Idiots Write About Sports

So I called up the TiVo programming guide this morning in order to record the Germany-Italy semi-final while I was at a barbecue. Here’s what you can expect to see on ESPN today:
• the 2006 hot dog eating contests.
• two hours of 2005 poker championship reruns
• the aforementioned World Cup game
• the usual hour of sportswriters shouting at each other
• even more poker still
Notice a sport missing there? Involves a ball, a bat, some fielders, and many hours of free time? No, no, not cricket. Please try and make reasonable guesses.
OK, maybe it’s the World Cup that’s throwing off ESPN’s schedule. Hard to program around a two-hour block of soccer. Let’s see what’s over on the Deuce:
• Wimbledon
• what my wife has just called “that &#!@ing hot dog eating contest?!!!!”
• The Best of Mike and Mike in the Morning — somehow they managed to find an hour’s worth of footage
• Sportswriters (and Jay Mariotti) Shout at Each Other
• a replay of that soccer game
• Stephen A. Smith’s scream-fest, just to make you hate the freedom of speech that our country offers.
So, across the ESPN family of networks, not a single pitch of baseball will be shown today. (Not even on ESPNClassic. You’re telling me you can’t cue up footage of Dave Righetti’s no-hitter just for old time’s sake.)
I don’t know who’s brilliant idea this was — ESPN’s? Bud Selig’s? Scooter the Talking Baseball’s? But to have no national baseball telecast on the Fourth of July makes me think we’ve been overrun by the Soviets.
Meanwhile, apple pie has been replaced in the ESPN cafeteria with key lime. ESPN employees are also forbidden from calling Mom today.