In the January 31st edition of the Media Circus, we noted that Fox NFL Sunday’s Jimmy Johnson stepped onto an ESPN set for a pre-Super Bowl interview.  What made the occasion so special wasn’t the fact that a FOX talking head was conversing with an ESPN personality; rather it was that Johnson was sponsored by Sam’s and MasterCard.  
 
The odd turn of events left us with this thought,

“Just when you thought advertising couldn’t get a stronger grip on the sports world, media members are now being bought and paid for…  By this time next year, the suit coats of NFL analysts will resemble NASCAR hoods, and John Madden’s eyebrows will be sponsored by Chaquita.”

Well friends, media members are no longer the only ones being bought and paid for because baseball highlights have entered the fold.  On what seemed like your typical Thursday night SportsCenter, viewers were thrown for a loop when the highlight package for the Pirates and Cardinals transcended into a theme fit for Pirates of the Caribbean (since the latest movie “At World’s End” debuted Friday across the country).   
 
The head-scratching cross promotion left the audience with a buffet of snappy lines attempting to intertwine pirate lingo and baseball highlights, including:

“The Pirates will sail into Cincinnati.”
 
”So Taguchi looks like he got shot out of a cannon.” 

The bases being loaded with "Mateys" (or however the hell you spell the plural of ‘Mates’). 

A home run described as “We’ve got a ball overboard.”
 
And the worst display of the highlight segment, ”Yadi-ARRRR Molina”

Whether this cross promotion is a sign of the future has yet to be determined.  We are sure, however, that the previously mentioned segment would have been awesomely bad had Scott Van Pelt dressed up as a pirate.  And would it have been asking too much to have Steve Levy wear an eye patch?

Crap that actually came from somebody’s mouth
”The Spurs need to find a solution for Deron Williams, control the paint, and the Spurs need to regain their swagger.” – John Berry with his 3 keys to a Spurs Game 4 victory

So what you’re telling us is the Spurs need to stop the best player on the Jazz this postseason and dominate inside in order to win?  What would we do without the analysts offering up expert advice?  
 
Partial answer: we’re not sure, but we know for certain we wouldn’t discuss swagger.   
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“I HAVE NO DOUBTS.  IT IS OVAH!  LET ME BE VERY CLEAR.  THE SERIES IS OVAH… IT IS OVAH!  AND I MEAN OVAH!  THE SERIES ENDS WEDNESDAY NIGHT!  … DOESN’T MATTER, IT’S OVAH!  IT’S OVAH!” – ???
 
We’re going to give you one guess as to who offered up this diatribe after Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.  We’ll even give you a hint: his name rhymes with Meeven K Mith.
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“(Warren Buffet) drinks milk shakes, he eats hamburgers.  He watches basketball, he plays video games, you know, things like that.  We have a lot in common.” – LeBron James

Come to think of it, we here at the Media Circus like milk shakes, hamburgers, basketball and video games.  That makes us best buddies with Buffet and LeBron!  
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”People make the mistake of trying to compare LeBron to Michael when he’s really more like Magic Johnson.” – Dan Patrick

That statement would have read better had it said, “… when it’s really silly to constantly compare one modern player to another generation’s.”
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“My choice is San Diego linebacker Shawne Merriman, who has played only two seasons, and just turned 23 this past Friday. The Chargers' star, who is aptly nicknamed "Lights Out," has a remarkable sack-per-game average.” – Len Pasquarelli, choosing the one player he’d start a franchise with

Never mind we don’t know how much the use of steroids helped Merriman’s cause or whether he’ll get punished again by the league in the future, we just find it odd to pick a 3rd year linebacker to build a franchise around.  Did somebody in Bristol give you the Krukie treatment, Len?  They told you to say that, didn’t they?
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“(He’s) vehement and absolutist" – LeAnn Schreiber, ESPN Ombudsmen on Skip Bayless
 
At this rate, Schreiber could run for President and there’s a good chance the world’s sports blog population would vote for her.

Haven’t We Seen this Before?
With a population that loves sports drama as much as it loves its Dunkin Donuts, the focus of the NBA Draft Lottery over the past week has centered on the once proud Boston Celtics.  They tanked the season to get a shot at one of the big boys, and it backfired; now they’re stuck with the 5th pick meaning they could get anyone from Mike Conley Jr. to Yi Jianlian - depending on which mock draft you read.

The reason for the string of bad luck?  Well it has to be a curse, of course.  Famous Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan is open to the possibility…

You want to talk curses? Start here. 

Who did what to whom? Was it decided that 16 championships in 30 years was somehow unfair and obscene, and that enough was enough and the Celtics are never going to get another break again and that's that?  Because that's what it looks like. Nothing else can explain how the Celtics continue to suffer the wrath of powerful unseen forces determined to make their lives miserable.

Seems a bit dramatic considering there are a lot of sports teams that perennially suck.  Why should the Celtics deserve anything better?  A city like Boston should be the last to complain, but they always seem to be the loudest.  We all have our teams that are down on their luck.

Page 2’s Bill Simmons tries to help explain why Celts fans can’t dwell on past successes…

“You can't even fathom the pain. Everyone believes Celtics fans get a free pass with this stuff because we won 16 titles in 30 years. Actually, it's the opposite. Long-suffering fans of perennial losers don't know what they're missing.  You can't miss steak if you've never eaten steak, right?”

The comment from Simmons is even more ironic when you realize that he's a Red Sox fan.  Prior to 2004, there were only a handful of Red Sox fans (if any) who had ever "eaten steak", yet all of them perfected the art of pissing and moaning about it as if their team was the victim to Steinbrenner’s evil empire.

For a city with 3 Super Bowl titles, a World Series championship and multiple playoff births from the Patriots and Red Sox this decade, the city’s media sure does play the violin a lot. 

Media Rant – Jayson Stark Has a New Book!
If you’ve read any of ESPN’s baseball coverage this week, you’ve no doubt run across the numerous “excerpts” and references to Jayson Stark’s new book, “The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and Underrated Players in Baseball History.” (snappy title, Jayson)  In addition to the book, Stark loaded up a few supplementary articles on ESPN.com rating current players, resulting in a potpourri of pieces from the self proclaimed “Ultimate Czar of Overratedness and Underratedness”.

To save you time, here is a quick glance at some analysis from Stark …aptly judged as overrated or underrated by the Media Circus staff.  

“Nobody denies that (JD) Drew has massive talent oozing out of his eyebrows. You can tell because he entered this season as one of only 13 active players with a career slugging percentage over .500 and an on-base percentage over .390.  But now the bad news: Those other dozen players have made a combined 70 All-Star teams (and all have made at least two apiece). And Drew has made, well, zero.”  Stark’s Analysis: Overrated 

C’mon, Jayson, you’re a professional baseball writer and you’re actually going to go on the record as basing your opinion of a player on how many All Star Games he’s been too?  You know how All Stars are selected right?  To drive home our point, we’ll turn to a visual aid.  Jayson Stark is telling the world that JD Drew – a guy we never thought we’d defend - is overrated because he was never elected to an exhibition game where the players are chosen by people like this…

"(Andruw) Jones had the lowest batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, and park-adjusted OPS-plus that any player has ever had in a 50-homer season. He reached base fewer times than any 50-homer man ever. And if you take in the bigger picture, with Bill James's incisive runs-created stat, Andruw "created" fewer runs than any 50-homer man ever had…Yet Jones almost stole the MVP award from Albert Pujols."   Stark’s Analysis: Underrated 

We’ll use this little blurb by Stark as another excuse to trot out our favorite Media Circus Rant of all time.  It was October of 2005 and ESPN’s own Harold Reynolds was busy attempting to become one of those responsible for Jones nearly stealing the MVP from Pujols, as he vehemently ignored the numbers Stark cites and instead claimed that Jones’ season was superior to any put up by Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.  Needless to say we disagreed citing specific evidence and we, the internet columnists were right, while the professional baseball analyst was wrong.

For all of those who are jumping on the “Baseball Tonight was better before they fired Harold Reynolds” bandwagon, use this as your excuse to leap off.  Don’t let anyone fool you - as a television baseball analyst, Reynolds was a buffoon. 

"As great as Bobby Abreu can be, he lacks that all-important Derek Jeter gene. There is no voice in his head, screaming: "This ball has to be caught." Or: "That runner on third has to be driven in." – Stark’s Analysis: Overrated

Can you determine that a player is overrated by claiming that he doesn’t have the same mindset as another player that is overrated?  We’re lost.  All we know is that, while he’s certainly a great player, the way the media fawns over Derek Jeter and his supernatural baseball abilities, he will always be overrated.    

And besides, isn’t that called the “Brett Favre gene”?

Bob Carpenter Memorial Snappy Line
In a weekend spent reminiscing with former partner in snap magic, Rickey Horton, Washington Nationals broadcaster Bob Carpenter was in quite a jovial mood.  As a result, the Bobber gave Dan Patrick a generous, but mild, thumbs up for his take on Manu Ginobili:

”Maybe it’s only appropriate his favorite movie is 6th Sense… the Spurs 6th man putting up 18 points per game in this series.” 

As it turns out, his holiday weekend rendezvous with Horton wasn’t the only reason Bobby was in a chipper mood.  After all, isn’t every day the Media Circus’ leader in snappy lines gets to travel to the local gym with the most talked about rookie quarterback in the NFL.  

All things considered, Robert C. gives himself two thumbs up for a very memorable weekend.

The Media Circus is written by Josh Bacott and Pat Imig.  They swear this stuff is real.  Email them at info@joesportsfan.com