The Worldwide Leader

I suppose I could probably write a column each week ripping ESPN for various issues I have with the way they conduct their business, but that would get tiresome, and you probably know the chief complaints anyway.

Nevertheless, I thought their "highlights" from last night's Tribe game were appalling. It's no secret that their game recaps have gotten shorter and less entertaining; Baseball Tonight used to be basically an hour of the day's best game action, which was awesome. Now it's 10 minutes of Yankees and Red Socks and 50 minutes of like John Kruk, which is not awesome. It makes me laugh that ESPN.com now has their "ESPN Boston" and "ESPN New York" local versions, because: what's the difference?

Anyway, the "highlights" from last night's contest were this:
- Kevin Youkilis hitting a soft lineout and injuring his thumb.
- Carlos Santana injuring his knee on a collision at home.
- Red Sock Adrian Beltre's three-run home run.

Oh, by the way, the INDIANS WON THIS GAME, 6-5. It sounded like it almost pained the broadcaster to mutter that little piece of information at the end. At least they didn't show us scoring any runs or making the final out or anything like that. Imagine if the roles had been reversed, and Boston won a 6-5 decision at Progressive Field. Can you imagine ESPN only showing a Tribe home run and then casually mentioning that the Socks had prevailed. Um, no.