• A sad way to start the baseball week: Phillies announcer Harry Kalas & former Tigers pitcher Mark Fidrych both pass away on the same day.

• But it was nice to see Brian Bosworth help save an Oklahoman’s life.

• Wedding bells have rung for a couple of tennis stars: Andy Roddick ties the knot with Brooklyn Decker, while Roger Federer marries his manager.

• Padres pitcher Heath Bell is p.o.’ed about ESPN’s overwhelming coverage of all things Yankees, Mets & Red Sox.

• That stinks: Dwight Howard has a passion for passing gas.

Read more…

Stephen A. Smith will be gone completely from ESPN at the end of the NBA playoffs.

(S.A.S. enjoying being inside the ropes while he can)

THE BIG LEAD has the scoop:

Within the last month, a source says that ESPN and (Stephen A.) Smith went to the negotiating table and couldn’t reach an agreement. Apparently, ESPN’s offer was considerably lower than Smith’s previous contracts - which were multi-media faceted - and Smith passed. He was then offered the decision to work through the remainder of his contract, or walk away and still get paid, and a source says Smith decided to work.

99.9% of you probably had the same initial reax as me: Good riddance!

But after thinking about it, I was a little sad.

Read more…

• For those of you Tucson TV viewers who had their Super Bowl interrupted by a schlong, Comcast would like to pay you $10 for your troubles.

(The young lady on the right was smiling about seeing something just as long as Larry Fitzgerald’s go-head TD reception)

• Kobe Bryant helps the Lakers knock off the Knicks with an MSG-record 61 point performance.

• Marquette basketball coach Buzz Williams feels stung by an innocent media question.

• Manny Ramirez says no thanks to the Dodgers’ $25 million offer.

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ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith caused quite an uproar on Monday when he said that Chris Bosh could be traded before the NBA’s deadline on February 19th because not only are the Raptors a putrid 19-30, but because Bosh had already told the Raptors there was no way he was staying in Toronto after his contract expired next season. You can see the video of Smith’s report here. Now what Smith didn’t do is say who his sources for Bosh’s admission to the team were. Maybe it was the cheese doodles?

Now as you’d expect, the Raptors weren’t very happy about Smith’s report, seeing as how they were proclaiming that Bosh had never said anything of the sort to the team, and they weren’t about to trade the centerpiece of their franchise. Now Bosh himself is coming out and saying that he’s never told the team he plans on leaving after next season, and basically that Smith is making the whole thing up.

Read more…

As The Duke was so kind to inform us all of this morning in the Speed Read, Adam “Pacman” Jones was cut by the Dallas Cowboys yesterday after a story on ESPN talked about his supposed involvement in a shooting outside an suburban Atlanta strip club back in June 2007.

According to the story, while no charges were ever filed against Pacman or anybody else for the shooting, an informant told police that it had been ordered by Jones. Apparently he’d been in some kind of altercation with one of the men that was shot at. Well, as you can easily figure out, Pacman isn’t exactly thrilled with ESPN right now for running the story that cost him his job. So now he needs to find a new way to make money to pay for all these lawyers to keep him out of prison, and the only way to do that would be to sue ESPN.

Read more…

At least according to Charles Barkley.

I’ve actually personally sworn off posting about Barkley and/or LeBron James in the remaining millenia, but I was so bemused by media reporting of Barkley’s recent comments on Dan Patrick’s radio show that I had to chime in.

(Smith at - where else? - a Cavs game)

Barkley last Wednesday said that James needed to “shut the hell up” when it came to his future NBA team destination in 2010. Of, course, I couldn’t care less about that. The fun part is what Barkley said about Stephen A. Smith right in the middle of his comment about James - and I suppose it illustrates just how far S.A.S. has fallen off the sports media map. Read more…

• THE 700 LEVEL hears Phillies slugger Chase Utley giving a reasonable response to all the boo birds at Yankee Stadium on Monday night.

• Meanwhile, REAL CLEAR SPORTS catches Rick Reilly complaining about too many white players participating in the Home Run Derby.

• Speaking of racist chatter, DEADSPIN discovers Reggie Jackson having the chutzpah to call an artist Jewish, just because the two were haggling over the price of a painting.

• On a related note, BUGS & CRANKS raises some interest in presenting their MLB All-Dick Team.

Read more…

• LARRY BROWN SPORTS flips through the channels, and finds FOX cameras catching the Cubs’ Kerry Wood flipping the bird in the bullpen.

Wood really shouldn’t be doing that - such hand gestures might land Kerry right back on the DL.

• Stephanie Stradley of AOL FANHOUSE floats along rumors of Cedric Benson joining up with the Houston Texans.

• DEADSPIN discovers that Kevin Love is well-versed in the Cheez Doodle aura of Stephen A. Smith heckling.

• WITH LEATHER turns green at the news that this year’s Olympic sailing competition is threatened by algae.

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Dan Le Batard interviewed ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler on WAXY-AM in Miami this week (audio starts at 5:36), and asked him, “What one thing would you change that bothers you about the (sports) media?”

Legler’s response: “The thing that bothers me the most is what has become a very blurred line between a journalist and ex-players as analysts - people that actually played the game.”

(*Mystery*: A “writer” spouting “inaccurate” analysis who “isn’t qualified”?)

“That’s not to say that everybody that’s an analyst who was an ex-player is good at this job, because we both know there’s a lot of guys out there that probably shouldn’t be on TV or radio.“

“But more and more journalists (sportswriters) now cross over into doing real, hard analysis and trying to get into what’s going on on the court and what should go on on the court and a lot of times, I just don’t think a lot of (those) people are qualified to do that.“

Then Legs gets a smidge more specific. Read more…

• STEROID NATION has a look at ADHD drugs as they pertain to baseball.

• YOU BEEN BLINDED says Stephen A. Smith wants the draft rigged in favor of the Knicks. Like that would ever happen (cough: Patrick Ewing).

• DEUCE OF DAVENPORT breaks down the Bernard Hopkins beat down. Read more…