What Hath We Wrought?

                       "What Hath We Wrought?"

                               by Irv Goldfarb

 

 

 

             "What do you think the devil's gonna look like if he's around? No one's gonna be taken in by a guy with a long, red, pointy tail. No, he'll be nice and helpful and he'll get a job where he'll influence a great god-fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing; he'll just bit by little bit erode our standards where they're important just a tiny little bit ...flash over substance...just a tiny little bit." That's Albert Brooks from 1987's "Broadcast News", delivering a frighteningly prescient quote that snaked its way through the darkened movie theatre towards my psyche, locking itself in my memory vault. I had the feeling even then that one day I'd need to call on it.

                A few years later, a full-fledged sports-addict living in Connecticut, I'd been lucky enough to make the right contacts through broadcasting schools and sports bars to finally land a $75-a-day gig at that holiest of Meccas, ESPN, back in the day when the all-mighty sports network still operated with appropriate deference: well aware of its power among full-fledged sports addicts, but appreciative enough of that power to cater to those fans' needs. 

              And then the devil arrived.

              He took the appearance of a clown with a huge head, one that sometimes seemed too large for our TV sets, and he wore big black glasses and a big moustache. OK, so he looked like Groucho Marx. But he knew his sports inside-out, knew a Jordan jumper from a McGwire jack and could pronounce Pekka Rautakallio with nary a stumble. God, could he be for real? I mean, besides everything else, he was actually funny! Truly, and honestly funny!               Utilizing a disdainful side-of-the-mouth sarcastic delivery, Keith Olbermann was fully comfortable referencing Cindy Crawford or Dan Quayle and one night while working the second shift, I watched him run through the highlights, marveling as he smoothly worked White Fang and Black Tooth, Soupy Sales' over-sized, yet never-seen pet dogs into a New York Jets-Miami Dolphins package! This man was amazing!

              But at some point between leaning back in my chair in amazment and slapping my thighs in childish delight, I felt a nagging tapping from somwhere deep inside. I stopped and cocked my head, then stared into space. I got up and walked around and looked at the monitor again, then sat back down, deep in thought. The dialogue from "Broadcast News", like a sleeping Golem deep inside me came roaring out, much as I was always sure it would. And it terrified me.

              Look, I logically understand that Keith Olbermann isn't the person solely responsible for the joke that televised sports has horribly become. For his time, he was different, very different; he was fresh and exciting and not only thought 'out-of-the-box', but put his neck on the line every night. performing like the stand-up comic he used to be. But what he begat, true sports fans have been paying for since he arrived and trust me on this one, sports fans: it's only going to get worse.

              I was on the treadmill the other day, killing some time before my White Castle lunch while an overhead television in the gym ran an ESPN2 show whose name I've successfully been able to forget. It 'stars' Colin Cowherd, an ESPN radio host whom I happen to like, paired with some blonde who bears a striking resemblence to Cameron Diaz. (I've heard her a few times and they kinda sound alike, actually.) She wears Brett Farve jerseys and various belly-shirts and bangles, and she and Colin guffaw a lot and they paste paper head-shots of themselves on to different graphs which show how the viewing audience is voting concerning funny highlights, or which athlete has the cutest tush.

              On this particular afternoon, the pair was giggly delighted to showcase a clip of the Milwaukee Bucks' mascot falling backwards off a ladder while making a reverse slam dunk and landing on a trampoline--in his moose uniform, no less! Okay, it was kiddie stuff, but I watched. Unfortunatley, the graphic at the bottom of the screen, needlessly describing what we were watching, was so outlandishly huge that we couldn't see either the trampoline or the slam dunk! By the third replay, the show's clueless producer finally noticed the problem and had the obviously inexperienced director take out the graphic. It was way too late.

              Later that week I happened to be watching as ESPN2's morning show featured a highlight of two other mascots dancing happily atop a major league dugout (and when did team mascots become so hilarious, anyway?) Sure enough, somwhere between a juke and a jive, I looked on in horror as the fuzzier of the two animals fell off the roof backwards and out of sight, somewhere into the dugout below. I gasped aloud, but the fun wasn't over: no, ESPN2 chose to show it over and over and yes, one more time, finally cutting to a shot of the dugout's interior, where I couldn't really tell whether the fuzzy creature had survived its fall. Didn't seem to matter: the morning show's hosts were smiling and laughing and in general having a grand old time. It was kinda sickening.

              Nowadays, when I turn on a sporting event, I'm never sure what I'll see. Well, maybe I am: It's usually a good-looking blonde, reaching up on tip-toe to ask Tim Tebow what he was feeling when he ran fifteen yards for the winning score, or wincing when a rare coach with integrity (read: Phil Jackson) looks at her like she's got two heads, shrugs, and gives a scathing or sarcastic reply. This is when I applaud enthusiastically.

              I know now that I'll see a bevy of sports 'talk shows', where two or three (or seven?) local writers whose public-speaking resume doesn't include much beyond their annual sportswriters' banquet, sitting around a mahogany table shouting each other down about the strenghts and weaknesses of the Yankees' bullpen. Worse, they'll no doubt be waving 'stick-masks' of Mariano Rivera in front of their faces while the floor director and camermen make sure to laugh loudly enough for us to hear. There's currently a sports 'talk show' on the Versus network that features a young lady whose earrings are so big, I can't concentrate on what she's saying...not that I'm missing much...

              My NFL pre-game show will feature former players and coaches who somehow think Chris Berman's jokes are still funny; my post-game highlight package will be augmented with teeth-gnashingly loud rap music; my sideline reporter can be seen next Monday and Tuesday night on "Dancing With the Stars."

              Some of you reading this are going to no doubt discern that I must be on the far side of forty. Guilty. Some will describe me as "Old Skool". Guilty again. But before you dismiss my cries of warning, please recall Albert Brooks' fateful prophesy: that the devil will be nice and he'll be helpful and he'll be entertaining. And before we even know it, the sports world we once loved will be nothing save a distant memory.

              On my more wistful days, I recall other, more optimistic words, spoken by one of SportsCenter's first anchors, Lee Leonard on September 7, 1979: "If you're a fan, what you will see in the next minutes, hours, and days to follow may convince you that you've gone to sports heaven..."

              Leonard may have believed he was telling the truth. The devils that followed really don't care.