Today (Grantland-style; I’m aware of the irony) I’m writing about me.

I used to want to be a sportswriter. As my career has diverted, I still lurk in social playgrounds with sportswriters. At one time I was promising, sure. I’d confidently put paper Daily Iowans sold, or column hit-rates up against the Press Citizen or CR Gazette on my run dates. Had we counted hits, that is. Or not given the paper away for free. We were young.

But today, actually, I finally realized what sportswriting has become. Maybe, today, I’ve finally outgrown the sports-talk itch.

Apparently, sportswriting means the writer falls in love with the subjects he or she covers. Want proof?

• When the Penn State tragedy broke in November, former Kansas City Star super-columnist Joe Posnanski faced a choice. His warm and fuzzy Joe Paterno book lay in ruins. Would he gloss over the scandal in futile pursuit of his original intent? Or would he confront the scandal, the fallen idol, or the wreckage head-on? You decide. Tom Scocca of Deadspin provides the disappointing details.
• Elsewhere, Gannett-owned USA Today just purchased The Big Lead, once a “nascent” blog (his word) with a propensity for media comment. Perhaps coming full circle, and armed with newfound feature-writing resources, blogger Jason McIntyre profiled one-time foe and insufferable radio host Colin Cowherd. Profile isn’t the right word. Think sonnet, or soliloquy, or Tiger Beat magazine, with dialogue and language so rife with syrup the drippings might well drown you.
• And of course, agonizing, we return to the unbearable, navel-gazing Grantland. The Pantheon of sportswriter self-love; its own editor assumes any joke, aside, footnote or yarn he spins turn to gold, no matter how repetitive or long-winded. His minions follow suit, in superficial substance and style. But honestly, Grantland is the logical conclusion of sports journalism. When you’ve tired of covering your subjects in syrup and praise, you move onto the one subject you truly, deeply and madly love — yourself.

It’s now obvious. That’s sportswriting today.

I do not begrudge Simmons, nor Pos, nor McIntyre their success. They’re talented. They each worked extremely hard, and I say this not to be holier than thou (or anybody).

Often, I regret the choices I made on the precipice of my career, sportswriting, reporting, real writing, or whatever: Maybe I should have pestered the Danbury News-Times to pluck me from copy desk and assign me a beat. Maybe I should have stayed at The Star, instead of moving onto corporate pastures. If I’d done things differently maybe I’d be as rich or notable. Or relevant.

But those are regrets. We’ve all got them. Maybe, quite simply, I never worked as hard at sportswriting as these guys. But now they’ve all arrived, and I can finally see the destination, and I know one thing:

That ain’t me.

Why? Because. Image: Flickr/EmmaBond

First, there’s nothing wrong with Grantland. Let’s just get that out of the way. It’s fine.

As a landing spot for talented essayists yearning to boost their profile, it’s understandable.

As a home for willful expansion of silly twitter asides, Grantland is occasionally laudable.

Of course, Grantland also is a double-hit content marketing farm for ESPN based on editor Bill Simmons’ massive Q rating. It’s not a destination, but a worthwhile grazing stop.

But is Grantland also a lunchroom bully? Or, worse yet, a petty thief?

Hoping for erudite, but settling for cheeky, Grantland routinely appears to steal – er, borrow – items from other blogs who also compete for cubicle-dwelling, white-guy male viewers with one foot in perpetual adolescence.

Nothing’s totally wrong with this. It’s the Internet, common ground gets stomped the time. But if once is an accident, and twice is a coincidence,  isn’t three is a trend? So what about all this?

The Grantland Staff Trades Emails Borrowing liberally from Football Outsiders’ excellent Audibles at the Line the day after NFL games. One difference: Audibles reads like an editors’ meeting, while Grantland is an unbearable afternoon on a fraternity couch.

Poster Decoder. Strangely, this weekly feature windows less than 24 hours after Filmdrunk’s This Week In Posters admonishes movie posters and diagonal lines.

Although if any poster deserves repeated and/or glorious barbs, it's this one.

Trailers of the Week. Borrows from Videogum’s Brooklyn-ific “This Week in Movie Trailers, You Guys, also windowing just minutes apart. Weird? Or hahahaha not weird at all.

Just Quinn, Brady. Repeatedly borrows entire Brady Quinn meme and NFL character narrative style from Kissing Suzy Kolber (Phil Rivers, Rex Ryan, Jerry Jones).  This only ran twice, quelled immediately by a KSK smackdown.

About Last Night A title strikingly similar to Deadspin’s About Last Night (now Wake Up Deadspin.) Granted, this is completely fair use, and several popular blogs recap the previous night’s sports. But still, using the exact same tag as your primary competitor isn’t always the greatest marketing idea. Or it might be, no one really knows anymore.

Bake Shop. More fair use resembling Deadspin, this time aping the tone and goofiness of the Drew Magary Funbag, capitalizing on the impossible street cred of Katie Baker.

TV Recaps. Everyone does this (me included), but so does Grantland, of course. Just wanted that on the record. (Keep your hands off Franklin & Bash, smart alecks!)

Footnotes. Borrowed from research writers who actually discuss substance, instead of a clever “look-at-me” dumping ground for potshots that can’t be worked into the story.

Used to be full of critics. Now they write for Grantland.

Web sites and publications often intersect, and there’s certainly room for differing voices approaching similar topics.

When Grantland launched, we knew its stable of writers would jostle past  lunchroom tables of Gawker, Uproxx, the Atlantic, stupid Slate, and the AV Club. But we also hoped for more than just a roughshod ride over ground well-trod.

Comedian Louis CK incidentally (and accidentally) described this “lunchroom effect” in an interview with Jonah Weiner.

“… I asked [the teacher] if you could take two words and combine them in one sentence, so he said yes, and my sentence was, “I want to take off my clothes and climb a building.” I made everybody laugh, then it became known that I did that, but then the other kids, the popular kids in the class, started doing their own versions, and I was forgotten: it just became a whole bunch of people doing that, and theirs weren’t funny. They were all private jokes about each other and stuff – sort of the way TV works now. I remember being disillusioned, like, this has been stolen from me and ruined.”

Just like that puffed-up jock ruined your lunchroom table of geeks. Once, it felt like home, all of you cracking jokes and smartly condemning your classmates.

That is, until the future TKE pledge overheard a golden quip. He plucked one of your friends for help on his English paper, promising access to the cool crowd. Soon, he blurts your lunchroom wisecrack in class to cheers and hollers, with nary an attribution, your former friend clapping approval.

Perhaps it’s natural. Perhaps it’s nothing. Perhaps I’m just a jealous hater, trolling for my own Grantland freelance contract. (Note: AVAILABLE)

But that’s how it works. A powerful site run by a massive blogging superstar with Disney at its back, Grantland can afford to break a few eggheads and critics. They’ve no qualms with hiring them later.

When Grantland‘s content infringes on other blog features, it’s dubious coincidence at best, and petty theft at worst, but probably not unethical at all. It certainly won’t slow down the machine.

But it does make the machine awfully forgettable.

like a good neighbor, big logo's there.

By now, you’ve endured another All-Star break. You watched the National League surprisingly win, you endured previews for Simon Cowell’s X-Factor, you saw State Farm’s name emblazoned all over the excruciating Home Run Derby, watched Mark Grace help Justin Timberlake plug his movie.

You wonder, how can all this advertising, crammed into any spare minute and sign space, actually work? What’s the value?

New Big Lead Sports writer Barry Janoff cites a study from Front Row Analytics that shows State Farm Insurance earned $45 million worth of advertising and brand return on investment from its comprehensive Home Run Derby sponsorship. Is that accurate?

Advertising metrics are always a bit fuzzy, but basically Front Row arrives at its cost by factoring in the cost of 30-second spots during the Derby and measuring cost of signage space, on-air mentions, and branded graphics:

…the estimated $45 million total value was derived from the average cost of $175,000 for a 30-second commercial spot during the Home Run Derby on July 11. Front Row said that State Farm received almost two hours and seven minutes of either visual branding or verbal mentions during the three-plus hour telecast on ESPN…

State Farm has served as primary Derby sponsor since 2007, and Front Row reports the sponsorship ROI increased from $22 million in 2009 to $33 million last year. This is all well and good – State Farm owns the event, and they derive immense value.

One problem: We don’t know what they paid. We know they donated $600,000 to charity as part of a goodwill investment, written into title sponsorship. Above and beyond that? No clue.

It’s one thing to report on ROI as an artificial number comprised of on-air views, ratings for the Derby, and proposal-quality metrics of conceivable viewers. But we can’t know the value of the advertising without the investment by State Farm. Forty-five million isn’t return on investment. It’s the value of the sponsorship.

It’s enough to make you wonder if Front Row works for ESPN or Major League Baseball. Then they have an incentive to make up fuzzy numbers that hint at a massive return for State Farm. But who knows?

Only State Farm; and only after they measure brand recognition, awareness, views, and visits following the event. Assuming State Farm is a winner based on a fat number alone is a little dubious.

Speaking of worthwhile sports sponsorships, Big Lead Sports also tackles Visa’s exclusive sponsorship of the Olympics and other world sports events, tracking localized increases in Visa cardholder spend during Olympic and Cup period, and around the actual event.

Visa certainly tracks worldwide spend as a result of the brand investment as well. That’s millions and millions of local and regional interchange from the sponsorship alone.

Lucrative? You bet. Incomplete? Ditto.

I’ll let you guess what’s missing from Visa’s statistics.

No. 1 bestseller.

Once again, Keith Olbermann gets the prescient word – if not the last – about his former employer. He’s completely right. ESPN The Book – Those Guys Have All The Fun – is a disappointment. The bad joke expert would ask, “You know who didn’t have all the fun? The reader.”

(PREVIOUSLY: My preview of the book’s release. My discussion on oral histories.)

But I’m not just a bad joke expert, I’m also an observer of sports, media, marketing and business. In that sense, the ESPN book is a fairly good read. The breadth of reporting and depth of interviews astounds. Which is why the end result disappoints. It’s a missed opportunity.

However, I did read it. I read it fairly quickly, which is a credit to the writing. The oral history style did – actually – work, including the formation and early development of ESPN. The voluminous testimony of subjects is quite impressive, and the give-and-take works to describe the foundation of our favorite sports network we sort of hate. I learned Don Ohlmeyer was probably the worst choice for ombudsman ever. (Did I know that already?)

The problem, however, is that nothing about the network’s inception, early days, and history was actually new. It’s all retrodden from Mike Freeman’s ESPN primer from 2001. However, there were a couple insightful narratives I enjoyed about the book

Mark Shapiro, tragedy or prodigy? By far, the book’s most interesting character is University of Iowa alumnus Mark Shapiro, who quickly rose to prominence via the Jim Rome show and his innovative production of SportsCentury. He quickly became the network’s golden boy, but he didn’t exactly play nice. Shapiro dominates 20 pages of the book, and his influence ripples through comments for 50 more. Was he a wunderkind prodigy who ushered in the era of bombastic sports commentary? Or was he an unfortunate casualty, in over his head, all snark and no substance. Just as Shapiro developed all sports opinion and quality storytelling (PTI, SportsCentury), he also left synergistic, shallow missteps (Quite Frankly, ESPN Hollywood) in his wake. Including:

Monday Night Football.. The book pays lip service to ESPN losing hockey and NASCAR, and though anchors apparently shed tears, as readers, we can’t really bother to care. It’s the business of sports. They can’t have everything. But the narrative arcs surrounding MNF – its bid and rebid, and ESPN’s thirst for the property fascinating. The WorldWide Leader thought they had a coup – instead, the NFL and NBC yanked the prestige out from under them. Al Michaels, John Madden, the current Sunday Night Producers, and Shapiro’s camps all detail the negotiation, which is compelling before and after, including discord between ESPN and ABC, and the Tony Kornheiser experiment. Monday Night Football, depending on your take, was ESPN’s most beloved or detested property, and everyone felt strongly about the steps to acquire, keep, lose, or retain the show.

Similarly, the authors do a good job presenting the launch of ESPN2, the Limbaugh-Tom Jackson-McNabb tete-a-tete,  the cable industry’s growth, the Pacers-Pistons fight, and the rise in college sports.

However, the book’s bloat and irrelevance sabotages the worthwhile narrative. (Re: ESPN. Sounds familiar.) The authors could have started by trimming the origin story of each and every bit-playing anchor. Steve Berthiaume, Steve Levy, Linda Cohn, Cindy Brunson, Craig Kilborn, Charley Steiner, even more. Who cares? If I wanted these guys’ vitae, I could read their bios. I care about the origins of Spider-Man and Batman. I don’t care about Green Arrow or Firestorm. Anchors no doubt gleefully spilled their impressive backgrounds in interviews, satisfied with their accomplishments.

That doesn’t mean they all needed to be printed. And I guess this brings me back to my blinking complaint, the nagging stereotype I couldn’t overcome.

It’s too much, which makes it not enough.

A comprehensive history of ESPN, the authors attempt to leave nothing important out. In this quest, they included more just to foreclose the possibility of winding up with too little. That’s not right; it’s up to them to decide what’s reported, not deliver us a congratulatory encyclopedia. Instead of an exhaustive chronicle, I would have preferred an aggressive report. But I grant, that’s just me.

In the end, however, the book just sort of “is.” Promoted as scorched earth, it proves to be level pavement. Rumors of an ESPN PR crisis proved unfounded; the overall history serves instead as their best advertisement. Which is typical, of companies that burgeon and grow to the point of bulletproof.

As long as they provide something of value – sports – we’ll lap it up. Viewers and the public have become less customers than simple numbers. And instead of public relations, ESPN practices cost-benefit analysis.

Now that the book is a bestseller, yet already forgotten, you can guess how they came out on that.

Today’s Prediction:

Many of the same vocal members of the sports blogosphere who crucified Jonah Lehrer this week will trip over themselves to praise Tommy Craggs’ recent expose.

[Ed. update: Yay! See right.]

The fruits of Craggs’ investigation illuminate the fallacies and inconsistencies within NBA team bookkeeping. Check it out:

“Anyone who quotes profits of a baseball club is missing the point,” Paul Beeston once said (at the time he was a Blue Jays vice president). “Under generally accepted accounting principles, I can turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and I could get every national accounting firm to agree with me.”

Wait a minute, that’s impossible! That $4 million profit shows up on a balance sheet! it’s accounted for in a P&L statement! We see it in calculations and reports! How could it be misinterpreted?

To accept Craggs’ article as triumph of independent journalism, we must have to account for the sheer possibility that numbers and data can be finagled. We’ve got to accept that it’s possible to massage data to arrive at artificial outcomes. We have to take this leap of faith; that statistics are not infallible just because they’re statistics.

Which is precisely the point of Jonah Lehrer’s article.

So dismiss away, sabermetricians. But watch out for your own idiotic hypocrisy.

For three weeks, several prominent writers contributed surprise freelance pieces to Grantland: Charley Pierce, Bryan Curtis, Mark Lisanti, Michael Schur, and even Jimmy Kimmel. You never know  who will pop up.

Wired contributing editor Jonah Lehrer joined the ‘zine’s stable on Monday, contributing a fairly harmless piece daring to question the infallibility of statistics. Lehrer boldly urged something like “Don’t forget about the intangibles along with statistical information in sports.”

And the Internet? She recoiled.

It had been a while, really, since statistically-inclined writers unleashed the hibernating venom of superiority. Hell hath no fury like amateur sabermetricians scorned.

By Tuesday, legions of bloggers and baseball followers and sabermetric enthusiasts excoriated Mr. Lehrer. Go ahead, take a tour.

The Big Lead does a nice job culling all the scorn. I’ll even give you at least one sentence for each self-righteous post.

• Is this Slate, with the most thoughtful take? Wait, which side are they on?
• Tom Scocca says you can only fight theoretical use of data by presenting opposing data. I say: “Thhhhpfhthththththt.”
• It would be nice if sabermetricians like Colin Wyers learned the value of brevity:
• Truehoop’s Tom Haberstroh introduces Lehrer to Roland Beech. (Can he explain ‘charisma’ to his boss?)
• Thanks be to Craig Calcaterra, reasonable and brief!
• I think we’re confusing physical science with statistical analysis, but whatever.
• Oh, and SB Nation with one predictable take after another. Bonus: They’re all super wordy.
• Plus, the guy from Beyond the Boxscore claims Lehrer’s column isn’t sloppy because he disagrees with it – then uses  his dissent to “prove” the column was “sloppy.” Hee!

It’s all a little much. Certainly Lehrer’s piece merits a rebuttal or discussion. In fact, littered with passive voice, it could use a serious edit.  But it’s neither betrayal, personal attack nor wholly invalid.

After all these years, sabermetricians endured insulting potshots from the establishment (Murray Chass, Bob Costas, more). How do they react, now that they’ve won? How do they react, now that nearly every team has adopted advanced statistical analysis? How do they react, as Ivy League study and detailed apprenticeships steer franchises to championships? How do they react, as advanced baseball statistics creep onto bottom lines and baseball cards? We all use stats. We’re all OK with Bert Blyleven making the Hall of Fame.

And how do they react?

Just like the establishment of yore. They lash out, roundly dismissing anyone who deigns to suggest, maybe, that numbers can lie. Numbers, while important, may not always highlight the absolute best, most rock-solid conclusion. Not by themselves. That’s all Lehrer hoped to say.

Never mind that the qualitative and the quantitative coexist in all other disciplines. (Like buying a car.) Quantitative analysis highlights trends. Quantitative analysis informs decisions.

But context, big-picture hunches and subjective analysis still affirm the call. And they should. Dare you to hint at nuance, luck, or emotion? Get ready for a condescending sabermetric community to rake you over the coals. Apparently the only thing sabermetric writers like more than statistical analysis is lording perceived intellectual superiority over others.

Sports is so cute sometimes. We watch, and we analyze, and we assume one side is right, and the other wrong. In the real world, however, we’ve got to factor in the emotional quotient alongside reports and ratios.

For example, a dry-cleaner can look at a spreadsheet that shows a profit increase with a double in prices, even factoring in attrition, turnover, overhead and customer loss.

So why not do it? Because soft costs, sticker shock and public relations are all intangible – but they’re also real. As an advertiser myself, I’m routinely presented with proposals promising a return of ratings, clicks, eyeballs and actions.  Which informs my decision to choose a TV network or a print ad or whatever.

But the content still has to work.

The creative still has to yield results. A good marketer, good business leader , and even a good general manager doesn’t jettison the subjective over the analytical. A good leader marries them. A bad leader embraces one at the expense of another.

Just like in writing. Imagine if these sabermetric writers earned paychecks only based on hits or clicks. Forget flair, talent, or execution. Content means nothing. Why, they’d just be SEO writers!

Wow, thank heavens for the subjective.

Which is fine. He’s a public figure, an athlete, and he should answer for his performance on the court, good or bad. But we also endured the worst of sportswriter groupthink, rallying behind scorned Cleveland as a cause célèbre for nearly a full year.

Dan Wetzel, for example, focuses his post-Finals column on Cleveland’s glee. It’s a good read, even if the logic behind the piece frustrates me.

Cleveland’s modern sports memories are defined in short terms…The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, The Move and, of course, The Decision.

You want collapses? The 1997 World Series is as bad as anything the Cubs or Red Sox ever dealt with. It’s just this city doesn’t have the media poets to chronicle it like Chicago or Boston.

All due respect, but is he kidding? Cleveland doesn’t need its own media poets. It’s got the entire landscape of sports media pitying the city or launching petty barbs on its behalf. This has been an easy sell for months.

Cleveland, being used and abused for personal gain by scads of writers and pundits – just not Lebron James. (Update: this includes, sadly, the state’s government.)

Cleveland, the subject of a schlocky saga describing its failures. Cleveland, home of an arrogant writer building his personal brand based on school-girl potshots at LeBron James. Cleveland, whose overmatched NBA owner personifies the low road.

Schadenfreude is permissible, but bemoaning “poor Cleveland” as emblematic of sports evil is not only unoriginal – it’s insulting. Sports talking heads insist they pay tribute to the city, but instead they demean each resident, suggesting they’re broken by – ahem – sports failure.

Instead of visiting the city, they encourage and provoke sour-grapes whining. They insult by insisting that this one basketball player is so evil, he’s worth demonizing. Cleveland is lauded and pitied and forever scorned. It’s pitied just for being Cleveland.

Cleveland deserves better. Not from LeBron – but by its supposed defenders in the media. Cleveland is a great sports town, like so many others. Cleveland puts up with phony writers capitalizing on ineptitude they don’t understand, like so many others. Cleveland’s fan base can be prideful, like so many others.

I wish, today, they’d direct that snide at condescending sports media.

After all, Tony takes a lengthy vacation every summer, to recharge the cantankerous battery and restore the inner curmudgeon.

But this week, with his show awash in drama, we’re not really certain whether his sudden June, July and August vacations are real, phony, or harbingers of doom. Here’s what we know:

• The podcast is delayed. ESPN 980 sticks by its decision to delay the Tony Kornheiser Show podcast 24 hours late, defying all rational wisdom. This has led, of course, to a caustic (but logical) campaign among Tony’s fans. It’s also led to snide potshots within viewer email (featuring yours truly!), adding an edge to the show.

• No shows June 13-17. Between June 13 and June 17, as revealed June 7 Tony isn’t on the air. (Luckily, Friday’s show won’t be on iTunes until Monday. Sigh.) According to Tony, this was ESPN 980′s decision, based on hard-line adherence to his contracted allotment of shows. Disappointed, Mr. Tony claimed he’d like to preview the Washington-based U.S. Open, but 980′s Chuck Sapienza claims Tony already had vacation scheduled. DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg writes:

So I called ESPN 980 programming director Chuck Sapienza, who told me that Kornheiser had requested to be off the Thursday and Friday of the Open months ago. … Sapienza decided it would be more interesting and valuable to have Tony on the Monday after the Open than the Wednesday before, and that having one full week of Tony would be better than two split weeks.

Recent ratings indicate that WTEM ESPN 980 lands in 19th in the D.C. Metro, with Kornheiser’s show 10th, the highest of WTEM properties. Unless extra appearances severely penalize WTEM’s pocketbook, it’s curious that ESPN980 clings to Tony’s show limit during a high-profile D.C. week. Or unless Mr. Tony refuses to broadcast past his allotted shows.

• No July and August shows. Tony’s fans are used to staccato absences during summer (last year’s broadcasts from Rehoboth Beach were a surprise treat). This summer now feels a bit empty, with the June break and pre-arranged late-summer absence. ESPN 980 already had Andrew Siciliano coming in for a six-week guest host stint, pre-arranged before Mr. Tony’s contretemps. Maybe this whole thing is a publicity stunt for Siciliano?

• John Feinstein gone. Back in March, John Feinstein bowed out of his weekly appearances with Kornheiser (his friend) because the nominal stipend stopped coming, due to a new WTEM policy. Kornheiser remains adamant Feinstein is sticking to principles (that Bob Ryan doesn’t have, apparently) and understands the decision.

Had each of these circumstances occurred in isolation, we wouldn’t think much of it. After all, Tony’s the type of talent who operates best when he’s at odds with management. He knows this. His bosses know this.

But why implement the silly podcasting delay only days before a weeklong absence? Is Tony gnashing teeth over his mid-June absence just to draw attention to the podcast decision?

Another easy explanation is that WTEM is in the tank. I don’t know if this is rumored; I don’t buy media in the D.C. region. But it’s not a leap.

WTEM stopped ponying up appearance fees for Feinstein and other regular TK guests in March. They stop TK from broadcasting past a certain allotment of shows in June, during a week when sports media focuses on D.C. And they claim a podcast delay, implemented the Friday before Memorial Weekend helps a terrestrial show from hemorrhaging money. What are we supposed to think?

Granted, it could all be nothing. I’m a speculating blogger, a little, and I exist 2000 miles from the D.C. media world.

Egos of Kornheiser, Feinstein, Sapienza, Sterne and even Dan Snyder could all be posturing. WTEM still broadcasts the TK Show twice a day, after all. They could run Cowherd and Gottlieb during midday for scant cost, and male-oriented advertisers wouldn’t completely jump ship.

One reader suggests recording Kornheiser’s show only as a podcast, a la Bill Simmons, Joe Posnanski or Jason Whitlock. If Tony doesn’t cut it on terrestrial, maximize his national appeal. Overhead is cheap and someone (Window Nation?) would certainly underwrite the thing. My question: If money was truly the issue, wouldn’t they already have done this?

No matter what, Tony and WTEM don’t see fully eye-to-eye at the moment, whether it’s the podcast or the vacation, midway through a two-year contract. It’s enough smoke to make us wonder if this standoff is the beginning of the end. Forcing Tony to adhere to stipulations that don’t benefit the station wouldn’t occur if it was all puppies and rainbows at 980.

Regardless, Tony knows how Littles will react to a passive-aggressive podcasting protest. He’s prodded his base, he knows it. Who blinks first? And if we Littles blink, will we miss the last Tony Kornheiser show on WTEM?

(I know, I know, we’d actually have to wait till the day after. But you know what I mean.)

I’ll come clean. I had to watch, I owed it to my dozens of followers and readers. How could I incessantly tweet potshots at Franklin & Bash all spring, and then bail on the season premiere?  MFG is known for nothing if not ludicrous follow-through.

And, I’m happy to report – spoiler alert – the show is exactly what we thought it was. A quip-laden, formulaic exercise in man-child adolescence, dripping with beautiful rascals and tired pop culture barbs. Yes, I enjoyed it.

In the midst of solving legal problems and putting their stamp on a big law firm, our charming heroes find the time to party, strum guitars, make fun of Bravo shows and pine for starlets. These lovable scamps may lack in pedigree, but doggone it if they don’t make up for it with plucky enthusiasm. Will they win their big, button-down firm over? Stay tuned, because these frat-boy lawyers buck the system but, oh boy, do they get results!

(My cat's name is Franklin, genius.)

(You’ve heard of lawyers who get busy? Well, these lawyers get biz-zay.)

In the real world, however, plucky upstarts also dominate the news. Grantland The Site today finally promised a June 8 launch. The Grantland editor-in-chief falls into his own NY Times magazine profile — carefully written to stroke his outsider image.

Best of all, the reincarnation of Page 2 site unveils its full “murderer’s row” of plucky, upstart contributors. And don’t think these writers have let ESPN sellout money go to their heads. That’s right, these lovable scamps are ready to turn the established online magazine on its head, (Look out, Slate!) seven thousand words at a time.

Just like our friend Franklin and the dashing Bash, those ne’er-do-wells at Grantland will certainly place their indelible, irreverent mark on the world while working for an uncompromising corporate behemoth.

Can it be done? You better believe it. Tune in next June 8 to Grantland — or Franklin and Bash – and find out if your favorite Tappa Kegga relic can survive the wave of corporate drudgery. Yes, each week, you’ll find out if he can stay true to his charming, beer-drinking, naked Jacuzzi lounging, and snarky catcalling roots. No doubt each week, they’ll leave us all way more intelligent, and teach valuable lessons about staying true to your craft. And, of course, staying true to yourself.

/wipes away solitary tear.

As a bonus, they may even extol the genius of Bloodsport, 90210, or – god forbid – Saved By the Bell. Watch and read at your peril – but get ready for the scamps to prevail!

Just as often, Joe gleefully admonishes the old-guard of baseball writers for valuing outdated stats like wins and RBIs, instead of embracing advanced metrics, win-shares, and more. For example, he’s ripped commentators like Nomar Garciaparra for suggesting baseball outcomes may be related to a player’s “heart,” or “clutch.”

That’s the popular refrain from statheads. None of that stuff like heart, or clutch, or grittiness, or toughness, or chemistry exists.

So keep that in mind. And read this post. And then, come back and tell me how that reconciles. Exactly how can Mr. Posnanski castigate baseball analysts who deign to praise a player’s guts — but then spill 1000-plus words on ghosts and destiny and feelings helping sway a Yankee Stadium result? Pray tell.

Ghosts, destiny, mystique and aura – aren’t these as nebulous as “clutch” or “heart?” How can they have a place within the cold, calculating world of baseball analysis?

I’m not saying Joe can’t have it both ways. I don’t really care. The world isn’t black and white, and neither is baseball. But I am saying he just might be as full of it as anyone else.

The eighth-grade me gobbled up Jim Miller and Tom Shales’ Saturday Night book, an impressive, gripping study of my favorite show behind-the-scenes. I think I read it in a weekend.

So the thirtysomething me is thrilled with next week’s release of Miller and Shales’ 700-page investigative narrative of ESPN’s rise to prominence. The thirtysomething me is thrilled for the insider’s chronicle of ESPN’s frat-boy culture. The thirtysomething me can’t wait to be impressed with the depth, breadth and skill of Miller and Shales’ reporting. The thirtysomething me won’t be reading it for schadenfreude (Well, not just for schadenfreude.)

*Last night on Twitter, sometimes-ESPN writer Aaron Schatz, condescending as always, barked at his Twitter followers that the ESPN book did not refer to the .com employees. Which was a relief, because if you’re like me, you think “Aaron Schatz” when you think “egomaniacal booze-fueled flings with Connecticut strippers.” Also, Deitsch refutes this by dumping nuggets of Simmons-the-unhinged.

But the thirtysomething me also reads in anticipation of ESPN’s public relations response. Those Guys Have All The Fun already generates an impressive swirl of buzz – including excerpts in GQ and Entertainment Weekly, gleeful snark from Deadspin, and already is in Amazon’s Top 20. It’s a hit already.

For its part, ESPN emerged out front of the book’s release by allowing the reporters access, encouraging sources to speak, and not publicly standing in the book’s way. It will be interesting to read the authors as their untold story dovetails ESPN’s many arms – journalism, promotion, marketing, finance, and especially talent. It’s probably not as much takedown as it is study of an 800-lb-gorilla; and the accompanying chest-bleating culture — a company swimming in excess.

Excess creates haters of all shapes and sizes, and excess even filters down to the smallest of WWL properties. Consider last night’s NBA Draft Lottery, once a quirky, novel halftime show. In 2011, however, it’s an ESPN exclusive. Network promos promised the lottery – ping-pong balls, logo placards and all beginning at 6:30 p.m. central.

However, the actual lottery occurred at 7:55. Had I chosen to down a shot of whiskey during each commercial break, I’d be dead. The post-breaks also teased the Mavericks-Thunder game “at the top of the hour.” One problem – the teases included live footage of Thunder players in the locker room, relaxing, nowhere close to hitting the court.

Sure, it’s trite to complain about the exaggerated monetization of the NBA Draft Lottery, eyeballs tune in. Gotta sell ads. That’s business. But it reflects ESPN’s subpar coverage of the NBA as a whole. Go ahead, try and pinpoint a starting time for Finals games. You can’t. Often, it’s 45 minutes after publication. It’s always staggered. It’s always excruciating. The hype dwarfs the NBA telecasts, from lottery to finals.

That’s just one example. Overstuffed, self-congratulatory messes like the NBA Draft Lottery – and The Decision, and Monday Night Football, and boisterous PTI knock-offs serve as rule, rather than exceptions. Behind-the-scenes exploits, a frat-boy culture (and frat-boy target market) cement that excess as display of power – from vulgar to minuscule to overt.

It’s one thing for tawdry tales of boozy, drug-addled excess behind the set of a late-night comedy show. For a conglomerate that considers itself a journalist enterprise, it’s quite another. After the hoopla, buzz and initial freakouts around Miller and Shales’ book recede, we’ll watch intently to see what and how ESPN reconciles the casualties of its excess.

But who am I kidding? We’re watching the 800-lb gorilla anyway. Maybe that negates a public relations strategy all by itself.