You may or may not know who Mark Shapiro is, but he’s the guy who went from Jim Rome’s lowly production assistant in the early days of ESPN2 to the head of network programming in less than 10 years.

(I refuse to give PTI the nod until Tony K. wraps the wraparound)

As head of ESPN on-air conent from 2002-05, Shapiro created some duds, like those lame ESPN movies and Stephen A. Smith, and current ESPN upper management has quite obviously done plenty to distance itself from many of Shapiro’s initiatives. But Shapiro also masterminded many of the net’s signature properties, like the X Games, ESPY Awards and what has become ESPN’s top in-house broadcast property - Pardon The Interruption.

We all remember when PTI debuted. The over-the-top, sometimes nonsensical graphics & countdown clocks, bizarre between commercial look-ins and two well-aged gents no one had heard of outside The District.

Fast forward to today and according to more than one ESPN source, PTI regularly averages more viewers than SportsCenter and also enjoys a higher ad revenue base. And another bizarro Shapiro concoction, Around The Horn, isn’t far behind. Read more…

Michael Wilbon, PTI luminary and semi-confused derider of blogs, was also something else entirely: a newspaperman. Before ESPN made him a star, Wilbon had graduated to columns, sure, but he was still hacking it around like so many other print journalists, upholding rituals as old as the newspaper itself.

Among those? No cheering in the press box. There’s even a book with that as its title. But what about singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game?” That’s what Wilbon did at Wrigley Sunday night, and he feels weird about it.

Read more…

We offer evidence of another pumped-up day in the world of sports:

• Topps shows what a bunch of cards they are by inserting Rudy Guiliani into the Red Sox’s World Series celebration:

• HBO is cancelling “Inside The NFL”, denying us the chance to see more manic Marino tantrums.

• Jeremy Shockey has better things to do than attend some silly Super Bowl parade.

• Terrelle Pryor said he wouldn’t choose his school on Wednesday, but others are trying to make the choice for him.

• Pedro Martinez & Juan Marichal do enjoy themselves a good cockfight:

(Pedro handling his cock before the big fight)

• True to his word, Shaq doesn’t let Steve Nash down.

• Like the SEC gals and Big East boys, the Green Bay Packers experience their own teleconferencing fun.

• ESPN needs to hire a spellchecker for the “PTI” graphics guys.

WITH LEATHER spots this editorial miscue from the gang at ESPN’s PTI yesterday: