This is going to be a big day for me. I’m traveling to New York to cover the 33rd Annual Sports Emmy Awards.

I can’t wait to see the Red Carpet with thousands of fans cheering wildly for their sports media favorites. And then there’s the fashion component. Wonder what Joan Rivers will say about Jim Nantz’s tie?

Oh, the glitz and glamor of it all.

OK, so maybe not so much glitz and glamor. I’m going because it is the one night that brings together virtually everyone in sports TV. It’ll be a one-stop shop for me to make the rounds.

I can’t say that I am a big awards guy. They are way too subjective, although I am looking forward to seeing who wins for best supporting analyst in soccer.

However, awards shows thrive because society demands we need to have a best in something. That includes sports on television. And let’s not forget, they are important to the nominees.

And there will be plenty of nominees: 175 in 33 categories. Really, 33 categories? This thing could last longer than a Yankees-Red Sox game.

If you’re a Sports Emmys junkie (there’s got to be someone out there), here’s a link with all the nominees. Here are a few that captured my attention.

Outstanding  Sports Personality ‑ Studio Analyst: Al Leiter, MLB Network; Charles Barkley, CBS/NBA/TNT; Cris Collinsworth, Showtime; Harold Reynolds, MLB Network; Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN; Skip Bayless, ESPN2; Trent Dilfer, ESPN.

And the winner: Skip Bayless! Probably not, but I just want to see the explosion from his critics if he wins the award. Bayless always is controversial, and his mere inclusion in this category had some people going ballistic. Twitter might blow up if walks away with an Emmy. The nomination shows how far my old Tribune colleague has come.

Outstanding Studio host: Bob Costas, NBC/MLB Network; Bryant Gumbel, Real Sports, Dan Patrick, NBC/DirecTV; James Brown, CBS/Showtime; Ernie Johnson, TNT.

And the winner: Feeling like JB here, but perhaps the always entertaining Ernie Johnson could sneak in.

Outstanding Sports Personality-Play-by-play: Al Michaels, NBC; Jim Nantz, CBS, Joe Buck, Fox, Marv Albert, CBS/TBS/TNT, Mike Emrick, NBC/Versus.

And the winner: Hey, they’re all solid. Emrick is amazing. His call of the last few minutes of the Rangers-Ottawa in Game 7 was epic.

Outstanding Sports Personality — Game Analyst: Cris Collinsworth, NBC; Gary Danielson, CBS; Jim Kaat, MLB Network; Jon Gruden, ESPN; Mike Maycock, NBC/NFL Network.

And the winner: A lot of guys left out of this category: Troy Aikman, Tim McCarver, Jeff Van Gundy, Dick Vitale, etc. The nod likely goes to Collinsworth. He did the Super Bowl.

Outstanding Live Sports Series: Monday Night Football, ESPN; WCB/PPV Boxing, HBO; MLB on Fox, Fox; NBA on TNT, TNT; Sunday Night Football, NBC.

And the winner: Sunday Night Football on NBC. It does the biggest ratings, and producer Fred Gaudelli’s crew always delivers.

Outstanding Studio Show–Weekly: College GameDay, ESPN; Football Night in America, NBC; Inside the NBA on TNT, TNT; Inside the NFL, Showtime/CBS Sports; Sunday NFL Countdown, ESPN.

And the winner: No nomination for Fox NFL Sunday? Interesting. Tony Dungy’s presence really lifts Football Night. Could be a winner.

Outstanding Sports Documentary: A Game of Honor, Showtime/CBS; Catching Hell, ESPN; McEnroe/Borg: Fire & Ice, HBO; Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV, HBO; The Marinovich Project, ESPN; and Unguarded, ESPN.

And the winner: They all were excellent. Usually, a fair amount of pathos is required to win in this category. While Todd Marinovich had more than his share, it’s hard to beat what Chris Herren went through. Unguarded gets the nod.

Outstanding Sports Journalism: E:60, Nightmare, ESPN2; E:60, Stranger than Fiction, ESPN2; E: 60, The Athletes of Bahrain, ESPN2; Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, Tennis coach/child molester, HBO; Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, College bowl game money trail, HBO.

And the winner: Again, all strong. It’ll be tough to beat Real Sports’ story on the tennis coach/child molester.

I never expected an interview with me ever to be labeled “an exclusive.” I’ll pretty much talk to anyone. Just call.

However, thanks to Paul M. Banks, who did an “exclusive” Q/A with me on his new site, Chicago Sports Media Watch.

And this is a first. I’m selecting an excerpt from myself:

Tell us about your experiences writing “Inside Media” for the Chicago Tribune, what was your favorite part of doing that column? What do you miss and not miss about it writing it?

ES: I really enjoyed doing the column for the Tribune. It was a position I wanted for a long time. There’s so many different facets of the industry. You could be writing on one thing and then suddenly have to transition to something completely different. It’s too bad many papers, including the three big ones in Chicago, have eliminated the sports media columns. I know that the columns get great readership, especially if there’s something controversial going on.

I remember there was a month at the Tribune when three of my stories ranked in the top 10 for most read on the website. And I’m not talking about the sport section. It was for the entire paper.

A big plus of the beat:

Unlike athletes, the people–play-by-play men, analysts, studio host etc–want to talk to you for the most part. And again unlike athletes, they understand the nature of our job.

The biggest plus:

Getting to know some of the giants of the industry.  A truly memorable day was having lunch with David Halberstam, one of my heroes. There weren’t a lot of negatives, which is one of the reasons why I’m jumping back in.

I first encountered E. Gordon Gee when he was university president at Colorado. He made the rounds in the press box before a game in full Colorado gear, even wearing Buffaloes suspenders if I recall. My initial reaction was, what a goof. But at the time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt for being enthusiastic.

I should have stuck with my initial reaction. Of all the goofs associated with college athletics, it’s hard to top Mr. Gee.

Now the long-time president at Ohio State, Gee embarrassed himself and his university again this week. Speaking to the editorial board of the student paper, the Lantern, he tore into Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News.

He said.

“‘Sporting News,’ ‘Sports Illustrated,’ a lot of them I don’t read. It’s bad journalism. And, so, why buy them?”

Gee was upset with a recent Sporting News story saying new Ohio State coach Urban Meyer left behind an out-of-control program at Florida.

Gee said:

You know, (OSU) is such a high-profile job, everyone’s going to nip at him. Not having fully read the story, but having read portions of it, it is what it is. I would hope that at our institution we teach a higher quality of journalism.

Hopefully, the Ohio State journalism department teaches its students to read the full story before commenting on it.

Then it was Sports Illustrated’s turn. From the Lantern:

Gee went on to scrutinize the “Sports Illustrated” investigative report of OSU, which was published as the cover story in the June 6 edition of the magazine. That report “revealed an eight-year pattern of violations under” Tressel.

“(‘Sports Illustrated’) came out with this big story about Ohio State, all of which was ultimately proven to be false,” Gee said. “I mean, the guy must have been looking at another school.”

Excuse me? If the story was false, why was your adored football coach Jim Tressel shown the door?

The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated both stand by their stories. George Dohrmann, who wrote the SI story, took a jab at Gee.

“(Gee) knows more about bow ties than he does about journalism,” Dohrmann said.

That’s giving him a lot of credit there, George.

I’m not sure why, but I lost track of Norman Chad’s work of late. Thankfully, I found his latest column Monday and it made me realize what I had been missing.

For those of you who don’t know, Chad is a very entertaining sports media critic. Well, you probably won’t think he’s very entertaining if you are one of his targets. Such as Jim Gray (see below).

Here are some excerpts from Chad discussing his 23 facts “about the widening world of sports television”:

Is it possible for Subway’s Jared and the Progressive Insurance woman to elope and move abroad?

Jack Whitaker will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sports Emmys this month; I guess they were waiting for him to establish some serious credentials. (Note: I was thinking the same thing. Whitaker is 87)

I’m thinking it’s a missed opportunity for everyone that Jim Gray never has worked the sidelines at a bullfight.

Had an apocalyptic nightmare last week that I was standing in front of Skip Bayless and behind Stephen A. Smith in a DMV line.

OK, you can read the rest. Well worth it.

If you’re a regional sports network, this is a busy time of year with baseball, basketball and hockey going at full speed. It’s even busier if you air games for two baseball teams.

Comcast Sports Net in Chicago has one of those logistics problems Monday. Thanks to the Blackhawks forcing a game 6, it now has three games on its schedule.

CSN knows the drill. The Blackhawks-Phoenix game gets top priority and will be shown on the main network.

The Cubs-St. Louis game shifts to CSN+. Most local viewers know where to find that channel on their cable system.

Here’s where it gets tricky. The White Sox-Oakland moves to CSN+2. Now that’s not CSN-squared.

To my all Chicago readers, here’s the best advice. Check out CSNChicago.com.

It appears as if Bill O’Brien is peeling back the iron curtain at Happy Valley. Writes Ben Brigandi in the Williamsport Sun Gazette:

There’s a virtue in skepticism, and with a healthy dose of it I say that new Penn State football coach Bill O’Brien’s media dealings are off to a pleasant start and a notable improvement over his predecessor. O’Brien told a roomful of sports editors from around the northeast last Tuesday during an Associated Press Sports Editors meeting held at Penn State that he wants to open the program to the media so people can see what it has to offer.

O’Brien obviously has little choice given what has taken place with the program. He needs to be more transparent to help regain the trust and get people on his side.

Brigandi writes:

Since Super Bowl XLVI he’s met with reporters in his office, opened a workout session and parts of some spring practices, and made more players available in-person than before this time of year. O’Brien told us Tuesday he hasn’t defined media policies for the fall, other than to say he wants to make sure major injuries are first disclosed to the families.

OK, the site hasn’t even been up for a week and we’ve got the first analysis of a fart. So much for my vow of not posting low-brow stuff.

Shaquille O’Neal breaks down “a four-deep” fart on the Miami bench during TNT’s coverage Thursday night.

Clearly it caught host Ernie Johnson off guard. “All they (producers) told me was, ‘Go to Shaq on playoff intensity,'” he said.

Also, it is interesting to note in a TNT release on comments from last night, there was no mention of O’Neal’s sterling analysis of the unfortunate turn of events.

Riggle-mania: Speaking of releases, Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch did a tweet noting the curious mix of quotes in ESPN’s announcement that Rob Riggle will host this year’s ESPYs.

From the release:

Additionally, Riggle is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and has served oversees in Liberia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

“The ESPYS are proud to support Disney’s ‘Heroes Work Here’ program and we’re honored to have a Marine Corps officer serve as this year’s host,” said ESPN’s EVP of Programming and Acquisitions, Norby Williamson. “Rob’s diverse background and comic style will bring new elements to the show and we’re looking forward to an entertaining show that will speak to the core sports fan.”

Very nice, serious, proper, right? Then it is Lieutenant Colonel Riggle’s turn.

“Why me? Straight up sex appeal. I know guys like Justin Timberlake and Seth Meyers are sexy… What can I say, I’m just another link in that sexy chain,” said Riggle. “I couldn’t be more honored to be the host of the ESPYS!  I just hope they let me do my Karate demo!”

Can’t wait.

Interesting piece on WEEI.com’s site on Bobby Valentine and social media. The Red Sox manager, who already is under fire for a 4-8 start, talks about the challenges of the new media world.

It’ll be an even bigger challenge for Valentine if the Red Sox continue to lose. Twitter will become a very dangerous place for him.

From the story:

“The thing I think surprised me, I haven’t managed here in the States in 10 years and I think there’s a difference in the deliverance of information,” Valentine said.

According to the manager, this revelation was brought to the surface just a few days ago, thanks to the media tsunami that ensued after Valentine’s comments regarding Kevin Youkilis. The sound bite was surfaced Sunday night, and by 9 a.m. the next morning he was clarifying not only the initial statement, but a flurry of reaction that had washed over the 24-hour news cycle in the hours leading up to the morning press conference.

“I probably realized it the whole time, but it jumped on me that this is the world we’re living in,” Valentine said. “It’s cool.”

But is it really?

“Sure,” he explained. “It’s another step. When we talk about the good players, they’re the ones who adjust. Adjust during an at-bat. Adjust during a season. To be good at life you have to keep adjusting. When you start going into the grave is when you stop adjusting. So I’ll have to adjust.”