ESPN=Stairmaster: wearin' us out

            Dear ESPN,

            Please stop sucking sooooo bad. Please quit thinking with your little Twitter when it comes to news judgment and the ensuing stalking and dead-horse-beating.

            Like the smothering of the Jets training camp, which meant updates on Tebow's favorite toilet paper and interviews loaded with "blessed" and "happy" and "want to win" and "excited" and whether his average pass was a 79 percent spiral or 84 percent spiral or if one could perceive better shotgun snaps to him or to Mark Sanchez, which then leads into three days of analysis on who the team prefers.

            Yes, I'm begging, because I can't watch ESPN for more than about 90 seconds, because it's barely relevant for about 90 seconds before moving on to stalking and dead-horse-beating and wretched writing - is Berman doing scripts? - I-want-my-own-show-on-any-network-doing-anything anchors.

            Quit trying to impress each other and try to impress us a little bit.

            And yes, dumping Holtz and Berman and putting a moratorium on TO and Tebow blather would be a freakin' start.

            Won't even get started on morning programming on ESPN2 and the distressing duo of Skip and Stephen. There's a big difference between banter and blather.

 

LOUGHDMOUTHINGS

            So the Lakers gain some ground in the race for NBA teams to pull against no matter what.

            Too much talent. Too much money. Too much.

            I'd liked Dwight Howard for a long time, other than him crying in every game more than a 9-year-old in the stands whose mom won't let him have another caffiene-induced soda that will keep her up until 4 a.m.

            But now the power-hunger and ego have surpassed the smile, the public easy-goingness. He basically extorted the Heat to make changes that really weren't going to keep him there where he could be his own man, establish his own thing.

            Now, he's still going to be Kobe's sidekick until Kobe retires, and we'll be pulling against the Lakers because of it.

            So as an American - if one can be an American and not be an extremist or extremely paranoid - these are the five NBA teams I'll pull for:

            Orlando: screwed by Howard

            Cleveland: screwed by James

            San Antonio: the non-NBA-player NBA team, and God bless Tim Duncan, a non-entity to the average attention-span-challenged dingbat.

            Oklahoma City: San Antonio Jr.

            Boston: Old school, still has two of the Three, added Jason Terry, and Doc Rivers is the coach. I just like 'em. ...

            The NFL Referees Association did itself proud - proudly idiotic - by saying Eastin shouldn't work any real games because she once participated in the World Series of Poker. Anything gambling, of course, is a no-no.

            That poker has nothing to do with betting lines and sports slipped past the NFLRA makes me wonder about some of their folks' eyesight and cognitive reasoning ability. ...

            It's a Forrest Gump world out there. Stupid is as stupid does.

            Paging Melky Cabrera.

            The dingbat got caught for using enhancers, then tried to come up with a website to fool MLB.

            Really?

            It's actually hysterically crafty on Cabrera's part. Desperate, but hysterically crafty.

            Wonder what Melky's career alternative will be. ....

            Random Unrelated Thought:

            "Political Animals" beats "The Newsroom." ...

            From Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times a few weeks ago:

            "Dale Earnhardt Jr. leads the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The Pittsburgh Pirates sit atop the NL Central.

            "This is all covered, we assume, in the Book of Revelation." ...

            Lodge makes an appearance here because UCLA football coach Jim Mora was on the show - *sigh* - and popped USC with a bruise-leaving cheap shot:

            "When you're talking about UCLA, it's one of the great schools in the world -- not just America, but in the world. It's a safe, beautiful campus in a great area of town. I mean, we don't have murders one block off our campus."

            Two USC students were killed in April near campus. So Mora backpedaled with his version of "If I offended anybody with my non-thinking idiocy in a football-is-more-important-than-life mentality ..."

            And then he frontpedaled to the L.A. Times.

            "I just said our campus is safe," Mora told The Times. "I didn't say anything about anyone else's campus. I just said it about our campus. I didn't mention another campus. We don't have anybody getting murdered a block off of our campus.

            "If anybody, whether USC or Cal State San Bernardino, is offended by the statement, then that's their insecurity, not mine."

            Dude, when you make Lane Kiffin look that good, you done goofed up big. ...

            Here's hoping the aforementioned Pirates can get rolling again and win the division, or at least make it a nice September race with Cincinnati. Back in the day, that was a nice rivalry.

            Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the most scenic stadium in the majors needs to make the playoffs. At least finish over .500 for the first time siiiiiiiince 1992.

            That was when Sid Bream sputtered to score and sent the organization reeling unlike almost anything we've seen in major pro sports. They've finished as high as third in the division only three times since then. ....

            Comedy writer Alex Kaseberg, after swim star Ryan Lochte fessed up to urinating in the pool:

"Now we know why Lochte went last in the relays."