Another reason to hate Michael Wilbon – he advocates tanking – losing on purpose. He says you basically have to lose to get a great player in the NBA Draft. That about says it all about him. Wilbon is a loser.
At least we have the self-righteous Mike Wise here in D.C. It’s one thing for him to have his opinions on the Redskins name, but he tries to pompously shove it down everyone’s throat.
In D.C. we’ve had some bad sports losses. From the Redskins to the Caps, Nats, Wizards and Maryland Terrapins, we’ve just about seen it all. Of course, we’ve had our titles too – three Super Bowl wins by the Skins, an NBA title by the Bullets, and even the Senators won the World Series before most of us were born. Anyway, to see a list of D.C.’s worst sports losses of the modern era, inspired by the Nats’ recent choke against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS, click below for the entire article on Examiner.com and Bleacher Report.
I had a chance to cover the Washington Nationals during the NLDS playoffs vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. Here are the articles:
Photo by Mike Frandsen.
Michael Wilbon has done it again in trashing D.C. as a sports town in the latest issue of ESPN the Magazine. He hates D.C. and the Redskins, even though he made his living off the city for three decades. Wilbon is an average writer. If we both had to write about the same game or event, given the same deadline, I’d crush him. He’s overrated. Anyway, I’ll just repost an article I wrote last year about D.C. being a good sports town. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/914880-washington-dc-not-just-a-redskins-town-but-a-great-sports-city Also see http://www.examiner.com/article/redskins-caps-nats-wizards-united-washington-d-c-is-a-great-sports-town.
Go away, Wilbon. We don’t want you here anymore. We’re tired of looking at your sorry, no-account self on PTI, with your stupid jokes and simplistic questions. Do you know how much the players and coaches you interview on PTI look down on you for your Sesame Street approach to sports?
You’re a fraud. When it comes to Chicago you know about the ’85 Bears and the Jordan Bulls. You pretend to be a Cubs fan but you’re a fake Cubs fan. You used to like D.C. sports when the Redskins were winning Super Bowls. What does that tell you? You’re a frontrunner.
It’s not obvious that L.A. is a better sports town than D.C. D.C. is much better and it isn’t even close.
You’re a couch potato who brags about what you watch on TV every single night.
You’re always disassociating yourself from D.C. on P.T.I. D.C. made you. George Michael made you. The Redskins made you. You’re not a bad writer, but you’re nothing special. It’s so weird to watch you on the NBA show because you’re so out of place.
You’re always bragging about being from a tough part of Chicago, but something tells me you grew up privileged.
You had a heart attack and now you’re fatter than you were before? Show some respect for life.
You actually like tennis and soccer but you don’t have the guts to admit it because they’re not seen as cool.
You benefit from a culture in which yelling is associated with knowledge.
To borrow a phrase from you, “Get out!”
ESPN The Magazine’s Howard Bryant just trashed Washington, D.C. as a sports town. It’s too much to go into, but the article is pretty weak. If you want to read an article about D.C. as a sports town by a Washingtonian, see http://bleacherreport.com/articles/914880-washington-dc-not-just-a-redskins-town-but-a-great-sports-city.
Also see an article about D.C.’s top stars: Robert Griffin III, Alex Ovechkin, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, and John Wall:
I’ve lost all respect for ESPN. I watched SportsCenter most of the morning today and not once was there even a reference to the Jerry Sandusky Penn State molestation scandal. On ESPN’s web page, there’s one AP wire story on it buried along the right side of the page. This is one of the biggest sports stories of all time and ESPN is ignoring it because of money. Yesterday they probably spent 20 seconds on it in between college football highlights. The Grand Jury report speaks for itself.
Kudos to Mike Wise of the Washington Post and others who say that coach Joe Paterno should have some responsibility for not bringing the crime that was reported to him to the attention of the police in 2002.
You have to wonder if ESPN is afraid of a lawsuit. ESPN was sued by former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach for libel and slander after the network reported that Leach mistreated a player. Still, ESPN could just report on the facts of the Sandusky case and make sure to say “allegedly” in the appropriate spots. Otherwise, ESPN is helping to cover up the crimes. This story better be all over “Outside the Lines” next week and on into the future, but to fail to mention it at all a day after it breaks is a travesty, no matter how much they are afraid of a lawsuit. You can’t obsess over tattoos and other minor scandals and then ignore allegations of a prominent football coach sexually assaulting multiple children.
Today’s NFL Blitz on ESPN – they showed one highlight – that’s right, one highlight – from the Redskins – Rams game. Pathetic. What used to be the greatest highlight show of all time has completely jumped the shark. Go back to the old one-hour show in which you show highlights from all games.
Until a few years ago, NFL Primetime, an hour-long Sunday night highlight show of NFL action hosted by Chris Berman and Tom Jackson, was one of the greatest shows in TV history. Not sports history, TV history. They covered most games with a series of highlights over inspiring music, and they showed more than any other network. Now it’s done in bits and pieces. It feels like Berman and T.J. have been demoted. While Trent Dilfer is a nice addition, they only show a few games in depth, and today they actually showed just one highlight each from several games. It’s terrible.
The NBC show starts too early, so a lot of the games are still in progress, and the cast of characters act like deer in headlights, while Dan Patrick thinks he’s too smooth. The NFL Network is ok but it doesn’t have the music and it doesn’t have Berman and T.J. Plus the NFL Network is dominated by far too many Cowboys. Maybe ESPN isn’t allowed to do an hour long highlight show because of NBC or the NFL Network holding the rights, but either way, the Blitz is lacking.
“Grantland,” Bill Simmons’ sports and pop culture website, doesn’t add much that other sports websites provide, and in fact it’s pretentious and unnecessary. Simmons, the Sports Guy of ESPN’s Page 2, is a good sports writer and funny, but way too Boston-centric and when he strays too much into pop culture the site loses its appeal. The writing on the site is nothing special, just a collection of random articles. The plain, white background looks boring. The site gets promoted endlessly on ESPN and that time must be incredibly expensive. The promos, again, show how hip the site is trying to be. I doubt if Grantland Rice was trying to be cool. He let his writing speak for itself.
I don’t have much reason to read this website, but when I did stumble across an article, it was pretty bad. I’m not even sure what this article about Chris Mullin was trying to say, but these were my comments on it after it came out:
“This article is ridiculous. You compare Mullin to Nash and J.J. Barea because they are both white. they have nothing in common. The league is so much more athletic now? You make it sound like Mullin played in the 1950s. The league is not more athletic now than it was in the 80s and 90s, and Mullin would be just as good now as he was then, and possibly better. In the 80s, mostly tall, frail guys controlled the paint? In the 80s, Ewing, Robinson, and Olajuwon came into the league. Centers were much better back then. You cite Andrew Bynum as a shot-blocking brick wall? Unbelievable. There are fewer good jump shooters today, which would make Mullin more valuable. You say his decline at the end of his career was because the game changed! Could it have changed that much in 15 years? The level of play now is worse than it was in the 80s and 90s. And right next to your article was one on espn.com by Hubie Brown, saying that Artis Gilmore, who played in the NBA in the 80s, was the 2nd strongest center ever. And if Mullin was so unathletic, what about Run TMC? It wasn’t Run TM.”
Is Michael Wilbon going the way of Keith Olbermann? With his fame he has become progressively more arrogant on the air. Today on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, he told Tony Kornheiser, “How pathetic. A New Yorker slurping a five-year old Washington D.C. franchise? Pathetic.” Wait, what? Both Wilbon and Kornheiser have spent more than 30 years in D.C. and are constantly disassociating themselves from the city and talking about how they love their hometowns, Chicago and New York. But at what point do you become a Washingtonian? Kornheiser has spent more than half his sports fan life in D.C., because you don’t really become a fan until you’re at least around 7. Wilbon has spent about 30 of his 45 years as a sports fan in D.C. Wilbon, you have it wrong. Anyone can like the Yankees (i.e. fair weather fans). You get more respect when you root for a perennial loser rather than jumping on bandwagons. And all Kornheiser did was mention that it was the anniversary of Stephen Strasburg’s major league debut. It’s weird seeing Wilbon up there on NBA panels with experts like Jon Barry and Magic Johnson. Why isn’t Jalen Rose up there instead of Wilbon? He thinks the more you yell, the more accurate your opinions are. It’s a shame, because Wilbon and Kornheiser both used to be good writers. June 9, 2011 – Wilbon jumps the shark.
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