Those in the main sports media call today the slowest sports news day of the year - because of the lack of games. Not coincidentally, ESPN always holds its “ESPYs” on this day in L.A., while devoting its full day of radio programming to an on-air auction designed to raise money for the Jimmy V. Cancer Foundation.

(Sure hope winning bidder’s neighbors are similar humanitarians)

I missed those “ESPN experience” on-air auctions today, because I only listen to ESPN Radio during football season. (More specifically, when I’m prone over the urinal trough at USC home games.)

(Critical show production costs hopefully built into the bid!)

But an emailer was kind enough to point out the results of the “Mike & Mike Experience” auction. Read more…

If you watch any sports television at all (and if you don’t, how did you end up on this site?) then you’ve seen the NutriSystem commercials featuring a bunch of aging fat sports figures like Dan Marino and Chris Berman (and Larry the Cable Guy?) talking about how it’s OK — and in fact delicious — for dudes to go on a diet.

One of the most prominent spokesmen for NutriSystem on commercials airing on ESPN is their very own Mike Golic, who claims to have lost 51 pounds. Well, TMZ recently caught up with Golic and his morning co-host Mike Greenberg outside of David Letterman’s studio.

As he was signing a few autographs (yes, people actually gathered on 53rd Street to get their autographs), Golic had a few words about NutriSystem that the company may not be all that pleased with…

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This is not a good sign for the state of sports talk radio in Chicago. Dan McNeil, the TV/radio columnist for the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, says that the most recent Arbitron ratings show a disturbing trend: ESPN’s nationally-syndicated “Mike and Mike in the Morning” has become the top-rated sports talk show in Chicago. Not just in its time slot, but of any show - including the big-shot local guys. And McNeil isn’t happy:

They do a fine show, but it’s best consumed in markets such as Bangor, Maine, or Enid, Okla., or Salem, Ore. In big towns like ours, local sports talk never should lose to a more vanilla national show. Shame on all of us.

Readers in Bangor, Enid or Salem, please contact me to get his email address. For everyone else: isn’t this pretty sad? Friends in Chicago frequently complain about the lack of quality of their sports talk shows, and when one of the big drive-time shows has a segment called “Who Ya’ Crappin’?,” we’re hardly talking Peabody Award-winning work here.

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For whatever reason, boozy trouble seems to follow Mike Golic around. First, the roast for himself and radio co-host Mike Greenberg was overshadowed by Dana “Lenny Bruce” Jacobson’s vodka-fueled escapes. Now the AP reports that his son Mike Golic Jr., a freshman on the Notre Dame football team, was one of 41 people arrested for misdemeanor alcohol charges at a house party in South Bend on Sunday morning.

While that’s some measure of trouble for Golic Jr., it could be really bad news for teammate Will Yeatman, who has played in all three games at tight end for the Fighting Irish this season. It turns out he was arrested in January for allegedly driving drunk on a campus sidewalk. As the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES notes, the charges were only dropped after he agreed to  stay out of trouble for one year. Whoops.

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• SI’s Arash Markazi wasn’t so thrilled with Kat DeLuna’s National Anthem performance Monday night - and neither were the fans at Texas Stadium.

• And YOU BEEN BLINDED shudders to think what Josh Howard’s reaction might have been, since he’s black and “don’t celebrate that sh*t“.

• DEADSPIN hears Mike Greenberg lamenting the low-watt brain power of radio co-host Mike Golic: “It is impossible to have a conversation on a high, intellectual level with a man whose idea of fine literature begins with Doctor and ends with Seuss.”

• THE SPORTS DOLLAR drinks in some comparisons between your favorite sports blog & your favorite alcoholic refreshment.

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Michael David Smith of FANHOUSE has the find of the day - the latest scene involving ESPN’s Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg on the soap opera “Guiding Light.”

We’re not sure how we missed this, but late last week Charlie Weis weighed in on the Dana Jacobson’s roast remarks and let us really know why ESPN took action against her.

Weis: “I was both personally and professionally offended by her comments. And if the situation were reversed, and that were me saying them, two things would have happened. I would have been the lead story on SportsCenter, and I would have been fired.” Read more…

Michael David Smith of AOL Fanhouse watched Dana Jacobson’s return to ESPN’s morning show “First Take” and reports that she seemed slightly miffed at how her rant was reported. With the emphasis on slightly.

“I want to once again say how truly sorry I am for my poor choices and bad judgment,” Jacobson said. “I’ve taken responsibility for what I did say and do, and realize it was wrong. … I have already learned a lot.”

Although Jacobson didn’t get into the details of what she said at the roast, the way she emphasized the words “what I did say” seemed to be a subtle suggestion that some of the reports that have come out in the past two weeks overstated exactly what Jacobson said. Read more…

The CHICAGO TRIBUNE, via THE BIG LEAD, reports today “Sources have confirmed that (Dana) Jacobson, a co-host of ‘First Take’ on ESPN2, currently is serving a one-week suspension because of her behavior at a Jan. 11 roast for ESPN Radio personalities Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic at Atlantic City, N.J.

(Jacobson with Jamie Mottram in happier times)

“While declining to confirm Jacobson had been suspended, ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said, ‘Her actions and comments were inappropriate and we’ve dealt with it.‘”

Dealt with it how? By getting her better material? That was the only problem we had with her alleged comments, which were, though foul, somewhat less than original.

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UPDATE: Amateur Video from Mike & Mike Roast featuring Ditka d*ck joke fun!

UPDATE: Jacobson’s apology to the Catholic League.

UPDATE: Jacobson suspended by ESPN for a week.

UPDATE: Jacobson complains about off-air treatment by network.

ORIGINAL POST:

We seemed to have missed all the fun at the Mike & Mike Celebrity Roast Friday night. Or maybe we didn’t miss that much.

AWFUL ANNOUNCING tips us off to Scott Cronick of the PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY, who chronicled the tribute to the Worldwide Leader’s own radio hams, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic.

Cronick sums up the evening’s escapades by concluding, “The problem with this roast, unlike a Comedy Central or Friar’s Club roast, was that there weren’t enough comedians. Instead, the stage was mostly filled with athletes and ESPN personalities. Not comedians. And it showed.”

Some of the “highlights”:

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