered more HD channels than anyone else — the satcaster would have been more likely to accept Versus’ demands.

However, those days are gone. DIRECTV is now resting on its HD laurels, if you will, hoping that old and new subscribers will buy the propaganda that it has more high-def channels than anyone else. However, it doesn’t; it’s added just a handful of high-def channels in the past 18 months, enabling Dish Network and other TV providers to pass it. And now Versus is gone — another reason to consider signing up with another provider.

I suppose.

But, random internet person to whom I now respond, here’s the thing. DirecTV remains the exclusive home of Sunday Ticket for NFL games, so, really, I (and a lot of people like me) don’t really care that the pace of HD channels has slowed down from DirecTV, as long as we have to come to DirecTV for our NFL fix. And DirecTV still has plenty of HD channels. But no Versus. Which will suck come the days when the pucks drop.

The Swamp has been kicking this around here. Drop by with a thought or two.

Watching the Mike Tomlin interview that occurred over the past weekend and only half listening, and perked to attention when Tomlin revealed the Steelers might have had an interest in Mike Vick, but declined to pursue any interest seriously because they didn’t want to add any distractions to a camp where the Ben Roethlisberger civil stuff was percolating. Per Tomlin:

“In terms of [the Steelers being interested in Vick], to be quite honest with you, our quarterback is going through some things of his own right now, and he needs my complete support and undivided attention. So it just wasn’t the appropriate time for us to consider something of that nature.”

But this post isn’t about Mike Vick. Or Ben Roethlisberger.

It is, instead, one more raised eyebrow and “fuck you” to ESPN for its bullshit stand where they refused to report the initial allegations against Roethlisberger for reasons that remain spurious. So, the story that ESPN did its best to dub a “non-story” directly impacted Pittsburgh’s decision-making process when it came to Mike Vick (a decided story under ESPN’s guidelines)? Worlds colliding, espn. Worlds colliding.

Yesterday I noted in the obligatory Brett Favre post that espnews’ two doofus’ on Wednesday night were acting like the word “schism” was something so exotic that people would not know what it was. Going so far as to put up the Webster’s definition on the screen.

This morning, Eric Kasilias (an attorney for fuckssake) and Mike Golic (Notre Dame graduate) were both yukking it up over that word, claiming that each did not know what it meant, and that there was no way that any football player in any NFL clubhouse would use it.

I refuse to believe that the word “schism” is that unusual. I refuse to believe that Eric Kasilias did not know what it meant and had never heard it. As much as the Golic-is-stupid thing is played as part of his persona, he’s not, and I refuse to believe he doesn’t know what the word means. I am starting to wonder if there is some orchestration at ESPN to downplay the less happy parts of Brett Favre’s pussified comeback.

Again, as I asked yesterday, is it really that hard to believe that there might be some Vikings who are less than thrilled with Brett Favre wussing out of the summer program and training camp only to swoop in for the hoped for good times on Sundays in the fall? So whoever that was used the word “schism”, why is that word choice such a big fucking deal? That certain ESPN folk are choosing to hone in on that word and giggle like tools over “smart words” seems like a weird tact to take, a denial mechanism with regard to the potential unhappiness. And Kasilias and Golic, at the least, ought to be better than that. Their audience (on Mike & Mike) isn’t full of illiterates. Stop acting like it is.

As for the Vikings, some of them are taking the same approach to the report, professing ignorance as what “schism” means. At least in their case, I get it. It’s a way of defusing the media questions over it while they try and assimilate the pussy onto their team. Favre (Southern Miss) with this:

“I’ve got no reaction,” Favre said when asked about an ESPN report Wednesday that cited anonymous sources as saying some Vikings supported Tarvaris Jackson and others felt Sage Rosenfels should start. “I’m just doing what I can do, hopefully help this team win, and just trying to fit in. I’m not worried about that. That’s for you guys to have some fun with. Once again, I have no idea what that means. I’m assuming it’s controversial.”

Told the word schism refers to a division — one definition is “a separation or division into factions” — Favre shot back, “Well, good.” He wasn’t smiling.

Jared Allen (Idaho State) took it a step further, claiming he thought “schism” was an STD.

Sigh.

I will assume the professed ignorance in those cases was the aforementioned deflection of the issue.

As for Kasilias and Golic’s yukking it up over a pretty fuckin’ common word, they have no excuse.