Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media:
Colin Cowherd will have to make one of last apology before leaving ESPN. USA Today’s Jorge Ortiz reports on the reaction from a statement he made on Thursday’s show.
“It’s baseball,’’ Cowherd said. “You don’t think a general manager can manage? Like it’s impossible? The game is too complex? I’ve never bought into that, ‘Baseball’s just too complex.’ Really? A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic.’’
The comment has infuriated some natives of the Caribbean nation, which this year produced nearly 10% of the players on Opening Day rosters and disabled lists.
Toronto Blue Jays All-Star Jose Bautista expressed his indignation with a tweet directed at Cowherd that said, “before i rip you a new one, i would like for you to explain what u meant to say about baseball and dominicans, please.’
Adrian Wojnarowski is staying with Yahoo! Sports. Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing breaks down the possibilities for his future at the site.
Wojnarowski at Sports Illustrated would have been an intriguing storyline to see if the company could have duplicated the success of The MMQB for basketball and just how Woj would have been used for the magazine. While he has written a number of interesting (and some very biting) columns over the years, Wojnarowski is best known for breaking NBA news on Twitter. While the visions of Peter King and Bill Simmons (and even Nate Silver) are clearly seen in their personality and writing, it’s a bit more of an unknown what a Woj-vertical would look like in full fruition.
Now we see if Yahoo affords Wojnarowski that opportunity. Yahoo does have their own blog network which is foundational to the sports blogosphere ecosystem, but I’m not sure Woj is just looking to take over Ball Don’t Lie. We may see Yahoo go in a completely new direction with their sports coverage if they go the Woj-vertical route that fits somewhere between their more traditional and blog-based coverage of the NBA. And if that does take place, what’s to stop the likes of Dan Wetzel or Pat Forde for doing something similar? It could be the beginning of Yahoo trying some new things with their online coverage to emphasize their top writers a little more and give them more to work with.
Jeff Pearlman has an interview with Dave Maraniss in which he discusses his books about Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente.
Speaking of biographies, Jonathan Eig’s terrific book on Lou Gehrig is going to be made into a movie.
Lifelong Cubs fan Rich Cohen writes in the Wall Street Journal that he doesn’t want the promising team to become successful. I agree, although I say that as a lifelong White Sox fan.
All-Star ratings show MLB has some work to do. Michael Bradley at the National Sports Journalism Center.
Tom Hoffath of the Los Angeles Daily News writes on ESPN’s coverage of the Special Olympics World Games.
Jim Cramer gives career advice to a young blogger for the Philadelphia Phillies.
AWSM has a post on improving the relationship between reporters and PR representatives.
No pressure with this job, right? The Green Bay Press Gazette is looking for a Packers editor to coordinate coverage. Can’t imagine a bigger job at that paper.